AI Wingmen

[mitth'raw'nuruodo]

Recently I saw some news about player wings to be implemented early next year.

But what is the update on AI wingmen? It was supposed to be a launch feature. Yet there is no news on when or IF it will be implemented.

I dont care for "advanced" features from the design discussions such as betrayals etc. But basic AI wingmen (where you pay a bunch of AI ships to follow you around) seems to be something simple to implement.

If FD wants to ignore solo players and deprive them of promised features, they should make it clear early to avoid disappointing players.

 

[G.T]

I agree but to be able to talk to AI would be a good first step, so far they can say to us, 'Drop your cargo' while we can say nothing to them, not even tell them to drop their cargo for us.

 

[mitth'raw'nuruodo]

Yes. That would be a first step.

I dont really understand what FDev are thinking (or if they are thinking at all).

David Braben says in all his interviews, that they want discourage PvP and that you are mostly supposed to encounter NPC ships. Yet those NPC ships are pointless, little more than bots spawned based on the location of the player.

Where are the persistent NPCs, AI crews and wingmen? Are they going to share the same fate as the offline mode?

 

[Jack Booted Thug]

We'll just have to wait and see.

Obviously Frontier were not able to deliver many of the design features due to their limited capacity (only so many hours in a day).

It would be ideal to have these features but in the real world they simply are unable to implement them within the limitations faced by their team.

I too was hoping for many of these features to be in the game but I do now realise that they cannot do the impossible and have thus been focused on getting out a base product which is relatively bug free. I think they will succeed in this aspect although I know that it is additional gameplay elements which will keep me interested in the game. Previously I allowed my self to have higher expectations than I should have as I actually used to think that the DDA features were actually planned for the game, in reality they were considerations of intent if time and resources permitted.

I find the game quite dull at the moment to be honest because there is not much that feels dynamic and real. I get the same missions over and over where I have to take the same cargo to the same location for the same reason. There are crazy and stupid sounding missions where people will only buy stuff that is stolen too, I cannot figure that one out. I'd like to buy a jar of honey, but it must be stolen.

Frontier have done a fantastic job at creating a skeleton to build upon, the foundation is there. I think we just need to be patient in order to see if it really gets truly fleshed out or not.