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Re: Abandoned ships

#16
theStormWeaver wrote:I am flabbergasted by this thread.

Have none of you ever heard of life-boats? Why leave on a life-boat if you can't get the ship back? BECAUSE YOU'LL DIE OTHERWISE!

Holy smoke, if we want rational AI, they will try to NOT DIE, just like an actual human being will do.
Sure, you lost THAT ship, but you could potentially have 8 more on your private space station. If you die, you have nothing and start over.

I'd rather leave in my escape pod/shuttle/what-have-you than get blown up and have to rebuild my empire.

But hey, I'm just a rational entity, what do I know?
Pah! Real captains go down with their ship :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
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Re: Abandoned ships

#17
I remember ejecting in X3.

If you did that in a fight you got shot in your space suit instead of getting shot in your ship.
A questionable improvement.

And even if the AI wouldn't shoot or enslave you, you were stuck in deep space, probably an hour realtime from anything. Flying straight ahead at 30 m/s gets old fast.
If there is no justification for the player to do it, why should the AI do it just to supply the player with free credits?
So first you'd have to design ejecting into a real feature...
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#18
Clarification:
This is not about AI ejecting from a ship and leaving a (lootable) wreck behind. This is about AI abandoning a damaged, but fundamentally still working ship out of its own volition, leaving behind said working ship.
I more or less expect that the ships we blow to smithereens will leave the odd juicy morsel of loot behind.
So first you'd have to design ejecting into a real feature...
And that's the nexus of the crisis* - why would a player eject and leave a working ship behind? I really have a hard time thinking about a motivation. The only thing I could come up in a pinch is that the automated ejection upon the ships explosion is unreliable, while manually abandoning ship gives a higher (100%?) ejection rate. But even that is at best a motivation for an iron man game mode. Under normal circumstances, you'd probably just reload.

Now, to instill the AI with a useful reason to eject would require the AI actor and the ship to be separate entities - else it makes no sense for the AI to eject at all, since it gains nothing from the behavior. If it can come back with another ship to take revenge (or maybe just go back to whatever it was supposed to be doing), it would have a reason to abandon ship in time and leave the odd not-quite-dead ship behind.
Of course, having to track each AI pilots list of possessions and assuming they all have multiple ships sounds like a lot of extra variables that need to be kept track of, for very little gain in gameplay terms.

Also take note that a lack of abandoned ships wouldn't necessarily eliminate salvaging as a potential occupation - it just means that you cut the valuable stuff out of wrecks (which I'm sure there'll be plenty of), instead of finding fully functional ships with varying amounts of damage.

* = and the origin of storms. If you caught that reference, you may call me Desdinova. ;)
Hardenberg was my name
And Terra was my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination
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Re: Abandoned ships

#19
Gazz wrote:That's not the problem.

But what does the player do when he is in a lifeboat? Wait for rescue? An hour? A day?

If the mechanic doesn't apply to the player then it's just a credits generator.
Depends on how good your escape pod is.

If its your flight suit, you might as well not eject. If its a tiny pod with only sub-light engines, you may try to make it to a warp conduit or a local starbase, or call for help. Not every person that attacks your ship has to kill you should you eject and flee. Some may not bother to finish you off.

Further, if you can afford it/have the tech, you could have an escape pod capable of FTL. For example, Anubis' hyperdrive enabled escape vessel, as seen in the Season 6 finale of Stargate SG-1.

Of course, if LT has no FTL, your options are more limited.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#20
Commander McLane wrote:
Karrade wrote:
Gazz wrote:No, you misunderstood.

Making a ship abandoned or a pilot eject is not the hard part.
It just wasn't really worth it because...

Why would it happen?
How often did you find it advantageous to abandon your own perfectly usable ship?
I would find it very useful if I was about to die.
Hmm. Why would you find it more useful to die outside your ship?

If I was going to die (from a heart attack or whatever), I would have other things on my mind than abandoning my ship. What good would it be (for me or for anybody else) to eject in that situation? I can't see any advantages to it.

So I think Gazz's objection still stands.

