Dynamic Galaxies/Universe

[Loadout]

The player made factions would be gathering more NPCs as well, and the actual simulation starts when the player creates the world. If the NPC factions were to continue growing and such while you are gone, then your own faction would grow as well.

Had a thought earlier today regarding this. Instead of calculated Npcs representing the strength of your faction use faction points. The server would only have to keep track of it's factions point total(which it already does) and use those points to spawn actual npcs near the player.

This way you get the strength over time effect without adding in huge numbers of objects that have to have everything calculated. Just spawn in as needed, when players are nearby. Combined with events the galaxy could reasonably simulate itself in someone's absence.

So you envision a system where Player Factions and NPC factions are functionally identical? This would help to address my concern of NPC Factions outpacing players who log-out of servers, but it implies that the player faction is being handed over to NPC's.

I understand you to say that my own faction can have NPC's, and that those NPC's will be empire/dominator/defector in my absence. If I log-out for 2 days and then log back in, I don't know how I'd feel to find my own faction has changed behavior...

I imagine the player faction would have it's behaviors dominated by the player itself, the AI's would serve more as a backup. Ship under fire in your home space? expect backup to be there shortly.
Declared war on another faction and you're leading the charge? You're not alone anymore!

As for the AI behavior on it's own that'd be more of a simulation thing that'd be tagged as non-player only. Actually pretty easy to program as I think about it...

Simulation_tick ->
if(faction.tag != player) ->simulate stuff
else-> don't simulate stuff

 

[Blaza612]

On a side note, Chromework posted an idea that could work extremely well with mine, I advise you to check it out: http://starmadedock.net/threads/more-unique-galaxies.6822/

The way Chromework's idea could work with mine is detailed in a reply, but for convenience, I have copied it to here! \o/

"My addition to this is that certain types of area could be controlled specifically by a certain faction. (the area in which the object exists is controlled by one faction) For example, in Homeworld, there is a sort of cult group who live in a nebula, and ONLY the nebula, they will attack anyone who travels into the nebula and they use this for resources to survive in the Nebula, if my idea was implemented, this would be a great addition to the uniqueness of the factions."

 

[Valiant70]

The Dynamic Galaxy
The dynamic galaxy is a galaxy which is affected by NPCs creating factions, joining other factions (including a player made one) and even wage war against each-other, creating different ships/structures as the expand and change.

The Travelers
The travelers are NPCs that randomly travel around the galaxy, hoping for a new home. If they find a faction, then there is a chance that they will join it, if they don't find one in a certain amount of time, then they create one. They are also able to join any player made factions.

The Empires
The empires are the factions that are created by the NPCs, the empires traits (aggressiveness, amount they trade, if they see something as sacred, building/ship style, nomadic/sedentary, etc.) these traits can be affected by the people apart of the empire, or be randomized. A player owned faction has these traits chosen by the player at first, however certain traits are less controllable then others (building/ship style, if they see something as sacred). The empires would also have a limit on how many sectors they can naturally expand to, and a limit on how many empires exist within a galaxy.

The Defectors
The defectors are NPCs who have disbanded from their empire, and have become another traveler. The empire they have defected from carry over traits with the defector, and can affect the new empire they join/create. Defecting will occur randomly, but at an extremely small chance, this chance will increase if the empire is at war, and will continue to increase if the empire has lost more land/battles than it has one, but the chance to defect will fall with the more land/battles won.

The Dominator
The dominator is an empire that is significantly superior than all of the other empires, and requires allied empires to destroy, if war arises. The dominator is usually the main threat, and tends to have a higher chance to go to war with another empire, most likely completely destroying the opposing empire. NOTE: The dominator is not called the dominator, it is just a random empire that is significantly stronger than the rest in terms of military.

The Destruction
The destruction is a galaxy that has been ravaged by war, and will lead NPCs to leave the galaxy, and go to a random new galaxy, to create/join a new empire. This can create an immigrant problem in developed empires, and will cause the defector chance to increase, and the economy to take a hit (everything gets bought out quickly, causing a rapidly high demand)

The Economies
The economies are the economies of the individual empire, which is ultimately controlled all-together by the trading guild. Inflation can become a problem, lack of an item, especially if a commonly used material, will have a high demand and the price in general will go up, until the demand can be met by either the empire's manufacturing, or trading with other empires. The dominator will often have a poor economy, with many things in high demand, but will not affect the dominator's militaristic force as it has already been constructed. Due to this lack of stable economy, the dominator has a high rate of defectors.

