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"Auto-Turrets" and Artificial Intelligence in games


Ripper

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On 4/10/2017 at 6:14 PM, Ripper said:

How NQ plans to implement turrets, or combat for that matter is pure conjecture at this point.

 

However,

 

With ANY game that has AI, there is a balance that needs to be achieved.  Since the AI in a computer can be a crack shot, and always place that round through your right eye, programmers need to balance AI accuracy with realism, player challenge, and player enjoyment.   Players want "Realism", but they also want to progress in the game.  They just don't want to progress too easily.

 

An auto-turret should be balanced to provide a realistic result, while not being as "Effective" in combat as a player manned turret.  Effectiveness could equate to less damage, less accuracy, a slower response, or possibly more power/resource consumption.  Maybe it should behave at a skill level of the green newbie straight out of flight school.  Whereas, your teammate, may be an awesome shot with years of experience.

 

Some players believe that auto-turrets will break multiplayer cohesion.  It's very possible that auto-turrets, or scripted weapons COULD do this if not properly balanced.  There are a lot of players that would like to play a game with several teammates manning different parts of the same ship.  They SHOULD be more effective than the same ship with scripts and auto turrets.  You're maximizing firepower and accuracy and minimizing construct resources.

 

But the cohesion of your Organization, could ALSO apply to a fleet of ships attacking the same objective.  In this strategic example, the organization decides to throw more resources at the problem, so they don't have "all their eggs in one basket".  Instead of one highly performing ship, they decide to use multiple inferior ships.

 

Both strategies recognize and depend upon Organization cohesiveness, and both strategies should be a available as an option.  One method should not significantly out-way the other, all other things being equal.

 

I'm sure most Eve players recognize that the Organization with the most resources usually wins the battle.  Don't expect your new Org with 5 friends from school to outperform Band of Outlaws.  You'll never have the resources to compete.  There's nothing prohibiting a large Org from fielding SEVERAL multiplayer ships against your fleet of single player ships.   The winner will most likely be the organization who has invested the most player, voxel, and script based resources to the battle.  Not whether a specific number of ships were multiplayer verses the number of single player ships.

 

Unfortunately, if a game is played enough, there usually ends up being a "preferred" strategy or loadout.  I'm betting you'll find a tutorial on a fan site within weeks of Dual Universes release.  Players find ways to exploit the resources they've been provided.  NovaQuark should focus on providing a balanced solution that has as many variants as possible.  Of course, balance has to start somewhere. 

 

NovaQuark should start out with a couple of options, and then invent new elements that can provide balanced variation.  The more variation you have, the more difficult it is to balance things.  So go slowly, but variety adds to the spice of gaming life.  Variety vanquishes repetitive, boring game play, and it provides the player with more strategic options.

 

In my opinion, well balanced auto-turrets should be a part of Dual Universe.

 

Completely agree with all of this, balanced auto-turrets for static base defense is key for a game that involves base destruction and has opportunity for offline raiding. There needs to be deterrents against that sort of thing and I see this as a the best solution. Lethys mentions turret linking on ships so that a player could control multiple guns, and I think this could be cool for certain types of guns, but needs to be limited. 

 

The other big thing with turret linking on ships is that you will eliminate the need for multiple combat roles in a ship, and therefore smaller crews can pilot large ships, and I find that to be unfair. A large ship, with many guns, should need a large crew to operate at full capacity. 

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1 hour ago, Davis said:

 

Completely agree with all of this, balanced auto-turrets for static base defense is key for a game that involves base destruction and has opportunity for offline raiding. There needs to be deterrents against that sort of thing and I see this as a the best solution. Lethys mentions turret linking on ships so that a player could control multiple guns, and I think this could be cool for certain types of guns, but needs to be limited. 

 

The other big thing with turret linking on ships is that you will eliminate the need for multiple combat roles in a ship, and therefore smaller crews can pilot large ships, and I find that to be unfair. A large ship, with many guns, should need a large crew to operate at full capacity. 

I think people are forgetting that ground based force fields will be a thing. Combining that with territory units will stop minor griefers and usually implies that if you are seriously attacked then... its a serious attack ;)

 

Turrets, auto, semi-auto, or manual, will really only come to the fore when the shield is down..... oh what fun! :P

 

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from what I have seen with Lua scripts creating a drone swarm would be completely possible with a simple flocking script. in addition from what I have heard from dual turrets and aI weapons will be a thing weather effective or not. Using a flocking script to maneuver flying turrets you could easily setup a drone swarm. 

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10 hours ago, Thainz said:

from what I have seen with Lua scripts creating a drone swarm would be completely possible with a simple flocking script. in addition from what I have heard from dual turrets and aI weapons will be a thing weather effective or not. Using a flocking script to maneuver flying turrets you could easily setup a drone swarm. 

You can only do what NQ allows you to do, and NQ have made it clear that they are not in favour of automation.

 

If players "find a way" to implement combat automation, NQ will simply close that loophole by changing or removing the Lua functions that make it possible.

 

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On 7/3/2018 at 2:17 AM, NanoDot said:

If players "find a way" to implement combat automation, NQ will simply close that loophole by changing or removing the Lua functions that make it possible.

So limiting emergent gameplay and potentially breaking thousands of scripts?

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23 hours ago, 0something0 said:

So limiting emergent gameplay and potentially breaking thousabds of scripts?

Absolutely.

 

"Emergent gameplay" is always bound by the rules of the game. It's not an excuse to exploit or a justification to use things in ways that are not intended.

 

Pushing the boundaries always has risks.

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2 hours ago, NanoDot said:

Absolutely.

 

"Emergent gameplay" is always bound by the rules of the game. It's not an excuse to exploit or a justification to use things in ways that are not intended.

 

Pushing the boundaries always has risks.

While bugs and exploits shoulf be patched, perfectly legitimate code (even though the definition of "legitimate" in DU is hazy) should not be stopped even if it allows for automation. Remember: automation != the plague 

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25 minutes ago, 0something0 said:

While bugs and exploits shoulf be patched, perfectly legitimate code (even though the definition of "legitimate" in DU is hazy) should not be stopped even if it allows for automation. Remember: automation != the plague 

The decision about what constitutes "legitimate" code rests entirely with NQ. 

 

If some player finds a really clever way to use Lua to automate 10 turrets on their battleship, NQ will plug that hole if they don't want players controlling 10 turrets via scripts. The player may get a warning, but probably won't be banned. The developer owns the game, not the players, and if the developer wants the game to develop in a certain way, it's their prerogative to steer it in a direction of their choosing. 

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On 7/5/2018 at 7:25 PM, NanoDot said:

The decision about what constitutes "legitimate" code rests entirely with NQ. 

 

If some player finds a really clever way to use Lua to automate 10 turrets on their battleship, NQ will plug that hole if they don't want players controlling 10 turrets via scripts. The player may get a warning, but probably won't be banned. The developer owns the game, not the players, and if the developer wants the game to develop in a certain way, it's their prerogative to steer it in a direction of their choosing. 

On the other hand, NQ has established that they want the game (universe, not the development) to be steered by players and will be taking a more of "hands-off" approach to policing the game. But if you want to form the Butlerian Jihad, then go ahead... :P

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1 hour ago, 0something0 said:

 

On the other hand, NQ has established that they want the game (universe, not the development) to be steered by players and will be taking a more of "hands-off" approach to policing the game. But if you want to form the Butlerian Jihad, then go ahead... :P

Sorry 0somehing0, NQ has stated several times it will quash unfair AI/Automation codings/exploits to provide balanced game play, it has nothing to do with others forming a Jihad etc to enforce what NQ has already said.

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