Automated Weapons Systems

[NanoDot]

3 minutes ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

Point is they CAN do automated defenses for  bases, they are not that difficult. They said "we may allow simple scripts to run on the server" on many occassions, this is what they meant, systems like 3 step logic.

At no point did I imply that NQ can't do automated defences or that it's "too difficult", and I certainly did not venture into the specifics of what server processors can or cannot handle (the latter was entirely your diversion).

 

I was only referring to the implications of the apparent contradiction implied by the idea that "scripts only run when the owner is near them". Exactly what that means will become clear once NQ defines the scope in detail and/or we can test the mechanics ingame.

 

The default functions of a base turret will in all likelihood be things like Set_Target(), Fire_at_Target(), etc. But the rules for defining valid targets will be defined by the owner, either via RDMS or scripts on some element or "target lists" defined on the turret itself or some other mechanism. Hence exactly how scripts are handled may be important.

[Veln]

3 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

"scripts only run when the owner is near them"

I think they said scripts just need someone nearby to be run, not specifically the owner, right?

 

The reason behind that being that scripts are run client side to divide the load, because if the server ran all the scripts it would be too much work.

[NanoDot]

1 minute ago, Vellnn said:

I think they said scripts just need someone nearby to be run, not specifically the owner, right?

I don't think there's any clear answer from NQ on that yet.

 

If anyone has a solid reference in that regard, I'd be happy to see it.

[Anaximander]

6 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

At no point did I imply that NQ can't do automated defences or that it's "too difficult", and I certainly did not venture into the specifics of what server processors can or cannot handle (the latter was entirely your diversion).

 

I was only referring to the implications of the apparent contradiction implied by the idea that "scripts only run when the owner is near them". Exactly what that means will become clear once NQ defines the scope in detail and/or we can test the mechanics ingame.

 

The default functions of a base turret will in all likelihood be things like Set_Target(), Fire_at_Target(), etc. But the rules for defining valid targets will be defined by the owner, either via RDMS or scripts on some element or "target lists" defined on the turret itself or some other mechanism. Hence exactly how scripts are handled may be important.

Most likely, the RDMS. I mean, EVE does it to cut down on operational difficulty, sort ofl ike Player Owned Starbases I'd recokn.

You got settings like "is the enemy a known aggressor? (security status low) then shoot", or "is enemy at War with us? Then fire". I see it in DU workiung like " Is enemy "RGB Color" ? Then shoot" with an arbitrary RGB color denoting "target is Red-Hostile to us".

Would be very very light for operational uses like "Stargate Defenses" or "Starbase/Base Defenses".

As long as those guns are not on ships, it's gonna be fine. If they are on ships, then it's gonna be real poop.

[NanoDot]

7 minutes ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

Most likely, the RDMS.

The RDMS is the logical place to define relationships between you and other players, but I'm not sure that it's the place where the actions of specific elements will be defined. 

 

But it's not clear to me how elements will access the rules defined in the RDMS.

 

For instance:

• Turret detects player X.
• Turret queries RDMS to determine player X status.
• RDMS returns that player X is "red".
• Turret script says "fire at red players"
• Turret fires.

 

Will the RDMS have a specific section dealing with "Base turret actions" ?

And where exactly will the RDMS rules be defined ?

Can a single player define RDMS rules for themselves and their bases/constructs ?

Or is the RDMS system an attribute of orgs only ?

 

Does a turret have the ability to acquire it's own targets ?

Or does it have to be linked to a scanner of some type ?

Or can you link a scanner and a turret to a processing board and do some fancy Lua scripting for "fire control" ?

 

So many questions... 

[Anaximander]

3 hours ago, NanoDot said:

The RDMS is the logical place to define relationships between you and other players, but I'm not sure that it's the place where the actions of specific elements will be defined. 

 

But it's not clear to me how elements will access the rules defined in the RDMS.

 

For instance:

• Turret detects player X.
• Turret queries RDMS to determine player X status.
• RDMS returns that player X is "red".
• Turret script says "fire at red players"
• Turret fires.

 

Will the RDMS have a specific section dealing with "Base turret actions" ?

And where exactly will the RDMS rules be defined ?

Can a single player define RDMS rules for themselves and their bases/constructs ?

Or is the RDMS system an attribute of orgs only ?

 

Does a turret have the ability to acquire it's own targets ?

Or does it have to be linked to a scanner of some type ?

Or can you link a scanner and a turret to a processing board and do some fancy Lua scripting for "fire control" ?