The Trading Guild
The trading guild would gain improvements, it would protect freighters from raiders, and would control what is being shipped to where. The trading guild is an ancient trader species, managing to survive solely on the art of peaceful trade. The trading guild can also provide protection to empires, such as guarding miners, convoys, sectors and systems, but for a price.

The Raiders
The raiders are simply random pirate factions, formed from defectors. They primarily attack attack freight shipments and political convoys, and can grow to an enormous size if an empire has a lot of defectors. The dominator has to constantly deal with raiders, as it has a high rate of defecting.


So there you have it, my idea to make the Starmade universe much more interesting and immersive, allowing players to feel as though they exist in a proper universe in which they can affect, allowing people to not have to rely on public servers/large groups of friends for these sorts of things. Hope you enjoyed the suggestion! ^_^

I like these ideas as they set the stage for players to act as privateers in a bustling universe, much like Vega Strike which I enjoyed so much years ago. This gives exponentially more viability to independent play styles and single player.

 

[NeonSturm]

I would like some sort of "Space-Fire and Fire-fighters".

Instead of => this:

• Fire => Nanotech-Virus
  
• Peoples killing animals with their car => Space-Whales and warping-in ships.
  
• Coconut falling on a person's head => Mini-Meteorites flying into a ship not equipped against many mini-meteorites in a sector.
• ...

Give it a similar story compared to real-world accidents to draw peoples mentally away from killing+warfare.

And -of-course- a news-blog ^^

 

[Loadout]

So to combine what all has been said here into one easy to read post...

Galaxies should do some or all of the following things to increase the amount of stuff that distract a player from just build-kill-mine-repeat;

Simulation- The galaxy uses the current simulation "ticks" to simulate the reality of growth, change, and randomness. It does this by the following means;

• Events System - Events are random things that occur such as,

1. meteor showers- on planets providing random resource drops occasionally
2. AI wars- where the AI will fight faction vs faction for control over territory
3. AI alliances- AI will band together weaker factions to fight off stronger ones. Presuming they're not already blood enemies of course, cause that'd be unlikely.
4. AI faction Split - some rebels decide to leave the empire etc. etc.
5. Some other random stuff we haven't thought of - who knows?!

• Faction Growth - Faction points can be used to represent the strength of a particular faction. Stronger factions have more points and can thus spawn more ships at the cost of those points. AIs will use points not on death but rather to spawn more ships, they should have a base level higher than just an ordinary player faction. 3x-4x so they can actually be a thing you notice.
• Variety of Age - Systems change over time, slightly or it'd be too complicated to regularly deal with. Some systems will become Nebulas or contain only burnt out planets that have been strip mined. Most of this is player caused, for instance... A player destroys all the planets in a system => system then becomes a nebula filled with gas and some asteroid belts.

I think this about sums up the major ideas present here as well as a few other places. Feel free to add to this list. =)

 

[NeonSturm]

Variety of Age - Systems change over time, slightly or it'd be too complicated to regularly deal with. Some systems will become Nebulas or contain only burnt out planets that have been strip mined. Most of this is player caused, for instance... A player destroys all the planets in a system => system then becomes a nebula filled with gas and some asteroid belts.

I'd like some tectonic unstable planets near spawn.
It is just demotivating to see wasted planets.

Just save the timestamps (last visited) and calculate the amount of changes that have happened since last visit when the sector is loaded.
That's easier than to do ticks for all sectors in the universe - especially if more visited places are likely to change more often (because you notice changes there more).

 

[Loadout]

I'd like some tectonic unstable planets near spawn.
It is just demotivating to see wasted planets.

Just save the timestamps (last visited) and calculate the amount of changes that have happened since last visit when the sector is loaded.
That's easier than to do ticks for all sectors in the universe - especially if more visited places are likely to change more often (because you notice changes there more).

Not all sectors have planets, so you wouldn't really be wasting any effort on a large number of sectors. Only those with planets would have something like seismic activity. Honestly though I don't think we need that, some volcanoes here and there would be cool but we don't need eruptions and plate tectonics. It's a lot of calculations for effectively not much.

Just imagine all the collisions happening on a single planet.

