Forums » Suggestions
Thoughts on NPC combat
Rebalancing combat with NPC's
Major Goals
- Increase the intensity of combat without necessarily increasing difficulty
- Allow and even encourage mining in bot occupied sectors
- Make combat with bots more unpredictable
- Make combat in and arround stations more interesting.
- Provide a shallower skill curve
Suggested Changes
I Respawning (General)
1) All bots should require 10 minutes to respawn.
2) If a sectored is emptied of bots, no bots respawn for 10 minutes, after which time they all respawn together. This forces players to explore and makes treadmilling less repeative.
3) After a sector is emptied of bots, a new random set of bots is generated for the sector. (Suggested by CrazySpence)
II Aggressiveness (General)
1) There should be no limit to the number of bots which can become agressive.
2) Instead, Hive bots should not become aggressive unless players get within a small radius of them, and should cease to be aggressive if players move outside a larger radius.
Transports: aggressive 300m/ignore 600m
Collectors: aggressive 500m/ignore 1000m
Guardians: aggressive 600m/ignore 1200m
Assaults: aggressive 1000m/ignore 3000m
Observer: aggressive 1500m/ignore 3000m + trigger 'toughest' unassigned bot in sector to become aggressive (if the target doesn't have at least one bot already assigned to it).
Queens: aggressive 3000m/ignore 3000m + all Hive bots in sector become and remain aggressive while the Queen is threatened.
III Defence Bots
1) Defence bots should have high end equipment, but not equipment which is unavailable to PC's.
2) Double the numbers of defence bots which appear in sectors.
3) 2-4 defence bots should also appear in sectors with faction controlled wormholes.
4) Defence bots should evidence 'couriousity', assigning the nearest unassigned patrol member to investigate any ship which jumps into the sector. Courious defence bots move rapidly to 300m of thier assigned ship and escort new contacts for a few seconds, before becoming unassigned and returning to thier rounds. If the new contact is 'kill on sight', double the number of bots should be assigned to it. Ideally, players should be 'hailed' by the assigned defence bot when they jump into the sector and sent a short message which depends on how respected the player is by the faction in question.
IV Assault Bots
1) The hit points of Assault bots should be reduced by about 50%. Please note, this is not because I think Assault bots are difficult to fight, but because I think that they are tedious to fight and the above aggressive behavior is going to make them somewhat more dangerous.
2) The XP for Assault Bots should be reduced accordingly.
V Observer Bots
1) Should be relatively more common, and of a several types, with usually a couple in any sector that has hive bots.
2) Should have a new 'boom and zoom' combat behavior in which they attack targets with a high speed pass then move out to relatively large distance before turning about and trying another pass. Tests 'boom and zoom' combat scripting for use in other sorts of bots and provides new sort of challenge.
3) High end Observer Bots should be armed with a single rocket or missile launcher. Ammo equipped bots should keep track of ammo and warp out of sector temporarily to 'rearm'. Lower end observer bots need not be armed at all, but are dangerous merely because they can summon other bots to attack whatever they are shadowing.
4) If a sector contains only observer bots, when the observer bot 'summons help', a number of new hive bots will warp into the sector. The number and quality of these bots will depend on the level of the offending PC. For example, a relatively new player might trigger the summoning of a single Overseer, while a more experienced player might trigger the summoning of a pair of Assaults. (Suggested by CrazySpence)
V New Bot Types
1) Bulk Transport - Hive Bot using the Fenrus-18 or Oxia Guardian hull (brown, white, or grey coloration) but with lower agility, and weak weapons. Ultimately to be replaced by something even more sluggish but with true turrets.
2) Overseer - As per each Collector type, but with with Assualt style combat AI (dodgy) and aggressiveness. Usually,one per sector to introduce new players to tougher bots before they have to face Guardians.
3) Pirate - Usually Hornet mkIIIs armed with mixture of phase blaster mkIII's and heatseekers. Pirates tend to hang out in grey space near sectors with wormholes and in ion storms looking for traders.
