Good features are without exception always good to have, but single player games are worthless without competent AI. Something that a lot of companies just don't seem to care about.
I realize you need to lay down the low-level infrastructure for the AI in order to continue on in development in such an AI dependent game, but there's also the risk of wasted efforts and time by investing in AI work that will need to end up being removed / re-written due to unforeseen issues later in development.
I don't think it's a risk. It's a certainty
Still, I feel like this latest revision is going to hold up for a while. A lot of the combat gameplay is in place, and the AI design should be able to accommodate the things that are coming up quite nicely.
Overdesigning early and wasting effort is one thing, taking a look at your existing and near-future needs and writing something that fits is quite another.
And I completely agree about the AI being critically important, of course.
There may be lots of things that could be added to this game but as it is it is very fun to play. If each step you take leaves you with a well-polished product you can ensure that it always makes a good impression on people. Missing features seems less detrimental than having shoddy functionality. (not that anything is shoddy about it now... )
Thanks for the compliment
The tricky part is not spending too much time polishing things that subsequently get changed. That's part of the price of having early playable releases, and imo the tradeoff of getting the game out there and having real feedback is more than worth it.
Even trickier is being able to trash things you've spent a lot of time on when that's the right decision... but I digress.
I was just worried about the prospect of chasing a single wing of interceptors around the map with what's left of my capitals and frigates, thanks for allaying my fears .
I can't wait to see how the ships react.
Nice update on the features page by the way.
Ahh, yeah, shouldn't have to worry - they would retreat from combat anyway. Glad you like the new features page!
By the way, I wrote up a new
blog post talking about the AI, and the collision avoidance algorithm in particular, if you guys are interested in checking it out. There's also a video with some in-game overlays that demonstrate how the AI sees things, featuring a Tempest avoiding a whole lot of LRM-delivered pain.