Pve gsf

[DAWUSS]

Anyone else sometimes want to just engage in PVE GSF? PVP is cool and all, but sometimes I wouldn't mind getting in a PVE session of GSF and just shooting down NPC squadrons in my strike fighter or bomber...

[The_Raven_Lord]

PvE Space Combat has been in the game since launch. To access it, go to your personal ship's bridge, and collect the missions from the terminal. Then find the missions on the Galaxy map and enjoy. =)

[zaskar]

He's looking for free-flight pve.

 

That would require development of an ai that can navigate and react on three axis. This is expensive. Story, scripting, etc, very expensive. Just look at titanfall and their decision to go pvp only.

[Kuciwalker]

The difficulty of space AI is overstated.

[Elly_Dawn]

omg, if PvE GSF existed (no, i don't mean StarFoxWars) i'd never get off of it, unless the drones were still bugged to shoot through obstacles, in that case i still wouldn't play... the chance to go against teams that aren't all Gunships and Bombers would be refreshing... Edited March 10, 2014 by Elly_Dawn

[zaskar]

The difficulty of space AI is overstated.

 

Your ignorance and lack of experience is evident. A good 3D ai will have to observe, orient, plan and act while doing calculus, some pretty serious math for all objects on the screen and then do them again and again while the ai is making the choices. All of those choice create more math. To make it sorta real you need to add comms between the mobs so they swarm, act in concert. Ya know, wingmen. You can cheat some, add some animations, wing waggles, formation maneuvers but it still requires the full tree to be run, you can write in short circuits when the rng says, wing waggle this tick, but that just creates these great huge holes in code where nasty bugs live.

 

Having a human handle the OOPA reduces the calculations the server makes by thousands per second. Any dev worth their salt is gonna write some cheat code so the math won't be required every second, but more like three to six. Here comes the next hard thing, the prediction engine that will take all of this and start plotting ahead.

 

We now have a simulator not a bloody mmo mini game.

 

Compared to a single axis ai that has pathing routines to cheat all movement and a threat table to decide who the mobs focus, ya it's complex and pretty expensive to build and debug from scratch.

[Kuciwalker]

Your ignorance and lack of experience is evident. A good 3D ai will have to observe, orient, plan and act while doing calculus, some pretty serious math for all objects on the screen and then do them again and again while the ai is making the choices. All of those choice create more math. To make it sorta real you need to add comms between the mobs so they swarm, act in concert. Ya know, wingmen. You can cheat some, add some animations, wing waggles, formation maneuvers but it still requires the full tree to be run, you can write in short circuits when the rng says, wing waggle this tick, but that just creates these great huge holes in code where nasty bugs live.

 

All of that sounds very impressive and difficult until you remember that we have had single-player dogfighting games (in both air and space) for over two decades.

 

The AI doesn't need to solve for a freaking Nash equilibrium strategy. It just has to be serviceable.

Edited March 10, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[ptwonline]

All of that sounds very impressive and difficult until you remember that we have had single-player dogfighting games (in both air and space) for over two decades.

 

The AI doesn't need to solve for a freaking Nash equilibrium strategy. It just has to be serviceable.

 

Elite was released 30 years ago on the Commodore 64.

 

Why not just hire some of the many developers who worked on other various flight combat sim games? There have been dozens of such games.

[zaskar]

Again, this is a mmo mini game not an entire title. It makes little sense to invest in the steep costs for something that only a very small portion of the player base would use.

 

To compare a game like elite to a modern mmo, I want to ask if you, never mind. I'm hoping this is a troll.

[Costello]

A shame they couldn't just use the tie fighter engine and update the graphics. That was a great space sim.

[Kuciwalker]

Again, this is a mmo mini game not an entire title. It makes little sense to invest in the steep costs for something that only a very small portion of the player base would use.

 

The costs aren't steep. This is a problem that's been solved dozens of times over on hardware thousands of times less powerful than your cell phone.

[ptwonline]

Again, this is a mmo mini game not an entire title. It makes little sense to invest in the steep costs for something that only a very small portion of the player base would use.

 

To compare a game like elite to a modern mmo, I want to ask if you, never mind. I'm hoping this is a troll.

 

We're talking about being able to figure out NPC logic to fight player-flown ships. It has been reasonably solved for computers that had the tiniest fraction of the power and memory of current computers.

 

They already know how to make ground-based NPCs react to player positioning. It should be similar even in 3D space (ground based is 3D space witha floor) since the most important thing is the relative spatial differences, and then moving and reacting based on that. It's not that hard to add extra logic to either use defensive abilities under certain conditions (like a shield cooldown if shields are low) or just to mimic it by using ceratain abilities at somewhat random intervals.

Edited March 10, 2014 by ptwonline

[Buggleslor]

A shame they couldn't just use the tie fighter engine and update the graphics. That was a great space sim.

