[Video] Star Citizen AMA - Server blades lots of new info!

[Montoya]

Lots to dig through in this video about the many functions server blades will do. Also some discussion on being able to control NPCs

More on this AMA on the Star Citizen thread here.

 

[DirectorGunner]

@Black Sunder Your time to shine Neo

 

[Ayeteeone]

In answer to one of your questions from the video.. What we call the Agent Smith feature seems to me to point toward an intense desire to have/force people play together. I'm at the point of calling it pathological.

Joined TEST to have the option of playing the game with others, and ESPECIALLY because those big shiny ships require others to be useful. One incident in the Org event this past weekend really makes the case - Yellow Team lost the Hammerhead in the first round. There were several factors but one was the need to have all the turrets manned.. having only half of them manned meant an ineffective defense and it died quickly.

The game is a long way from done or balanced, to be sure. But if multiplayer becomes the only way to achieve valuable results it will miss a great deal of play time from those who simply don't have the time/temperament/investment/interest or ability to pull together group play sessions.

 

[FZD]

As for Agent Smithing

Well, think about it this way: You want to be able to play with your friends, right? But on the other hand, you want the universe to be massive. Like the kinda massive that takes hours if not days to cross. Now, say you've been playing with your friend for a bit on one quadrant, your friend logs off but you still got time so you continue playing. Will you just stay in that one quadrant so the next time your friend comes on it doesn't take 2 hours for you guys to meet up? What if you got on a dynamic event stream that would take you to another quadrant, will you skip on that and instead hang around where your friend will eventually log on? That's the kinda shackle that would likely dampen anyones enjoyment. Or maybe you just have more than 1 friend and it's impossible to keep everyone nicely grouped up in the universe.

So, how to solve that in an immersive way? The world can't have teleporters, that'd kinda make the whole wormhole thing pointless, not to mention cargo hauling. Now there could be some other solutions, but temporarily playing as another character seems like a pretty good balance between immersion and facilitating playing with friends.

(Also, if the universe was so small that you could just meet up with anyone anywhere within few minutes, where's the immersion in that? Would also make any strategizing for wars kinda moot, if all the troops can be basically anywhere at any time. The universe has to have some meat around the bones)

 

[Vavrik]

There's also a discussion in the forum about land claims, base construction, and the role of the Pioneer for those who still own one. There is hope! lol.

 

[Talonsbane]

My suggestion to allow Agent Smith type of gaming together while keeping immersion is that there could be androids that are stored as cargo which can act as surrogate bodies for other players characters to deep dive into from their own ship or hab beds.

 

[Montoya]

the role of the Pioneer

This is a big topic.

Can orgs build entire bases?

If so, founding good territory and creating a forward base of operations is going to be a massive part of the game!

 

[Vavrik]

This is a big topic.

Can orgs build entire bases?

If so, founding good territory and creating a forward base of operations is going to be a massive part of the game!

As far as I know, orgs will be able to build entire bases. All you'll need is enough land to build the base (or bases) you want.

 

[ColdDog]

First, I agree with you that the agent smith issue should not be allowed. That said, on your ship it should be it allowed.

Second, blades - the more blades they have the more blade options you have it flows away from the rock paper scissors analogy. You will have to sacrifice you some functionality for your build - mining ships are theoretically easy to take because their blade load out.

Trade database (or other functions that require a centralized database), should be "within" range... example way out in the verse... you should be outside the range of communication - an intersting idea would be communication hops... which CIG has already done with the communication arrays they have.

 

[Michael]

My personal stance is that agent smithing shows their inability to create a proper AI and therefore is a proof that this game is a Scam.

XOXO Derek

honestly i'm fine with agent smithing,
in lets say 1 km range,
just to troubleshoot NPC or move them to a position. Everything else might contradict the whole "Death of the spacemen". I hope they will adress that topic more indepth soom.

 

[CosmicTrader]

Good stuff coming.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Thank you, Glorious Leader!

