The NPC's in Elite: Dangerous act like ASP!

amadeus1171

amadeus1171
Oi,

I'm tired of the repetitive, simple behaviors the NPC's display. And my SLF crew member grates on my nerves with the same few lines she repeats over and over. It's not getting old. It's been old, and for quite some time.

Why can't we have a professional come in to work on the AI? We have a Ph.D. working on the procedural generation. Why can't we have a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence come in and bring some life to this galaxy?

If the AI excels in novel behavior, so will the enjoyment of the game. Players would rather interact with NPC's that seem real rather than NPC's that constantly yell, "Give me X amount of cargo and this will all stop!", as his hull hovers a little above 1%. Ugh! You're almost dead! Why are you still demanding cargo?!

And the ground based controller yelling low terran warning *after* you impact the ground. Seriously?! You couldn't have said something before I lost 90% of my hull and squished a skimmer?

Oh, and the air traffic (space traffic?) controller yelling at me because my docking computer exceeded 100 m/s. Dude! I'm not even on the stick! Why are you blaming me?!

Yes, this game can use some good AI talent injected. Not only would they make the galaxy come alive, but would increase the overall joy of the game by making actual interactive NPC's. And giving the SLF crew some personality wouldn't hurt, either.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

What do you think?
 

Deleted member 38366

D
IMHO some of the Scripts and the NPC Archetypes they attempt to mimic could use some variation.
Same for all the possible Scenarios where Players are surrounded by NPCs.

For all I can tell, the basic Scenarios unfolding i.e. in a RES or any Conflict Zone still are the same ones we had during V1.x.

For example, a RES is a mere bird feeder with NPC Pirates spawning upto 13km away, run circles until a Player comes within approx. 7.5km Sensor Range and then they head into the "Suicide by Player" fire zone.
Wanted Sidewinders will happily scan a G5-Modded Chieftain or Corvette that just shredded a Wanted Anaconda belonging to the very same Faction.
Catchphrase : "What do you carry I wonder...".

From there on, it's basically like a record on repeat, with only the 3 major different spawn cycles (Small/Medium/Big Bounties) people often mode-hop to create so the run brings in some cash.

Anarchy Faction getting ticked off and start sending Wings of Hunter-Killers to deal with that "Problematic Player"? Not happening.
Miner at 5% Hull you just saved? Will happily return to continue Mining instead of dropping a short "Thanks mate!" and then egressing.
Tiny Pirate NPC fish seeing you shred through same-Faction big game Ships? They'll still come and scan you for Cargo, as if what's clearly a Bounty Hunter would carry some.

Obviously some feeder is needed to fulfill the mechanical and functional side of things, but some variation, some common sense by NPCs and some surprises IMHO would do wonders.
Otherwise the record indeed gets very very old, fast. But the lack of surprises and unpredictable events is an old issue, leading to an often very mechanical gameplay.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
amadeus1171 said:
Why can't we have a professional come in to work on the AI? We have a Ph.D. working on the procedural generation. Why can't we have a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence come in and bring some life to this galaxy?
Click to expand...

Because then they'd kick your butt and you'd complain.
 
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Stealthie

Stealthie
amadeus1171 said:
No, no, no; I'm not taking about super, murderous, cheating NPC, I'm talking about giving the NPC's personality, and the ability for miners to not go back mining @1% hull, and such.
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I actually started to type out a long-winded reply full of wishful thinking about how NPCs could be improved (and they certainly could be improved) but I decided it wasn't worth it in the end.

Simple fact is, in a game like ED it's probably not worth the effort of giving NPCs interesting AI.
You meet up with them, there's a confrontation and then there's an explosion - either them or you.

If they make NPCs "more interesting" without actually making them harder to kill, that's a lot of effort for no real return (other than players going "Oooh! Cool!" once in a while).
If they make them smarter in a way that does make them harder to kill, that's going to mean the game needs re-balancing.

Both of those options are probably way down at the bottom of somebody's "Stuff we might think about doing when there's nothing else to work on" list.
 

Troz

Troz
I've wondered about this a few times. Sure, some of the things the OP asks for would take a bit of effort, but for goodness' sake, how hard can it be to add a few more voice scripts for the SLF pilots?
 

znôrt

znôrt
amadeus1171 said:
Why can't we have a professional come in to work on the AI?
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probably because any of the impressive advances we have seen in ai in the last decade would require quite a hefty computer for each npc alone, and i don't think you have that at home.

npc are just scripted bots, in any game, and don't expect much else in the near future.
 

Vasious

Vasious
We did
It was 2.1
People complained and had support wind back their combat ranks so they didn't have to encounter it.

It isn't that it cannot be done, some of the high ranking NPCs in 2.1 offered great dog fights, those were the best PvE fights

But




So easier AI that die in droves with massive bounties that rarely do hull damage to you are the chosen path as people want easy combat that pays lots of CR and has not cost for repairs.
 
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Darty

Darty
The npcs in this game could really do with some basic risk/reward decision making (they seem to have some, but it is so basic it might as well not be there).