 

Honestly, I don't think I'm alone in that my fond memories of that game are why I resubbed at the genesis of gsf in the first place. It hasn't disappointed-it's still fun to zip around blowing things up. Controls are a little weird but not really a huge problem (joystick support would be lovely).

 

As an aside, anyone complaining about queue times clearly does not recall the days of trying to line up matches in X-wing vs Tie fighter on the Microsoft Zone .

 

I can't believe the devs aren't aware of the connection--the power management system was clearly lifted from that heritage. One does wonder why people imply things that were almost perfectly implemented then are suddenly "impossible," though.

[ptwonline]

Honestly, I don't think I'm alone in that my fond memories of that game are why I resubbed at the genesis of gsf in the first place. It hasn't disappointed-it's still fun to zip around blowing things up. Controls are a little weird but not really a huge problem (joystick support would be lovely).

 

As an aside, anyone complaining about queue times clearly does not recall the days of trying to line up matches in X-wing vs Tie fighter on the Microsoft Zone .

 

I can't believe the devs aren't aware of the connection--the power management system was clearly lifted from that heritage. One does wonder why people imply things that were almost perfectly implemented then are suddenly "impossible," though.

 

I'm going to guess that most people waxing fondly about X-Wing and TIE Fighter were playing solo PvE, and thus had no queue times, did not have to worry about players who exploited mechanics, or odd ships with extreme balance issues, and so forth.

Edited March 10, 2014 by ptwonline

[zaskar]

The costs aren't steep. This is a problem that's been solved dozens of times over on hardware thousands of times less powerful than your cell phone.

 

The analog for GSF is world of tanks / fighters, not xwing, not whatever sim you have in mind. The costs of building two completely different projects is quiet steep. If you cannot see these are apple and oranges then I have little hope is explaining this. I can't tell if you're trying to troll or if you're obtuse.

[SwiftDuck]

This type of technology has existed for decades and is far cheaper than it used to be.

 

You guys saying this would be hard to implement forget that we live in the 21st century where this type of computing is child's play.

 

If enough people ask for it, they will make it. Just like we got GSF after asking for it for a while. (Some also said space pvp would have been too hard to code) Now look, we have it.

Edited March 10, 2014 by SwiftDuck

[zaskar]

This type of technology has existed for decades and is far cheaper than it used to be.

 

You guys saying this would be hard to implement forget that we live in the 21st century where this type of computing is child's play.

 

If enough people ask for it, they will make it. Just like we got GSF after asking for it for a while. (Some also said space pvp would have been too hard to code) Now look, we have it.

 

And the engine in my GT2 uses petrol so it must work just line in a ford. If you've never written software and specifically multiuser games, please just stop. It is not like on tv when you put on magic gloves and start moving things around on giant gesture screens. Then magically a few minutes later you have a finished product.

 

Here I have a challenge. Download the unity engine, it's free and has a good deal of what we are talking about built in, it is pretty simple stock stuff but, since you're all so smart you should be able to sit down and build what you're talking about in a week or so. No problem

[Vialator]

He's looking for free-flight pve.

 

That would require development of an ai that can navigate and react on three axis. This is expensive. Story, scripting, etc, very expensive. Just look at titanfall and their decision to go pvp only.

 

Um not that hard tbh-look at STO- EvE Online- both can do it -so why not expand on GSF and allow this- you will get a MASSIVE influx of subscribers if you do this as well.......I know as I would defo stick around- have both ground and space pve.........just like old SWG- where you could build your own fighter parts and such...that would be so awesome!!! I would never leave this game!!! ...as well as custom paint jobs....I would move into my player housing and never leave the digital world!!

 

That is what majority of Star Wars fans been wanting for ages!

[Kuciwalker]

The analog for GSF is world of tanks / fighters, not xwing, not whatever sim you have in mind. The costs of building two completely different projects is quiet steep. If you cannot see these are apple and oranges then I have little hope is explaining this. I can't tell if you're trying to troll or if you're obtuse.

 

Dude, I'm a programmer, this stuff just plain isn't that hard. Making an exceptionally smart AI is hard. Making a decently serviceable AI for an arcade-y flight game is easy.

[MystbladeWA]

And the engine in my GT2 uses petrol so it must work just line in a ford. If you've never written software and specifically multiuser games, please just stop. It is not like on tv when you put on magic gloves and start moving things around on giant gesture screens. Then magically a few minutes later you have a finished product.

 

Here I have a challenge. Download the unity engine, it's free and has a good deal of what we are talking about built in, it is pretty simple stock stuff but, since you're all so smart you should be able to sit down and build what you're talking about in a week or so. No problem

 

Why does it seem impossible for you to put a point across without the conceited overtone? Every post has this affected sneering superiority about it that really isnt necessary. Particularly when those who have continued to engage you in discussion have been nothing but polite.