I posted this in the "what the linearity" thread first, as an attempt to create a non-linear Ego-Shooter type action game, after playing Penumbra - Black Plague too much
A race of partially or fully artificial beings (similar to the Borg, or some kind of robotic species) is engaged in at least one war with another faction (not necessarily a different species). The player takes the role of a combat AI which is randomly connected to battle drones that require that class of AI at the time.
The player could choose his AI class:
Officer AI:
Capable of commanding several other combat drones during a battle and accessing any drone's A/V feed. Any information aquired by any AI will be available to officer AIs (as a tactical map)
Pilot AI:
Almost useless on the battlefield itself, but can control pretty much any kind of vehicle encountered, including non-standard and enemy vehicles. Newly discovered vehicles need to be scanned before use. The knowledge obtained by the scan will be uploaded to the collective mind
Maintenance AI:
Can repair and re-equip other combat drones. Damaged drones and drones with low energy, damaged equipment and other malfunctions will be reported to the nearest Maintenance AI by the collective mind
Hunter AI:
Advanced image analysis and navigational software improves the hunter's ability to find objects or enemies, and determine "safe areas". The hunter's specialised targeting software allows for increased weapon precision (All weapons can "zoom", sniper weapon zoom increased). Motorics had to be tuned down to enable these advanced algorithms, so the hunter moves at reduced speed and can not use any vehicle at all (Apart from being a passenger, of course). Hunter surveillance data will be uploaded to the collective mind
Siege AI:
The siege AI uses the combat drone's scanners to analyse any objects and materials in sight and can use them to construct defensive walls. Additionally, the siege AI utilises a trajectory plotting software enabling the use of ballistic weaponry at long range with increased precision. Hunter surveillance data and drone telemetrics can be used to target siege weapons.
Soldier AI:
The most common type of combat AI.
The soldier is able to use any weapon encountered after a short analysis which will be performed after obtaining the weapon, and will transmit this knowledge into the collective mind immediately. The soldier AI can use the standard drone equipment more efficiently than most combat AIs
All drones are equipped equally, with a sniper weapon, an assault weapon, an emergency meelee weapon and a demolition weapon (Rocket launcher type or grenade launcher type).
All standard weapons are attached to the drone, and will use the same ammunition in different quantities (Energy weapons, Particle accellerators or on-the-fly ammo fabrication).
Any drone can pick up a new weapon and carry it around. To use it, the weapon must be given to a soldier drone for analysis first.
Every drone will periodically scan their surroundings and upload this information to the collective mind. Hunters and Soldiers more frequently than others.
All of these AI types will be able to pilot "their" vehicles, but only the pilot AI will be able to - for example - drive at full speed or perform sharp turns without the vehicle getting out of control.
Any AI can use any weapon that the collective knows (their weapons and weapons found and analysed by soldiers), but only the soldier AI will have access to secondary fire modes, be able to use newly discovered weapons and will take less damage from enemy attacks (evasive actions, redundancy...)
An officer can order any combat drone to move to certain positions or perform certain actions. The presence of an officer near any combat drone will increase their efficiency by multithreaded data processing (examplaes: Increased Hunter weapon precision, faster Maintenance operations...) this effect will decrease the more drones are performing advanced tasks in range of their nearest officer. Officer AIs will be able to set processing priorities (Maintenance before siege, for example).
As the game goes on, the player will be awarded resource occupation points for helping in missions (different actions score differently for different AI types. Pilot AIs could be awarded based on the efficiency of vehicles piloted by them, hw many drones they transported safely, how well they used the vehicle's weaponry...). These can be redeemed to gain access to hub processing which will increase their special abilities' efficiency, priority energy supply, giving them slow health/ammo regenaration abilities and Alpha Order Permissions (any player can perform a certain number of Officer actions, Officers will be allowed to order reinforcements or supplies to the battlefield).
In every battlefield, the collective will be connected by a hub near their entry point. This hub also serves as an uplink to the collective mind. If this hub is destroyed or disabled all long-range collective functions will be lost (no telemetrics, no surveillance data, no new remote weapon or vehicle knowledge - soldiers and Pilots can still learn, only not upload -, but officer proximity bonus will still work).
Maintenance drones can repair the Hub as long as it's core - an artificial living brain - is not damaged.