For age I was thinking less tectonics and more system wide age. An old mined out system would become something less than a bright vibrant than a rampantly respawning collection of asteroids, planets, and what have you. Some systems would be spawned as nebulae which have just clouds all over the place obscuring vision. With the occasional asteroid belt here and there of course.

Actually aging a system would be something done rarely too, not every simulation tick, but the more popular ones age maybe once every 1000 ticks or something. This would lead to gradual changes in the places you do visit, but relatively no change in those you have yet too, or rarely visit.

Remember: my idea regarding simulation ticks originally was not an everywhere thing, but rather a near-the-player-area thing. =)

 

[PizzaPress]

I think NPCs should be generated procedurally, with race traits(including both physical and social) that determine the faction traits, and all of these play into how they interact with players and other NPCs. The characteristics of the systems they are in will partly determine what kinds of NPCs will generate(so they fit the feel of the area).
NPCs could have sub-factions with different alignments and motivations(I.E. Liberty Rouges vs. Corsairs, two different pirate factions which oppose each other, as in Freelancer). Too make this work well they would need a realistic set of behaviors, pirates would likely cease-fire during a mortal war with the Borg, though not necessarily with the Cardassians, if they like them more than the current government(though pirates would logically dislike empires, that might put the squeeze on them). (Perhaps relation values not just for a faction, but towards a planet and toward a species, along with traits such as whether they're ruthless or see themselves as robin-hoods).
This would hopefully create an immersive environment, where one can influence the world via diplomatic efforts, and one can take advantage of knowledge of the NPC political climate. Faction conflicts would be played out in a "zoomed-out" simulation based on numbers, but if you visit you could see and take part in a battle.

This would probably be a crap-ton of work, and could cost some performance(depending on how much has been explored and is going on, it should be simple for a single small simulation), so it depends on how important NPCs are. This system would probably be closely linked with the fauna system.


TL;DR: Lots of physical and social traits determine NPC interactions.

 

[Loadout]

...Lotsa cool stuff...
TL;DR: Lots of physical and social traits determine NPC interactions.

I like the "zoomed-out" simulation as it was what I was thinking would happen if players were not there to witness. The question I have for that though, if factions use faction specific ships, and you're not actually fighting it out, how does one calculate win/loss. =/ it's a toughy and not a question I personally could readily answer without doing some monster calculations of my own... hmm... I have a calculator nearby... curses! not enough free time to properly do it though xP oh well next thought!

I don't think we could reasonably achieve this, although I L.O.V.E. the idea. It would be great to have factions consist of individual behavioral traits. NPCS individually though, meh, they're so minor it's not like you'll ever really speak to one besides that occasional dude in the shop. I think if we represent Npcs via ships, that would be a bit easier. Just attach some behaviors to the ship AI and then viola! instant faction member with traits. =)


Side thought: NPCs feel kind of worthless on the character level because astronauts are basically worthless as is. Until that changes I don't think NPC astronauts will be of much use either. Which is kinda sad. ='(

 

[NeonSturm]

Give NPCs 4 suits to choose from ingame and they will be a neat addition to stations.

• But nobody likes Dave-clones all over as if humanity lost 99.999'999'9% of their gene pool variations.

Perhaps ship strength/weakness should count in not-watched fights.

• Strong, Average, Weak :vs: Cloaked, Ion, Piercing, Shield, Hull, ...
• Tags
  
  • Ship has a "Shield"-Tag if it has more than average shields.
  • Ship has a "Hull"-Tag if it uses more hull than usual (RP ships?

Each faction can now assign strengths and weaknesses for each ship (each strength require one weakness) if they are not auto-assigned by SM-functions.


Now assume fights between fleet A and fleet B result in (a% and b% losses) and (a% or b% is 100%).

Just use (ship cost * tagMult) as input.
tagMult = 1 * (1+ strengths) / (1+ weaknesses)
strengths = ion vs Shield, piercing vs Hull, ...
weaknesses = ion vs Hull, piercing vs Shield, ...​

 

[Loadout]

Give NPCs 4 suits to choose from ingame and they will be a neat addition to stations.

• But nobody likes Dave-clones all over as if humanity lost 99.999'999'9% of their gene pool variations.

Perhaps ship strength/weakness should count in not-watched fights.

