NPC Wingmen (Sandro)

[Vasious]

Game is already encouraging players to wing up, which is great, why don`t allow wing with NPC? Just don`t allow players to get other benefits except safety. Player share his profits with NPC wingman, but not get any profits from NPC wingman bounty claims, won`t it be less danger, less profits which is in the spirit of the game?

Would be nice to be able to "Wing up" with NPCs in CZs so they could as a wing mate for the Shield recharging and other ally boosting special effects
At the moment it counts as friendly fire to shoot a Regeneration Sequence or Concordant Sequence weapon at them.

That itself would be a nice change, as we pick a side in a CZ so something to indicate it is a friendly or support act and not a hostile one.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

NPC wingmates would actually add something to the game, while NPC crewmembers are just a placebo.

There already is the possibility of hiring crew to fly the SLF. Having a npc "manning the turrets" is exactly the same as having automated turrets.

Not from an aesthetic point of view......indeed, via that argument we may as well scrap multi-crew altogether.....as all the human players are doing is what the turrets would do anyway.

 

[kofeyh]

I so wish this was a single player game. the possibilities are endless!

Offline mode isn't coming matey, move on.

--

Back on topic, I would rather this wasn't just defacto. That you could hire a one-off escort. Otherwise all that will happen is people will roll around with 3 ships 24/7 and the AI will be even less of a concern; frankly they will become irrelevant.

SLF already hits like a truck. It's really bad in HAZRES now, even with just two people in a wing. You can empty them, as in wipe the slate clean and sit there for minutes waiting for more bad dudes to arrive.

Nah, if making this a defacto, AI need to be a TON tougher to balance the massive firepower changes. That would be across all modes.

Bring back 2.1 AI? I'll not be as concerned. But this is simply an escalation in firepower, at its core. Nothing more. And it's just like the arguments that killed shield nerfs and other changes to try and rebalance combat.

I think that is ultimately Sandro's concern. And rightly so. It's just increasing damage potential in solo. With the AI already keyed to the lowest denominator. There's no other commanders there to act as a balance point.

 

[Infidel Deity]

And yet you find it is ok that NPC still should get 10-30% of our credits while not even be in our actual ship. He just seat in coriolis while i am doing quests and he got my money for doing NOTHING. It is ok for you, right? Work as intended? I can't even have more than one NPC at this point. They are eating my credits. That is all what they can and the only thing they can do WELL. Will you ever considered this STOP? As a QoL improvement JUST STOP IT. If NPC not on the ship, he should not get anything. (actually it should'v been in game from start of 2.2, but whatever)

Seriously? Please, make it stop.

Thank you.

Personally, I think it's fair that my crew gets paid.
And my crew, they are always with me.

Of course, due to some very ill logic, I have to be at a station so switch who can fly the fighter.
But they are always on board.

I hope that, one day, to have them sitting in one of the empty chairs up front. [yesnod]

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Hello Commander Lobstris!

Fundamentally, if we simply allowed NPC wingmen without restraint, it might very well make the situation worse *and* make having wingmen more mandatory, which is not something we really want.

I'm not saying we've dropped the idea, just that it has a lot of ramifications that we don't want to take lightly.

Make them mission based, so that some missions offer optional NPC support. Plus missions where the player is the support for a NPC trade ship. This way players don't have complete control over when they have available NPC wingmen.

 

[wstephenson]

Sandro mentioned NPC comms as potentially on the path to reworking piracy and separating it from bad karma activities.

This, as well as a few of the 'complicating trait' characteristics I mentioned above, and the suggestion of NPC progression and skills suggested by Mengy, would be charting a course towards more RPG-like party behaviour.

In which case, NPCs' personalities could become a balance factor. Imagine getting an inbox message from a wingman in every system consisting of a photo of your Asp Explorer in front of something, or one who bounds off to look for his lost giant space hamster behind every asteroid.

 

[Blasphemous One]

Many good suggestions and OP managed to get a official reply, great.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Many good suggestions and OP managed to get a official reply, great.