I'm the one waiting for the automated countermeasures - the biggest threat to a fast small ship is those missiles, an M50 can jab and dodge quite well but one missile and you're sucking void through a straw, I think it will be a staple on parasite ships like Merlins and Archimedes which have most other Blade requirements catered to by the parent ship, too. It might become really useful if they come up with some short-range close combat missiles which may not be the fastest in a straight line but are super-fast at changing direction...?

And a Trading Database! Yes please that is going to be a life changer I played the game X2 and became a riiich man off the back of filling my hold low price and selling high! As long as it updates in real time, that's going to become a total boon! When a Cat drops off a whole bay of Asthine Gas at Port Olisar that price is going to tumble - if I'm half way there and it goes from 9cr a unit to a measly 7.2cr a unit it's not worth my Quantum fuel finishing the journey and I'll need to go to the next best place...

And imagine the chaos when a Banu Merchant Man or Kraken-Privateer appear through a Large Jump Point with their travelling marketplaces! That'll shake things up in a system and no mistake Perhaps the kind captains of those ships can open and close their markets when they are ready for customers so places like Terra don't become a chaos of updates as ships enter and leave the system?

 

[Chip Hazzard]

With the blades, I hope you are able to have a few different types stored on your ship but not installed (so stored in a box), so you can chop and change them on the go. Obviously not just switch a button, but manually swapping them out.

So in my Freelancer DUR, I can have a scanning Blade in to help find jump points, then switch to a salvage Blade when I come across a crashed ship, pull the best bits with ease. And then switch again to the trade Blade, to find the best place to sell my new gear. Manually swapping them would (and should) take a bit of time, but should be worth the effort.

As for the agent smith idea, my personal view is it defeats the whole point of Star citizen! Making it so you have to eat and drink, travel from a ezhab across cities to your ship, creating a fully immersed universe. If you can 'jump' into an NPC on a ship instead... it seems to make it all a bit of a joke. Just my opinion.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I saw someone on Twitter talking about ejecting becoming vital when Death Of A Space Man comes in and wishing there was an automated system - I can see a blade being available which auto-ejects you moments before your ship goes boom... maybe as part of a larger pilot saftey blade with several functions.

Those cheap Drake Crates which don't have ejector seats are going to become their pilots coffins.

Then again, eWar could just eject a pilot without a shot fired if they override the Auto-Eject...

Wow this is gonna get complicated.

 

[Ayeteeone]

With the blades, I hope you are able to have a few different types stored on your ship but not installed (so stored in a box), so you can chop and change them on the go. Obviously not just switch a button, but manually swapping them out.

So in my Freelancer DUR, I can have a scanning Blade in to help find jump points, then switch to a salvage Blade when I come across a crashed ship, pull the best bits with ease. And then switch again to the trade Blade, to find the best place to sell my new gear. Manually swapping them would (and should) take a bit of time, but should be worth the effort.

As for the agent smith idea, my personal view is it defeats the whole point of Star citizen! Making it so you have to eat and drink, travel from a ezhab across cities to your ship, creating a fully immersed universe. If you can 'jump' into an NPC on a ship instead... it seems to make it all a bit of a joke. Just my opinion.

I do like the idea of carrying several along. It's also a thing where medium computers have 3 (?) blade slots right now, as least as shown in certain missions. So a DUR may have 6 slots available beyond stock configuration. OR it will come with a few blades probably with C grade software that support its intended function.

 

[Bambooza]

In answer to one of your questions from the video.. What we call the Agent Smith feature seems to me to point toward an intense desire to have/force people play together. I'm at the point of calling it pathological.

Joined TEST to have the option of playing the game with others, and ESPECIALLY because those big shiny ships require others to be useful. One incident in the Org event this past weekend really makes the case - Yellow Team lost the Hammerhead in the first round. There were several factors but one was the need to have all the turrets manned.. having only half of them manned meant an ineffective defense and it died quickly.

The game is a long way from done or balanced, to be sure. But if multiplayer becomes the only way to achieve valuable results it will miss a great deal of play time from those who simply don't have the time/temperament/investment/interest or ability to pull together group play sessions.

