10 for the Chairman - Episode 16 . April 14th, 2014
Chris Roberts answers fan questions on jump routes that large ships like the Idris can't pass, hangar limits for big ships, and procedural generation starting with asteroids. He also covers player ratings, Person of Interest tracking, localized character damage, NPC hiring, population changes and large dynamic events.
I don't think you'd be able to buy anything bigger than an Idris that could go in your hangar, and maybe even the Idris may not be able to fit in your hangar. We're still trying to figure out what we'll do for the bigger ship, one of the things we've talked about is having them in an orbit and then you take a shuttle down to the surface.So you'll certainly be able to hang out on the ships you've got, but maybe instead of being in the hangar, you're in orbit, and you look out of the windows and there's space and the planet you're around outside it. We haven't fully figured that stuff out, but that's what our thoughts are on that.
TL;DRProcedural generation is in R&D, starting with asteroids and mineable voxel seams, then systems, planets and landing environments, while flyable planet surfaces are a very long-term pipe dream that Roberts won't promise.
Yeah, we're doing the R&D right now, so actually the first thing that we're doing with procedural generation is researching asteroid generation, asteroid field generation, the ability to mine asteroids using voxel technology, so finding the seams of minerals inside asteroids.Then the planets to extend it to system generation so we can generate different styles of systems using the procedural tech.Then move on to celestial bodies like planets in terms of the generation of them from the exterior.And then the later stages will be procedural work for the environments you land in. We would have certain areas that we would design, and then just flesh out the background city or the background landscape beyond the area that you can explore.And very, very, very long term, if we can figure out a way to make the planet actually interesting, we would be interested in trying to make a planet that you can actually go fly around over the surface. But that's actually the pipe dream at the moment, because even with procedural generation, you have to do a lot of other things like build cities and what's happening on the planet, and having all that simulated. We're already trying to do a whole universe and have an economy and all that work, so I wouldn't promise anything on that yet.But we certainly are doing research into seeing, could we extend the areas down on the planet, can you fly down onto a planet and fly around it? And if we can do all that, that would be great.I know that there are a couple of demos and games out there that are promising it, but it's one thing to show it as a general concept and it's empty, and another one to actually have it be interesting and feel like it's a proper living breathing, realistic planet.So anyway, that's the update on the procedural generation side, I think it will really help us flesh out the galaxy and the systems and the locations that you can visit and a lot of the other stuff.
TL;DRNPC populations are not refilled to a fixed number but fluctuate organically with local economies, and wiping out an entire race is not planned beyond possibly a controlled game master event.
The population count is driven by the economy too, so as a place becomes more prosperous it will attract more people to move there, or because it's doing well, you would assume that the population there would be growing. Then other places the population would be contracting because that part of the galaxy's not doing so well or is getting involved in battles or wars.So the numbers of NPCs in the galaxy will probably fluctuate a certain amount, but probably not enough that you'll be able to see a material difference in the overall galaxy. Probably in local systems, you'll appreciate whether this system's booming and there's a lot more people there, or it's not doing very well and there's less people there. And I'm not so sure that you could wipe out an entire race.If we did that, that would be more of a controlled, game master event, but right now we have no plans for that. So I wouldn't say that the NPC stocks are a set number that we always refill to, we let it be organic, but like I said, it will probably fluctuate around a mean.
TL;DRThe person of interest system lets you quietly tag someone without their knowing, so you get notified when they leave the planet and can follow or track them, though Roberts says it remains to be seen how it works in practice.
The idea of the person of interest system is you basically say "I'm interested in this person over there," and the other person doesn't really have any awareness that you've tagged that person as someone that you want the game to let follow.Maybe we would have some devices that you could have to let you know that someone's watching you or snooping on you, which would be sort of like counter insurgency stuff, but the idea of the person of interest system is that way when they leave the planet, you get notified and you have the opportunity to follow them, fly with them in space, and deal with them. It's sort of like tagging someone as a temporary friend. Not that they're necessarily a friend, but it allows you to follow their movements or meet them out in space or track them, which is necessary if you're meant to track someone down for a bounty or whatever.That's kind of how the person of interest system is designed to work, so we'll see how it works in reality, but I'm hoping it will work well, because it will put you together with either your friends or people you're interested in, or people that would be related to what your group is doing, your enemies and stuff.
