- Joined
- Jun 29, 2013
- Messages
- 245
- Reaction score
- 68
We need more NPC ships. But adding more default designs requires building and designing them. And that takes time away from other playtesting and code-working (and just having fun with thunderdome duels). Not to mention having to redo them to be viable again if some aspect of the game relating to ship design gets significantly overhauled. Therefor, the ideal solution is to outsource NPC design to people willing to do it for free of their own accord. Such people fortunately exist; they are this game's alpha playtesters.
The weekly challenges board has been grossly underused. So why not use it (and maybe rename it to better reflect its new purpose) to run contests for vessels to be used by NPCs? Throw in a little legalese into the topic to make a point that by submitting a ship to it, a player is giving that design the to devs to do with as they see fit, and you are good. The winning entries can be added to a pool of ship designs used by the NPCs by default. A number of other rules are also necessary, including perhaps a certain format to the submission (must post images and a link to the blueprint file, for instance), and some guidelines based on the ship challenge in question (appearance, size, etc).
Which brings us to the second part of this topic. Enhancing the NPC system a little. I have two ideas for this.
1. NPC-faction-specific ships. Pirates and civilian traders (and whatever other factions eventually get added) need not use the same ships. In fact, its best if they don't. Allow them to not use the same ships, and that is accomplished. The question of "what different ships?" is taken care of by the afformentioned series of design contests proposed. We players will supply them for you ourselves. And you can tailor the contests and cherry pick their applicants for ships which best match the appearance you want for the faction in question.
2. Scaling NPC "cost rules." Put simply, set it such that the total cost of a pirate wing's ships cannot exceed a certain value. A value that increases dependant on the minimum absolute value of the sector coordinates. And which may completely exclude ships from certain sectors.
In other words, the farther out you go, the stronger the pirate spawns will become. Perhaps none will spawn within, say, 3,3,3 and -3,-3,-3 or something like that. And up to 10,10,10 maybe you will only see fighters (maybe lower, maybe higher, depends on the scaling factor). The farther you go, the larger the available cost to spawned pirate wings, with a cap set somewhere with regards to total number of ships, so you don't ever see more then 1-5 pirates at once.
Different NPC factions could follow different scaling methods, such that Traders use different scaling mechanics for their wing cost caps.
As AI gets improved, a "Military" faction could be added that escorts Trader ships with a force that scales similarly to pirates. This Military faction could also be put in charge of protecting shops in place of traders, with them following a special spawn rule for those (perhaps the cost limit for shop defense is based on the attacking player's own ship cost).
A last option would be to, instead of using sector numbers, to have each system have a randomly preset value for each faction's general activity level, which determines how powerful the ships of each faction are there. With the system spawn is located in being unique in that its not random and always has certain settings for its NPC ship cost allowances.
Lastly, when more NPC factions start getting added (and the envisioned quest system gets added), a reputation system would be good to put in. Such that, if you attack shops too much, they will stop selling to you or buying from you. But perhaps a type of "mercenary station" or "black market" location would still be willing to. And if you attack shops enough, pirates may start treating you as neutral, and allow you to buy from certain pirate locations. Naturally, attacking and killing pirates would make them like you less, and perhaps make the trader's guild like you more.
So basically, you'd best not attack shops to get at ship parts from defenders unless you are willing to deal with some of that stuff.
The weekly challenges board has been grossly underused. So why not use it (and maybe rename it to better reflect its new purpose) to run contests for vessels to be used by NPCs? Throw in a little legalese into the topic to make a point that by submitting a ship to it, a player is giving that design the to devs to do with as they see fit, and you are good. The winning entries can be added to a pool of ship designs used by the NPCs by default. A number of other rules are also necessary, including perhaps a certain format to the submission (must post images and a link to the blueprint file, for instance), and some guidelines based on the ship challenge in question (appearance, size, etc).
Which brings us to the second part of this topic. Enhancing the NPC system a little. I have two ideas for this.
1. NPC-faction-specific ships. Pirates and civilian traders (and whatever other factions eventually get added) need not use the same ships. In fact, its best if they don't. Allow them to not use the same ships, and that is accomplished. The question of "what different ships?" is taken care of by the afformentioned series of design contests proposed. We players will supply them for you ourselves. And you can tailor the contests and cherry pick their applicants for ships which best match the appearance you want for the faction in question.
2. Scaling NPC "cost rules." Put simply, set it such that the total cost of a pirate wing's ships cannot exceed a certain value. A value that increases dependant on the minimum absolute value of the sector coordinates. And which may completely exclude ships from certain sectors.
In other words, the farther out you go, the stronger the pirate spawns will become. Perhaps none will spawn within, say, 3,3,3 and -3,-3,-3 or something like that. And up to 10,10,10 maybe you will only see fighters (maybe lower, maybe higher, depends on the scaling factor). The farther you go, the larger the available cost to spawned pirate wings, with a cap set somewhere with regards to total number of ships, so you don't ever see more then 1-5 pirates at once.
Different NPC factions could follow different scaling methods, such that Traders use different scaling mechanics for their wing cost caps.
As AI gets improved, a "Military" faction could be added that escorts Trader ships with a force that scales similarly to pirates. This Military faction could also be put in charge of protecting shops in place of traders, with them following a special spawn rule for those (perhaps the cost limit for shop defense is based on the attacking player's own ship cost).
A last option would be to, instead of using sector numbers, to have each system have a randomly preset value for each faction's general activity level, which determines how powerful the ships of each faction are there. With the system spawn is located in being unique in that its not random and always has certain settings for its NPC ship cost allowances.
Lastly, when more NPC factions start getting added (and the envisioned quest system gets added), a reputation system would be good to put in. Such that, if you attack shops too much, they will stop selling to you or buying from you. But perhaps a type of "mercenary station" or "black market" location would still be willing to. And if you attack shops enough, pirates may start treating you as neutral, and allow you to buy from certain pirate locations. Naturally, attacking and killing pirates would make them like you less, and perhaps make the trader's guild like you more.
So basically, you'd best not attack shops to get at ship parts from defenders unless you are willing to deal with some of that stuff.