4) Free trader - Free traders are mostly encountered in sectors with wormholes and stations. They are spawned along high demand trade routes and fly between stations delivering goods. They usually fly Centaurs with a mixture of locust swarms, advanced gatlings, and other quality equipment and usually have good cargo. They prefer to run than fight. They sometimes answer hails and provide helpful information about high demand cargo runs, the location of pirates, or the presence of Ion storms.
5) Defence Turrets - The old defence turrets near stations were cool. It would be nice to have them back.
VI Mining
1) Right now there is no reason to mine anywhere other than a station. Sectors with stations in them should be mostly 'depleted' of good ore, with about 60-80% of the remaining ore content being Silcon (for roids) or Aquaeus Ore (for ice crystals), and the rest distributed amongst the remaining 40-20% normally. With the changes in the respawn rate and bot aggressiveness, players should be able to mine in 'wild' sectors - especially as groups. By making the ore less attractive in station sectors, it forces players to get out more.
VII PvP
1) Players should never lose XP for killing a player (although they should never expect XP for killing a true n00b with less than about ~10,000 XP).
2) Players should expect to get more XP for killing player of thier level or higher than they recieve for killing a bot.
VIII Strike Forces
1) Strike Forces should have very high end PC equipment, but not something which is not available to them.
IX AI Improvement
1) The toughest sorts of bots (Pirates, Strike Forces, Defence Bots, and the tougher sorts of Assaults) should be taught to manuever to flank opponents. If one bot assigned to a target is facing its bow, then all other bots assigned to that target should be consistantly trying to move around so as to face a 'side' 90 degrees from the engaging bot.
2) It would be nice to experiment with bots which introduce a a very small ammount of randomness in the aiming so that certain 'dumb' evasive tactics aren't always effective against them. We have this to a certain extent with the flechettes, but the random angle is somewhat too large to be ideal.
X Infinite Turbo and related
1) The new ships allow you to have high speed engines that also consume low ammounts of turbo power. This is inherently unbalanced. All ships with max speed 180 or higher should consume some ammount of power to turbo.
Speed....Turbo Power Consumed
180............55
190-200........60
200+...........65
2) Your jump engine requires time to cool. You cannot jump within 30 seconds of completing a previous jump.
Major Goals
- Increase the intensity of combat without necessarily increasing difficulty
- Allow and even encourage mining in bot occupied sectors
- Make combat with bots more unpredictable
- Make combat in and arround stations more interesting.
- Provide a shallower skill curve
Suggested Changes
I Respawning (General)
1) All bots should require 10 minutes to respawn.
2) If a sectored is emptied of bots, no bots respawn for 10 minutes, after which time they all respawn together. This forces players to explore and makes treadmilling less repeative.
3) After a sector is emptied of bots, a new random set of bots is generated for the sector. (Suggested by CrazySpence)
II Aggressiveness (General)
1) There should be no limit to the number of bots which can become agressive.
2) Instead, Hive bots should not become aggressive unless players get within a small radius of them, and should cease to be aggressive if players move outside a larger radius.
Transports: aggressive 300m/ignore 600m
Collectors: aggressive 500m/ignore 1000m
Guardians: aggressive 600m/ignore 1200m
Assaults: aggressive 1000m/ignore 3000m
Observer: aggressive 1500m/ignore 3000m + trigger 'toughest' unassigned bot in sector to become aggressive (if the target doesn't have at least one bot already assigned to it).
Queens: aggressive 3000m/ignore 3000m + all Hive bots in sector become and remain aggressive while the Queen is threatened.
III Defence Bots
1) Defence bots should have high end equipment, but not equipment which is unavailable to PC's.
2) Double the numbers of defence bots which appear in sectors.
3) 2-4 defence bots should also appear in sectors with faction controlled wormholes.
4) Defence bots should evidence 'couriousity', assigning the nearest unassigned patrol member to investigate any ship which jumps into the sector. Courious defence bots move rapidly to 300m of thier assigned ship and escort new contacts for a few seconds, before becoming unassigned and returning to thier rounds. If the new contact is 'kill on sight', double the number of bots should be assigned to it. Ideally, players should be 'hailed' by the assigned defence bot when they jump into the sector and sent a short message which depends on how respected the player is by the faction in question.
