Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

n4p0l3on

N
varonica said:
It would be...however. Remember this is a game where CR talked about fully physicalised NPC's, that would go to work, go home and sleep and return to work the next day even if there was no-one there to see them, these NPC's would be using processing power and server bandwidth even if no-one else was even on the same planet. So while yes you can use culling and tricks, I think that's something that hasn't so far been considered. I mean really in the above scenario you would just use some spare cycles to caclulate where the NPC should be at that time of the day and only render them when actual players get close enough to see them, but that's not what CR wants to do, he wants the cities to be living and breathing cities with physicalised NPC's undertaking day to day activities even when there is no one else there.
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your description doesn't even account for the possibilities with the interactions between NPCs, and between "unseen" players and NPCs, and further possibilities for interactions between "unseen" players, NPCs, and other NPCs who have to interact with the former 2 groups at the same time as consequences or even as part of their scheduled interactions.

and on top of that, in this dream of a game, you are also have to take into account for the possibilities of interactions with non intelligent objects... like ships, cargo inside of them, all the ships systems in said ships, and even the fluid dynamics for a fluidic object in a bottle somewhere, all that claimed to be fully physicalized in real time.

time and again all that proves that even backers and defenders of this faith can't even fully comprehend what they're actually believing in.
 

Morbad

Morbad
varonica said:
It would be...however. Remember this is a game where CR talked about fully physicalised NPC's, that would go to work, go home and sleep and return to work the next day even if there was no-one there to see them, these NPC's would be using processing power and server bandwidth even if no-one else was even on the same planet. So while yes you can use culling and tricks, I think that's something that hasn't so far been considered. I mean really in the above scenario you would just use some spare cycles to caclulate where the NPC should be at that time of the day and only render them when actual players get close enough to see them, but that's not what CR wants to do, he wants the cities to be living and breathing cities with physicalised NPC's undertaking day to day activities even when there is no one else there.
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I'll take your word for it, but this seems almost inconceivably wasteful.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of abstraction and approximation anywhere the precise details are unlikely to be noticed. Save the detail for when and where it's needed, IMO, as long as the macro-scale results are credible.

n4p0l3on said:
your description doesn't even account for the possibilities with the interactions between NPCs, and between "unseen" players and NPCs, and further possibilities for interactions between "unseen" players, NPCs, and other NPCs who have to interact with the former 2 groups at the same time as consequences or even as part of their scheduled interactions.

and on top of that, in this dream of a game, you are also have to take into account for the possibilities of interactions with non intelligent objects... like ships, cargo inside of them, all the ships systems in said ships, and even the fluid dynamics for a fluidic object in a bottle somewhere, all that claimed to be fully physicalized in real time.

time and again all that proves that even backers and defenders of this faith can't even fully comprehend what they're actually believing in.
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I can probably get the same end result with a couple of tables, a bag of dice (or other RNG), and 6th-grade understanding of statistics and probabilities.
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Morbad said:
Personally, I'm a huge fan of abstraction and approximation anywhere the precise details are unlikely to be noticed. Save the detail for when and where it's needed, IMO, as long as the macro-scale results are credible.
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In fairness they do intend some forms of abstraction. Some NPCs can now spawn/despawn via side rooms etc. And in theory any location which isn't occupied by players isn't maintained by the server. (Although in practice players occupy all of the major hubs before long).

But the overall 'living breathing' cities intention is still being pursued.

On top of that 'Virtual NPCs' are supposed to be generated based on the local state of a dynamic background simulation, and then brought into being on player proximity / interaction. (The only problem being that those elements were meant to come online every year since 2018. And are still missing...)

The current 'Subsumption' city NPCs infamously stop working the minute the server hits heavy load. (An issue which troubles their king too, the bartender, who is supposed to represent a highly reactive AI system which can alter routines based on changing environments and circumstances. He tends to stare into space a lot....)

But you'll be pleased to know that they plan to add long-form hygiene routines to these systems. Everything is going to plan...

tGKnhj1.png
 
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VR Golgot said:
In fairness they do intend some forms of abstraction. Some NPCs can now spawn/despawn via side rooms etc. And in theory any location which isn't occupied by players isn't maintained by the server. (Although in practice players occupy all of the major hubs before long).

But the overall 'living breathing' cities intention is still being pursued.

On top of that 'Virtual NPCs' are supposed to be generated based on the state of the dynamic background simulation, and then brought into being on player proximity / interaction. (The only problem being that those elements were meant to come online every year since 2018. And are still missing...)

The current 'Subsumption' city NPCs infamously stop working the minute the server hits heavy load. (An issue which troubles their king too, the bartender, who is supposed to represent a highly reactive AI system which can alter routines based on changing environments and circumstances. He tends to stare into space a lot....)

But you'll be pleased to know that they plan to add long-form hygiene routines to these systems. Everything is going to plan...

tGKnhj1.png
Click to expand...
The dupes in Oxygen Not Included used toilet and shower every day. They would be very unhappy when they couldn't get to the toilet. Klei absolutely nailed the animation too, when they got of the potty. That expression of happy relief was absolutely spot on.
 

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