Ship AI / NPC's

Allot of people have been asking about Ship AI's / NPC companion's. Seeing as this is something we have yet to implement, we would really like some feedback on what people are really looking for in a Ship AI companion, whether you DO or DON'T want it and why.

It's an obvious fact that you can walk around your ship whilst it's in flight. That's awesome. Not so awesome for A.I and bot pathing. I have a few ideas in mind in terms of how I could do an A.I / NPC companion without the worry of bot pathing. But I really want to get some insight into what people are after.

Let me know!

Personally I wouldn't mind the ship to be AI free, without knowing much about what it should do, it seems like a lot more work than it's worth. I may be wrong though =)

But for pathfinding onboard moving ships, can't it be done with unity pro's nav mesh system?

I just tested out Aaron Berg's a* project for unity, but I wasn't able to produce anything.

That said, if you want boarding as part of the gameplay some sort of navigation will have to be done
(unless enemy ships are defended by turrets)

I would be thinking perhaps something that's not a physical prescence but is more a 'ship's computer' used for autopilot navigation between planets etc. Maybe used to set power or something to ships systems. It would be cool if it had like a HAL 9000 voice or something with a personality

If an AI did get implemented, I think a personality capable of making quips, jokes, and references to other events/games/movies, would be absolutely fantastic. something that isn't capable of flying the ship on its own in any reasonable sense, but would be able to distinguish between friend and foe, fly in a straight line, week turret control, etc.

I'll admit I'm concerned about how playable WTOR will be for people like me, who almost exclusively play single-player. I don't have anything against multiplayer coop; I just tend to play at very odd hours, and it's difficult to reliably coordinate my fairly random schedule with anybody else.

Human NPC companions so often end up being terrible. I don't like the notion of pretending not to notice that my ship is crewed by incompetent, socially maladjusted klutzes.

Instead, I like the idea of robot crew. I'm not a programmer, but it seems to me the pathing issue should be easier for a machine that's limited in how it can move around. Managing your robots also opens up more gameplay features... buying/scavenging the bot, telling it what to do, repairs and upgrades, etc.

Well, personally, I'm not a big fan of companions that follow me around, get in my way, and they always end up taking the last shot of all my kills which really pis*** me off. I always kill them, send them away or try and loose them. They end up doing things you don't want them to do or end up ruining a great moment in a game because of dumb A.I.

On to my idea...

My idea was to have a holographic panel/station in each room of the ship where a ship A.I rather than a companion can always show up in whatever room your in and stay in that same place. You can also choose what form it appears in. This way the A.I can follow you from room to room without getting in the way, it will always be in the same places so I don't have to waste time trying to figure out bot pathing. It would literally be there to offer information services or data functions, tips if you need them, auto pilot the ship etc. It would be a functional thing. If people wanted help on the ground outside I suppose the A.I could remotely control robot companions that could help you out, but this is optional.

Anyone?

Yes, I like your idea.

I completely agree, if a shipboard AI should be included it should be integrated into the ship and come up as holograms or on screens (like Holly from red dwarf) or similar, and not get in your way.

Still I'm a little sceptic as to the need for such an AI, even though it would probably be cool.

I've read this on the Greenlight comments by one of you guys and this sounds pretty exciting to me so far:

“Lastly, yes, there will be an automated drone you can acquire to do the mundane tasks. But the drone is fun and multipurpose. It can also follow you on your adventure to provide back up as well as carry items if your inventory gets full. It's fully up-gradable too like anything else in the game. It can also be deployed into space to mine asteroids and return later with the goods. I'll be sure to make it so you can name it whatever you want, I'm sure it'll become a valuable member of your team =] “

Other than that having an ability for the ship to follow you at a certain distance and height while planetside or just hover at a specified location at a specified altitude might also be useful.

I agree, having a holographic AI would be awesome. I think it should be limited however, only non-combat or weak combat "skills". NPC companions always get in the way. I like the idea of a robot companion, for carrying items, but it should be weak, so that its not a good idea to have it follow you all the time. for example, have it fly to your location every once in a while with a return item or items to ship command.

Possibly having a way to edit the ship ai parameters in game could be handy, giving options for the player to choose voice, look, when it talks. maybe buy AI upgrades to improve ship awareness and abilities. They should be expensive though, especially for auto landing, fly to, and dock at commands.

