No NPC SRV's - WTH?

[DustyArne]

The end vision of David Braben is that we can go hunting game on habbitle planets. I think, in time, it will all be alright.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Well other than the first time to see it for novelty sake this just saved me either time and or money for this "expansion" pack, no combat on planets(don't play on open), waste of my time.

hang on, just to be clear, there will be combat in solo, the SRVs may not be in solo, but the skimmers will be.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Because after FD lie about the offline mode, and give you a empty solo mode, they have no interest in keep it running or updated

This is nothing to do with solo mode (in the sense of open vs solo vs group). It is to do with playing as a lonewolf: i.e. playing by yourself, not with mates. FD are concentrating on pewpew with your mates, and largely ignoring the non-pewpew and lonewolf players. Explorers, since they tend to be non-pewpew AND lonewolf, are especially ignored.

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

hang on, just to be clear, there will be combat in solo, the SRVs may not be in solo, but the skimmers will be.

Yes the skimmers will be there in solo, at least no reason to think they won't be.

We know there won't be NPC SRV's but it also now seems there is a question over NPC ships too, as in ship to ship orbital/sub orbital/flying through canyons combat with NPC ships

 

[DustyArne]

Yes the skimmers will be there in solo, at least no reason to think they won't be.

We know there won't be NPC SRV's but it also now seems there is a question over NPC ships too, as in ship to ship orbital/sub orbital/flying through canyons combat with NPC ships

I'd play StarWars Battlefront for that. (Sarcastic joke)

 

[wstephenson]

Think back to Beta when there were no NPCs in supercruise or entering and leaving stations - just because there are no NPCs on release doesn't mean there will ever be any.

But I would be very happy if there were 'dumb' NPC surface vehicles performing limited applications - eg surface mining rigs that follow a predictable pattern mining minerals out of dust like in Moon, or base service vehicles that travel between 'tasks' on a base's campus. Since Frontier have the code to detect a surface area large and flat enough for ship to land on, so that could be used to identify larger flat zones to spawn dumb surface vehicles.

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

I feel its a shame and will lead to a empty feeling planets with the only people in the 'verse seemingly in the pilots federation. Was sort of expecting it though after no npc wing-mates and no npc multi-crew

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

hang on, just to be clear, there will be combat in solo, the SRVs may not be in solo, but the skimmers will be.

This is STILL nothing to do with solo mode. It is to do with playing by yourself, not with mates. As things stand at the moment, there will not be any NPC SRVs no matter what mode you are in, and no matter whether you are playing with mates or not. Similarly, there will be NPC skimmers in all modes, and whether you are playing with mates or not.

 

[Insomnia]

You have to understand that they probably want NPC SRVs in the game, but it is probably way too hard to actually do it.

 

[almostpilot]

This is nothing to do with solo mode (in the sense of open vs solo vs group). It is to do with playing as a lonewolf: i.e. playing by yourself, not with mates. FD are concentrating on pewpew with your mates, and largely ignoring the non-pewpew and lonewolf players. Explorers, since they tend to be non-pewpew AND lonewolf, are especially ignored.

True. I just quoted the solo mode, in order in this way be the direct replacement for the extinct offline. If there existed the promised offline mode, persistent NPC would be an obligation to the game. And because my english is not good
T

 

[jabokai]

You have to understand that they probably want NPC SRVs in the game, but it is probably way too hard to actually do it.

In the base video DB posted there is a lot of flat area around the base - probably some algorithm to choose where bases go, or shape the surrounding terrain to provide a flat area for a base. Either way, it should be possible to provide defensive NPC ground vehicles in these areas at least. Bit of variety and all that.

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

I thought it looked like it had been terraformed for base placement and also though it was perfectly well suited to, limited, SRV's being driven by AI NPC's to add much needed life.

 

[OamodSias]

You have to understand that they probably want NPC SRVs in the game, but it is probably way too hard to actually do it.

Indeed.

Designing a pathing system that could cater for an infinite number of procedurally generated surface layouts could be extremely difficult.
( I say could because I've never written even a rudimentary AI pathing system, let alone one that could cater for unknown variables on procedurally generated content. )

Then again, knowing what is possible through No Man's Sky does cast doubt on my position; in particular because each world in NMS is procedurally generated, as is the flora and fauna - with each life-form having its own pathing system for migratory and feeding/watering habits ( some animals will travel to a set of trees at night to sleep, and in the early hours of the morning will travel to a river for water ). So NMS, at least, shows us that AI pathing on a procedural interface is possible - it would then, I believe, boil down to the engine and how the underlying data and properties are utilised.

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

Im no coder so admit my ignorance; but surely it can't be that hard to program ground based npc path-finding, plenty of other games have ground and aerial npc to fight with rough terrain in the mix. Even Skyrim had ground and air based foes on all kinds of terrain.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Indeed.

Designing a pathing system that could cater for an infinite number of procedurally generation surface layouts could be extremely difficult.
( I say could because I've never written even a rudimentary AI pathing system, let alone one that could cater for unknown variables on procedurally generated content. )

Then again, known what is possible through No Man's Sky does case doubt on my position; in particular because each world in NMS is procedurally generated, as is the flora and fauna - with each life-form having its own pathing system for migratory and feeding/watering habits ( some animals will travel to a set of trees at night to sleep, and in the early hours of the morning will travel to a river for water ). So NMS, at least, shows us that AI pathing on a procedural interface is possible - it would then, I believe, boil down to the engine and how the underlying data and properties are utilised.