IV Assault Bots
1) The hit points of Assault bots should be reduced by about 50%. Please note, this is not because I think Assault bots are difficult to fight, but because I think that they are tedious to fight and the above aggressive behavior is going to make them somewhat more dangerous.
2) The XP for Assault Bots should be reduced accordingly.
V Observer Bots
1) Should be relatively more common, and of a several types, with usually a couple in any sector that has hive bots.
2) Should have a new 'boom and zoom' combat behavior in which they attack targets with a high speed pass then move out to relatively large distance before turning about and trying another pass. Tests 'boom and zoom' combat scripting for use in other sorts of bots and provides new sort of challenge.
3) High end Observer Bots should be armed with a single rocket or missile launcher. Ammo equipped bots should keep track of ammo and warp out of sector temporarily to 'rearm'. Lower end observer bots need not be armed at all, but are dangerous merely because they can summon other bots to attack whatever they are shadowing.
4) If a sector contains only observer bots, when the observer bot 'summons help', a number of new hive bots will warp into the sector. The number and quality of these bots will depend on the level of the offending PC. For example, a relatively new player might trigger the summoning of a single Overseer, while a more experienced player might trigger the summoning of a pair of Assaults. (Suggested by CrazySpence)
V New Bot Types
1) Bulk Transport - Hive Bot using the Fenrus-18 or Oxia Guardian hull (brown, white, or grey coloration) but with lower agility, and weak weapons. Ultimately to be replaced by something even more sluggish but with true turrets.
2) Overseer - As per each Collector type, but with with Assualt style combat AI (dodgy) and aggressiveness. Usually,one per sector to introduce new players to tougher bots before they have to face Guardians.
3) Pirate - Usually Hornet mkIIIs armed with mixture of phase blaster mkIII's and heatseekers. Pirates tend to hang out in grey space near sectors with wormholes and in ion storms looking for traders.
4) Free trader - Free traders are mostly encountered in sectors with wormholes and stations. They are spawned along high demand trade routes and fly between stations delivering goods. They usually fly Centaurs with a mixture of locust swarms, advanced gatlings, and other quality equipment and usually have good cargo. They prefer to run than fight. They sometimes answer hails and provide helpful information about high demand cargo runs, the location of pirates, or the presence of Ion storms.
5) Defence Turrets - The old defence turrets near stations were cool. It would be nice to have them back.
VI Mining
1) Right now there is no reason to mine anywhere other than a station. Sectors with stations in them should be mostly 'depleted' of good ore, with about 60-80% of the remaining ore content being Silcon (for roids) or Aquaeus Ore (for ice crystals), and the rest distributed amongst the remaining 40-20% normally. With the changes in the respawn rate and bot aggressiveness, players should be able to mine in 'wild' sectors - especially as groups. By making the ore less attractive in station sectors, it forces players to get out more.
VII PvP
1) Players should never lose XP for killing a player (although they should never expect XP for killing a true n00b with less than about ~10,000 XP).
2) Players should expect to get more XP for killing player of thier level or higher than they recieve for killing a bot.
VIII Strike Forces
1) Strike Forces should have very high end PC equipment, but not something which is not available to them.
IX AI Improvement
1) The toughest sorts of bots (Pirates, Strike Forces, Defence Bots, and the tougher sorts of Assaults) should be taught to manuever to flank opponents. If one bot assigned to a target is facing its bow, then all other bots assigned to that target should be consistantly trying to move around so as to face a 'side' 90 degrees from the engaging bot.
2) It would be nice to experiment with bots which introduce a a very small ammount of randomness in the aiming so that certain 'dumb' evasive tactics aren't always effective against them. We have this to a certain extent with the flechettes, but the random angle is somewhat too large to be ideal.
X Infinite Turbo and related
1) The new ships allow you to have high speed engines that also consume low ammounts of turbo power. This is inherently unbalanced. All ships with max speed 180 or higher should consume some ammount of power to turbo.
Speed....Turbo Power Consumed
180............55
190-200........60
200+...........65
2) Your jump engine requires time to cool. You cannot jump within 30 seconds of completing a previous jump.
