What do you think about the possibility of hiring AI pilots to fly our ships? For people who own a lot of ships: can I fly my ship and hire an AI to fly another ship that I own?
TL;DRThey haven't really discussed hiring AI to fly your other ships and prefer players playing; hiring NPCs who bring their own ships is envisioned, and one player commanding a whole fleet is a balance worry.
We haven't really talked about that, just because, I mean, I would prefer that the player is playing the game.
Not the computer. I know for sure Chris would definitely prefer that.
Yeah, so, I mean, it's fair enough to think about, if you're online and you're doing that, and let's say you have an Idris and you've got other ships associated with that, like Gladiuses or other ships that you want flying around in your fleet, and you have AI pilots associated with that. As long as you're there and flying it, then I think that's something that we would think about. But it would be something that would require more discussion, not only from a technical standpoint, but also from a design standpoint.
And also, besides that, you will actually be able to hire someone that already has a ship. So you will hire an NPC for a certain duration. Let's say I need someone for today because I'm doing some heavy missions. He comes with this ship, he has these skills, and you know exactly what support you're getting. You giving your ships away for AI to fly: we're worried about this thing where people have a lot of ships and one man controls an entire fleet. This is something that would break the balance of the game. We need to not overpower people that much. But then, yes, it's exactly what Todd said. You have an Idris, you have Gladiuses as part of that Idris' flight group. They're on your ship, and you might have NPCs that you tell, yeah, get to your ships, launch, because we're attacking someone in three seconds, and they will do that.
I absolutely understand all that. I've actually heard similar sentiments here in this office from designers and from Chris himself. It's not that we're ready to rule it out at this point, but ultimately, if your choice is between having players in the game or having NPCs in the game, we're always going to choose having players.
Well, and even with Chris, he said multiple times he wants roughly a nine-to-one ratio, so nine AI to one player. So right then and there, that kind of says we've got a lot of AI in the game. It's not just going to be only players.