• Strong, Average, Weak :vs: Cloaked, Ion, Piercing, Shield, Hull, ...
• Tags
  • Ship has a "Shield"-Tag if it has more than average shields.
  • Ship has a "Hull"-Tag if it uses more hull than usual (RP ships?

Each faction can now assign strengths and weaknesses for each ship (each strength require one weakness) if they are not auto-assigned by SM-functions.


Now assume fights between fleet A and fleet B result in (a% and b% losses) and (a% or b% is 100%).

Just use (ship cost * tagMult) as input.
tagMult = 1 * (1+ strengths) / (1+ weaknesses)
strengths = ion vs Shield, piercing vs Hull, ...
weaknesses = ion vs Hull, piercing vs Shield, ...​

first idea is nice but they're still going to be useless. reason is they do nothing, they dont even wander by computers and pretend to interact with them. clothes wise though, i wouldn't mind a few variations. =)

hrmm having player marked strengths and weaknesses is decidedly bad. too many people would abuse that system.

itd be easier to compare dps, shield cap, and recharge. those still have glaring weaknesses though. a better comparison might be between total mass of the ships involved... glaring weaknesses for all those though.

Definitely a difficult formula to produce no matter what gets taken into account.

i imagine something like this might work... total mass + total shield cap + regen all over number of cores = relative strength.

 

[PizzaPress]

hrmm having player marked strengths and weaknesses is decidedly bad. too many people would abuse that system.

I was thinking that if ships get added ala the station contest, Schine testers would determine its strengths and weaknesses, not the maker of it. These settings could be overridden by a server admin in a separate file, without having to modify the original data (thus you can delete that config to reset to default, could be useful to make an event where something is buffed temporarily, or just for balance changes).
People could probably still game a calculation system to some degree.
Ships could come by default with balance settings that aren't right, but that is not very much different than giving pirates titans right now. It's up to the server owner to balance community content they implement.



Definitely simulation should be done in an aggregate fashion, not with single NPCs running around. However, there could be smaller encounters with routes to different areas periodically being visited, so an NPC faction might stumble upon nearby hostiles once, though they would have to be able to adapt and avoid them(presuming they either lose people repeatedly to where they decide it's a bad idea, or get warning back).

All the rules for a simulation like this could take a while to make work right, but silly A.I. being silly is part of alpha fun, right? :p

 

[jayman38]

I imagine unstable-tectonic plates could be simulated with a new rock-and-lava biome with a healthy helping of vertical cliffs and lava-falls. Think planet Ortega from Space Quest 3 or planet Mustafar from Star Wars 3.

 

[Blaza612]

Love the star wars cake! xD

 

[Kaamio]

I think this could use a sort of threat level/hotspot system to determine npc activity. This is kind of game deep mechanic suggesion I guess, I hope it might give some ideas but I understand if it's not what you want to invest in.

Threat level of a sector could be determined by its distance from nearest hotspot sector, with hotspots having variable intensity... for example, 10 sectors away from level 7 hotspot could have threat level of 5,5 or whaterver the numbers turn into. That would be used to determine npc spawn probability and fleet power, providing a scaling difficulty and diversifying galaxy even before getting ai factions running.

Npc spawns could be handled by randomising number and mass, modified by local threat level in order to create noob zone at safe levels (maybe lone, old model ishants at safest areas), almost safe with new ishants escorted by an old one, to level 10 hotspot that could spawn a fleet of 12 ships massing something like 50000 mass total, unleashing community monster warships. Or even worse should server mess around with config files I'd really want to see npc fleets that use mixed ship sizes, such as a 2 cruisers with 3 destroyers or cruiser and 5 fighters. Not sure how to make them pick different ships within mass and amount limits though.

To clarify, I think that a galaxy ought to have only few hotspots and not all of them very high. Point would be to have something to build towards and to allow either vanilla game to have some rather powerful warships in the pirate spawn list, or maybe put a link to community pirate packs on the launcher page if keeping a relatively up to date npc ship pool is not convenient.

However, one of the drawbacks of a galaxy with great difficulty differences is that you'd want to have a base of operations near "your point in the curve", where you could reasonably end up half a galaxy away from your initial base, and fortifying a base that can withstand enemies that challenge you can easily become a chore. I'd suggest a simplified cargo transfer to solve the base moving issue, add a button in storage UI "transfer contents to docked ship/station/carrier". A lot of this game is simplified or abstracted in terms of building (gun and engine shape or positioning doesn't matter, generators are abstracted) so simplification in regards of tedious moving of items shouldn't matter... right? No need to code item conduits or loading bays in my opinion.