I think I'm on Sandro's ignore list.
I never get an official reply.

Probably got tired of my idea spam.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[K M Butler]

How about NPC crew that don't actually do anything but decorate your bridge to be sold in the cash shop as a sort of variant bobblehead? Ones that would be created with the Holo-Me . With an extra-cost version that double as addt'l avatar slots (as opposed to CMDR slots, which would cost about as much as another account)

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Hello Commanders!

This is something we still haven't reached a decision on.

The idea of NPC wingmen is totally cool, but there are some interesting issues, mainly revolving around balance. What we'd prefer to avoid is a wingman being a "no-brainer" in terms of effectiveness.

How about NPC wingmen as part of a mission. I am not too fussed about NPC wingmen following me around all the time, but as part of a mission, it can open up a lot of scenarios, such as: Hi Commander we need you to rendezvous with one of our ships that need repairing and then escort it back to the station.

So you will need repair limpets, go to ship repair, and then it becomes a part of your wing as you escort it back to base. Now a number of things could happen on the way back, you could be betrayed, the ship could be attacked again, you could be diverted, there could be good follow on missions which include that NPC if they survive etc.

 

[Urbanski101]

One thing that has confused me about ED and NPC wings....In the tutorials there is one mission where you fly with two NPC wingmates. When I first completed the tutorial during beta I thought great, nice feature....still waiting.

So why keep that in there? Clearly it's possible, probably not that hard to implement in the main game, they just need to work out how to make it fair / balanced.

This kind of thing drives me a bit crazy. People asking for atmospheric planets to land on complete with wildlife, flora, fauna, and everything else is a huge ask and will take years to realise (if ever), same for space legs.

This feature is already in game, NPC crew who fly SLFs. The AI is there, the basic command mechanic is there, the wing mechanic is there, what are they waiting for? On the scale of ease of development this must be a fairly simple (relatively) thing to implement. Yes I know nothing is that simple but all of the main building blocks for this feature is already in game.....FDev....get on with it.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Please don't. It would really undermine some parts of the game/gameplay such as real player wings/interaction, SLFs or PvP. Also the power creep / imbalance would be real.

I can't see how it would unbalance anything. You would still be limited to a limit of 4 in a wing, and 4 players in a wing will be far better then 1 player and 3 NPC's in a wing. Whats the issue with SLF and NPC wings. Also I can't see how it would effect PvP either.

There is no real balance in the game anyway. There could also be costs involved as well, such as repaying of NPC wingmen costs such as rebuy incase of ship loss and salary, so the odds of someone hiring 3 NPC Corvettes in their wing would be highly unlikely. Hire an Elite NPC and it could cost a lot of cash.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Fundamentally, if we simply allowed NPC wingmen without restraint, it might very well make the situation worse *and* make having wingmen more mandatory, which is not something we really want.

The game has allowed CMDR Wingmen, without restraint, for those players that prefer to play together since March '15 - I'm not sure how permitting players to Wing with NPCs could make the current situation worse in that context.

If the Wing member limit were to remain at four, whether CMDR or NPC, there would possibly be more Wings overall however those players that choose not to Wing up with players would potentially be at less of a disadvantage when they encounter Wing formed exclusively of players.

 

[[VR] Bac Ho]

As for me NPC crew & NCP wings would be near the top of “the to do list” as it opens up so many game possibility that would enrich play across all the game modes.

I'm not sure about the "balancing" issues that have been mentioned, as engineers have kicked balancing right out of the window. As for "mandatory wingmen" I can't see a problem, again just benefits to gameplay.

Here is another possibility with NPC wings, there could be missions that the NPC would hire you to part of their wing, BUT not in your own ship. The ship would be supplied for that mission like a Naval or Police missions. Ofcorse they would be some limitastions, maybe only small ships, and if you do not return the ship then the cost of the ship would be a bounty issued and lose rep with that faction.

NPC wings & crew opens some many possibility not just in gameplay, but also with vanity iitems. I can imagine there is large percentage of players who would like their crews and wings to have a customizable flight suits and insignias.