 

So many questions... 

I see your arguement.

Yeah, turrets would need to operate on default statistics (non-modified by the player) to kee pthe system fair. so if turrets fddo work by a "random spawn of damage bubbles", which is essentialy :

1) Turret paints a construct
2) Damage bubble is raycast-spawned on the painted area (giant red circle)

Said "possible area of damage bubble spawn" would need to be kept on default size, i.e. no player training involved in its size reduction (less diamter o nthe damage area circle, more possible groupings).

Which can be the benefit of "active" vs "passive defenses". Trained gunners actively o nguard duty on turrets == more precise guns.

[Davis]

I think having automated base defense is necessary to prevent issues that plague games like Rust and other builder pvp sandboxes. That issue being offline raiding!

 

All of you have made great points but I think what it comes down to is balance. Automated turrets for a base allows for players to plan defenses while they are offline. There shouldn’t be a limit on the amount of automated turrets or anything simply because attacking a base should never be easy. It should be something you have to plan for and maybe even fail at a couple of times. Automated turrets will bolster defences and make that a reality.

 

Whether you are a 1000 strong army or a 10 man invading force, whomever you are attacking has the right to defend themselves to the point where it might make cost you more than it’s worth. This helps the small orgs against the big ones. Don’t get me wrong though, if a 100 people attacked 10 people, it should be balanced so that those 100 people with the right planning and resources should pretty much always trump what 10 people could hope to invest in defences. 

 

I think it just comes down to if you’re willing to invest large amounts of resources into defences then it should be really hard to take your base. That’s the trade off and it means they wouldn’t have invested anywhere else or not as much in areas like fleets, colonies, mining operations and then you can target those areas as a way to weaken them.

 

Maybe even an upkeep system for autoturrets would make it fair so that it’s costly to maintain large amounts of them!

[namco]

5 hours ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

Most likely, the RDMS. I mean, EVE does it to cut down on operational difficulty, sort ofl ike Player Owned Starbases I'd recokn.

You got settings like "is the enemy a known aggressor? (security status low) then shoot", or "is enemy at War with us? Then fire". I see it in DU workiung like " Is enemy "RGB Color" ? Then shoot" with an arbitrary RGB color denoting "target is Red-Hostile to us".

Would be very very light for operational uses like "Stargate Defenses" or "Starbase/Base Defenses".

As long as those guns are not on ships, it's gonna be fine. If they are on ships, then it's gonna be real poop.

You talk as if ships can't be automated. They have already said LUA scrips can be used pretty much anywhere, there is gonna be that one guy who figured out how to code some ships to fly with him and they will end up fully automated....  Will they have "auto pathing" probably not, can they follow one ship that is piloted? sure. Will they have weapons, most likely, and as such they can also be scripted to auto fire in the LUA.

A lot of comments are "no because I don't like it" but you are ruining the chance for other players to do it. If I spend the resources to build a trap base to where you breach inside and then 20 turrets come online and kill you making you drop all your gear inside the trap base, than hey, you lose and I should be able to do it. There is no reason to limit players from doing anything as long as it fits with the lore of the game. Same goes for things like ramming ships. I know they claimed already that you wont be able to, but did they say "wont ever be able to" or "we have more important things to develop right now to get the main game going?" Limiting interaction is just as bad as not developing the game in the first place. IF its not possible now, fine, but they need to figured it out at some point and allow for the game to truly come "alive." To me, the biggest issue with MMO's is that they are single player games "with friends". That isn't fun, at all. MMO games should be online worlds that feels like you are living in them. A sort of "escape" from real life as games have always been, just more dynamic. But then again, that's my opinion. I still feel we shouldn't be limited in any aspect.

[Anaximander]

1 minute ago, namco said:

You talk as if ships can't be automated. They have already said LUA scrips can be used pretty much anywhere, there is gonna be that one guy who figured out how to code some ships to fly with him and they will end up fully automated....  Will they have "auto pathing" probably not, can they follow one ship that is piloted? sure. Will they have weapons, most likely, and as such they can also be scripted to auto fire in the LUA.

