26 Topic by AeonThePiglet

(2 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

General weapon changes:
Projectile weapon (AC and MGs) weight decreased significantly.
Green bot bonuses and slots shifted to fitting and using ACs.
Missiles given significantly better alpha, but significantly lower rof. Also designed to hit the next size class up with full damage, doing less to same size class and nearly nothing to lower size class. Most bots have a slot or two available for fitting missiles. Missile range also dramatically increased.
Shields get an inherent bonus to resist against damage from missiles.
New RR mod: Projected Shield. Has higher AP/Damage cost than standard RR, but can be used on any allied bot (so RR has a speedy option for protecting an ally from inbound missile doom)


lights:
Main goal is to improve the viability of lights as a combat bot and as heavy tackle. Also turns the class itself into a versatile one with multiple roles.

General class change: lower mass slightly (nerfs plates a tad when combined with lwf on light) and raise base speed by 10kph.

+2 head slots, more CPU.

Add new light bot class with 100 detection and 130+ masking. Slightly lower base hp than the standard light, higher base speed. Only two head slots (demob + masker). Low CPU, but bot bonus reducing masker CPU significantly (8% per level?).

Add new light bot class with low cpu/grid but heavy class based reduction to fitting reqs on light RR. Also reduce cap use and cycle time on light RR (class bonus) as well as providing a bonus to light RR range. Slightly slower than base light bot.

assaults:
This bot should be the primary combat bot for the bot class, and should be able to stand toe to toe with mechs. Idea is that it takes more damage from mech guns but is better at resisting it and demobs because it is better at fitting plates. Trade off is significantly lower DPS, range and detection than a mech, but faster and better able to deal with mountainous terrain.

General class change:
raise mass significantly without changing base speed. Allows the assault to fit an armor plate without causing it to go super slow.
raise base hp by a good chunk.
raise surface area by a few points.

Add new assault class based around redesigned missiles. Same masking/detection as ewar bots. Bonus to range (allowing engage at 1 to 1.5km) and damage for missiles. Lower mass than same level assault to reduce effectiveness of tanking, also significantly lower base HP. Idea is to create a bot that requires support from gang members to hit distant targets (target painter mod) but can put out awesome alpha en masse every minute or so. Should have one fewer gun slot and low slot than assault of faction.


Mechs:

Generally seem fine, but should have a few more utility missile slots available than other bots -- easily converted into anti-hmech, but sans the range and dps advantages of the assault missilebots. When destroyers get added to the game, add a mech missile bot based on the assault missile bot for countering destroyers.

HMechs:
No changes to suggest here.

General Philosophy:

Currently the tactical counter to a given class in sufficient numbers is a bigger gang of the same thing or larger. This isn't smart. Imagine an RTS where the only counter to pikes was a larger group of pikes or a smaller number of super pikes that were the same thing but better in every way; just not a fun situation.

Instead game gets reoriented into a more rock paper scissors format, where any FOTM can be countered by bringing one of several appropriate counters. For instance, a group that uses mechs all the time could be countered by another group bringing missile assaults and some spotters. Those could be countered by light bots (especially the masky kind) or bringing RR with projected shields (or fitting personal shields), which could be countered by gun assaults or LR neuting ewar, which could be countered by mechs, etc etc. So rather than bringing more of the same (+ewar + rr) you've got a reason to diversify your gang into something more interesting to fight (or leave holes that can be exploited by a more balanced force). Rather than rewarding newbies by giving them low level I-WIN VS BIGGAR buttons, a system of this sort rewards the sort of people who have a ton of EP and can roll out in a good bot for any situation -- in effect rewarding versatility rather than ability to skill for and pay for a bigger bot than your targets. 

While many people enjoy using missiles on a day to day basis, not having a weapon designed for engaging larger enemies cripples bots when fighting something a size class up. It's especially disappointing that such an obvious (and fun) secondary weapon type with some potentially neat in game usages has been made into a workhorse weapon whose only advantage is being mediocre at everything other than ignoring terrain. While this does serve as something of a counter to mechs, it also provides them with a more reliable mechanism for engaging hmechs, and eventually ends with them getting the primary counter to the destroyer class.

I'd love to suggest some additional mech classes, but at the moment there doesn't seem to be much you can put in there. Stealth seems like a poor option for combat mechs, although it is indeed possible. Maybe a combat oriented RR bot that does worse than the standard options with RR, but is significantly sneakier and faster? Maybe a mech oriented around nexus mods? IDK! But I'd like to see some options for our mech brosefs other than just ewar and guns.