These are all excellent ideas, and yeah Ferco I think I posted that one. The ship has a robot which lives inside it's hull that can be deployed to do those things. This was before we planned for ship A.I, so there's no excuse for us not to infuse the two, so the A.I takes control of that robot.

Yeah I think it should be kinda weak or at least not initially adapted for combat scenarios unless you want it to be by purchasing algorithm upgrades or something.

What about giving the AI ability to inhabit other vehicles? Like the rover from the prototype? Possibly similar functions to the ones as if it were still in the ship, or even just to give information on the surrounding environment/conditions.

Edit: Just had another thought. What about sort of Halo-esqe AI? Not so much where each person has an AI, but the ships AI is also connected to whatever main piece of equipment the player always has on him. (Whether its a suit or just a basic communicator). Then whatever vehicle or large piece of equipment (drilling rig, space station systems, or even systems in an enemy ship) you're operating, you can plug the AI into it to get info on the unit, get help operating, or even hacking the unit. Not as an auto-(instert action here) device. But more of a means to access and help.

Yeah that's kinda what I meant, like a possessive A.I where anything you own has a connection to it.

oh. I like that idea!

Ok. Sounds cool

I think that less is more in this case. The more things that a player has to do the more involved he/she will feel. This is especially true when multiple people are playing together.

However, if a person plays alone whether by choice or because their friends aren't available, then things can get pretty difficult. By that I mean that the game can't have elements that requires more than 1 person to complete if the ship couldn't do much for itself. 1 person may have to move slower, but elements can't be added that 1 person can't complete.

If there was more challenging content the ship may have to do more on it's own. A single player can either fly or man a gun, but not both. The ai would have to competently complete one of those two things, meaning you have to code for it to do both since a player could choose to do either.

If the ship is able to do things for itself it should come in the form of upgrades that can be applied to the ship. A person playing solo would have to slowly find the blueprints for those upgrades. A group of players wouldn't have to worry about them since they could perform those tasks on their own but could instead search for aesthetic upgrades or other useful upgrades for their own person such as increased inventory.

Were designing the game so that there isn't anything you can't do single player that you can do in multiplayer, you wont be missing out on any content if you choose to play the game solo.

The pilot will always be able to fly and shoot, every ship will have a forward facing cannon and missile lock on system.

If you have no team mates but need all the turrets manned, then you can get A.I to operate them for you but yes, as you said bbq, you will need to upgrade them to make them more accurate and faster in terms of reactions and tracking.

In the same regard, multiple people manning a ship need to feel like they are all doing something useful. If the game can be played by one person then what are the other three doing? Perhaps difficulty can change with the number of people who are playing together. Just a thought.

I also vote for no goofy ai voices except maybe at select times and only if they have a huge bank of phrases to throw out there. Nothing would ruin the game more than having to listen to same things over and over again from your ship.

In a similar response to your other post, let us worry about the core stuff. We wouldn't overlook something like difficulty and content scale-ability depending on the amount of players connected.

I'm also thinking about making the A.I increase in intelligence as more players join (this can be set as a preference in single-player but is forced if more people join your game) or other similar system.

Absolutely...no goofy voices, if there's one thing I absolutely can't stand is any kind of A.I that's with you all the time that repeats a random selection of 3 phrases. It's supposed to make them feel 'real' and has the exact opposite effect.

Perhaps so some sort of text to speech, that will allow you more flexibility when making such an AI, and also makes it a lot easier to add more lines without the hassle of hiring voice actors.
And having played games such as arma2 I know from experience that it's not hard to ignore the slightly mechanical sound of it.

plus its an AI. its expected to be slightly mechanical anyways.

It's definitely one way of achieving it yes. We'll have to look into cool software that's really good for voice filters, I'd like to play around with something and try to get a really unique sound.

Yea that would be cool, something as characteristic as the 60'ies robot voice of Stephen Hawkings.
Just not that voice of course =)

The idea of hologram AI in side of the ship its cool but Im all for the good old droids! Im big fan of robots and one of my favorite its R2-D2 (:
Also it will be cool that player can made/craft on a some 3D printer inside of the ship all his handy equipment ,droids included!