A lot of comments are "no because I don't like it" but you are ruining the chance for other players to do it. If I spend the resources to build a trap base to where you breach inside and then 20 turrets come online and kill you making you drop all your gear inside the trap base, than hey, you lose and I should be able to do it. There is no reason to limit players from doing anything as long as it fits with the lore of the game. Same goes for things like ramming ships. I know they claimed already that you wont be able to, but did they say "wont ever be able to" or "we have more important things to develop right now to get the main game going?" Limiting interaction is just as bad as not developing the game in the first place. IF its not possible now, fine, but they need to figured it out at some point and allow for the game to truly come "alive." To me, the biggest issue with MMO's is that they are single player games "with friends". That isn't fun, at all. MMO games should be online worlds that feels like you are living in them. A sort of "escape" from real life as games have always been, just more dynamic. But then again, that's my opinion. I still feel we shouldn't be limited in any aspect.

Welcome stranger, ships won't be automated. I have a link to a dev's quote above on the comments (previous page probably by now), check it.

[namco]

Just now, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

Welcome stranger, ships won't be automated. I have a link to a dev's quote above on the comments (previous page probably by now), check it.

If you can write lua scrips, you can automate a ship... sure it may not be something that you can do out of the box, but are they going as far as limiting lua scripts? because I thought they said "you can script anything" in which case you can script a ship to fly on its own.... it may not have pathing or object detection but it could follow you around like a drone and auto fire. Since they already said you can build drones to follow you. FAIL.

[Anaximander]

Just now, namco said:

If you can write lua scrips, you can automate a ship... sure it may not be something that you can do out of the box, but are they going as far as limiting lua scripts? because I thought they said "you can script anything" in which case you can script a ship to fly on its own.... it may not have pathing or object detection but it could follow you around like a drone and auto fire. Since they already said you can build drones to follow you. FAIL.

No, no you can't if the devs won't allow you for it - and they don't allow for it. You can't fly a 100 guns ship on your own, they don't want you to, and they won't enable it.

You seem to think they will introduce Lua in all its glory - backdoors to other people's PCs included. That won't happen either. They utilise Lua as a high fuinction macrocommand script, not for you to be Captain Solo-Flying-Battleships.

Cheers.

[namco]

Just now, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

No, no you can't if the devs won't allow you for it - and they don't allow for it. You can't fly a 100 guns ship on your own, they don't want you to, and they won't enable it.

You seem to think they will introduce Lua in all its glory - backdoors to other people's PCs included. That won't happen either. They utilise Lua as a high fuinction macrocommand script, not for you to be Captain Solo-Flying-Battleships.

Cheers.

So then they LIED when they said we could build drones and have them follow us around a planet? Because then you can move that script over to a ship and boom it follows you around. Its wont be "fully automated" but you can get close. Also, they give you full access to the LUA scripting. Otherwise there is literally no point in doing ANY lua scripting because most things are "auto generated" and "you don't have to script". ____________7:23 in this video from the devs..... ____________

 

[Anaximander]

@namco

 

You can script something and remote control it, using the scripts to make it follow you as a "maneuver", similarly setting the ship with a similar script to "orbit" another construct.

That's not automation, that's clever remote control. What you want, is having drones doing your bidding, or having a ship that needs no crew. And that's a no-no. Some things are automated, tbut that doesn't mean you'l lget auto-locking, auto-firing turrets on ships.

[namco]

Just now, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

@namco

 

You can script something and remote control it, using the scripts to make it follow you as a "maneuver", similarly setting the ship with a similar script to "orbit" another construct.

That's not automation, that's clever remote control. What you want, is having drones doing your bidding, or having a ship that needs no crew. And that's a no-no. Some things are automated, tbut that doesn't mean you'l lget auto-locking, auto-firing turrets on ships.

When did I say a fully automated ship? I said you could get close to it using the drone feature. Why are you putting words in my mouth? oh because you wanna be a know it all. I'm done with your bs sir. Bye.

[Anaximander]

23 minutes ago, namco said:

You talk as if ships can't be automated. They have already said LUA scrips can be used pretty much anywhere, there is gonna be that one guy who figured out how to code some ships to fly with him and they will end up fully automated....  Will they have "auto pathing" probably not, can they follow one ship that is piloted? sure. Will they have weapons, most likely, and as such they can also be scripted to auto fire in the LUA.
 

Since you suffer from split-personality disorder, I'll point you to your earlier quote. I guess now you have to put your money where your mouth is, right?

You expect a fully automated ship with guns - you also sound like the guy who will "figure that out". Nobody can "figure out" how to automate auto-firing turrets, if there is no such command in the library of commands for Lua in the game. Who knew, interpreters need libraries to function.

Cheers.

[Lethys]

23 minutes ago, namco said:

but it could follow you around like a drone and auto fire. Since they already said you can build drones to follow you. FAIL.

