NPC Factions and Difficulty Curves

[MrFURB]

There's recently been a rather interesting discussion in the chat about NPC factions that I though would better belong in a thread. Although the question has been asked and answered many times in different forms, it boiled down to this:

How would you ensure that an NPC faction is always difficult, even to large factions with capable designs?

Through teasers and interviews we know that NPC factions, AI trade empires, and computer controlled pirates are coming to Starmade and that their interactions with players will be highly varied. We also know that certain parts of a galaxy will be harder to survive in than others, most notably the cruel void inhabited by the rumored pirate/outcast faction.
Consider the following, what we know about NPC faction ships so far:

The trade guild designs are purposely flawed/weak.
The amount/difficulty of enemy ships scales with your progress.
Randomized NPC factions will have related sets of ships with a set style.
The total pool of ship designs an NPC faction can field will be limited. It takes a lot of manpower to keep a ton of designs up-to-date with the game's changes.

So the issue remains to be answered. Optimized NPC ships are only as good as optimized player ships, and countering that by deploying more blocks to a fight than the players can lead to stability issues.
Here are some of the suggestions that were tossed about in chat:

1. Arbitrary buffs applied to the metadata of ships of the NPC faction to make a ship of equivalent mass a higher challenge.
2. Special 'zero point tech' blocks that are more effective than regular counterparts and can be salvaged off of wrecks.
3. Advanced AI planning and strategy utilizing distractions, countersieges, constant harassment, and other strategic moves.

Have thoughts on a solution? Go ahead and post.

 

[Winterhome]

From The Depths has progressive difficulty in its campaign mode factions, and they don't do it with magic like Proposed Methods 1 and 2

Instead, they rely on players to submit ship/aircraft/whatever designs that roughly match the expected tech level and visual appearance of each faction, with the lowest level faction, the Deepwater Guard, using cheap materials and newbie-tier systems, and the highest level factions, the Scarlet Dawn and Grey Talons, using high-end materials and tournament-grade engineering.

This may be somewhat difficult in Starmade, though, on account of tech not being quite as complex and difficult to balance out against itself.


Say, a high-tech NPC faction would use ridiculous things like docked reactors and shield generators, high end turrets, efficient guns, smart armor design, passive effects, etc. while an extremely low-tech NPC faction would basically just be flying upscaled Isanth-VIs. Perhaps, with the advent of Crew, higher end factions would also come default with more experienced crewmembers and get bonuses that way.

This would come with the added benefit of newer players being able to open up the built-in-blueprints folder and examine the high-end ships to see how they work.

 

[Lecic]

Arbitrary buffs are immersion breaking. They'll make players ask, "why does this faction get special buffs when their ships are identical and their crew is human like mine?"

Zero-point tech further skews the game balance in favor of more established players, who can more easily obtain the special blocks, putting them even higher above newer, less powerful factions. They already have the advantage. They don't need a bigger one.

Advanced AI is the only viable solution I can see.

As for keeping ships up to date-
The council should select quality system builders (and councilors who are qualified to do so) to keep the ships up to date, rather than having the devs do it.

 

[Ithirahad]

There is no ideal solution to this, but "zero-point tech" that requires reverse-engineering through some kind of research system is going to be probably the lesser of three evils.

#1 is just an insult to every dedicated engineer who has spent hours, days, maybe even weeks building, optimizing, experimenting, and fine-tuning their ships for maximum performance, and just feels cheap. If NPC factions happen to get AI crew that have slightly higher bonuses on average, that's fine, but relying on that entirely results in something of a cheaty-feeling system.

#2 causes issues because it gives larger and more established factions an advantage over newer players and... wait. WHY THE HELL IS THIS EVEN A PROBLEM? Just design the world so that large factions that go on regular incursions into enemy territory will mostly do their business out of the way of newbie-land, and we're fine.

#3 is impossible on a scale that will actually allow it to bridge the gap sufficiently. Of course, AI should be able to do some of those things, but they can't possibly be made to be better than players to make up for players' engineering abilities. :p

 

[Master_Artificer]

Maybe have a progressive system?

Like, some pirate stations spawn waves of easier ships and smaller ships, but those ships drop less loot, or the resource gain is the lowest of the stations, so aka you fight them when your new and dont have anything better or need to remove the station?

Then some areas have stronger stations, going frigate to destroyer to cruiser to battleship to dreadnought? (no titan though because reasons, and maybe only up to cruisers.)

Maybe if you set up shop in a pirate sector they will send scouting parties, then send tasks forces to "remove you".

+++

Also always have more AI ships spawn than the player(s) have. You can only face your front at one target at a time, and if the AI is smart enough to try to get around a ship and shoot the flanks then they are innately stronger than AI that all sit together at long range and halfheartedly try to shoot the player's front, usually the strongest part of the ship, and where their guns point out of.

Have the AI be able to use defensive effects like players, they are very strong and basically the 3 big ones are required!
Have AI be able to use scanners, pulse them if the player is jamming.

If the AI detects a jammed ship, it will have a 20% chance of using a scanner each second past point of detection until a scanner has been used.
This way if you have 3 or more AI ships, they all wont use their scanner at the same time, and a few will have their scanner to use again if theirs didn't fire off. (less wasting of scanners on the pirates).


