NEWS: 2nd Twitch Live Stream on Sept 27th (20:00 CEST)

Killjaeden · Post by **Killjaeden** » Wed, 4. Oct 17, 12:54

Crimsonraziel wrote:Which is the AI, if we don't implement some mechanics to cripple it.

Unlikely. Competent AI that deals well with "foreign influence" and other things that requires it to re-strategize and be proactive is difficult. I don't know of a strategy game where the higher difficulty levels of AI do not resort to cheating in one way or another.

Crimsonraziel · Post by **Crimsonraziel** » Wed, 4. Oct 17, 13:16

Killjaeden wrote:
Crimsonraziel wrote:Which is the AI, if we don't implement some mechanics to cripple it.
Unlikely. Competent AI that deals well with "foreign influence" and other things that requires it to re-strategize and be proactive is difficult. I don't know of a strategy game where the higher difficulty levels of AI do not resort to cheating in one way or another.

What makes you belief, this would be different in this case?

Sorkvild · Post by **Sorkvild** » Wed, 4. Oct 17, 15:28

Youtube classified latest X4 gameplay as Star Citizen :faceplam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk4pPuC3GjA

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Wed, 4. Oct 17, 16:06

So SC fans browsing YouTube get to see X4 stuff and vice versa; win-win.

Kitty · Post by **Kitty** » Wed, 4. Oct 17, 20:56

Killjaeden wrote:
Crimsonraziel wrote:Which is the AI, if we don't implement some mechanics to cripple it.
Unlikely. Competent AI that deals well with "foreign influence" and other things that requires it to re-strategize and be proactive is difficult. I don't know of a strategy game where the higher difficulty levels of AI do not resort to cheating in one way or another.

Well, it's a matter of 2 things:
- machine power
- financial power (ie : how much you pay the game developpers)

Today, we have largely the knowledges to have very proficient AIs. If the game designers cheat it's because... it's cheaper.

So what ?

That does not change the result here. WHo wins is a matter of tuning the game balance.

RAVEN.myst · Post by **RAVEN.myst** » Wed, 4. Oct 17, 21:03

"What's all this hoo-ha about AI anyway?"

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Thu, 5. Oct 17, 01:29

Hi all,

The "X4: Foundations - Announcement Reaction Q&A" thread has been updated with new Q&As from the 2nd X4 livestream that took place on 27th September.

Each of the 6 subject areas have had some Q&As added to end of of their respective Q&As posts (see date stamp 03-10-2017).

Regards,
X2-Illuminatus and Sparky

Killjaeden · Post by **Killjaeden** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 13:09

Kitty wrote: - machine power
- financial power (ie : how much you pay the game developpers)
Today, we have largely the knowledges to have very proficient AIs.

What do you mean by "we"? You? Me? Egosoft? If you by "we" mean the human race then that isn't really helpful. Just because there has been advance in science doesn't mean it is practical for implementation in games.
Please give an example of AI in a strategy or economical game that can act pro-actively and can predict the players intention reliably and act in such ways that it spoils the plans of the player (or other AI). To my knowledge there are no such highly developed AI in games, but i don't know everything...
How much you pay the game developers doesnt make the AI smarter. Making game AI act smart is difficult and game AI can only be as smart as the developers that create it. If the developers that create it had zero knowledge of battle tactics, the battle tactic part of the AI will suck be inadequate.

It isn't about "who wins". It is about creating a dynamic sandbox but with a self-stabilising economy which doesnt go down the drain after a single xenon incursion. If the AI is unable to act effectively (before shit hits the fan) to counteract, the destabilising effect of incursions and other events will be much greater.

Crimsonraziel wrote:What makes you belief, this would be different in this case?

What do you mean by that? I'm saying that it is unlikely that AI is will be able to act proactively. Means it can only react after things have happened (instead of preventing them from happening). Ergo, if ship travel times are long, the damage caused by spontaneous enemy incursions will be high -> very bad for a highly dynamical economy. Plus this makes it easily exploitable by the player.
-> Jumpdrive, even when it is heavily limited (like i already gave as examples) can be extremely beneficial to reduce travel time for AI in order to reduce the impact of it's inability to predict things.

Nikola515 · Post by **Nikola515** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 13:17

I'm still confused about that mass traffic question ???? As far as we know mass traffic is useless in XR and I haven't seen single ships with any cargo in them. However I did notice stations cargolifter drones flying together with traffic and trading with stations. Is this what they are talking about or mass traffic trading works only OOZ ???

