Wishlist for NPC Crews, and NPC faction members

Will we be able to play as other races? Is so will this affect our starting relationships with those races?
I really hope so.

 

I've been through this.
They should be called Nexians

 

Good with all this. As much as I'd like to gather up Hudson, Drake, Vasquez and Spunkmeyer to take out the Abandoned mine; A) Don't really need the help, B) I don't want to bot-sit them in the field.
Having them add to the functionality and defense of your Base is rather another thing all together.
Looking forward to the devs implementation.

 

Ok since we are talking about aliens and alien factions, i got a question about a feature i whish EGS would have.
Will there be (semi*) random generated factions somewhen?
* maybe changing some parameters, like agressiveness, wealth, tech level, military power and so on.

As much as i have understood EGS will feature a massive Galaxy with countless star systems. Maybe there could be various Alien Civilizations which some are hostile and some friendly?
There could be a create-a-alien-civ construction kit - tool where you could assign various Blueprints to a civilization, set its general behavoir parameters (agressivness, Tech level and so on) like mentioned above, add a name and so on.
Those could be put on the steam workshop and used in every game (SP or server).

The Game could put those Civilizations on a random position on the (hopefully huge) galaxy map. According to their parameters, they could wage wars against each other or form alliances, each game could handle it a bit different. (maybe "just" add some little randomness to it)
Of course, they would need to be some physical representations for each alien species, but i guess some basic appearances (human/greys/saurian/monster and so on) would be more than enough for a start.

Ok maybe it's totally crazy i don't know, i just had to add this idea.

 

At some point in the game you always end up with like 1000 canned food, 500 pies, 100 burgers ... etc and you don't even harvest your crops anymore because you have enough food to sustain you for the rest of your life, and then some. Having to provide food for other "survivors"
will add a colony management aspect to the game.

Yes please ! players will create factions with a set of uniform and coherent blueprints to use, like bases, cities, outposts and ships that all have the same style, color scheme and architecture. So each faction will be immediately recognisable.

 

yeah, hadn't thought about that but it makes sense. Not sure how to implement it though . The only thing we have 'running costs' for are things like O2 and power so you'd need the equivalent 'foody' fuel tank for the NPCs to chomp through. Or you could have food in the hire cost so for 30 cans, 30 water and 500 gold you get yourself an NPC for 30 days.

lol, NPC degradation.

mmmm, actually... Yeah, ok... I'll be back in a minute...

 

Ok, found it

Almost exactly a year ago (just 6 days out) I started a suggestion thread for ration dispensers - https://empyriononline.com/threads/ration-dispensers-complete-the-base-survival-kit.8361/

The idea behind this was a food equivalent to the O2 station and medic station, where the player could walk up to it, activate it and have their food bar refilled. This made base survival even more comfortable and refilling food quicker while on the base. I like the idea of walking around a large base or CV with vending machines down every corridor for convenience.

A key part of this was having a 'food' fuel tank or fridge that the ration dispenser would draw from (like O2 tanks and fuel tanks). This also required us to make ration dispenser packs that would act as the specific fuel for the tanks.

...ang on a mo!

I think the ration dispenser idea still has merit but now this could also provide a source of 'fuel' for NPCs to draw on. This would give us a use for all the spare food and water we all seem to acquire and can't shift.

????

 

Well, i agree in theory, mostly with a). If they could do a 'good' implementation of npcs that actually functioned that'd be killer. But yeah, most of those games are AAA with large budgets to spend on ai programmers and the like. You're right, it's better to have something functional than something that just *doesn't* work at all.

On a related side note, i had an idea for the 'military' npcs - they could basically be treated as 'reskinned' anti-personnel turrets. So you go up to the guy with the gun, put in some assault rifle ammo, and he shoots anything that comes into range. He has the same (or less idk) hp as a player dropped anti-personnel turret. Heck, he could probably just use the ba/cv ammo boxes just like turrets do now, just drop the ammo in there and he'll use it as needed.

 

They could just draw food from your fridges, not sure why we need a special tank for food ?
Speaking about food, we need a cook NPC to work with the food processor.

I guess this would be for MP ? because in SP there won't be any AI invading your bases or ships so they would be pretty much useless, unless you put them on top of your base to shoot down drones.

 

I'd settle for more humans that look like they belong on a ship.

Doctors, Crewmen, Techs, more single and sitting humans, etc. More humans with voidsuits on.

 

Well you could put them on a facing of your base instead of a cannon turret. 2 soldiers guarding the entrance instead of turrets. Yeah i don't see great usability of them in single or multi player, but at least they would be 'functional'. From what i understand (and i could be wrong), my impression of npcs is that they're going to be placeables that 'do' things. Like +1% turret accuracy for each console operating npc, things of that nature. The guys in combat armour carrying a gun i just saw an immediate effect they could have that hopefully wouldn't require a lot of work to implement - just have them function like a reskinned sentry turret when placed.

 

The main problem I see with drawing food from the player fridge is food 'fuel' amount. If I have 10 cans and 10 milk in a fridge will I come back to find that all the cans have been eaten and just milk remains? Who said they could eat my cans first? Where can I specify what is for NPCs and what is for me? Does milk and cans have the same hunger satisfying qualities? Where can I check the current level of hunger satisfaction of the NPCs?

Even off food was drawn from a fridge it would need:
a) a specified product or food for NPCs
b) a visual 'food remaining' bar or something like we have for O2 and power.

 

Maybe there could a game mode without any story at all? Just create a Player character and do whatever you wish (pure sandbox). At least from my perspective this would be fun too.

 

I would love for the requirement for 1 crew npc per automated turret on a cv, if you don't look after your crew they wont fire their weapons when you need them.

For npc in general it would be great if zirax could build prefab base's and prefab Sv's / Cv's / Hv's and launch raiding parties, extra points if they use formations and tactics like kiting and getting close and orbiting to get under your guns, or breakaway tactics to retreat and fall back out of base range while they setup a forward base and do repairs while preparing for another attack (only while player is online).

 

A simple check box "Allow NPC's to access this container" would solve this problem, you could have your own personal fridge and prevent the AI from accessing it.

Didn't think about the variety of food and the different food values, besides some of the meals give health and stamina which AI has no use for.
I guess the "unified" food tank is indeed the way to go.

 

Due to the current inability to host multiple polls or change polls, I have created a thread for the new poll and I will update the OP to reflect the results of all on going polls keeping the results up to date there. This will make it easier to see the communities opinion on each individual poll. it would be nice to have a new forum section specifically for polling.

Anyways here is the link to the newest poll:

https://empyriononline.com/threads/poll-what-crew-npc-skill-should-be-the-primary-focus.31162/

 

Amen. -That's all I have to say-

I like the idea a whole ton.