On the other hand: if you actually meant to say: 'I would find it very useful if my ship was about to disintegrate.', then you'd have a very valid reason to leave your ship, but you wouldn't have a salvageable ship afterwards. :roll:
I was meaning in the middle of a battle, hull down to virtually nothing in game terms. That or simply the pilot is dead of whatever reason, same thing - ship is abandoned. Ships should outlast their pilots, wrecks would outlast battles.

Of course the ship would be salvageable afterwards, what was left of it. I don't know where this idea of things magically disintegrating comes from, especially in a vacuum with nothing to run into for vast distances. Look at the wrecks after battles. Floating space debris would be all over the place in a real space battle, and a common sight on a major trading route. It's not as if its going to impact on ground like a plane.

I doubt you could just strap yourself in and fire it up after a battle, but possibly so it might be that easy depending on what was hit and if you had a space suit on. I'd say the pilot was the most squishy thing in a small fighter craft, that and the ammunition rack.

Either way the wreck is salvagable.

You've got fuel/food/water/air to worry about covering these massive distances, none of those would hurt the ship if you ran out of them. Not until it hit the very rare occurring object or ran into its gravitational field on a slow but steady decline. All of them would hurt the pilot.
Hardenberg wrote:Clarification:
This is not about AI ejecting from a ship and leaving a (lootable) wreck behind. This is about AI abandoning a damaged, but fundamentally still working ship out of its own volition, leaving behind said working ship.
I more or less expect that the ships we blow to smithereens will leave the odd juicy morsel of loot behind.
So first you'd have to design ejecting into a real feature...
And that's the nexus of the crisis* - why would a player eject and leave a working ship behind? I really have a hard time thinking about a motivation. The only thing I could come up in a pinch is that the automated ejection upon the ships explosion is unreliable, while manually abandoning ship gives a higher (100%?) ejection rate. But even that is at best a motivation for an iron man game mode. Under normal circumstances, you'd probably just reload.

Now, to instill the AI with a useful reason to eject would require the AI actor and the ship to be separate entities - else it makes no sense for the AI to eject at all, since it gains nothing from the behavior. If it can come back with another ship to take revenge (or maybe just go back to whatever it was supposed to be doing), it would have a reason to abandon ship in time and leave the odd not-quite-dead ship behind.
Of course, having to track each AI pilots list of possessions and assuming they all have multiple ships sounds like a lot of extra variables that need to be kept track of, for very little gain in gameplay terms.

Also take note that a lack of abandoned ships wouldn't necessarily eliminate salvaging as a potential occupation - it just means that you cut the valuable stuff out of wrecks (which I'm sure there'll be plenty of), instead of finding fully functional ships with varying amounts of damage.

* = and the origin of storms. If you caught that reference, you may call me Desdinova. ;)
Aside from the fact things don't magically disintergrate
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... e_1942.jpg

Here is a hunk of metal after one heck of a pounding, and in space fire doesn't even burn so it wouldn't even look like this. It'd just have lots of holes in the wreck.

Now back to the idea - Again, why complicate it. There is no need for anything to be separate. Even for boarding there is no need. There is just the need for a missile type probe that's it.

Aside from faction swapping code. Its really, really simple.

There is no crew. There is no AI. Its a gameplay term for one instance where a player can very simply take a ship. A simple explanation for immersion.

Functionally it can be as simple as swapping the faction out to abandoned (neutral) - then swapping it back to the player when the player hits an abandoned ship with an AI or boarding crew probe.

How complicated it then becomes is down to how much you want to do with it, but that''s all it needs.

*The AI probe is the removed in gameplay terms when the ship is fixed at the nearest base.
*The player toes the ship.
*The ship cannot do anything but autopilot etc
*The 'AI' could be a simple crew module probe-missile instead if people like the sound of that. All it is is a self sustaining capsule with living marines on board.

All those are optional.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#21
And should one decide to eject, to avoid what the "perceive" to be the imminent destruction of their ship to try to survive even if the chances are slim. I mean surviving in a firefight in a space suit is extremely slim, however it may easily appear to have better margins than staying in a fighter that has plasma venting into the cockpit. So there are circumstances that given the heat of the moment ejection might seem to be the "last resort". The carrier reference was meant to illustrate that people misjudge their circumstances when under duress.