If the hub is completely lost, and the drones manage to fulfill their objectives without it, an Officer AI can call three Maintenance drones and these four drones will form a makeshift hub to inform the collective about their success (in Singleplayer mode: if the player is not an Officer, the closest safe Officer will submit to the player's commands after completing all primary objectives).
Should the player die before completing the mission, and the battlefield hub is still functional, another drone can be taken control of to help complete the mission objectives, the player can "hibernate" inside the hub brain's resource cache until the mission is over, or can choose to leave the mission. These options will cost resource occupation points. If the battlefield hub is damaged and inactive, the dead player will remain dormant in the current drone's destroyed body (maybe fatal weapons that instantly erase the player could be introduced at a later stage). If the mission is a success or the battlefield hub gets repaired, the player can choose from the usual post-mortem option as mentioned above.
If the mission is a complete failure (all drones leave/are incapacitated, the primary objectives are not yet fulfilled, and the hub is destroyed), the player will be "resurrected" from a backup within the collective mind, at a high cost of resource occupation points.
If the player runs out of resource occupation points, the player AI will lose all access permissions to any system resources, no memory access, no hub functions, and most importantly: no drone control. This basically means "Game Over"
I think this concept would make a great multiplayer game, too.
There are some unfinished details, but these are, after all, the reason why I posted it here, in a seperate thread.
Some issues I found so far:
Balancing the AI classes would be a horrible task. Resource occupation points should be awarded to any AI type depending on the difficulty of completed tasks, and without preferring any classes. That means a Maintenance player who keeps a soldier alive so that he can defeat ten enemy fighters should get about the same amount of resource occupation pints as the soldier, maybe even more, since a drone controlled by a Maintenance AI takes more damage.
Writing the "NPC" AI would be a horrible task too. The drones need to act as a team, according to a plan, while still reacting to the player's actions.
If a Hunter AI player disables an enemy defense system, maybe by sniping sensory equipment, the collective should replace most siege AIs on CPU-controlled drones by such more appropriate for the new situation.
Player confusion.
This should be avoided. The player should be able to stay informed about all the other drones' actions and positions without cluttering up the HUD with pointers, icons and trajectory plots.
Edit: I just thought I should add a bit of "lore".
Just imagine any background story that might lead to a hive-like partially artificial species. There are so many out there that I'd surely make my own look like one of them. I might add one later, when creativity strikes.
The species (I'll just call them "Hive" now, unitl I find a better name) consists of one main control entity, the Master Mind, that controls all major decisions, much like a human government. Serving this Master Mind are several sub-entities, each with one area of duty. The player in the game I suggested is part of the Military Intelligence (I just couldn't resist calling it that).
Each control entity commands a certain type of combat drone, designed for tasks required by the respective brain. There are mining drones, manufacturing drones, military drones and others.
The Military Intelligence designed the Battlefield Entry And Control Pod (hub brains for short), the Universal Combat Drone, and all military devices, weapons and vehicles used by the Hive army, and created the several AIs that control these drones.
Each combat drone AI is an individual entity, and can be transferred through the Hive communication network as required, and the player is one of them.
When the Military Intelligence decides to attack a certain area, an orbiting Pod Deployment Cruiser will detach a Battlefield Entry And Control Pod containing the hub brain and some combat drones pre-equipped with Soldier, Maintenance and Hunter AIs. The hub brain then evaluates the military situation by analysing the Hunter reports.
During that initial phase, a Personnel Transfer Pod is launched, containing several "blank" drones with just basic functionality (no special abilities at all, and only basic weapon and vehicle skills).
Depending on the tactical situation the hub brain then requests the AIs needed for its mission.
The Military Intelligence selects the AIs to send on the mission and transfers them into the hub brain's memory, where they will lay dormant until the Personnel Transfer Pod enters communication range. As soon as the arriving combat drones connect to the Hub Brain, each of them will be occupied by one AI. As soon as the Pod arrives and deploys, the actual battle begins.
This is the way it would happen in Singleplayer mode. The player will be part of the actual attack usually (Personnel Transfer Pod), but sometimes of the initial landing party, to defend the Hub Brain or gather data about the battlefield.
In multiplayer mode, each side is allowed to take a certain number of Resource Occupation Points into the battle, so the more experienced (on average) one team is, the less human players will be part of it. CPU-controlled AIs will be added until the requested number of AIs of each type is reached. This way, the game should be pretty balanced.
The objectives could range from stealing data, resource acquisition, reconnaissance or Metaverse gameplay to simple deathmatch, which one side will win if the other side's Hub Brain is killed.
