No NPC SRV's - WTH?

Why? Why are you taking this game further away from a meaningful NPC experience, so Horizons will not have NPC driven SRV's, in other words potato world will be pretty damn dead and solo play will be very solo, not impressed.
 
Probably too difficult to map them to travel to the randomly procedurally generated terrain. Hence the skimmers floating to avoid that problem.

Also they said not currently, they did not say never. I can imagine they may aim to put them in at some point in the future...
 
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I would imagine that in all but the most rare or coordinated cases, planets in open play will be exactly as empty of other SRVs as solo.
 
More than likely it would have to work as it does in the normal game and NPCs would be popping up for no reason other than to annoy the player. Without a persistent NPC experience NPCs are rather pointless to just have come in at random intervals regardless of where the player is at the moment. Just takes the immersion completely away.
 
Why? Why are you taking this game further away from a meaningful NPC experience, so Horizons will not have NPC driven SRV's, in other words potato world will be pretty damn dead and solo play will be very solo, not impressed.

You know perfectly well why. Their target audience is pewpewers playing with their mates. They are not going to 'waste' resources for people playing solo if they do not have enough to do that ant pewpew and his mates. Notice no NPC wings, no NPC multicrew. There is a pattern.
 
So, a couple of turrets and Scarabs shooting at you feels like dead? "Canopy integrity at 50%" "Main engine malfunction" "Eject, eject!"

Oh, yea, right. You are the one feeling dead :)


But SRVs are just one thing you will find on planets besides SRVs (by players ofcourse).
I believe that SRVs driven by NPCs will most likely result in suicide SRVs as there is much more you can do wrong in a SRV regarding hull dmg, ramming and the like.
Look at the NPCs in 1.4. Spinning on a point NPCs or NPCs who will just not manage to point at you even though you are standing still, not moving the slightest and just shooting at the NPCs is very poor and as long as FD doesn't give us challenging NPCs, I don't want NPCs derping around on some planets (heck, even the gravity calculations would be too much for them).

We will have NPCs in Horizons ... ships, drones and turrets but thank god no SRVs. It would be a total disaster with the 'intelligence' level of the current AI.


Btw. what's so wrong about solo feeling, well ... solo? :D
 
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Now people are starting to see why there is no offline mode. It's hard enough to 'create a balanced solo experience'. Ultimately, Elite: Dangerous is going to be the game that everyone hates. <snicker>
 
Frontier can't even get the AI to navigate an asteroid field, and you think they're going to manage AI that can intuitively navigate tens of millions of unique terrain arrangements?

Pretty sure this is something Robotics experts have been striving for for decades, if anyone at Frontier can pull it off they've missed their calling.
 
making a path finding algorithm for a SRV is extremely hard, just look at the terrain.
Having skimmers solves a bunch of path finding issues, by essentially making them ignore terrain issues that the SRV's have.

This makes a lot of sense.
 
Frontier can't even get the AI to navigate an asteroid field, and you think they're going to manage AI that can intuitively navigate tens of millions of unique terrain arrangements?

Pretty sure this is something Robotics experts have been striving for for decades, if anyone at Frontier can pull it off they've missed their calling.
I must admit a real dislike towards statements like this, as if the solution is just 'easy' to do and that frontier is lazy/bad at what they do, if it is so easy why don't you create a quick little demo 3d program that shows it off?
 
NPC content has been getting thinner since launch, not deeper. I hope they do come later rather than never, but of the things that are still to come later pretty much most of them are still being waited for.

The skimmers are great, but NPC SRV's are an obvious omission at this stage and a disappointment. Perhaps with the current levels of AI it couldn't work, but really? fix the AI! I do not think NPC's driving around a base or from base to base should be above the bar level content, if it is you set the bar too low.

Im not necessarily referring to combat with NPC SRV's, though its got to be something that should be expected. Just actual signs of NPC life, as in a living breathing galaxy
 
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I must admit a real dislike towards statements like this, as if the solution is just 'easy' to do and that frontier is lazy/bad at what they do, if it is so easy why don't you create a quick little demo 3d program that shows it off?

I took Windscreen's comments to mean that it is, in fact, very hard and you cannot expect FD to handle it easily.
 
They didn't say there would be no NPCs on the surface, near bases or low flying, they just said no NPC SRVs.

Why do you lot not just wait and see or a least think a little bit about what was actually said (or avoided being talked about) before crying about things you have no idea are the way you think they'll be?
 
Seriously? No NPC crew? Can I get a source link on that please?

If I read correctly it was sarcasm, there are NPC wings and (afaik) multi-crew.

hmm, point missed, again :)
NPC content has been getting thinner since launch, not deeper. I hope they do come later rather than never, but of the things that are still to come later pretty much most of them are still be waited for.
The skimmers are great, but NPC SRV's are an obvious omission at this stage and a disappointment. Perhaps with the current levels of AI it couldn't work, but really? fix the AI! I do not think NPC#s driving around a base or from base to base should be above the bar level content, if it is you set the bar too low.

Arguably we met the point exactly, yes it would be nice but it isn't realistic with the level of variation on planets. To take your example you'd have to procedurally analyse where bases spawn, potential routes from each base, hazards, other objects, how they respond to accidents, how they respond to player ships and SRV's, how they do combat as well as a ton of other elements. The thrusters alone will be a significant amount of AI code as well as how they respond to differing planet surfaces (Grip etc) and planet gravity values.

It would be possible to do on individual planets mapping out where bases are etc but when you then apply it to millions of objects it becomes rather difficult and probably many months worth of work which could be spent doing many other things.

As Xdonk says:
If it is so easy why don't you create a quick little demo 3d program that shows it off?
With us setting the bar so low you should have no problem, I look forward to seeing it, should be awesome :)
 
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