 

[CMDR MERANGO]

Scuse my ignorance, but this is exactly what I thought multi-crew would be from the get go - alas, it is currently another branch of Wings!

CMIV

 

[Aashenfox]

Sorry but I don't get the 'balance' argument for not implementing NPC wingmates.

If balance really was the issue then engineers would never have been launched, a lvl 5 engineered ship is a clear mismatch for a non engineered version of the same ship.

How about multicrew and SLFs, isn't that virtually the same thing, an NPC that flies with you and fights by your side?

What about the imbalance of player wings - 4 v 1, hardly balanced.

Whilst we are at it what about different ship sizes and classes, a Fed Corvette vs a Sidewinder.

What about modules, a rated vs e rated.

I do understand not wanting everyone to fly in an NPC wing because it becomes the most secure way to fly but there are a number of ways to counter that, make the NPC crew tied to a mission, or hired for one journey to a single destination (if you deviate from the set course they disband), or set on a timer.....or reverse it, get hired by an NPC to protect his ship and fly as part of their crew.....so many possibilities....I don't think the balance argument is entirely valid considering the number of imbalances currently in game.

For non combat related stuff, trading, exploration, mining there are loads of possibilities of how we could work with NPCs.

While I agree in principle with what you say, I don't think 'things are already bad, so who cares if we make them worse' is necessarily the right direction to take. I appreciate that they are giving this real consideration, but I hope conclusions are reached quickly, as FD is more than a little ponderous when it comes to stuff like this. I've said few times in my only few days on this forum, that what this game needs ABOVE ALL ELSE is compelling PvE content, and I couldn't care less if all the other minor issues (and they are minor, let's face it, the game is fun to play, it's not 'broken') are left by the wayside until that is done.

Here's a little back story for you...With all this Thargoid activity, naturally the Federation is working on weapons to combat the Thargoids, and they were making good progress by testing the effects of various types of energy and biological agents. As part of the testing they were transporting an alien artifact that was key to development of this counter strategy, to Canonn's facility for further experimentation. Unfortunately, the convoy escort had been bought off by a pirate lord and the artifact has been stolen. Commander we need you and one of your friends to go retrieve it. We have been able to track the artifact by its unique energy signature, start your search in X system and report your findings.

Mission begins! You'd jump into a system, and you'd first have to either break or run a blockade of ships loyal to stated pirate, so you either blow up enough of them that the rest flee, and continue toward objective, or you just speed through, avoid the interdictions and try to either stealth or speed your way through.

Then you identify the pirate's stronghold on a planet, he's taken over a base which is heavily defended, so you and your wingman approach without getting range of ground defences, and the defending ships come up to meet you in a dogfight above the planet's surface (dogfights with gravity to worry about too! Awesome!!), so you and your wing take out the defense force, then set to work on strafing runs on the power plant of the base to power down the defences. When you achieve that, pirate lord himself radios something like "Harumph, I guess I have to take care of you meddlers myself!", jumps in his anaconda and launches. What follows is epic boss fight, cos his anaconda is engineered, and has some unique but avoidable (with skill) mechanics. You take out the pirate lord, his ship explodes dropping the artifact down to the planet's surface, so you and your wingman scoot down, your wingman takes out the remaining Goliaths/skimmers etc while you collect the cargo in your SRV, then you both jump out and go to hand in. Epic mission completed. I realise this is slightly off topic, but what I mean is there's hardly a compelling reason to fly in a wing if you have a powerful ship, there needs to be goals which are difficult enough to WARRANT including a wingman, NPC or human matters not.

 

[wstephenson]

This feature is already in game, NPC crew who fly SLFs. The AI is there, the basic command mechanic is there, the wing mechanic is there, what are they waiting for? On the scale of ease of development this must be a fairly simple (relatively) thing to implement. Yes I know nothing is that simple but all of the main building blocks for this feature is already in game.....FDev....get on with it.