Whether the terrain is procedurally generated or not is a red herring. The terrain is what the terrain is. However, unlike having to build a robot on Earth that can drive anywhere, the AI does not have to determine what the terrain IS, because your client already knows the gory detail of that - it needs to to be able to render it. So the most difficult thing is already solved. Add to that that travel (as of now anyway) seems to just ignore small boulders, then the degree of difficulty goes down. I certainly do not accept that it is way too hard to do it.

What I do accept is that it is more expensive to do than FD are prepared to spend on it right now. And perhaps for much longer. Their focus is still new stuff (breadth not depth) to suck in new customers, and that new stuff be targeted at the pewpew with my mates audience.

 

[jabokai]

Im no coder so admit my ignorance; but surely it can't be that hard to program ground based npc path-finding, plenty of other games have ground and aerial npc to fight with rough terrain in the mix. Even Skyrim had ground and air based foes on all kinds of terrain.

Most conventional games probably have some sort of manual mapping overlay so that things know where they can/cannot/should go via an invisible "map" they have. e.g. you know you have a goat trail up a mountain so you mark it as such on the map editor, manually, for AI to use - they don't have to learn how to find/use it.

With all this being procedurally generated, you cannot do it that way. You'd have to rely purely on algorithms/AI. It's not impossible, just much more complicated. It should be fairly easy to mark boundaries around bases where you know they're flat though... so we could have ground vehicle AI there, IMHO.

 

[OamodSias]

Whether the terrain is procedurally generated or not is a red herring. The terrain is what the terrain is. However, unlike having to build a robot on Earth that can drive anywhere, the AI does not have to determine what the terrain IS, because your client already knows the gory detail of that - it needs to to be able to render it. So the most difficult thing is already solved. Add to that that travel (as of now anyway) seems to just ignore small boulders, then the degree of difficulty goes down. I certainly do not accept that it is way too hard to do it.

What I do accept is that it is more expensive to do than FD are prepared to spend on it right now. And perhaps for much longer. Their focus is still new stuff (breadth not depth) to suck in new customers, and that new stuff be targeted at the pewpew with my mates audience.

AI requires the use of path-finding algorithms in order to navigate designed or procedurally generated terrain, if one were to use an engine like Unity, for example, one could utilise a variety of different path-finding algorithms or adapt one for their use, but since FD created their own engine (Cobra) they'd have to write the path-finding manually and specifically for that engine and that I believe could take a fair amount of time.

Since we don't know why FD have decided to leave out NPC SRV's, my suggestion is as equally valid as yours. An equally valid suggestion could be that they have other plans for the SRV and NPC's, perhaps bases are controlled by AI - in which case an SRV is unnecessary.

I'm not saying it's the cause of their decision, I'm simply pointing out that it's a possibility.

- - - Updated - - -

Most conventional games probably have some sort of manual mapping overlay so that things know where they can/cannot/should go via an invisible "map" they have. e.g. you know you have a goat trail up a mountain so you mark it as such on the map editor, manually, for AI to use - they don't have to learn how to find/use it.

With all this being procedurally generated, you cannot do it that way. You'd have to rely purely on algorithms/AI. It's not impossible, just much more complicated. It should be fairly easy to mark boundaries around bases where you know they're flat though... so we could have ground vehicle AI there, IMHO.

Let's not forget that you have to write in redundancies just in-case some sadist little troll of a human player comes along and pushes the poor AI off the track and into the bushes.

Ie:
View attachment 71883

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

This is STILL nothing to do with solo mode. It is to do with playing by yourself, not with mates. As things stand at the moment, there will not be any NPC SRVs no matter what mode you are in, and no matter whether you are playing with mates or not. Similarly, there will be NPC skimmers in all modes, and whether you are playing with mates or not.

I know........

Not sure what you are getting at TBH. :/

The guy i was replying too was worried that because he does not play in open there would be no combat... I was just saying there will be in the form of skimmers
I am not defending FD on this, I am gutted at the lack of NPCs we can play with in general in ED, regardless of modes, and also think random SRVs both friendly, neutral and enemy is a big miss on FDs part.. I HOPE they come, but am less than confident they will (any time soon) due to us still not having Wings in space for the lone wolf with NPCs.

 

[Zelos1983]

Designing a pathing system that could cater for an infinite number of procedurally generated surface layouts could be extremely difficult.
( I say could because I've never written even a rudimentary AI pathing system, let alone one that could cater for unknown variables on procedurally generated content. )

You don't need a pathing system, you need a proper AI. It's not that hard, it has been done before.
The current difficulties lie mostly in mapping out the terrain - and since we are in a game, that is not an issue.

But yes, since FD seems to struggle with (rather easy) graphs and route calculations in the route plotter as well, maybe hire / outsource to some proper software designer.

 

[Eminor]

I suspect NPCs in SRVs will come at some point in the same season as Horizons.
People have suggested routing algorithms/AI, etc. as reasons for not including NPC SRVs on release.
Yes, possibly, but maybe it's that Horizons in itself is such a big upgrade, that they want to add NPC-SRV in later once the core Horizon functionality is known/proven to be solid.
It would also be a significant addition - they'll want to add some other big features during the year (i.e. like powerplay & wings were) - I reckon NPC-SRVs fits the bill here.

[Pure speculation of course ]