I've been kind of thinking a game like Elite could benefit from a type of rival system similar to the middle earth games. You run into someone, something happens, next time you run into them it builds on what happened before. (You help them, they help you. You attack them, they come back to attack you.) Maybe mid mission some guy you tried to kill a few days earlier shows up in his ship to try to kill you throwing off your whole mission. I think it's a good fit for this game given its nature and I like the way it's implemented in other games.
Relation System
- Thread starter Duel
- Start date
In Elite II old crew members you fired used to come back to try and murder you
I was thinking about that too, especially because right now NPC have 0 persistence, and in some occasion it's very immersion breaking.
For instance, during a cargo run mission, I get a message saying 3 assassins are after me. The first pops behind me on the radar; a deadly anaconda. I submit my an unengineered Python. We hurt each other pretty bad, and he flees with 5% hull. I go back in SC, and he pops again behind me right away, 100% hull, and I get one of the typical messages "Big haul like that, 'surprised you made it this far". Immersion breaking, not to mention a tad unfair.
I'd like it if the game would remember the status of the NPC (damaged and/or fled), so that at least it feels consistent : then he's either off the list of the potential threat for that mission, or he takes a little while to repair his ship, or he comes back right at you with his damaged ship (could be a variation depending on how bad the ship was damaged, and some properties of the character). I'd love it better if once the NPC flies away, he would be stored in the DB and sometimes he could be back at you, whether during another mission or just randomly, stating things like "I may have underestimated you last time, but this is not a mistake I will make again" (well, you get the idea ; I'm no Drew Wagar).
It would be just amazing if the relation with those characters could evolve, each time you let him/her escape ; like some would hate you to death and hire wingmen, some would somehow start to respect you and become missions / tips provider, etc.
But I guess that would generate quite a bunch of data to store for each player and persistant npcs in the DB.
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"Thought I recognized your ship. Been making a few changes since we last met. Now, about that repair bill..."
Cheers,
Drew.
"Thought I recognized your ship. Been making a few changes since we last met. Now, about that repair bill..."
Cheers,
Drew.
Yes - https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e5/a5/24/5d3b11e0fc0d98/US20160279522A1.pdf
However, "similar" in terms of patents has a specific legal meaning - you can't implement a nemesis system using the architecture described in that patent ... but you could implement one in a completely different way even if it gave similar end results.
Determining exactly what the boundaries of "completely different way" are would probably require the services of an expert lawyer, of course. Don't try this at home, etc.
exactly... and all the fees that come with it when WB decides to try and contest it regardless of how good your lawyer was.