The last thing I want to talk about is how proud I am of the assault missile bot idea. I mean, this is a bot that relies on teamwork (in the form of TPs) to be effective. It has a low rof and loses masking when it attacks, so it'll pop up on scout radar the instant a launch goes off. Imagine the FC ordering them to alpha target and reposition, enemy scout calling out the fire location to masky light bots who get sent in to chase em, and this small skirmish battle going on while the mechs are duking it out. You have to admit that sounds way more fun than just calling a primary. It makes who and what to target, and when to fire, and when to reveal that there are missile bots on the field (which using a target painter would do) this big decision that has serious ramifications.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

27 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

Yeah I think most people would be happier if robots were moving about near some sort of robo-facility doing things that seem rational.

Problem is, what the heck do robots do in their spare time? Do they dream of electric sheep?

Go to forum: General discussion

28 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(33 replies, posted in General discussion)

I'd be willing to serve as your marketing guy, but as I have actual experience (see forum posting) I'll demand a significant retainer: all your monies.

Go to forum: General discussion

29 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(11 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Give them 2km range. LET THE PUNISHMENT BEGIN!

/is tots srs/

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

30 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

Winter Solstice wrote:

anyone who's ever played rising force online might attest to the dumbness of their AI wink  but the internals are actually pretty complex.  Setting all of their triggers for the dev is the bugger. 

Static AI is easier in the sense of stand in your spot and then react, don't necessarily act independentently.  Wont go into their full stats but its like...

Radius in which you spawn from your origin point.
Speed you walk when "idle", speed you walk in "agro" mode (move, WarMove)
Speed (im ms + or - some randomosity) at which you will agress an opponent (opponents are set via player flags per race, or flagged against all player races)
Will you help a fellow monster?
Will you call for help if you need it?
At what points are you "in trouble"? (based on hitpoints, ranges from "Goodtookay, okaytobad, badtoworse, wierd flags like that)
What will you cast/do to your primary target at each point at what percentage?
What will you cat/do to ANY opponent if they do any of the following (skills defined at 4 letter/number combos)
What will you SAY at certain points (helping a 'friend'? BadToWorse? A curse spell cast on you? Randomly during the fight? When you use a certain skill?)
... then plus your base stats (an F-ton of those too, as complex as the player, which doesn't even look so complex from the client UI).

I wanted to learn to program AI's in an existing system, did so...  and had to walk away burned out until I can finally crawl back weeping.  smile  They're a pain wink  Specially when you need like 300 individual special complex ones in a month.  A programmers' head (dev-y types) can wrap around them easy enough but the mroe comlpex they are.. and even those are simple, the less of them you can have active on a map... (processing power serverside)...

Oh gawd you were scripting weren't you. If you're using a classless scripting language you are in for a world of hurt. Blah blah blah includes; screw that, I'd rather create a class that handles the general case and set up constructors to initialize with defaults, then just generate that in each instance of the NPC. 

Problem solved and probably how problem is dealt with here. I don't want to hear about your effing structs you C freaks, it's not a class so stfu. 

The annoying part is teaching the AI to use a map. Some games do that by dynamically judging terrain and calculating los for a range of current and potential positions (this is where  stuff like "rays" is going to get tossed around, you do not want to know and it is not easy to implement) -- the faster things are changing position, the more expensive this gets, but it's never cheap in a real time game.

The other option is static scripting for locations, which is functionally impossible in an open environment like Perp's where the devs cannot predict the position of the player by map layout (but it's also generally a lot cheaper). It works great in games where you've got lots of static cover and a single entry point, but the greater the range of potential entry points the less utility this method will provide.

So the optimal solution for a dev that A) does not have a lot of time/cash to throw at the solution B) needs a cheap solution processor wise and C) is generally viable is ignoring terrain except when it comes between the NPC and the human, at which point the NPC calculates a shortest path to "remove" the obstacle and then goes back to the headlong charge (until a script gets triggered by a state change).

Which really brings you to the nut of the problem. The vast majority of player perceptions about the AI have to do with how well it navigates a given map, uses cover and works with its amigos. MMO AI will never (at least, never in a reasonable time frame) do any of those three things because they all depend on the map and require extensive calculation or a reduction in potential player entry points to PVE areas.