TL;DRChris Roberts says player companies can hire NPCs as crew or workers, but NPCs won't ask to join player factions on their own, and he's unsure about NPCs joining other player-made factions.
I guess the answer to that is certainly if you're running a company, you can hire NPCs to do work for you as well as players. So definitely we'd let NPCs be working with player run corporations.I'm not so sure about NPCs joining player made factions, other than say the corporation you're running, but you certainly can hire people. You can have people on your crew, and then you are part of the organization, and you've got a full crew of NPCs.So in that manner, you could think that there would be NPCs who would be fighting on behalf of organizations, but it's not like NPCs will be coming up and asking to join an organization by themselves, if that makes sense.Player pirate clans may have NPCs as part of them, but that would be because they were hired by a real player pirate to have some crew on his ship or something like that.
TL;DRChris Roberts says characters will have localized body and limb damage, medpacks and ship med bays that can save a wounded player in time, and hopes this supports first-person and medical gameplay.
Yes, we're gonna have localized damage on the characters. We actually have a whole body/limb damage system.I think I mentioned in the Death of a Spaceman post about how when you get killed out in space, and you revive in the med bay, as you take more and more hits, then maybe you get a prosthetic arm or a robotic arm or something like that.We'll definitely have fairly decent damage in the first person stuff, and we've got medpacks and even a med bay. If you have a ship that has its own medical center, you may be able to take a player who normally if you didn't take him, he would lose a life and do the death of a spaceman, but if you could take him back to the med bay and fix him up, it saves him.Hopefully there will be a whole bunch of first person gameplay that would also involve you and you team boarding, and then you not only try to take the ship over, but if you take some hits and some gets hurt, you'll also want to be taking your wounded comrade back to a medical facility to fix him up within a certain period of time, because if not, he will die and lose a life. We're actually hoping to have some interesting, fun gameplay. Maybe some people fly around with a ship that has a med bay to fix people up if you're boarding, or all that kind of stuff. It could be really cool.
TL;DRChris Roberts says yes: notable characters would get Galactapedia entries and a personal journal and family tree, possibly visible to everyone at a certain fame level, to give a sense of family history.
Absolutely, that's the whole idea I talked about in Death of a Spaceman which was to give a sense of history and identity to your family tree. I would see that you would, if you do some notable things, you would get an entry in the galactipedia, and the galactipedia could probably talk about what your tree or family has been doing.And you certainly would have some level of that in your own journal, but I'm actually thinking what would probably happen is that you would have your own entry in the galactipedia and it would talk about your family tree and maybe when you become a certain level of fame, that becomes available for everyone to see, but until then, it's just your own personal log of what your family history has been up to.So yes, the idea is to look back and say "my great, great grandfather did this, my grandfather did that, my father did this, and I've done this." That would really be kind of cool.
We are definitely going to do large scale dynamic events in the game, some of them will involve military conflict, or something smaller... It could be perhaps a natural disaster on a planet or a system and people have to bring aid in.We're planning to have a lot of these player driven events or events that the players can effect and participate in. That's definitely part of the plan.
Yeah, the idea is we're gonna rate in the way that a car service here in America called Uber does, Where you rate the person that worked for you, who you've hired, and the person you've hired rates you. I think we would probably break it out in such a way that you would see, if you encounter someone again, you would see their average rating and then also, if you had ever worked with them before, the rating that you gave them. So I guess the answer there would be yes on that.
TL;DRChris Roberts says they're thinking of making some jump routes too small or unstable for big ships, like mountain passes, though the pros, cons and classification details aren't figured out.
Yeah, short answer for that is yes, we are actually thinking about that.We're thinking that there would potentially be some jump points or jump routes that would be unstable or small enough that the bigger ships can't go through and smaller ships would have to go through. And we think that would make it interesting, like a mountain pass. Some mountain passes are big and you can fit a lot of people through, and some are small and you can only fit one through the craggy little pathway.So yes, we are definitely doing that, we haven't fully figured out what are the pros and cons of what classifies jump points that way or what the situations are, but that's part of our thinking to make space traversal more interesting.Maybe an info runner, a smaller ship, can get a more direct route because they can go through some smaller, unstable jump points that a really big ship can't get through. So it would make for interesting gameplay.