The problem is fuel of any kind is effortless in any scenario. I can pump out 30 can goods without trying. One Pentaxid asteroid does me for many jumps, etc...... Fuel is a lousy limiter. It is a novel concept but you will still have ships that utilize beneficial NPCs in stacks behind layers of combat steel, no door, and may be a regulator if need be. That is another point. Beneficial NPCs are bad. If you have a cook than you don't need any food on your ship. Shut the power off log out and forget they exist until your hungry, hit the rare gold asteroid once a month and your good. Mechanics, Science all novel yet potentially exploitable ideas. You will end up with stacked cubicals of useless rendering space that no one bothers to see. I have to agree with several other players, At most NPCs should be clumsy Combat support, off line defenses, or just cosmetics. I dont like an empty ship any more than the next guy but if they were just cosmetic or purchasable combat companion than I would have only as many as I was comfortable with. One or two on the bridge, may be the same in engineering. Perhaps a sniper drown spanner as a combat companion. This would actually create value for gold. I certainly dont want my small ship designs suffering due to the lack of NPC spawners. And I have played scenarios where there were no admin buildings to recruit from. If you have to find the crew man you could be creating another game divide much like the unrestricted gun servers vs the standard.
Each npc will require necessities to survive, which means food and credits. There is no getting around that. Powering down the ship is not a viable option if you have growplots which will be the only way to feed your crewmembers. I would have a rebuild of the fridge and have food spoil at a slower rate, but still spoil. Food lasts a week or two in a fridge in real life, so why can I store tomatoes in fridges for the rest of eternity. I'm guessing this has something to do with data storage. As far as energy goes, most systems should be running on solar and alternative energy sources hopefully by this summer when the Devs can finish the features. I read somewhere a while back where Hummel said they were working on the feature. Do we really care if you can do all these tasks easily? The point is that these will probably be late game issues. By the late game, you shouldn't be still in the survival mindset. Your resources SHOULD be much more manageable. Things that are "potentially exploitable" shouldn't be scrapped just because some other game developer couldn't figure out how to balance features. This is new uncharted territory for us, but I'm sure the Devs have it covered. I want to see employment options for NPCs and I'm not the only one. I don't care about the implications of this action. I just want to walk around my bases and ships and watch NPCs handle the workload. People don't have to use the feature and I hate that PvP'ers are trying to kill features like these for single players and PVE. I will probably have a very large crew like @banksman45 or @rucky in the future, so my game will move to managing my empire and exploring the galaxy. I don't care if I ever have to survive again in the game. I would rather explore, have adventures, learn the lore, hang out with my friends, build and enjoy the npc faction gameplay. PvP is an on going problem child that is dragging down the game like @Captain Jack II mentioned recently. Everything they want nerfs PvE and Singleplayer. I just want to have fun in the game. Sure I like challenges, but I'm not a good candidate for endless grinding.
Simple reason is: if we ever want to balance NPC use, we have to introduce certain mechanics where this can be based on. These are: - Food - Quarters - Money It is very likely, "food" needs a "tank mechanic" because the game needs to work with "values" and not items. If food is easy to obtain or not, is not relevant at that point as i suspect the whole "food system" is subject to be changed in the future to some extend. And: Food is very likely to be only ONE of the balancing pivot points... ;-)
I don't know how this is supposed to work in SP, but the salary thing should be some kind of an option. I know ppl are talking about developing economies and commerce and other trappings of civilization, and that's great. But this is still a survival game (so far), and somehow, I don't think of my NPC crew as employees. They would be fellow survivors making our way thru the galaxy to wherever we're supposed to ultimately be headed. I would feed them, equip them, even kiss their boo-boo's and make them all better. If they were in incarcerated, I would pay their bail (maybe), but a salary? I don't think so.
That's why I suggested the idea of other crew members of the Titan that would have survived, you'd have to find the Titan, wake them up from their cryosleep and they'd join you to continue the journey to Empyrion. But there will only be a few of them, and if you want more you'll have to hire some of the locals. But yet again I don't know how this would work in MP, because the first player to enter the playfield will win the prize, maybe something like the personal container ?
I like the "cryo-sleep" idea! All of the chambers damaged but for 1 or 2. Great! That, or as I had mentioned somewhere here, you happen upon another escape pod, or have a survivor or two in the "survivor camp" that I found on Akua in a game that I recently started. As to it's effect on MP, it shouldn't be an issue. I'm sure the sense of fair play and courtesy is the foundation of the MP community. I'm kidding, of course.
I'd like to see the return of the female security guards. They were available on day 1 of the NPC crew release, but were removed the next day.