Not sure what you mean by multiplayer being the only way tot achieve valuable results. There is always a balance between the wants of the casual player and the need for more depth and skill based achievements. Make it so the casual player who doesn't have the time to sink into the game can accomplish everything in a year or less and the game has a huge player spike and then quickly becomes a ghost town. Make the game brutal and favoring the dedicated gamer and the game will never have the true player population required to keep it going. In this way the Agent Smith attempts to find the balance between the two by allowing large distance to bring meaning to the logistics aspect of the game while still not penalizing the casual player from not being able to invest the huge amounts of time required.

As for the larger ships they are intended to be played as multiplayer ships but at the same time there is lots of ships and missions along with the single player campaign that is created specifically for single players. And even then if you so wish to that solo ship can be easily utilized in a multiplayer mission. And in that way I truly like what CIG is attempting to accomplish allowing you the player to play how you want to play in that moment in time. Want to do some solo trade routes, by all means only have a half an hour then I am sure you can run a quick route from an orbital trade platform to a land base. But by the same token if you have the hours to play then there is both bigger trade ships if you want to join up with others or specialized commodities on long haul routes if you want to run solo. AI should help fill in the gaps if you want to run large multiplayer ships but don't have enough friends around but you'll generally want to have friends in key roles after all its a multiplayer game and is being built as such. Not sure I understand the idea that a multiplayer game having designated specific ships to be multiplayer centric is missing a great deal of play. In fact I would argue that those ships requiring other players to truly function at the top of the game and then allowing Agent Smith facilitates the ability of the casual player to still participate in large fleet battles, large scale mining , exploring, etc with in their allotted time.

To say its not fair that the game doesn't allow casual players to become the richest in the game and solo players to effectively manage a multi player crewed ship is missing the point of a multiplayer game. To attempt to cater to any of these view points would be detrimental to the game on a whole. So its possible to achieve viable results with in the temperament/allotted game time but you'll have to pick the ship/job that suits those goals.

First, I agree with you that the agent smith issue should not be allowed. That said, on your ship it should be it allowed.

Second, blades - the more blades they have the more blade options you have it flows away from the rock paper scissors analogy. You will have to sacrifice you some functionality for your build - mining ships are theoretically easy to take because their blade load out.

Trade database (or other functions that require a centralized database), should be "within" range... example way out in the verse... you should be outside the range of communication - an intersting idea would be communication hops... which CIG has already done with the communication arrays they have.

On this I agree with @FZD in that Agent smith is a brilliant means to allow casual players and those with limited play time to still join up with their friends while maintain the logistical requirements due to time/distance constraints. They already said that Agent Smith would be the player taking over a NPC on the friends ship so no need for androids or sleeves, you simply take over the NPC with what ever they have on them or have access to on the ship they are located on. Its not moving your character or your gear to the friends ship you simply are taking over for the AI program and would revert back to the AI program when you leave. This allows the casual players to be able to join in on the fleet battles or mining ops with out needing all of the time investment in staging and moving into the area. Its not like Agent Smith is increasing the number of personal located in a given area be it NPC's or Players, while it is possible the Player might be more skilled in the turret then the NPC its not a given.

My personal stance is that agent smithing shows their inability to create a proper AI and therefore is a proof that this game is a Scam.

XOXO Derek

honestly i'm fine with agent smithing,
in lets say 1 km range,
just to troubleshoot NPC or move them to a position. Everything else might contradict the whole "Death of the spacemen". I hope they will adress that topic more indepth soom.

Not sure how it would contradict the whole death of a spaceman? Its not like Players gain skills or loose skills upon death and its not like the player who took over for a NPC is gaining or loosing anything. They would only have access to what the NPC had access to nothing more or less so its not like they would be able to show up with their player armor and weapons or ship. They would literately just jump into the body of the NPC and have what ever the NPC had, and when you leave you don't take anything with you. The ore you where mining stay with the NPC. The weapons and ship components you picked up stays with the NPC.

With the blades, I hope you are able to have a few different types stored on your ship but not installed (so stored in a box), so you can chop and change them on the go. Obviously not just switch a button, but manually swapping them out.

So in my Freelancer DUR, I can have a scanning Blade in to help find jump points, then switch to a salvage Blade when I come across a crashed ship, pull the best bits with ease. And then switch again to the trade Blade, to find the best place to sell my new gear. Manually swapping them would (and should) take a bit of time, but should be worth the effort.