JSDD · Post by **JSDD** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 13:39

Killjaeden wrote:How much you pay the game developers doesnt make the AI smarter. Making game AI act smart is difficult and game AI can only be as smart as the developers that create it. If the developers that create it had zero knowledge of battle tactics, the battle tactic part of the AI will suck.

for me it would be sufficient if the game is a bit more "dynamic" (a bit random guesses + some intelligent decisions made by the npcs), the best examples are "pirate guild 3" or "tortuga" plugins in X3, the "intelligence" behind those scripts were sufficient to make the whole game more interesting, and the player had to adapt to influences from those pirates ...

compared to the non-existent global "plan" behind vanilla X3 pirates, it's a completely new dimension ...

another thing: the turrets in X3, compare an "intelligent" script like MARS to the vanilla X3 scripts ... again, a completely new dimension ...

or compare lucikes trade scripts to the vanilla scripts ...what i'm trying to say is that it was even in X3 possible to improve the "intelligence" of the npc by a huge margin, even small changes can make a big difference.

unfortunately:
most of these changes were made by the community, not by egosoft ...

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 16:15

Nikola515 wrote:I'm still confused about that mass traffic question ???? As far as we know mass traffic is useless in XR and I haven't seen single ships with any cargo in them. However I did notice stations cargolifter drones flying together with traffic and trading with stations. Is this what they are talking about or mass traffic trading works only OOZ ???

Mass Traffic in XR is a combination of the little NPC ships that I'm pretty sure 'only' exist to provide atmosphere, and cargolifters used by stations for intra-zone trading with other stations. I'm sure that works whether we are IZ or OOS. Both the little ships and cargolifters use the same routes (AKA mass traffic system/network).

I think what the following Q&As tell us is that X4 is planned to have mass traffic ships for atmosphere, but that it's currently undecided whether the mass traffic system will support station-station trading.

Q: Will there still be mass traffic trading (a really nice feature in my opinion, but i've never been able to recognize it very well)?
A: We do use the mass traffic system, so there are mass traffic ships. We use the system also for transportation of wares between capital ships and stations for example, which are located in the same logical zone in the game.

Q: Will small traffic have any uses in economy ?
A: Some may, some will not

https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=396292

DaMuncha · Post by **DaMuncha** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 16:22

Are were going to get the usless ships that spawn out of nowhere clogging up the highways? I got a mod that disabled all the magically appearing ships in highways in XR and found the highways were barely used by anyone except pirates.

gbjbaanb · Post by **gbjbaanb** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 16:30

Sparky Sparkycorp wrote:
Nikola515 wrote:I'm still confused about that mass traffic question ???? As far as we know mass traffic is useless in XR and I haven't seen single ships with any cargo in them. However I did notice stations cargolifter drones flying together with traffic and trading with stations. Is this what they are talking about or mass traffic trading works only OOZ ???
Mass Traffic in XR is a combination of the little NPC ships that I'm pretty sure 'only' exist to provide atmosphere, and cargolifters used by stations for intra-zone trading with other stations. I'm sure that works whether we are IZ or OOS. Both the little ships and cargolifters use the same routes (AKA mass traffic system/network).

I think what the following Q&As tell us is that X4 is planned to have mass traffic ships for atmosphere, but that it's currently undecided whether the mass traffic system will support station-station trading.

Q: Will there still be mass traffic trading (a really nice feature in my opinion, but i've never been able to recognize it very well)?
A: We do use the mass traffic system, so there are mass traffic ships. We use the system also for transportation of wares between capital ships and stations for example, which are located in the same logical zone in the game.

Q: Will small traffic have any uses in economy ?
A: Some may, some will not
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=396292

So useless ships for the sake of them? I understand some ships will not be carrying cargo all the time, but we had a decent thing in X3 with loads of ships carrying cargo, even bits and bobs of weapons traders or similar, Why has the game gone backwards in this regard. X3's universe was alive with shipping that at least seemed to be going somewhere from somewhere without any problem. X4 should have the same.

Post by **X2-Illuminatus** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 16:38

Just a few weeks ago we had a poll and a quite detailed discussion, in which people stated that they would like to have so-called "useless" ships to keep the universe busy and to add to the immersion.

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 16:52

Sorry ,, but are we talking useless ships eternally circling stations or useless ships crossing the galaxy giving the appearance of trade/immersion..... ??

Killjaeden · Post by **Killjaeden** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 17:50

JSDD wrote:for me it would be sufficient if the game is a bit more "dynamic" (a bit random guesses + some intelligent decisions made by the npcs), the best examples are "pirate guild 3" or "tortuga" plugins in X3, the "intelligence" behind those scripts were sufficient to make the whole game more interesting, and the player had to adapt to influences from those pirates ...