I haven't been around for a few days, but I'm glad to see this thread is still lively. I will introduce another tonight with a link posted to this thread. One hint on what I've been doing this week: If you could pry me away for a week from the NPC debate, you gotta have a pretty interesting feature in mind. Just wait and see what is coming soon. I am sure you will enjoy it!
I have to disagree. Spelling this out as others have been confused on different threads. SP = Single Players (Survival or Creative Mode) MP = Multi Players (Servers) There is currently a false narrative that MP is controlling SP when that is simply not true. The bulk of players are playing on PVP servers but the majority of them do not PVP. They Coop, and it is not fair that they are associated with PVPers when the narrative is negative or SP-PVErs when the narrative is positive. They are multi players, whether they associate with other people on a server or not. Restriction and regulations are not put in place because of PVP but rather to restrict game exploits despite play style. The difference is that MP notes and reports these exploits to maintain fairness while the SP community rarely does. SP also stands on a slippery slop in regard to complaining about these restriction in that they have the option of council commands where MP usually do not. If you introduce me to someone who has never double harvested a collectable I will introduce you to someone new to the game. The fact is we all see game exploits. We all have the choice to utilize them or play the game as intended, and it is not MPs fault that preventative measures are put in place to ensure that all players experience the game as intended. Any system should be fair to all plays styles not just SP, MP, or even PVP. I would not want a MP feature ruining the game play for anyone, any more than an SP feature doing the same for MP. Twisting the narrative from balancing the game to ensure that players actually play the game fairly, into a false narrative of occupation by the MP forcing their will upon SP is broken. I enjoy PVE, I tinker around with SP, I will PVP if provoked, but I don't consider myself limited to one play style. Balance will never be arbitrary, and not caring how something will effect the game as a whole, is an unacceptable perceptive for any player, regardless of style.
Hey I just wanted to let y'all know I have finally posted the new poll. I am curious to know what y'all think. https://empyriononline.com/threads/which-way-should-devs-implement-npc-command-movement.32740/
Link to his thread = https://empyriononline.com/threads/which-way-should-devs-implement-npc-command-movement.32740/
Oh, the false narrative about the false narrative again, cut the BS already, will You... As I said before... Plus, console commands, and the admin's ability to turn off restrictions are two completely different things, there's no console command for this... Also, I don't want to substitute singleplayer for consolecommandplayer... Well, let me introduce myself, now introduce me to someone new to the game... If You're interested, I can also introduce You to someone who has never used a single autominer... On the other hand, I would like to be introduced to a video of this ammo drain exploit I keep hearing about, so I can see how fast our drone that dies by a spit can drain the ammo of a fully stocked base... The fact is, I don't give a **** about them, and I dont need somebody else to cripple me because of something in my game that's none of his business... As You can see above I can restrain myself as much as I like, and I don't need a nanny... I'd exchange somebody else's ballancing BS, that has nothing to do with me, for my freedom to do whatever I want any time, any day... Of course MP admins can have whatever BS they like, I can't care less... No, it's not necessary... If I want the same experience as PvP, I'll just play PvP... So, how we're gonna achieve this, given the current way of forcing the same BS on everybody does't? Dedi.yaml equivalent for SP, so we can finally ballance our own games to our own liking, and stop sticking our noses in each other's modes... On top of all, every block and device has a ton of specs and values, that can be used to achieve some ballance more naturally, and not by some artificial, and in most cases, completely illogical restriction...
Except that you are discriminating every form of "balance" (that you do not like) as MP propagated. You are creating a false narrative and blanket assigning blame on the majority of the community. All to suggest that it is some how wrong for players to inform or report game braking issues and the Devs taking measures to resolve those issues. If you are so admit that the Devs are doing it wrong then down load the Dev kit and write a game however you choose. The kit is currently on sale. Empyrion is MMORPG as well as a single played space sim. There are games that are interdependently solo player and those that are independently multi-player, but for those game that bridge the gap and do both, the rules should be balanced for both. The number of SP or even Coop Mps that were effected when Halo lowered the firing rate of the DMRs to account for multi players superiority was so underwhelming it was ridiculous. Regardless they wasted massive amounts of money in a publicity campagin before the modification do to alarmist. The SP community did not commit on the change there after and sales went up. I play SP, the balance and restriction in Empyrion do not tie my hands or depreciate the experience, because it does not create an overwhelming challenge increase nor does it allow me to power through or by pass game features. Sure I would like to see CVs fire all weapons when on a planet play field and I find it broken to limit turrets instead of rate of fire to maintain balance but I would rather their be balance than exploit-ability in SP. @ion_storm I have to call your stance out as BS that opposes your avatar image. You are obviously not new either, but it seems clear that your narrative drives your supporting evidence not the other way around.