Then of course we come to what happens after you manage to save your life by ejecting. Do you await a cold death in space or perhaps a worse fate? Maybe. Depends on how good your emergency beacon is. Maybe others in your faction will come looking, maybe not. Maybe your ship is broken and you have no means to repair it. At least you have the beacon...

As for the mechanics of adding it to the game that I leave to the discretion of the designer as to how or whether to include such a system. In the end never finding abandoned/derelict vessels seems like an unlikely occurrence. The only thing worse is if they are everywhere.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#22
Karrade wrote:
I was meaning in the middle of a battle, hull down to virtually nothing in game terms. That or simply the pilot is dead of whatever reason, same thing - ship is abandoned. Ships should outlast their pilots, wrecks would outlast battles.

Of course the ship would be salvageable afterwards, what was left of it. I don't know where this idea of things magically disintegrating comes from, especially in a vacuum with nothing to run into for vast distances. Look at the wrecks after battles. Floating space debris would be all over the place in a real space battle, and a common sight on a major trading route. It's not as if its going to impact on ground like a plane.

I doubt you could just strap yourself in and fire it up after a battle, but possibly so it might be that easy depending on what was hit and if you had a space suit on. I'd say the pilot was the most squishy thing in a small fighter craft, that and the ammunition rack.

Either way the wreck is salvagable.

You've got fuel/food/water/air to worry about covering these massive distances, none of those would hurt the ship if you ran out of them. Not until it hit the very rare occurring object or ran into its gravitational field on a slow but steady decline. All of them would hurt the pilot.
I would suggest leaving out any perceived notions of "realism" at this stage. Games aren't realistic per se, realism usually adds very little in the way of gaming enjoyment, and on top of that, we're mostly on about the gameplay repercussions, along with issues specific to the engine and the way it handles things.
For example, stringing the player out for hours after ejecting from whatever he was riding in generally bad gameplay, as it does nothing but annoy the player and waste his time. Also, plenty of games feature critical existence failure, where things simply disintegrate into nothingness when their hitpoints run dry, leaving neat little randomized loot bags behind. "It's not realistic" simply doesn't fly.
Now back to the idea - Again, why complicate it. There is no need for anything to be separate. Even for boarding there is no need. There is just the need for a missile type probe that's it.

Aside from faction swapping code. Its really, really simple.

There is no crew. There is no AI. Its a gameplay term for one instance where a player can very simply take a ship. A simple explanation for immersion.

Functionally it can be as simple as swapping the faction out to abandoned (neutral) - then swapping it back to the player when the player hits an abandoned ship with an AI or boarding crew probe.
I'm afraid things aren't that easy. What exactly triggers the swap to the "neutral/dead" faction? Josh wants to avoid randomly generated "special event" abandoned ships at all costs, preferring an organic solution that stems from AI behavior.
Next, if I have what amounts to an allegiance converter, what will prevent me from using the blasted thing on every damn ship I come across, thus breaking gameplay?
How complicated it then becomes is down to how much you want to do with it, but that''s all it needs.

*The AI probe is the removed in gameplay terms when the ship is fixed at the nearest base.
*The player toes the ship.
*The ship cannot do anything but autopilot etc
*The 'AI' could be a simple crew module probe-missile instead if people like the sound of that. All it is is a self sustaining capsule with living marines on board.

All those are optional.
Neither of these is explains why the AI would abandon a functioning ship in the first place. That's the issue here, giving the AI a reason beyond "random number was random" or "the player is a swell guy in need of money, abandon ship if Hull < X%". Try to think in terms of triggers - what's causing the AI to behave that way?
Hardenberg was my name
And Terra was my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination
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Re: Abandoned ships

#23
Hardenberg wrote:Neither of these is explains why the AI would abandon a functioning ship in the first place ... Try to think in terms of triggers - what's causing the AI to behave that way?
His girlfriend just told him Anita Sarkeesian makes rational and well proven arguments, and he knows the dead of space is the only safe place he can possibly retreat to.
woops, my bad, everything & anything actually means specific and conformed
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Re: Abandoned ships

#24
Hardenberg wrote:Neither of these is explains why the AI would abandon a functioning ship in the first place. That's the issue here, giving the AI a reason beyond "random number was random" or "the player is a swell guy in need of money, abandon ship if Hull < X%". Try to think in terms of triggers - what's causing the AI to behave that way?
Well I do agree that being a spaceman stranded in sector x sucks, reloading is not what I want to do constantly either. In any case the purpose is whether or not there would be any plausible point to abandon ship. Thus leading to a derelict or abandoned ship. For one to say it's impossible seems unreasonable no?