Hotspot system as a whole could be probably easily converted to use with mineral density for planets to create richer areas, or used eventually with npc wars when tied to their stations or controlled systems... I'm not sure if this is the bestest way of determining area activity, but I think it's worth a thought one of it's strengths is that once hotspots are coded, you could just randomise some in game to add some content and test the system while getting ahead on the faction wars stuff.

Scanner could be used to detect threat levels anywhere and maybe ore density levels in owned systems...

 

[Blaza612]

Threat level of a sector could be determined by its distance from nearest hotspot sector, with hotspots having variable intensity... for example, 10 sectors away from level 7 hotspot could have threat level of 5,5 or whaterver the numbers turn into. That would be used to determine npc spawn probability and fleet power, providing a scaling difficulty and diversifying galaxy even before getting ai factions runnin

The security status of a sector could be similar to that of EVE Online's security, except with it changing. Maybe have a global police force (possibly the trading guild) to act as concord, the further out from activity you get, the lower the security level, the less police you get there, to the point of no police. And in order for police to also police a new faction (player or NPC made) then the faction has to become of significant influence on the galaxy (this could be calculated using population, amount they trade, what they trade, allies, amount of sectors controlled and wealth of the faction)

 

[Kaamio]

That's sort of what I was after, but Concord stand-in and security ratings that go on in EVE aren't needed in my opinion. Maybe something to recognise player killers but then again, maybe not. Invincible retribution police force isn't what I see in this game, and if factions are increased in number they all become sort of neutral instead of the game of cops vs robbers of EVE.

I was after a more basic system, so that sector would simply have levels of activity that are later subject to change, perhaps tying hotspots to faction naval yard stations or whatnot. Upgradable AI faction naval yards through quests to increase activity? Bomb a naval yard or it's neighboring factory-station to remove or weaken the hotspot? Sounds awesome to me

One sector could have multiple values, for example ore density level 4, pirate activity level 6, trade guild activity level 1 and yet unseen alien faction activity 3. Of course you'd have to manage spawning so that not everything spawns at once, but you could have intense pirate fleets spawning most often, with a chance of medium alien fleets or the rare trade guild straggler.

 

[Blaza612]

I have updated the main post with some more ideas (mainly ones that have been discussed), as well as fixing the wording on a couple of them. ^_^

 

[shadowulf]

I like this, for a couple reasons. The main one being the universe as is, quite stale, this on the other hand would be rather busy. I think it should be an optional game mode though think survival minecraft vs creative minecraft. As an option to players this would be more simulated and definitely feel immersive. Compared to the more creative let's design mode that we currently all resort to 90% of the time.

That said, I think a bit fewer factions would be appropriate. For instance The travelers stay travelers until they run across another faction, at which point they either join or move on. No need to create additional factions as this would just clutter stuff up.

Trading Guild = The dominators? I'm not even sure about this name dominators as it sounds very space rangers 2 to me. Which was a great game, but the premise was AI robots (also called dominators) were killing the galaxy and you had to band together to nerf them. Now it's not exactly an original idea to use a super enemy you have to band together to kill, but perhaps you don't have to kill them? Maybe just outbuy them? or destroy them, or possibly even convert them into defectors via missions or sabotage.

All in all I think you could reduce the number of factions to 3. Travelers/Nomads, Empire(dominators), and Defectors(pirates). This would not include player factions as those would be extra, naturally.

Having said all that, the economy part is actually in-game right now. Dynamic pricing is an option in your config settings. You probably won't notice any major economy shifts with just one person playing though...

I agree to your modifiers a little more than the original post, mostly because of performance-wise i think it would draw more computing power, but correct me if i'm wrong. also, the possibility of stumbling across NPC battles/debris sounds extremely dangerous/funny/lucrative and would be a great way to enhance single-player. also i agree with the alternate game mode, as a creative world can/will be f****d by this, especially if they're aggressive

 

[NeonSturm]

Just make everything an option and it's up to the admin+players to decide.

Spawning a wreck which uses the station-abandoned type of providing only scrap can't be that hard after the other is implemented, or is it?