Poll removed because the thread doesn't need one. - J
A race of partially or fully artificial beings (similar to the Borg, or some kind of robotic species) is engaged in at least one war with another faction (not necessarily a different species). The player takes the role of a combat AI which is randomly connected to battle drones that require that class of AI at the time.
The player could choose his AI class:
Officer AI:
Capable of commanding several other combat drones during a battle and accessing any drone's A/V feed. Any information aquired by any AI will be available to officer AIs (as a tactical map)
Pilot AI:
Almost useless on the battlefield itself, but can control pretty much any kind of vehicle encountered, including non-standard and enemy vehicles. Newly discovered vehicles need to be scanned before use. The knowledge obtained by the scan will be uploaded to the collective mind
Maintenance AI:
Can repair and re-equip other combat drones. Damaged drones and drones with low energy, damaged equipment and other malfunctions will be reported to the nearest Maintenance AI by the collective mind
Hunter AI:
Advanced image analysis and navigational software improves the hunter's ability to find objects or enemies, and determine "safe areas". The hunter's specialised targeting software allows for increased weapon precision (All weapons can "zoom", sniper weapon zoom increased). Motorics had to be tuned down to enable these advanced algorithms, so the hunter moves at reduced speed and can not use any vehicle at all (Apart from being a passenger, of course). Hunter surveillance data will be uploaded to the collective mind
Siege AI:
The siege AI uses the combat drone's scanners to analyse any objects and materials in sight and can use them to construct defensive walls. Additionally, the siege AI utilises a trajectory plotting software enabling the use of ballistic weaponry at long range with increased precision. Hunter surveillance data and drone telemetrics can be used to target siege weapons.
Soldier AI:
The most common type of combat AI.
The soldier is able to use any weapon encountered after a short analysis which will be performed after obtaining the weapon, and will transmit this knowledge into the collective mind immediately. The soldier AI can use the standard drone equipment more efficiently than most combat AIs
All drones are equipped equally, with a sniper weapon, an assault weapon, an emergency meelee weapon and a demolition weapon (Rocket launcher type or grenade launcher type).
All standard weapons are attached to the drone, and will use the same ammunition in different quantities (Energy weapons, Particle accellerators or on-the-fly ammo fabrication).
Any drone can pick up a new weapon and carry it around. To use it, the weapon must be given to a soldier drone for analysis first.
Every drone will periodically scan their surroundings and upload this information to the collective mind. Hunters and Soldiers more frequently than others.
All of these AI types will be able to pilot "their" vehicles, but only the pilot AI will be able to - for example - drive at full speed or perform sharp turns without the vehicle getting out of control.
Any AI can use any weapon that the collective knows (their weapons and weapons found and analysed by soldiers), but only the soldier AI will have access to secondary fire modes, be able to use newly discovered weapons and will take less damage from enemy attacks (evasive actions, redundancy...)
An officer can order any combat drone to move to certain positions or perform certain actions. The presence of an officer near any combat drone will increase their efficiency by multithreaded data processing (examplaes: Increased Hunter weapon precision, faster Maintenance operations...) this effect will decrease the more drones are performing advanced tasks in range of their nearest officer. Officer AIs will be able to set processing priorities (Maintenance before siege, for example).
As the game goes on, the player will be awarded resource occupation points for helping in missions (different actions score differently for different AI types. Pilot AIs could be awarded based on the efficiency of vehicles piloted by them, hw many drones they transported safely, how well they used the vehicle's weaponry...). These can be redeemed to gain access to hub processing which will increase their special abilities' efficiency, priority energy supply, giving them slow health/ammo regenaration abilities and Alpha Order Permissions (any player can perform a certain number of Officer actions, Officers will be allowed to order reinforcements or supplies to the battlefield).
In every battlefield, the collective will be connected by a hub near their entry point. This hub also serves as an uplink to the collective mind. If this hub is destroyed or disabled all long-range collective functions will be lost (no telemetrics, no surveillance data, no new remote weapon or vehicle knowledge - soldiers and Pilots can still learn, only not upload -, but officer proximity bonus will still work).
Maintenance drones can repair the Hub as long as it's core - an artificial living brain - is not damaged.
If the hub is completely lost, and the drones manage to fulfill their objectives without it, an Officer AI can call three Maintenance drones and these four drones will form a makeshift hub to inform the collective about their success (in Singleplayer mode: if the player is not an Officer, the closest safe Officer will submit to the player's commands after completing all primary objectives).