What the devs CAN do is create spawns built to look like a player gang. So high speed assaults with tackle and short range guns, long range mechs with RR support, etc etc. They sort of have this with roaming spawns. The other thing they can do is use a swarm model (note: a real swarm uses hordes of agents to generate a single solution, this is more of an overlord model, whatevskies) instead of a per bot script. So, a single script generates a solution that gets mild randomization when applies to each bot. That's create a perception that the bots are FFing players and moving (mostly) as a unit, with some of them not following primary or separating from the group. It'd also help if bots checked to switch targets if (enemySpeed > ownSpeed && enemyRange > ownRange && !(tackle == true)). Right now I build threat while range tanking against a hauler spawn, bugger off at high speed and then our green bots roll up with compacts and annihilate. 

The gist of it is that you won't get what you want wrt smarter bots and cover, but a couple things could be done to make the situation more entertaining.

Go to forum: General discussion

31 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

Tupha wrote:
AeonThePiglet wrote:

My experience with our grindbears is that they won't get on ts, socialize, participate, build, mine, fight or do anything other than grind cash off rats........


Let me shed some light for you Aeon..
For starters let me first say that i come from 7 years in stEVE running almost exclusively in 0.0 and Wormholes participating and running everything from large fleet to small 5 man gang PvP.

Now in Perp i have been a grindbear as you put it, why?? because I'm skilling up my characters and providing a base to support myself in PvP and something to fall back on.
No PvP game like this can work without the PVE as it provides the backbone of the game.
I would like know how the PvP wing operates without the support from the PvE guys, further more in stEVE we would run PVE Ops to fund our PvP as a group.

PvE also caters for those with families who cant spend there life on the game and need to leave the computer often, but might get a spare few hours at night or on a weekend to PvP.

Most of our pvpers are working adults who get a couple hours free at night. I don't have a family at home, but three hours is a bit over what I have time for in perp on the average weeknight, especially as I usually have social stuff to do. We're drop in/drop out on roams for exactly that reason.

How does pvp fund itself? We do the occasional pve op but most of us form up and grab epi and use that to pay the bills.

A fit pvp assault can go live for less than a mil. You can take out a light to meet the speed req and be out even less. So it doesn't take much farming or mining to maintain regular pvp. If you were there for the meeting (or listened to the recording) you'd hear that pvp eats almost none of the budget and has cut out what little it does eat entirely.

Most of the grinders, because of the way the game works, don't pay any tax whatsoever. So it's not at all helpful to the wallet or anything else because they don't usually donate either. Some do, and those guys are awesome, but that about sums it up.

I'm glad you're having fun and all in game doing what you enjoy, but if all you do is grind away silently you might as well be playing dragon age for all the relevance it has to the rest of the corp.

Go to forum: General discussion

32 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

Ioci wrote:
AeonThePiglet wrote:

Most of our guys closed genchat on day one. I open it up for some live action trolling, and otherwise stay out. Not shocked people left it, it's a butt channel that also serves up a hot steaming plate of free intel.

Also I'm assuming an infestation is a pve thing? Have you given pvp a shot yet? I herd it is gud.

No, I haven't given PvP a "shot". No, I won't be. Yes, I've herd its gud too. I know better. I'm assuming the infestation question is a troll. Feel free to continue that route. 8 years of it in EVE, 75% of the pop still sits in high sec, it doesn't work but I'm sure Perp will change all that.:rolleyes:

So why don't you just play Dragon Age or Mount and Blade Warband or SPAZ or something?

Serious question. There are a ton of games that do pve really well. Why would you play perp over them, or eve for that matter, if all you want is pve content?

Minecraft is all pve with way more crafting than perp. Why this over that?

This is a pvp game. Every one of the design choices is based around the idea that pvp is ongoing and that players want to get into it. And the pvp is really good! No ***, it's a Robo fps with persistence.

If you aren't into pvp and you want nothing to do with it, I simply don't get what you get out of the game.

My experience with our grindbears is that they won't get on ts, socialize, participate, build, mine, fight or do anything other than grind cash off rats. They might as well be AI automatons that we purchased to do stuff for our corp. Which sucks! I'm fairly abrasive on the forums but I spend all my time in game looking for ways to generate content for our members and generally taking care to find ways to keep them from getting bored. I don't get why there is this subset that wants nothing to do with it! I respect them as a fellow player (so no whining about participation) and they have every right to play the game, but I don't get it. Isn't the whole point of an mmo to hang out and do stuff with your fellow nerd?

Bah. Anyway feel free to enlighten me so that I can keep looking for ways to shake up our lotus eaters.

Go to forum: General discussion

33 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(9 replies, posted in General discussion)

Wee.