Stuff gets harder for FDEV to implement in Elite when it leaves the temporal scope of a single P2P session, because state has to be preserved between that session and the next one(s). We've seen it before in Wings, Horizons, Guardians and Multicrew. Think of SRVs being magically repaired, MC turret weapons being rearmed, Wings seeing the wrong state of wingmen, etc. The current NPC SLF implementation doesn't have to deal with that, because it is forcibly limited to a single P2P session. Once you have persistent independent wingmen to deal with, you have a bunch of new state to keep replicated properly, as well as needing supercruise AI for followers, rules to determine what happens when they are immobilised and the leader player flies 10km away, AI wing behaviour around stations and docking and matchmaking questions (since NPC ships count towards the bandwidth imposed limit of ships per session).

So I would almost put money on it that FD will limit the initial temporal scope of it to a single instance, by making them Wingmen As A Service, who you call in for a single engagement, they hyperspace in, fight, take their pay and leave.

 

[Jack Schitt]

This is something we still haven't reached a decision on.

Decision? Don't you mean Discussion?

Not to take anything away from those passionate posters who take the time to fill these threads with lists of great ideas, but it's disheartening to read so many of those lists, and the "Great idea!" replies that follow them, only to note that many of them are the same ideas that FD designers and equally passionate posters already hashed out in the DDF literally years ago.

I realise the nature of the game has changed much since then, but I'm left with the distinct impression that future changes to the game are going to be geared towards what can be shoehorned into what we already have with minimum disruption rather than, as I feel it should be, steering the game more towards the original vision and weathering the consequences of those disruptions.

But yeah, I know, 84er, out of touch, forumdad yadda yadda.

I just wish I hadn't wasted so much effort with the DDF, had I known how little of it was going to mean anything down the line.

 

[wstephenson]

Decision? Don't you mean Discussion?

Not to take anything away from those passionate posters who take the time to fill these threads with lists of great ideas, but it's disheartening to read so many of those lists, and the "Great idea!" replies that follow them, only to note that many of them are the same ideas that FD designers and equally passionate posters already hashed out in the DDF literally years ago.

Apropos: "My employer is attracted to power. As am I." Wingmen - Elite Dangerous

I was heartened to see a green dot next to the original poster's name on that thread, but unfortunately Barry is not reading this thread right now. That would be poetic.

Anyhow I didn't back at a DDF level back then, but I have spent the years since KS playing at armchair game designer, and am still enjoying having hypothetical discussions about the idealised Elite: Dangerous of my imagination, even if 99% will never filter into the actual Elite: Dangerous of reality.

 

[Urbanski101]

Stuff gets harder for FDEV to implement in Elite when it leaves the temporal scope of a single P2P session, because state has to be preserved between that session and the next one(s). We've seen it before in Wings, Horizons, Guardians and Multicrew. Think of SRVs being magically repaired, MC turret weapons being rearmed, Wings seeing the wrong state of wingmen, etc. The current NPC SLF implementation doesn't have to deal with that, because it is forcibly limited to a single P2P session. Once you have persistent independent wingmen to deal with, you have a bunch of new state to keep replicated properly, as well as needing supercruise AI for followers, rules to determine what happens when they are immobilised and the leader player flies 10km away, AI wing behaviour around stations and docking and matchmaking questions (since NPC ships count towards the bandwidth imposed limit of ships per session).

So I would almost put money on it that FD will limit the initial temporal scope of it to a single instance, by making them Wingmen As A Service, who you call in for a single engagement, they hyperspace in, fight, take their pay and leave.

That is fine with me, in fact in an earlier post I mention limiting the NPC wings to exactly this, one mission, escorting you to a single destination or for a single engagement. I've no issue with that and it solves the problem of balance and P2P session status as your NPC crew are strictly temporary. You then won't have a player flying permanently around with a full NPC wing and won't have to worry about their status when you log back in.

I would also like the option to be hired by an NPC to escort their ship or form part of their NPC wing to achieve a given task, once completed you pick up your fee and the wing is disbanded.

I fail to see why this is such a stumbling block for FDev.