Egosofts goal is to make shipspawning and station building ressource based. And this alone makes everything muuch more difficult to balance and gives many things that where trivial/ unnecessary to worry about in the past a great importance.
Pirate Guild and Tortuga work even if they just follow some pre-set plan how to establish their power and how to grow it, because they can grow from nothing, their ship and station building is not strictly ressource based. Plus they have no coordinated resistance (other than the player).
Major races/factions are much different however. You could draw parallels to ancient Rome. Large economy and infrastructure - but this "established order" is constantly under threat from outside and inside. Keeping a large "empire" stable by an "AI controller" is much more difficult than an expansionist AI who is constantly an agressor (and rarely the victim) and never really has to worry about its ressources. Reaction/decision making time and time until the decision takes effect is much more critical when a lost power plant can mean that a large region of the economy loses their supplier and therefore can't produce stuff until a replacement has been built (which requires that enough ressources are available, plus ships plus time).

or compare lucikes trade scripts to the vanilla scripts ...what i'm trying to say is that it was even in X3 possible to improve the "intelligence" of the npc by a huge margin, even small changes can make a big difference

This is true, but consider this: Lucikes trader scripts are just a small piece in the puzzle to make better decisions. And they where mostly an improvement for player owned traders, because not every trader is using them. If all traders in the universe would have used his scripts there would also be problems (mostly for the player to establish himself...).

Post by **Santi** » Fri, 6. Oct 17, 18:24

birdtable wrote:Sorry ,, but are we talking useless ships eternally circling stations or useless ships crossing the galaxy giving the appearance of trade/immersion..... ??

The ones eternally circling the stations. Using the same path you can find some station cargolifters as well, those are really swapping wares between stations if the useless ones pathing connect those stations.

Sandalpocalypse · Post by **Sandalpocalypse** » Sat, 7. Oct 17, 08:31

in XR the mass traffic system is used for:

-the mass traffic itself, including police vessels
-construction drones, for repairing capital vessels and building stations
-cargo lifters, for ship-to-shore trade
-cargo lifters and ore collectors, for their docking and undocking routes on pickup orders (i think)
-cargo lifters for station-to-station trade, although this is rare.

so it is more complicated than just taking out the mass traffic. My read is that the developers generally are talking about the whole system and not just specifically the mass traffic itself.

zanzal · Post by **zanzal** » Wed, 11. Oct 17, 00:57

For me the concern about removal of JD has nothing to do with removal of the mechanic but the side effects of having to traverse the gate network in large ships esp. with fleets.. Through heavily traffic areas this can be slow even in Rebirth.. At times when there is a lot of traffic through a gate I've had a ship sit around and wait 20 minutes for its turn (occasionally even get blown up by a hostile cap ship while waiting). I think its probably a mistake, but if that's just how its going to be then I hope the team is focused on making sure that the AI, pathing, and queueing systems are up to the task of moving fleets from zone to zone.

IMO the easy solution is to allow Jumping between systems to a beacon one hop at a time. It solves problem of tactical gameplay since it does still take time to move fleets, but no bottlenecking or queuing.. Can also have logistical concerns.. Making refuel depots few and far between, making jump fuel more expensive, keeping the long cool down between jumps (logistical problems can be player gameplay opportunity.. must... build... refueling depots).. Also not every system may have a beacon so ships may only be able to hop around within small clusters. This is essentially how rebirth works, only it would work better with bypassing gates by jumping to the beacon within the next system.

On the flip side allowing full movement between areas without the need to jump is definitely a great improvement.

Anyway, I'd love to see how the gameplay evolves without Jumpdrives, but we've heard the "improved gameplay" song and dance before. Improved gameplay mechanics only matter if the gameplay you deliver isn't horribly broken by those mechanics. If you can't make excellent improvements to deal with AI pathing and queuing through gates then its going to suck and no improvement will be perceived by the player base.

Sandalpocalypse · Post by **Sandalpocalypse** » Wed, 11. Oct 17, 08:10

well, an individual sector will be more important than in previous games, possibly even including XR, so the jumpgate choke point wont matter as much. in X3 it's the be all and end all, less so in XR, and I think even less so in X4. especially considering a heavy ship can dump out dozens of fighters or drones in seconds in x4.

if I was egosoft, I would resize the jumpgates so they can have outgoing and incoming lanes for capital vessels, rather than the 'panamax' style of XR.