Why does [the hologram at] MISC [in New] Babbage have NPC reactions to weapons and violence?
TL;DRThe hologram NPCs react because they were set up as regular characters instead of with a special no-reaction master graph; a fix may not have reached the live build, and designers want to define what counts as threatening, possibly by jurisdiction.
Yeah, I wrote that one. It's the hologram, right? Yeah, basically, this is the funny part, because those things are actually running behaviors, right? I think it's going to be interesting to explain a bit how these things work, right? We have what we call a master graph. The master graph is basically the flow of all behaviors or activities. So, for example, when we have an NPC that moves around and sits on a ship, then he knows how to run Diego's behavior when he fights, when he sees an enemy. He knows, oh, I'm on a ship, I'm sitting in a piloting seat, so if I see an enemy, that's how I fight. If I'm on the ground, that's how I fight. And in every one of those states, he knows what are the things that are interesting for him to react to. So there are special master graphs for specific situations like this one, where you don't want them to react because they're not real characters. But if you just mis-set those up and you set them up as regular characters, then they will also react to those sorts of things, right? And in addition to that, I think some of you guys had some really nice Reddit posts on this one as well: they're reacting, for example, to a MedPen and getting scared, or reacting to the multi-tool and getting scared, right? It's because obviously for some of these things, maybe we have a fix on the Squadron branch and didn't get it into Star Citizen in time, because we didn't know this at the right time, before it gets released, when it's in PTU and so on. And obviously there are these things that we want to expand, such that designers can define exactly what is threatening, right? Because in theory, maybe the multi-tool can be threatening. It could damage you, right, if you use it with specific modes. Should they know it? Should they not react when you have, I don't know, just a MedPen in their hands? Yeah, probably they should not freak out if you just aim at them with a MedPen. But maybe if you have the multi-tool enabled with the cutting tool, then that one should be dangerous for other characters and they should be worried. But should they be worried if you're just carrying a gun lowered? Well, that might depend on jurisdiction, right? So there are some levels of polishing that we're still working on. Because I would imagine if you're in Pyro with the gun lowered, well, it's kind of accepted there. But if you go around New Babbage with the gun lowered, it's still not accepted. It should still be scary for people to see you having a gun in your hands.