A singleplayer attacking a POI and seeing his capacity reduced does not have buddies to help him. Thinking that the developers did not realize that the weapons were unbalanced to such an extent that it rendered singleplayer unfair for the poor AI is a bit far fetched. No singleplayer ask for an urgent change to the factory, which was thrown in half-baked. This element alone is a very obvious example that many changes are made from PvP pressure and critics. No singleplayer complained that he could attack a POI with turrets, and once again I don't believe the developers were not aware that players could attack POIs with CVs when they first implemented them in the game. At some point, the PvP players started complaining that the bases were "unable to defend themselves" and changes were made to alleviate this. Did you see singleplayers complaining about this ? And now have a look at some of the stupid reviews on Steam. In one of the most recent negative, you will see a player stating he has 27 hours in Empyrion, with 3 hours in singleplayer, which he finds OK. The problem in his view is the multiplayer, and he goes on a wall of text rant against MP. Do you see how subtle it is ? SP is perfect after only 3 hours of play ? This is nonsense, but still anyone can read the forums and see it. MP / PvP want to play, not to test, and they are the least willing to accept the game is in alpha.
I think you both have valid points. MP/PVP are more likely to report 'game-breaking bugs', as it's in their best interests to promote 'balance', especially in a pvp game. But at the same time, MP/PVP seem to me to have received a disproportionate amount of attention to what should be considered (imo) an as-yet unplayable game. I remember turrets before the cap - in pvp against enemy players, the damn things didn't fire at all (mine or theirs). Wasn't a problem in single player, but it was single player that got hit by the 'fix'. The game is still in alpha, unless the problem makes the game close to totally unplayable, it shouldn't be a priority to fix. Add it to the list. Beta is fixing and balancing. We're testing a game-to-be, not playing a finished product. If you enjoy playing a buggy, unfinished game - good for you. If you don't, you probably should wait for it to be released. Which is a danger of early access, it generates money up front for the developers but most people seem to go into it expecting a fully-functioning game to play (at a discount). I won't go into the problems with 'development hell', but when did this game hit EA? 2015? And we're now voting on the alpha development that'll happen in 2018.
Except that the "ballances" (that I, and others don't like) were indeed pushed by MPs... "the majority of the community" is another aspect of Your narrative, that had been established already to be false... Well, I want everybody to shape their game the way they like it, You seem OK with the same BS forced on everybody... I'll let others decide which stance is BS...
Quite the contrary. If you assume MPs are not negatively effected by retroactive balance issues, then you assume a lot with no ground to support your assumption. This is why it is important to flesh things out before implementation and seek balance to avoid retroactive masseurs. Regardless Balance is not the Evil Magic Wand of MP. Also Devs are human, it is not wrong for Devs to seek balance when restricting exploration of their game, however they do often establish nonsensical, retroactive mechanics as a result of being crunched by time. The defining aspect of a good development team is one that returns to any given "patch job" on the list and finds a better way to address the mechanic before adding new issues to the list. When they do not, it is not the MPs fault for reporting the exploit in the first place. That is like blaming a symptom for a cause. I respect perspective but this is both a SP and MP game. If you can accept what a game is than you should not play that game. There are a lot of game out there with bridged mechanic that I do not care for, but I accept these conditions in the same way I accept that difference between Early Access and Full Release, Turn based and Real Time, RPG vs Skill, Etc..... As a gaming community at large, you as well as "We All" should base our perspectives on what a game is. More importantly, instead of placing blame and being part of the problem, help offer solutions that help all parties. True Compromise means everyone leaves the table unhappy but satisfied.
Well the compromise is quite simple : all players should push for all main features to be made, and balance will come afterwards. Other than this, each new feature will upset balance, and constant adjustments will just delay other features. The arguments are simple in fact, because we are told regularly that "alpha is for feature implementation, not for tweaks and balance" and if we hold this true then it can't become a part-time excuse to favor MP over SP or vice versa. It looks good in reviews and on Steam to see "the devs push updates soooo frequently it's amaaaazing!!" but if you look at it closely they are often running in circles while not really making the main features appear properly in game. Economy ? Better physics ? More intelligent NPCs ? Do you agree that many things were done and removed / nerfed back / restricted at a later point ? Were these changes mandatory because not doing them would have prevented an upcoming feature from working well ?
I really like the idea that you'll need quarters, toilets and food before you can hire NPCs! Perhaps this tank idea will just be an NPC-fridge. It makes sense when you consider the amount of empty fridges you see everywhere... It would be nice that they had a purpose.
I just want NPC crew to be able to move from A to b or some variation there-of, like patrol from one point to another. nothing more. They look like manquins with carrots up their... when they stand still like that.