Go to forum: General discussion

34 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

Or you could, you know, pvp. It's like the whole point. IDGI, if you have piles of money you might as well spend it getting blown up. It's fun, I do it all the time.

Go to forum: General discussion

35 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

He said two pvpers online will make content for one another. I said they'll whine about blobbing.

Video games and real life have nothing in common, trying to draw parallels between them is hilariously fail.

Go to forum: General discussion

36 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(6 replies, posted in Recruitment forum)

http://grahamten.files.wordpress.com/20 … g-cat3.jpg

NEX: We're not in this picture.

Go to forum: Recruitment forum

37 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(92 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

DatAss comes back for more is all I'ma say.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

38 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

Nope, they'll just whine about blobbing.

Go to forum: General discussion

39 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(9 replies, posted in General discussion)

Obi Wan Kenobi wrote:

TS3 FTW mumble is meh.....  unless you want to get us a free mumble server aeon tongue

http://mumble.sourceforge.net/Installing_Mumble
http://erroraccessdenied.com/files/imag … review.jpg

Go to forum: General discussion

40 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(92 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Arga wrote:
Annihilator wrote:

Sandbox rule #1: do not risk what you cannot afford to lose wink
Sandbox rule #2: Carebears wont risk their equip, even if they can afford to lose it

Carebears name thier robots and feel a personal loss when they blow up. When I lost "Sniffy" my artifact scanner termis, I was crippled with remorse for hours.


OHhhh Snifffyyyyyyy ..... *WAAAAAH* I misssssss you. I don't like Snuffles, your replacement even half as much, no bots as good as you finding those GO caches.   RIP Sniffy.

I name all my bots DatAss. That way I can ride DatAss, put things in DatAss, and blow up DatAss.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

41 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

I don't really care if people who don't ever play with or against others leave. That's like telling me some guy stopped playing single player SC2. So what, it's not like he was ever relevant to anyone other than himself.

Go to forum: General discussion

42 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(9 replies, posted in General discussion)

FFS we need to set up a mumble. Why are we using tardspeak? I have no idea.

Go to forum: General discussion

43 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(18 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

I mean sure a can that popped a shield where you could sit logged out safely (bot wouldn't disappear, but you'd be safe) would be nice. Guns around it would help a bit.

But there's nowhere to put them on most islands in beta. They have tons of statics taking up all the space. It's weird; beta is crowded with statics and light on people when it should really be the other way around.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

44 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(138 replies, posted in General discussion)

Most of our guys closed genchat on day one. I open it up for some live action trolling, and otherwise stay out. Not shocked people left it, it's a butt channel that also serves up a hot steaming plate of free intel.

Also I'm assuming an infestation is a pve thing? Have you given pvp a shot yet? I herd it is gud.

Go to forum: General discussion

45 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(18 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

The npc terminals aren't exactly advertising the fact. More importantly, they can't serve as an incubator when defended like Nova blah blah no term there blah blah. That's why I think splitting sov and non-sov betas is a good idea. It'd make a pvp zone no one would have an incentive to camp.

Hugh Raka wrote:

1. It was not claimable, so there was little incentive go after anything other than valuable moons for the large power blocks/alliances.
2. You can build your own home in EVE (a POS) as a corporation and escaping is easy (warp from pos shield to a celestial and log off) in case it turned sour for you.

1 I'll grant you. It's why I made this post.

2 I'm gonna disagree with, mostly because I remember living out of a station plenty of times in npc 0.0. The bigger difference here is the lack of instas, but you can dock up without losing syndicate for more than a few seconds so that's good enough I guess.

Plus I kinda think we need space for player structures, and to get that we need fewer statics. Big thing for us about npc 0.0 was we got to play minus the sov junk. I think that's something people are gonna start wanting sooner rather than later, and I think getting those people off alpha on a day to day level is more important than anything else.

Goffer wrote:

Those island might came back into usage as soon, as there is no need to blob up live there as roams tended to blob up the last weeks.

No need to fight in small number if you can be sure that whenever you flag up, the enemy is avoiding real confrontation until bringing enough friends.
While I didn't see Nex avoiding the fight in small numbers, I saw Nex beeing part of the blob that cames if you flag up. So don't say your not part of the problem. Your just not the worse part of the problem from my point of view.
I think the situation will change as soon as new outpost behavior is getting into game.

You might still see that going on roam is not a guarantee to find enemies. But you can change this, make yourself acceptable targets for others roaming, by living on beta without hiding in large blobs. In that case you might at least experience some pvp.