 

27 minutes ago, namco said:

Will they have weapons, most likely, and as such they can also be scripted to auto fire in the LUA.
 

 

7 minutes ago, namco said:

When did I say a fully automated ship? I said you could get close to it using the drone feature. Why are you putting words in my mouth? oh because you wanna be a know it all. I'm done with your bs sir. Bye.

You said it twice

[namco]

9 minutes ago, Lethys said:

 

 

You said it twice

following like a drone is doable. following like a drone does not = fully automated. fail. ya'll understand English right?

[Lethys]

2 minutes ago, namco said:

following like a drone is doable. following like a drone does not = fully automated. fail. ya'll understand English right?

Clearly you fail to read the part where you want AUTO FIRE. You can read right?

[0something0]

I mean, I think its reasonable to think that there should be weapons that can fire when given a signal controled by if/then loop.

 

I don't want the turrets to be like the ones found on WWII bombers. Its simply out of place. It should be possible for 1 person to control 1000 turrets, but the management becomes so hard after a certain point that its simply not viable anymore.

[Lethys]

1 hour ago, 0something0 said:

I mean, I think its reasonable to think that there should be weapons that can fire when given a signal controled by if/then loop.

 

I don't want the turrets to be like the ones found on WWII bombers. Its simply out of place. It should be possible for 1 person to control 1000 turrets, but the management becomes so hard after a certain point that its simply not viable anymore.

It's one gun = one person.

 

We will have to see how that works out wwith the rest

[0something0]

Might as well as build a Wellington bomber to go to space instead of a proper spacecraft. We have indestructible materials but cant wire up multiple turrets to 1 controller?

 

Also, this sort of thing would probably encourage building "big dumb" ships with the biggest turrets possible in order to cram as much firepower per person. And what if you wanted to say build a spitfire mentioned earlier with 8 forward facing guns?

[CoreVamore]

5 hours ago, 0something0 said:

Might as well as build a Wellington bomber to go to space instead of a proper spacecraft. We have indestructible materials but cant wire up multiple turrets to 1 controller?

 

Also, this sort of thing would probably encourage building "big dumb" ships with the biggest turrets possible in order to cram as much firepower per person. And what if you wanted to say build a spitfire mentioned earlier with 8 forward facing guns?

Ships large and small with a variety of abilities will have their place. The only indestructable materials are the ones on the extremities of the arkship. It will likely be years till such hardened material tech is even introduced into the game

[Lethys]

7 hours ago, 0something0 said:

Might as well as build a Wellington bomber to go to space instead of a proper spacecraft. We have indestructible materials but cant wire up multiple turrets to 1 controller?

 

Also, this sort of thing would probably encourage building "big dumb" ships with the biggest turrets possible in order to cram as much firepower per person. And what if you wanted to say build a spitfire mentioned earlier with 8 forward facing guns?

Forward guns <> turrets.

Indestructible materials are not available to us, it's only the hull of the ark.

 

I see your point but nonetheless that's not what NQ wants as jc stated in many interviews

[NanoDot]

8 hours ago, 0something0 said:

Might as well as build a Wellington bomber to go to space instead of a proper spacecraft. We have indestructible materials but cant wire up multiple turrets to 1 controller?

 

Also, this sort of thing would probably encourage building "big dumb" ships with the biggest turrets possible in order to cram as much firepower per person. And what if you wanted to say build a spitfire mentioned earlier with 8 forward facing guns?

It's a game design issue.

 

NQ have said they don't want a single player to be able to fly a battleship and control all it's functions and guns. Ships are mobile offensive weapons, so their impact on game play can be felt everywhere in DU's world.

 

A single ship turret will probably be equal to several forward-facing guns on a fighter, otherwise there's no balance. But those fighter guns can only hit what's in front of the fighter, so a single pilot can fire them all. Turrets can fire in all directions independent of which direction the ship is moving, so a turret's DPS will in all likelihood be far greater than fighter-based weapons, simply because they can engage a target for longer.

 

Base turrets are a different matter, they are purely defensive elements deployed in a static area to protect a base. They are also the only weapons that allow automation, because they will provide protection when a player is offline. Your base turrets will protect your ship too if it's parked inside the base.

[0something0]

Also, how about orbital stations? Whats the difference between a space station and a ship? (The engines).  So, how do we define which space objects can get autoturrets? I'm not sure about this but doesnt space stations have their own cores? 

 

And how about CIWS turrets for shooting down missiles or bullets?