Anyone who's played the X series will have a general idea of what Im talking about. In X3 players could buy ships, and the autopilot would allow you to give AI control over to the ships, give them orders such as "Follow/Protect me", "Attack my Target", "Patrol this sector" and most prominently "Manual Trade Run". Seeing as Elite has NPCs, would it be difficult to implement assigning an AI? (whether it be via the ship autopilot, or hiring an NPC to fly the ship for you). Im mostly thinking of the benefits of an Automated Trade Fleet, seeing as trading yourself can be mind numbingly boring to some. This would also add some more stuff to aim towards in the game, like creating your own bounty hunting wing (with your own ship rather than hiring NPCs from station (if you can actually do that, Ive heard you can but haven't seen it myself)), as well as setting up Automated Trade Runs. Would also be great for making use of those ol' ships you sometimes have sitting in a station on the other side of controlled space.
AI Controlled Player Ships
- Thread starter TheReciprocator
- Start date
It won't work.
What authority presents your ship for AI automation? Your client can't - as it's disconnected. The server can't - as it doesn't do that sort of thing. The other players in your last instance? Utterly open to abuse, from both sides.
Oh - and please, absolutely no to any automated trading, fleets, (player spare-ship )wings, or anything else of the kind. You fly your ship in Elite.
I like the idea of wings consisting of NPC's helping you - but they have to be NPC's recruited for the task, and not a finely meta-gamed selection of pilot-owned assets. The idea of buying AI entities to drive pilot-owned assets - admittedly it is a good idea (you provide the ship and buy an AI to power it) but as AI is outlawed in the Elite universe I can't see that happening.
What authority presents your ship for AI automation? Your client can't - as it's disconnected. The server can't - as it doesn't do that sort of thing. The other players in your last instance? Utterly open to abuse, from both sides.
Oh - and please, absolutely no to any automated trading, fleets, (player spare-ship )wings, or anything else of the kind. You fly your ship in Elite.
I like the idea of wings consisting of NPC's helping you - but they have to be NPC's recruited for the task, and not a finely meta-gamed selection of pilot-owned assets. The idea of buying AI entities to drive pilot-owned assets - admittedly it is a good idea (you provide the ship and buy an AI to power it) but as AI is outlawed in the Elite universe I can't see that happening.
Last edited:
So what controls all the other npc ships that fly around pirating, trading and etc etc.
Also in the real world, people do hire employees so they don't have to do everything themselves. Unless the Game Lore has outlawed businesses, and therefore every company in the game is a 1 man operation.
If you find that starting some entrepreneurial trading business or otherwise automating parts of the game somehow ruins it for you, then don't, I don't use credit exploits, or use trainers to start with 4 billion credits, because it would ruin the game for me (admittedly those are both against the code of conduct), the point is if you dont want to do something, you don't have to, but having it there would at the very least allow players who want to make an investment in to the game other than massive 8 hour gaming marathons to make any form of progress in the game. (Because it turns out some people actually have commitments that prevent them from playing this game to the level that is apparently expected of them).
I understand your reservation about the concept, and Im not saying "Hey Frontier, you should do an X and make the game 95% automation". But some level of AI control for ships (and Im using AI from a mechanical point, not a game lore point) would at the very least alleviate the incredible amount of time people have to commit to play this game.
You are, thankfully, not an NPC. NPC ships don't fly around pirating and trading. NPC's don't trade, carry sensible trade goods, or follow trading routes. Systems generate trades on the background sim, and spawn NPC's in order to appear to the observer that there is actually something going on. Lets just be clear on that. The NPC ships you see are not the agents of trade, merely a representation of it occurring. These NPC entities are controlled by an overlying AI, and adjusted regularly by FD staff to tweak/balance parity with player skill or sometimes just to see what she can do
Player ships can be AI controlled - that is obviously what happens when you engage a docking computer. A player ship exists only as long as the instance it is in is valid and it's client is still connected. A disconnected player client does not exist in-game. There exists no arbitration server to manage your ship when you are offline. I am sure you can see the reasoning behind this being the case. Were it otherwise, people could reasonably expect your ship to exist even when you were not logged on, and blow you up for lulz with no interaction on your part.
Business exist in the game. They are the entities that give you missions to attempt. You are not important enough in-universe to tell anyone else what to do. Elite doesn't require any real time commitment in order to play the game. Log on for 5 minutes, do whatever you want to do in that 5 minutes, and it's equally as valid as spending 48 hours solid playing the game. One isn't better than the other - 5 minutes enjoying what you are doing is better than two days spent feeling you need to catch up with some perceived under-achievement in a game full of pixels, is it not?
NPC pirates do exist, they will interdict you and attempt to secure cargo, or simply destroy you on sight. They don't do anything with that cargo though - they don't then go on to fence it, or launder it off to anyone else.
Last edited:
In addition to Asp Explorer's answer, which I believe to be correct, it's my understanding that the devs are dead against any form of automated income. If we want money, we have to earn it ourselves, by whatever means.
Fair enough, coming from the X series and hearing what Frontier had said about their economy system, I'd assumed NPCs actually had some form of impact on it. Part of me will hopes they put it in, but your argument against it is sound, and the other part of me agrees with you.
I haven't played with drones at all yet but perhaps some offensive drones? Or defensive drones that can make repairs or boost shields. It would be really cool to have something to help defend myself since I mostly do trade missions and don't have my ship well equipped to fight. But I agree automating trade and income isn't what the game is about.
You are your ship in Elite. a bit like Thomas the tank engine
I have to admit, a conbination X4's fleet management and Elite Dangerous' ships, flight mechanics and general fun would be an amazing game. But considering Elite was built with multiplayer in mind I totally understand why fleet management isn't a thing. It would get out of hand quite quickly.
If X4 had a 'private group' mode like Elite does though I reckon my mate and I would probably become glued to our chairs.
If X4 had a 'private group' mode like Elite does though I reckon my mate and I would probably become glued to our chairs.