Now essentially every AI character is on iron man mode. If you destroy him, hes gone. He can't reload. So maybe punch out and activate you ELT (emergency location transmitter) to hope (even though your most likely screwed) that someone decent picks you up. So if it's lookin' grim and the only way to survive is to leave then that could be a reason to find said ship. Also. Said ship could again be full of corpses who expired due to x,y,z circumstances. You may not know these circumstances but there it is, a derelict that still functions. So to say they would never abandon ship seems unlikely. Just keep these instances unlikely. Then again given the nature of LT we may never see this anyways considering that it's supposed to be a true economy.

Capturing a vessel is a whole different undertaking but I do recall a period of time where that was the most common method used to neutralize an enemy ship. That of course is for another thread.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#25
Katawa wrote:
Hardenberg wrote:Neither of these is explains why the AI would abandon a functioning ship in the first place ... Try to think in terms of triggers - what's causing the AI to behave that way?
His girlfriend just told him Anita Sarkeesian makes rational and well proven arguments, and he knows the dead of space is the only safe place he can possibly retreat to.
Given the sheer volume of the infantile, threatening, and crude harassment aimed at Sarkeesian, how can one expect her to be able to conduct a rational debate regarding sexism?
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#26
First, the AI should be able to capture abandoned ships, and second, why not make it so certain solar systems have some kind of high energy field that, if a ship is not equipped for it, they shut down, kind of like a permanent EMP. Then ships with the proper equipment can go to those solar systems and cash in, salvage runs. These would also be patrolled by pirates I imagine, setting false abandoned ships to lure other ships in, and then ambush them.

It would seem silly to find a ship in the middle of a highly populated system.

But maybe finding one in a scarcely populated system, with crazy energy readings that requires proper shields and equipment to navigate?? Makes sense to me.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#27
Jerek Adams wrote:Now essentially every AI character is on iron man mode. If you destroy him, hes gone. He can't reload. So maybe punch out and activate you ELT (emergency location transmitter) to hope (even though your most likely screwed) that someone decent picks you up.
This is probably the best example of why the AI would do it. If we take into the consideration that AI has some sort of self-preservation, then it is very likely that the AI may try and eject once their hull integrity hits a certain percentage.

Sure, the player may not use it (because of reloading), but the ability to be there may be useful in some regards.

Now let's look at it from the player being on hardcore mode; if you had ONE life, and your ship was about to explode, would YOU eject if it was the only way to keep your game going forward? I think many more of you would if it was a roguelike and your save was deleted upon death.
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Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#28
DWMagus wrote:
Now let's look at it from the player being on hardcore mode; if you had ONE life, and your ship was about to explode, would YOU eject if it was the only way to keep your game going forward? I think many more of you would if it was a roguelike and your save was deleted upon death.
Tangentially, I believe we've discussed the possibility of a roguelike/hardcore mode.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#29
Hardenberg wrote:
Karrade wrote:
I was meaning in the middle of a battle, hull down to virtually nothing in game terms. That or simply the pilot is dead of whatever reason, same thing - ship is abandoned. Ships should outlast their pilots, wrecks would outlast battles.

Of course the ship would be salvageable afterwards, what was left of it. I don't know where this idea of things magically disintegrating comes from, especially in a vacuum with nothing to run into for vast distances. Look at the wrecks after battles. Floating space debris would be all over the place in a real space battle, and a common sight on a major trading route. It's not as if its going to impact on ground like a plane.

I doubt you could just strap yourself in and fire it up after a battle, but possibly so it might be that easy depending on what was hit and if you had a space suit on. I'd say the pilot was the most squishy thing in a small fighter craft, that and the ammunition rack.