I don't think much more work should go into the Mining bots, the whole mining bots element is kinda week, both story wise, and game play wise. They serve as a good way to level up earlier on, but that is it.
Military NPS's is what should be created, and in great force. It may get more teams fighting at the border, if 30 NPS's are already in combat on the front lines. more players will join the fight. maybe a raid every once and a while by both sides into enemy territory (I think this is what you meant by "Assault Bots"). raids could be posted at bars in the sectors so players can join in when they begin.
Space Station Message Board Idea??? From NPC forces only (at first). Maybe a select few could post later on.
a consistent time for the universe would have to be accepted so players around the world could join in a raid if it happened at 19:00 PST.
Military NPS still WAY overshadow a need for advancements in Mining bots. As far as tweaking existing bots, Lets just get some more military bots before we start getting too nit picky about the existing ones..
The pirate Bot idea is pretty good too.
Military NPS's is what should be created, and in great force. It may get more teams fighting at the border, if 30 NPS's are already in combat on the front lines. more players will join the fight. maybe a raid every once and a while by both sides into enemy territory (I think this is what you meant by "Assault Bots"). raids could be posted at bars in the sectors so players can join in when they begin.
Space Station Message Board Idea??? From NPC forces only (at first). Maybe a select few could post later on.
a consistent time for the universe would have to be accepted so players around the world could join in a raid if it happened at 19:00 PST.
Military NPS still WAY overshadow a need for advancements in Mining bots. As far as tweaking existing bots, Lets just get some more military bots before we start getting too nit picky about the existing ones..
The pirate Bot idea is pretty good too.
I agree to all of the bot types elements in your post, but I think your turbo idea(along with most others' suggested solutions) is not adequate long term. It can work as a temporary balance fix, sure, but there are far, FAR better solutions which need to be implimented (not so)Soon(tm).
shock: The term you are looking for is I think 'NPC', meaning 'Non-Player Character'.
And I agree. And I've made detailed suggestions about that very thing.
But you have to understand what the intent of this post is. I'm not trying in a post like this to make very long term suggestions for what would be best. I'm trying to make suggestions which I think that can be handled in just a day or two (and in some cases using existing tools just a few hours) which would have profound impact on the playablity of the game. I'm trying to make suggestions which have the best payoff in terms of increased gameplay for time expended.
The sort of AI behaviors required of sophisticated military NPC's can be built up from the sorts of simple tools described in this post. It's a stepping stone to bigger and better things. So in no way does the need for more sophisticated military NPC's overshadow what I've described here, because the easiest way to get to what you want is what I've just described.
And I agree. And I've made detailed suggestions about that very thing.
But you have to understand what the intent of this post is. I'm not trying in a post like this to make very long term suggestions for what would be best. I'm trying to make suggestions which I think that can be handled in just a day or two (and in some cases using existing tools just a few hours) which would have profound impact on the playablity of the game. I'm trying to make suggestions which have the best payoff in terms of increased gameplay for time expended.
The sort of AI behaviors required of sophisticated military NPC's can be built up from the sorts of simple tools described in this post. It's a stepping stone to bigger and better things. So in no way does the need for more sophisticated military NPC's overshadow what I've described here, because the easiest way to get to what you want is what I've just described.
soltis: If you know what these far better solutions are, by all means say what they are.
Yes I did mean NPC, I had a fatal proofreading error.
No problem. I have those too.
I like some of those suggestions
on a side note, when a sector is emptied it should not neccessairily fill with the same bots again....
perhaps an observer bot should appear in empty sectors randomly and when a player is observed other bots should start to appear...sort of like an ambush sector, that'd be pretty cool
on a side note, when a sector is emptied it should not neccessairily fill with the same bots again....
perhaps an observer bot should appear in empty sectors randomly and when a player is observed other bots should start to appear...sort of like an ambush sector, that'd be pretty cool
CrazySpence: I like both of those suggestions, and unless you request otherwise I'm going to add them to the list above.
i think there are a LOT of knock effects from these suggestions that would unbalance the game as a whole.
Will build on this later.
Temp.
Will build on this later.
Temp.
I've outlined my ideas before, mostly in Spellcast's engine balance topic. Might hunt it down later.