I'm talking real basic stuff, like creating a threat value for a target ship (player and other npcs) based off of its type, loadout, and combat rank. It doesn't have to be too complicated, even just 1 point per every combat weapon, multiplied by a value for the ship (two weapons on a sidewinder mean less than 2 weapons on a viper) and then multiplied again by a value based off of the combat rating of the pilot. The npc could then do the same for themselves. That would give the AI a reasonable way to compute a "risk ratio" based off of the ratio of their threat level compared to the target's.

To calculate potential reward, you would give npcs a target credit value that they compare what they could get from pirating/bounty hunting their target to. How exactly you would handle calculating a reward factor is beyond the scope of this post, but it could be a simple ratio of reward/target reward, or the logarithm of that ratio, or any number of other functions. However you do it, you could then compare this reward factor with the risk factor. If the reward factor is larger than the risk factor, the npc would engage the target. However, if the reward factor was below the risk factor, the npc would not engage. Moreover, you could add a few sanity check, like if the risk factor is greater than 2 or the reward factor is less than 2 the npc will not engage no matter what, with the idea being that a sidewinder would never try to pirate a fully armed anaconda, and likewise an anaconda would not bother pirating a sidewinder carrying biowaste.

This may sound complicated, but in essence all it is doing is adding and multiplying a few values and then doing basic if statements. It would be nowhere near as complicated as the npcs current combat flight AI is.

That would only scratch the surface of the issues npcs have, but it would make them feel a lot less gamey and a lot more real.
 
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Quantis Trap

Quantis Trap
I'd just like them to get rid of the INTERCOM message which broadcast all throughout a system saying "I'm not sure I can go through with the wedding...", "Three cheers for the happy family.", "This is your captain. I'd like to direct your attention to the flight attendant for a brief safety demonstration.", "And don't forget, this cruise ship is in the top 1% of all of them out there.", ...

When you get in you car, so you hear intercom message from plains flying over head ... much less things across the solar system?

Disney should hire the idiot who thought of those messages up to write the next Starwars screen play ... just for consistency sake!
 
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Darty

Darty
CMDR QUANTIS TRAP said:
I'd just like them to get rid of the INTERCOM message which broadcast all throughout a system saying "I'm not sure I can go through with the wedding...", "Three cheers for the happy family.", "This is you captain. I'd like to direct your attention to the flight attendant for a brief safety demonstration.", "And don't forget, this cruise ship is in the top 1% of all of them out there.", ...

When you get in you car, so you hear intercom message from plains flying over head ... much less things across the solar system?

Disney should hire the idiot who thought of those messages up to write the next Starwars screen play!
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My favorite is when npc bounty hunters direct message you "Reporting into HQ... Target acquired" or something along those lines.

Then again I've done similar so who am I to complain? Of course my "target" disappeared 15 seconds later so maybe if you say it just the right way it acts as a magic spell and the npcs are trying to figure out the right words.
 

GammaZ

G
znôrt said:
probably because any of the impressive advances we have seen in ai in the last decade would require quite a hefty computer for each npc alone, and i don't think you have that at home.

npc are just scripted bots, in any game, and don't expect much else in the near future.
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Thing is, creatively using limited resources available makes all the difference. True AI, which still does not exists and nobody knows if it ever will, is not needed here. More diverse and believable scripts will help a lot though.
As an example - i am still fascinated by how X games are made. How they managed to create something that looks and feels alive, with actually working economy which you can influence, NPC-s which interact with player in much more ways than just "shoot&die" and such. And all this running on average 10 year old home PC. And it is not small either, X3TC map, as example, feels similar to ED "bubble" in terms of gameplay/travel time (sure ED bubble has like 10x 100x or whatever more systems, but most of them are either empty or completely unremarkable). When you look under the hood there is whole bunch of simplifications, workarounds and things that work less then ideal, but... somehow as whole it is still miles ahead of ED in terms of creating believable dynamic surroundings for player to interact with.
And for that matter NPC-s feel much more "alive" there, they can eject, they can try to run, or fight till the end... they are still the same scripted bots, just with bigger variety of scripts which make more sense than those we have in ED.
 
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amadeus1171

amadeus1171
GammaZ said:
Thing is, creatively using limited resources available makes all the difference. True AI, which still does not exists and nobody knows if it ever will, is not needed here. More diverse and believable scripts will help a lot though.
As an example - i am still fascinated by how X games are made. How they managed to create something that looks and feels alive, with actually working economy which you can influence, NPC-s which interact with player in much more ways than just "shoot&die" and such. And all this running on average 10 year old home PC. And it is not small either, X3TC map, as example, feels similar to ED "bubble" in terms of gameplay/travel time (sure ED bubble has like 10x 100x or whatever more systems, but most of them are either empty or completely unremarkable). When you look under the hood there is whole bunch of simplifications, workarounds and things that work less then ideal, but... somehow as whole it is still miles ahead of ED in terms of creating believable dynamic surroundings for player to interact with.
And for that matter NPC-s feel much more "alive" there, they can eject, they can try to run, or fight till the end... they are still the same scripted bots, just with bigger variety of scripts which make more sense than those we have in ED.
Click to expand...
I'm working on it. And I'm almost there. I've solved most of the big hurdles. I'm worried contemporary technology can't support it, though. There's a reason why we have 100 billion brain cells, and about 1000 interconnections for each cell. That's a lot of processing power.
 
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