Holy Christ. I thought I banished the blob whining and yet here it is. Like herpes. Shut up about blobs, no one cares. It doesn't make you look leet, it makes you look like a sore loser who can't tell the diff between corp dialog channel and feat and req.

If you'd like to discuss NEX and our military habits, feel free to pm me.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

46 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(22 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Perp needs melee bots like I suggested because A it would be awesome and B it would be awesome.

I mean, can you imagine how ridiculously cool the videos would be? Bots chainsawing one another, flamethrowers going nuts, groups of bots teleporting in. Mmm, delicious.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

47 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(18 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

A bunch of waste space is silly. Convert it into NPC space so that it provides a greater sense of security for the inhabitants.

In a situation where there's a lot of land available to be claimed there's a strong incumbency benefit -- if you already hold terf and there is empty land of similar quality available, players will prefer to capture that land rather than yours -- path of least resistance. Meaning no pvp.

So you'd end up with a system where there are a bunch of people who hold outposts and nobody trying to take those outposts from them because, uh, why bother? Meaning a dead boring beta environment without any real war, just a bunch of roaming. Roaming is fun, but the political shenanigans of a battle for control are what sells copy.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

48 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(131 replies, posted in General discussion)

Arga wrote:

But nex isn't the 'only' market for sales. If I paid 10m for access, I want to get the most for my money, so would put the majority of items in there. Good for me, good for Nex, bad for everyone else. Or probably more likely, I endup in a bidding war for exclusive access, good for Nex, bad for me.

Trying to leverage being the largest consumer market in the game is good business sense,  and good game strategy. Being large enough to bend a game mechanic so that it actually has the potential to ruin the game is not so good for everyone else. It's not your responsiblity to NOT do this, its the Dev's to realize the negative potential and correct it.

In your example, as long as everyone is part of the Nex market its good. But it gives your corp an enourmous amount of power in the game, based soley on the fact that you have the largest member base.

If you list an item it has your tag, and is visible to everyone who has bought access to your corp. We'd actually probably have to buy access to your market in this example, as I doubt you'd want to access our orders. Maybe for ore, but otherwise not really. But we'd probably demand a steep discount because, hey, we actually buy things!

We probably don't have the largest member base anymore (I don't think so, anyway). What gives us market power is that we've got a large base of pvpers who buy their own gear, and a large group of pvers who are constantly upgrading to new gear. Most of the other corps out there are small, already upgraded or supply themselves. We're the only net importers serious net importers of gear.

Go to forum: General discussion

49 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(18 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Arga wrote:

The outpost capture changes have been announced, no idea what they are acutally going to end up as, but I think the days of unattended ownership are over once (soon?) that change is implemented.

Not really an improvement. 15 outposts is too many. Six, on the other hand, would provide a seriously concentrated conquerable beta environment. The NPC beta would provide a home for those that don't want to, or can't afford to, compete.

I'd be honestly surprised if more than a couple outposts on Hokk were contested, and those by M2S/62nd and co. There just aren't that many corps interested in taking one on Dom or Norhoop or Kent. We might go after one in one of those locations, but we're only one corp and there aren't exactly a ton of others raring to take an outpost for themselves.

I mean, who besides NEX would you point to as a likely inhabitant of one of those three islands that doesn't already have an outpost?

Flipping three of the islands to NPC control but keeping them pvp flagged would give people a non-alpha home that they couldn't be locked out of. It'd also greatly increase the tension between beta corps in a manner consistent with Boyle's Law (as volume decreases, pressure increases!).

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

50 Reply by AeonThePiglet

(131 replies, posted in General discussion)

Arga wrote:

I guess I'd rather get contracts first.

Making a for profit Shopping Network is a good idea, but I think its more of a remake of the market then adding in and changing around a few features.

If we could sell access to our internal market, and other corps could do the same, the game would go from a bunch of fragmented crappy markets to a network of interconnected ones. Corps like yours would benefit the most on the sales perspective, and corps like ours (with lots of consumers) would benefit from negotiating access sales.

I mean, imagine if you could buy access to our internal market, and we sold said access with the understanding that no other indy corp would be sold access. You'd have sole supplier rights to a corp full of hungry consumers. We'd have a supplier who could provide us with more goodies than we're capable of producing on our own.

Wouldn't that be a far more interesting market model than the current one where .01nic and spreadsheet analysis is considered the height of the art? For the first time in a long time (possibly ever), an mmo would have a market system that incorporated all the negotiating and lies and supplier networks a real world market uses. That'd be some cool ish right there.

Go to forum: General discussion