Either way the wreck is salvagable.

You've got fuel/food/water/air to worry about covering these massive distances, none of those would hurt the ship if you ran out of them. Not until it hit the very rare occurring object or ran into its gravitational field on a slow but steady decline. All of them would hurt the pilot.
I would suggest leaving out any perceived notions of "realism" at this stage. Games aren't realistic per se, realism usually adds very little in the way of gaming enjoyment, and on top of that, we're mostly on about the gameplay repercussions, along with issues specific to the engine and the way it handles things.
For example, stringing the player out for hours after ejecting from whatever he was riding in generally bad gameplay, as it does nothing but annoy the player and waste his time. Also, plenty of games feature critical existence failure, where things simply disintegrate into nothingness when their hitpoints run dry, leaving neat little randomized loot bags behind. "It's not realistic" simply doesn't fly.
Now back to the idea - Again, why complicate it. There is no need for anything to be separate. Even for boarding there is no need. There is just the need for a missile type probe that's it.

Aside from faction swapping code. Its really, really simple.

There is no crew. There is no AI. Its a gameplay term for one instance where a player can very simply take a ship. A simple explanation for immersion.

Functionally it can be as simple as swapping the faction out to abandoned (neutral) - then swapping it back to the player when the player hits an abandoned ship with an AI or boarding crew probe.
I'm afraid things aren't that easy. What exactly triggers the swap to the "neutral/dead" faction? Josh wants to avoid randomly generated "special event" abandoned ships at all costs, preferring an organic solution that stems from AI behavior.
Next, if I have what amounts to an allegiance converter, what will prevent me from using the blasted thing on every damn ship I come across, thus breaking gameplay?
How complicated it then becomes is down to how much you want to do with it, but that''s all it needs.

*The AI probe is the removed in gameplay terms when the ship is fixed at the nearest base.
*The player toes the ship.
*The ship cannot do anything but autopilot etc
*The 'AI' could be a simple crew module probe-missile instead if people like the sound of that. All it is is a self sustaining capsule with living marines on board.

All those are optional.
Neither of these is explains why the AI would abandon a functioning ship in the first place. That's the issue here, giving the AI a reason beyond "random number was random" or "the player is a swell guy in need of money, abandon ship if Hull < X%". Try to think in terms of triggers - what's causing the AI to behave that way?

I didn't bring up realism, the guy I was quoting did, that was in response to him. - Ignore it.

Again I've posted this before but here you go:

5% hull = its about to die, people like to live, I cannot really help highlight this more. Ask a pilot in a fighter if he'd rather burn up in his cockpit or leave the cockpit. Some people would think let's get out of here, quite a few actually, and some may even blind panic. 1 in 100 chance the AI successful ejects or simply dies in the ship. But it seems like you are asking for reaslim here, despite not wanting it above.

So the realism is, an ejection mechanism as the ship is going critical. That complicates things needlessly though. From a gameplay perspective, all it needs is to simulate that in a battle. How will the player know either way if its a simple number or a complicated system, from the players perspective the result is the same. Either the ship is free to take or not.

-edit

Again though why would an ejection pod need to be slow? There is no point adding problems :), for me it'd be the fastest thing in the universe. Whether you want to argue that from a realism standpoint or a gameplay standpoint.
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Re: Abandoned ships

#30
An interesting point is if there is a relatively good empire nearby that doesn't take kindly to the means you used to cause said pilot to jettison. Next thing you know the distress signal gets a near immediate response by "rescue" company that is paid by this said empire to rescue those near their borders, you know wanting to make it appealing for merchants and others to visit their nation. That isn't going to happen if almost everybody gets mugged on the way in. So this gov offers these kinds of services near its borders.

The rescue party realizes there is a threat in the area and the beacon was triggered as a result of "unlawful combat". Next thing you know you get a policing response or just a direct military response if the threat is big enough.

Now if I were near this system and I was an AI so if I die my ass is grass, well I'm gonna punch out and then wait for these services to respond after activating said distress beacon. I may even get to watch the local police force mulch the guy I was just in a fight with!

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