As for the agent smith idea, my personal view is it defeats the whole point of Star citizen! Making it so you have to eat and drink, travel from a ezhab across cities to your ship, creating a fully immersed universe. If you can 'jump' into an NPC on a ship instead... it seems to make it all a bit of a joke. Just my opinion.

Its only purpose is to allow those players to quickly join their friends play together like raiding the pirate base and then log out. If the player wanted to improve their own personal wealth then it would have been better to do something on their own. But what harm does it do to allow a Player who has multiple NPC crew members to allow their friends to take over those NPC's its not changing the fact that there was five soldiers raiding the outlaw post. Just because it went form 1 Player and 4 NPC's that landed to 3 Players and 2 NPC's that pushed into the base. I am sure in testing they will find if there is some limits on how/when/where Agent Smith works. And its not going to help you get your ship out of Area 18 or increase your rep. Your friend might pay you for your help but they are also going to be paying the NPC's salary so that would factor into how much.

 

[Michael]

Not sure how it would contradict the whole death of a spaceman? Its not like Players gain skills or loose skills upon death and its not like the player who took over for a NPC is gaining or loosing anything. They would only have access to what the NPC had access to nothing more or less so its not like they would be able to show up with their player armor and weapons or ship. They would literately just jump into the body of the NPC and have what ever the NPC had, and when you leave you don't take anything with you. The ore you where mining stay with the NPC. The weapons and ship components you picked up stays with the NPC.

Death of the spacemen means (to me) that you're attached to your character and you want to prevent him dying. Dying should be a big deal and not something you "shrug away" like in most video games.
If you can agent smith into an NPC your character can sit at home while jumping into disposable NPC and not risking his own life.

Lets say you're one of the rare species called griefer. And you decide you want to shoot noobs without risking crimestat ... you see where this is going?

here is quote from DoaS:

I also feel that if everyone can be cloned easily, it fundamentally changes the structure of the universe. You now have a universe of immortal gods that can’t be killed. Death is just a financial and time inconvenience that has no further consequences. The life and death cycle of humanity is what has brought us our history, our need to “make a mark” in our time, to push forward. If I want a living, breathing universe that has a lot of the dynamics of a real world and is inspired by the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, immortality for all is problematic.

Death of a Spaceman - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42

Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.

robertsspaceindustries.com

 

[Bambooza]

Death of the spacemen means (to me) that you're attached to your character and you want to prevent him dying. Dying should be a big deal and not something you "shrug away" like in most video games.
If you can agent smith into an NPC your character can sit at home while jumping into disposable NPC and not risking his own life.

Lets say you're one of the rare species called griefer. And you decide you want to shoot noobs without risking crimestat ... you see where this is going?

here is quote from DoaS:

Death of a Spaceman - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42

Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.

robertsspaceindustries.com

The NPC is still tied to a player account being the ship captain the NPC is servicing on. While the player who Agent Smithed into the NPC might not have a crimestat applied to their actions the captain of the ship the NPC was on will in fact be impacted. The other thing is that these NPC's are going to be crew members on multicrew ships and so the captain is going to have more incentive on what actions they are willing to take given the resources involved. Loosing ships and all of the gear and NPC's on a ship will have a large costs and one I imagine most players will shy away from until the game economy stagnates. So its not immortality for all, it still requires players with their char on those ships. Can a single player on an Idris have 20 NPC's that are then agent smithed. Its speculatively possible. From an outside perspective would fighting this Idris be any different if it had players in their char or controlling NPC's? I currently do not see it being any different. Controlling an NPC has no crimestat impact on you but neither does the heroic actions or reputation performed by the NPC you control have any impact on your chars rep. You want to get those high level bounty missions you still have to go out with your char and grind the rep. Jumping on your friends Idris as an Agent Smith is not going to help you progress forward with that. And your friend best trust you as shooting your gun at the police force is not going to make him any friends.

So I ask you. How does Agent Smith break with death of a spaceman?

