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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?  (Read 8538 times)

Dri

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What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« on: September 13, 2016, 08:36:13 PM »

Are we going to be able to create small AI trade fleets to sell the goods our outposts produce for us? Security detachments that we can create to automatically patrol between our outposts and protect them? Supporting attack fleets to follow our own main fleet so that the whole 'expanded battle' thing isn't largely to the enemy's advantage?

Could we get a definitive answer as to whether or not Starsector is a one (player controlled) fleet only affair or will it be possible to create separate, but player owned, fleets controlled by the AI? This is a pretty major feature (and possible selling point to some) and I'd like to think that Starsector's development is far enough along that an answer can be given.

 
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Alex

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2016, 08:38:46 PM »

:-X

(Edit: with apologies.)
« Last Edit: September 13, 2016, 08:42:38 PM by Alex »
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Dri

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2016, 08:53:07 PM »

I cri evrytiem. :'(

(Still too early to discuss, eh? Le sigh...)

I'm for it. Especially if the sector is going to end up being 50+ systems when all is said and done—that is simply too much real estate to manage as one single fleet...
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Gothars

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2016, 02:58:59 AM »

I cri evrytiem. :'(

Hey, he didn't say no :)

Mh, and also not "not sure at this time" or "depending on...". Mhhh. Candidate for "redacted" upcoming feature found?  8)
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

Deshara

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2016, 09:30:25 AM »

Whenever you get to it alex, please somehow include the dog from Torchlight 2
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Quote from: Deshara
I cant be blamed for what I said 5 minutes ago. I was a different person back then

Cik

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2016, 09:47:00 AM »

add dinosaurs to this game

it's two zero one six guys come on no dinosaurs what the heck come on terrible game
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Nick XR

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2016, 10:04:17 AM »

Since there are spaceships in this game, be sure to include all the worst parts of X:Rebirth.

The X series has some decent factory chaining, automation and ship management. If you don't mind a management interface that truly hates the user in the way someone can only understand if they believe in the physical manifestation of the devil.

Alex

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2016, 10:06:22 AM »

The X series has some decent factory chaining, automation and ship management. If you don't mind a management interface that truly hates the user in the way someone can only understand if they believe in the physical manifestation of the devil.

So.... 8/10?

Sorry, couldn't resist.
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BHunterSEAL

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2016, 04:50:54 PM »

I am most successful playing X games when I set up a few tradeships, crank SATA to 6x (any higher and AI ships throw themselves into stations) and go to bed. Assuming at least one or two traders lived through the night, I should finally have enough credits to be able to afford a ship that lasts more than a few seconds in combat.

The fact that "go to bed" is a critical step here should have been a red flag three or four iterations of the series ago.
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Cik

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2016, 04:53:44 PM »

to be fair to X (at least AP) you're doing it wrong

you can earn far more in a much shorter time by killing things, bootstrap a massive trade empire and then make enough money in real time to operate several combat ships on forever, eventually scaling up to a sector power if desired.
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Nick XR

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2016, 09:05:53 PM »

I consider capping ships and space combat in X, then I remember it's not Freespace 2 and I just can't do it (if you haven't played FS2 there's an open source version that's good).  I don't know why I played X2 and X3 for almost 200 hours if I hate the core mechanics.  Probably some masochistic OCD or something.

adecoy95

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2016, 09:17:32 PM »

I consider capping ships and space combat in X, then I remember it's not Freespace 2 and I just can't do it (if you haven't played FS2 there's an open source version that's good).  I don't know why I played X2 and X3 for almost 200 hours if I hate the core mechanics.  Probably some masochistic OCD or something.

i had the same issue with x3, i played a lot of it, trying to like it, but never truly felt happy with the game
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ErKeL

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2016, 06:16:40 PM »

I loved X3 but damn that game was a mess. I burned out on the Hub plot. My computer would freeze just trying to get into the sector I had the majority of my production at and it was still wasn't everything I needed to complete that awful quest.

One thing I like about this game is that I actually appreciate how cautious your ships are. In the X series I'd lose ships 24/7 until I gave up and went back to piloting everything myself.

Being able to control other fleets would be pretty tight and would fit great with colony/station management or something.
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PCCL

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #13 on: September 17, 2016, 04:54:12 PM »

As far as this goes, I see this game fall into the same pit of despair X has (in my opinion) fell into. That there's little use for AI fleets as anything more than cannon fodder since they're just too damn incompetent compared to your main fleet.

A properly built player fleet can destroy fleets up to 2-3x its size (conservatively speaking) without losing a ship. This puts the developer at an impasse where they must choose one of the following:

-Scale the player owned AI controlled fleets based on player power: Extremely difficult to do considering players' different skill levels and makes the game too easy if you can make every single 2 destroyer (or so) fleets take down hege detachments

-Scale the player owned AI controlled fleets based on AI power: Easy and seems intuitive, but again, the pitfall happens where the player has to somehow justify using a fleet that rivals a hege detachment in size to defeat it and risking casualties when they can very well solo the damn thing.
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mmm.... tartiflette

Harmful Mechanic

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Re: What's the plan for player owned but AI controlled fleets?
« Reply #14 on: September 17, 2016, 05:35:48 PM »

I would settle for being able to save and load fleet configurations (using either a 'warning X missing' or best-fit substitution system) since right now dismantling and reconstituting fleets is so laborious. Why drag every ship you might need around with you when you could quickly swap your Bounty fleet for your Smuggling fleet?

I can think of a whole mess of options involving player-owned AI fleets; command-shuttling between fleets, ordering fleets to follow your fleet or follow a target fleet (also; it would be nice to have a command to match speed with a fleet to shadow it), splitting fleets, etc. that may or may not be viable for the existing game. All of that crap would be nice to have, any of it might reasonably be too much work or not fun. On an abstract level, I'd love to have AI fleets to perform some tedious tasks for me (like retrieving weapons or cargo from storage and bringing them to me, or to a nearby port where I have storage space, or guarding my base of operations), but heavy fighting is too much fun to let the AI do for me.
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