Pirates should use EMP and STOP effect weapons. They will probably need to be fitted with a 15k block weapon system (broken up among turrets or in the main body) at 70ish% EMP that has a cannon slave, to disable the players ships and stop effects to make the rest of the fleet they have hit more reliably. The more power a stop effect weapon consumes, the stronger the stoppage, so probably single computer waffle boards on turrets.
They gotta get that booty off the player, do they not? Blasting big holes in it might not always be the best idea, you gotta board them! :D

+++

If the AI wave spawns in more ships than the player and has = or greater block count, that would be a challenge to anybody, as long as the ships can use the same systems as the players can. Also needs better programming so that it doesn't sit idle in the front arc of your ship but tries to squirm out of it.

 

[Zyrr]

The council should select quality system builders (and councilors who are qualified to do so) to keep the ships up to date, rather than having the devs do it.

watch out lecic, you might get shadowb& for that

---

In all seriousness, #3 is the clear cut answer and a core mechanic such as PvE absolutely deserves the large amount of time and effort that will go into making #3 a reality. This is one area Schine absolutely cannot afford to cut corners on.

 

[Criss]

Let's see if I can clarify.

We also know that certain parts of a galaxy will be harder to survive in than others, most notably the cruel void inhabited by the rumored pirate/outcast faction.

Hahaha. You have no idea. :p

The trade guild designs are purposely flawed/weak.

Only the freighters are weak. That comes as a cost for having the best cargo capacity of any established faction. I will do my best to make sure their combat vessels are capable ships.

1. Arbitrary buffs applied to the metadata of ships of the NPC faction to make a ship of equivalent mass a higher challenge.
2. Special 'zero point tech' blocks that are more effective than regular counterparts and can be salvaged off of wrecks.
3. Advanced AI planning and strategy utilizing distractions, countersieges, constant harassment, and other strategic moves.

1 - Our solution is crew members. Experienced crew of the ship will provide benefits and buffs to their systems. This way through experience and time in playing the game you can achieve the same power. Others pointed out metadata on ships in immersion breaking and we think this solves that problem.

2 - Research for block buffs would have to tie into a personal skill/leveling system. It is something that we looked into. It is probable that some progression will be included in the game. It makes time spent playing worthwhile. We do not have full details yet. This needs a lot of careful balancing.

3 - Battles of attrition are the easiest way to create a difficult enemy. You certainly may have a capital ship and leave trails of destruction in your wake, but how long can you fend off 10 smaller ships at a time? Wave after wave, eventually you will fail.

 

[Lecic]

Only the freighters are weak. That comes as a cost for having the best cargo capacity of any established faction. I will do my best to make sure their combat vessels are capable ships.

I think it would be extremely beneficial to you (and the rest of schine) if, after you built the initial designs, let the council and players chosen by the council keep the designs up to date through the many balance changes that are bound to occur. This will free up a lot of time for you to do other things like write lore or design new ships for the factions to use.

 

[AtraUnam]

I feel that to some extent the trading guild should be flawed both to provide a learning curve for new players and to help them learn about systems by dismantling TG ships.

 

[Zyrr]

Of course, but there needs to be more than just flaws. The flaw(s) cannot be readily apparent to absolute newbies, but should be to more seasoned players, otherwise you're just throwing them into the frying pan; the type of issue that will be just frustrating enough at times for them to dismantle and change the system.

For example, a ship with sub-par shield regen, or a small jump drive. On bigger ships, inefficient power generation, intentionally poor weapon combinations, no rail dock enhancers, poorly optimized turrets, or a ship with majority basic armour. Small/inefficient salvage arrays. You get the point. Nagging issues that through actual use and experience in their niche will be able to be noticed and fixed by newbies. Those are the sort of flaws that teach players without making them want to tear their hair out.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

To be honest as long as the TG and pirate ships are functional, I think focussing them on aesthetics would be a better idea. Or at the very least the ones you're likely to encounter as a new player/in the early game. Every single ship the player encounters having min-maxed out systems and weapons that can rip through advanced armour without any problem makes the barrier for entry much higher. Having the more common NPC ships use weaker ships gives people more room to experiment, and get to grips with what works instead getting ripped to shreds as soon as they figure out what the red diamond means.

 

[Lecic]

To be honest as long as the TG and pirate ships are functional, I think focussing them on aesthetics would be a better idea. Or at the very least the ones you're likely to encounter as a new player/in the early game. Every single ship the player encounters having min-maxed out systems and weapons that can rip through advanced armour without any problem makes the barrier for entry much higher. Having the more common NPC ships use weaker ships gives people more room to experiment, and get to grips with what works instead getting ripped to shreds as soon as they figure out what the red diamond means.

Having the hostile ships near spawn be easy kills makes sense. Having NPC ships in the heart of enemy territory be weak does not. Those should be minmaxed with the intent of killing players and driving them away.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I don't necessarily agree to be honest. At least, depending on the faction in question and exactly what we mean by "weak". For pirates and the TG I think they should always been weaker than what the player can build in that relative size. I don't see it being that big of a detriment to difficulty, since as previously stated on home ground they'll have the numbers advantage, and can keep bringing in waves. I'd save actual efficient combat vessels for more military focused factions, rather than a group of merchants and scavengers.