Should the player die before completing the mission, and the battlefield hub is still functional, another drone can be taken control of to help complete the mission objectives, the player can "hibernate" inside the hub brain's resource cache until the mission is over, or can choose to leave the mission. These options will cost resource occupation points. If the battlefield hub is damaged and inactive, the dead player will remain dormant in the current drone's destroyed body (maybe fatal weapons that instantly erase the player could be introduced at a later stage). If the mission is a success or the battlefield hub gets repaired, the player can choose from the usual post-mortem option as mentioned above.
If the mission is a complete failure (all drones leave/are incapacitated, the primary objectives are not yet fulfilled, and the hub is destroyed), the player will be "resurrected" from a backup within the collective mind, at a high cost of resource occupation points.
If the player runs out of resource occupation points, the player AI will lose all access permissions to any system resources, no memory access, no hub functions, and most importantly: no drone control. This basically means "Game Over"
I think this concept would make a great multiplayer game, too.
There are some unfinished details, but these are, after all, the reason why I posted it here, in a seperate thread.
Some issues I found so far:
Balancing the AI classes would be a horrible task. Resource occupation points should be awarded to any AI type depending on the difficulty of completed tasks, and without preferring any classes. That means a Maintenance player who keeps a soldier alive so that he can defeat ten enemy fighters should get about the same amount of resource occupation pints as the soldier, maybe even more, since a drone controlled by a Maintenance AI takes more damage.
Writing the "NPC" AI would be a horrible task too. The drones need to act as a team, according to a plan, while still reacting to the player's actions.
If a Hunter AI player disables an enemy defense system, maybe by sniping sensory equipment, the collective should replace most siege AIs on CPU-controlled drones by such more appropriate for the new situation.
Player confusion.
This should be avoided. The player should be able to stay informed about all the other drones' actions and positions without cluttering up the HUD with pointers, icons and trajectory plots.
Edit: I just thought I should add a bit of "lore".
Just imagine any background story that might lead to a hive-like partially artificial species. There are so many out there that I'd surely make my own look like one of them. I might add one later, when creativity strikes.
The species (I'll just call them "Hive" now, unitl I find a better name) consists of one main control entity, the Master Mind, that controls all major decisions, much like a human government. Serving this Master Mind are several sub-entities, each with one area of duty. The player in the game I suggested is part of the Military Intelligence (I just couldn't resist calling it that).
Each control entity commands a certain type of combat drone, designed for tasks required by the respective brain. There are mining drones, manufacturing drones, military drones and others.
The Military Intelligence designed the Battlefield Entry And Control Pod (hub brains for short), the Universal Combat Drone, and all military devices, weapons and vehicles used by the Hive army, and created the several AIs that control these drones.
Each combat drone AI is an individual entity, and can be transferred through the Hive communication network as required, and the player is one of them.
When the Military Intelligence decides to attack a certain area, an orbiting Pod Deployment Cruiser will detach a Battlefield Entry And Control Pod containing the hub brain and some combat drones pre-equipped with Soldier, Maintenance and Hunter AIs. The hub brain then evaluates the military situation by analysing the Hunter reports.
During that initial phase, a Personnel Transfer Pod is launched, containing several "blank" drones with just basic functionality (no special abilities at all, and only basic weapon and vehicle skills).
Depending on the tactical situation the hub brain then requests the AIs needed for its mission.
The Military Intelligence selects the AIs to send on the mission and transfers them into the hub brain's memory, where they will lay dormant until the Personnel Transfer Pod enters communication range. As soon as the arriving combat drones connect to the Hub Brain, each of them will be occupied by one AI. As soon as the Pod arrives and deploys, the actual battle begins.
This is the way it would happen in Singleplayer mode. The player will be part of the actual attack usually (Personnel Transfer Pod), but sometimes of the initial landing party, to defend the Hub Brain or gather data about the battlefield.
In multiplayer mode, each side is allowed to take a certain number of Resource Occupation Points into the battle, so the more experienced (on average) one team is, the less human players will be part of it. CPU-controlled AIs will be added until the requested number of AIs of each type is reached. This way, the game should be pretty balanced.
The objectives could range from stealing data, resource acquisition, reconnaissance or Metaverse gameplay to simple deathmatch, which one side will win if the other side's Hub Brain is killed.
Poll removed because the thread doesn't need one. - J