I love the idea of the military NPC's and a battle every once in a while on the front lines, but that leaves one major problem: with what objective?
Most battles are fought
to gain territory: this can not be done nor is there a reason to in Vendetta
to destroy enemy output: stations can not be destroyed and supply is simulated
to gain experience: why not just bot for XP?
etc.
Until these a few more changes are made in Vendetta, the idea of Battles is worthless, however, I put in my vote (and I would stuff the ballot box if i could) for these changes to be made and actual inter-race combat implemented.
I like all of the listed suggestions, but still think more thought needs to be put into the Turbo matter.
Most battles are fought
to gain territory: this can not be done nor is there a reason to in Vendetta
to destroy enemy output: stations can not be destroyed and supply is simulated
to gain experience: why not just bot for XP?
etc.
Until these a few more changes are made in Vendetta, the idea of Battles is worthless, however, I put in my vote (and I would stuff the ballot box if i could) for these changes to be made and actual inter-race combat implemented.
I like all of the listed suggestions, but still think more thought needs to be put into the Turbo matter.
No problems here, glad to be of service
I think the suggestions would be a great short term fix and also a great place to start from for a more long term fix.
The idea of NPC wars is interesting, as to why there could be many reasons:
- A transport ship is attacked in enemy space, some bots rush in to defend it others to destroy.
- A secret meeting of politicians ends badly.
- A Serco(or Itani) patrol follows a "known criminal" back to Itani (or Serco) space to kill it causing more NPC to come in aid of the "hero" and a battle errupts.
- etc etc etc
The idea of NPC wars is interesting, as to why there could be many reasons:
- A transport ship is attacked in enemy space, some bots rush in to defend it others to destroy.
- A secret meeting of politicians ends badly.
- A Serco(or Itani) patrol follows a "known criminal" back to Itani (or Serco) space to kill it causing more NPC to come in aid of the "hero" and a battle errupts.
- etc etc etc
The mining bots would be cooler if they warped out to a queen as suggested in another thread to deliver their ore. then players could stalk the collector bots to discover the location of queens
they'd also be cooler if they actually used mining beams instead of just scanning to get ore
they'd also be cooler if they actually used mining beams instead of just scanning to get ore
One idea to work along with possible Military NPC's is to have a "No Man's Land" between Itani and Serco systems. Unfortunately this may be unacceptable, because the universe is pretty much set for now.
Regardless of feasibility at this point in VO development. a "No Man's Land" cold be a dead gray system. it could act as the Arena for major battles. At first lots of NPC's would help bolster the numbers, but hopefully enough players will want to get in on the action and regularly head to this system for combat.
Gaining ground / losing ground. It would be neat if the whole universe continually shifted under different rule. next time you get on. your Itani ship is now docked at a different station, because Serco controled the system. your ship simply fled while you were sleeping to rationalize the move.
This kind of Galactic conquest is nothing we will see for years, but Once again, if we have this one gray system between Serco and Itani Space, where Only here can sectors be taken. where some ground can be won and lost. Then we will have a reason for Military NPC'c, and also the Gaining/ loosing ground feature that so many others have wanted. at least in a small way. This is still a far off plan. and would require special stations that can be taken, and much work by the devs. however it would be cool in the long run.
Regardless of feasibility at this point in VO development. a "No Man's Land" cold be a dead gray system. it could act as the Arena for major battles. At first lots of NPC's would help bolster the numbers, but hopefully enough players will want to get in on the action and regularly head to this system for combat.
Gaining ground / losing ground. It would be neat if the whole universe continually shifted under different rule. next time you get on. your Itani ship is now docked at a different station, because Serco controled the system. your ship simply fled while you were sleeping to rationalize the move.
This kind of Galactic conquest is nothing we will see for years, but Once again, if we have this one gray system between Serco and Itani Space, where Only here can sectors be taken. where some ground can be won and lost. Then we will have a reason for Military NPC'c, and also the Gaining/ loosing ground feature that so many others have wanted. at least in a small way. This is still a far off plan. and would require special stations that can be taken, and much work by the devs. however it would be cool in the long run.
bump
Lots of good suggestions here.