The second part is from a game perspective how impactful is having your current char die? True you have to go back to the char creation screen and roll a new look, you could also possibly loose some or all of your rep. But otherwise all of your ships and cash will still be yours and you are still free to go out and do anything you like. From a game play perspective has minimal impact on your ability to play and it was already mentioned that rolling a new char wouldn't be a total wipe of rep/crimestat as they don't want players to abuse it. I know they want to give some weight to death but currently the only weight is bragging rights about the age of your char and its accomplishments. Both are not impacted by the use or not of Agent Smith.

 

[Michael]

The NPC is still tied to a player account being the ship captain the NPC is servicing on. While the player who Agent Smithed into the NPC might not have a crimestat applied to their actions the captain of the ship the NPC was on will in fact be impacted.

which could be an agent smithed NPC unless let me quote myself

in lets say 1 km range,

what prevents a player to hop into NPC and be the captain trillion kilometres away?

The other thing is that these NPC's are going to be crew members on multicrew ships and so the captain is going to have more incentive on what actions they are willing to take given the resources involved. Loosing ships and all of the gear and NPC's on a ship will have a large costs and one I imagine most players will shy away from until the game economy stagnates.

Death is just a financial and time inconvenience that has no further consequences.

So its not immortality for all, it still requires players with their char on those ships.

in lets say 1 km range,

So I ask you. How does Agent Smith break with death of a spaceman?

because its a perfect tool (if unlimited) for griefers who don't want their main char to die. Or make him deal with the reputation hit. Or go to prison. or ...

The second part is from a game perspective how impactful is having your current char die? True you have to go back to the char creation screen and roll a new look, you could also possibly loose some or all of your rep. But otherwise all of your ships and cash will still be yours and you are still free to go out and do anything you like. From a game play perspective has minimal impact on your ability to play and it was already mentioned that rolling a new char wouldn't be a total wipe of rep/crimestat as they don't want players to abuse it. I know they want to give some weight to death but currently the only weight is bragging rights about the age of your char and its accomplishments. Both are not impacted by the use or not of Agent Smith.

Well it could become a major annoyance if you have to stay around in the hospital for a couple of hours (like in prison)

This is obviously very speculative from my side

Another issue i see with (unlimited) agent smithing is that you don't need to make meaningful logistics. You just login and hop onto a ship where currently the action is.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

The NPC is still tied to a player account being the ship captain the NPC is servicing on. While the player who Agent Smithed into the NPC might not have a crimestat applied to their actions the captain of the ship the NPC was on will in fact be impacted. The other thing is that these NPC's are going to be crew members on multicrew ships and so the captain is going to have more incentive on what actions they are willing to take given the resources involved. Loosing ships and all of the gear and NPC's on a ship will have a large costs and one I imagine most players will shy away from until the game economy stagnates. So its not immortality for all, it still requires players with their char on those ships. Can a single player on an Idris have 20 NPC's that are then agent smithed. Its speculatively possible. From an outside perspective would fighting this Idris be any different if it had players in their char or controlling NPC's? I currently do not see it being any different. Controlling an NPC has no crimestat impact on you but neither does the heroic actions or reputation performed by the NPC you control have any impact on your chars rep. You want to get those high level bounty missions you still have to go out with your char and grind the rep. Jumping on your friends Idris as an Agent Smith is not going to help you progress forward with that. And your friend best trust you as shooting your gun at the police force is not going to make him any friends.

So I ask you. How does Agent Smith break with death of a spaceman?

The second part is from a game perspective how impactful is having your current char die? True you have to go back to the char creation screen and roll a new look, you could also possibly loose some or all of your rep. But otherwise all of your ships and cash will still be yours and you are still free to go out and do anything you like. From a game play perspective has minimal impact on your ability to play and it was already mentioned that rolling a new char wouldn't be a total wipe of rep/crimestat as they don't want players to abuse it. I know they want to give some weight to death but currently the only weight is bragging rights about the age of your char and its accomplishments. Both are not impacted by the use or not of Agent Smith.

I can see this being the end of some major Orgs. Leader of an Org allows a trusted member to Agent Smith, member acting on behalf of the other Org offs the leader. Treachery, infamy!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6BJJe9JV_A