Lately I've been working on a pitch for a TW remake. As part of that process, I've been using TW v3 as a prototype for proposed changes. The new game will be graphical, so I've been exploring a hex map feature, among other things. Some of you may have seen the hex map I posted in another thread recently.

The features I've prototyped are seperated from the current game by compiler directives. Some of these are completely inappropriate for TW v3, things like internal automation and a 2D mappable game map. But some of them might be interesting options, or in some cases, just changes. I'd like to discuss some of them here and get some feedback about whether a given feature should be left out, included as an option in v3, included as a change in v3, or held as a feature for v4.

I should point out that internal automation and 2D mapping are being considered for v4, but will never be included in v3. Those changes are too big. The rest of these changes are related to Gold aliens.

a) Gold aliens pay tolls, using some logic to determine when to pay a toll, when to attack the toll figs, and when to retreat.

b) Gold aliens can have TransWarp drive and use it to move

c) Gold aliens can have Density or Holo scanner

d) Gold aliens send an alien to a sector in response to a fighter report that a player entered the sector. If alien has TransWarp, he will use it to jump directly to the sector.

e) Gold aliens can pick up and carry Limpet mines, and will show on active mine scan. Will head to Class 0 to remove if detected, or will be removed at next visit.

f) Gold aliens appear in Most Wanted and Bounties lists.

g) Gold aliens can be searched with Grimy. Say alien race name and Grimy gives you the option to find a recent port location just like he would for a player.

h) Gold aliens move and attack with appropriate ship delays.

Here's another one:

i) Gold alien will follow a player if the alien race holds a grudge against the player and the alien has a scanner. The alien will only follow if the player is in an adjacent sector and can be located by scanning.

My feeling is that the game is really about the other players, so none of these ideas are very interesting. Of course, there are edits where the aliens matter, like when capturing their ships is a good way to make money. And sometimes killing red aliens can be a cheap way to get commissioned. But that's about it. Mostly they're just a distraction... rising to the level of nuisance when they're beefed up the way Cruncher does on her server.

I like it

But, most of the players today think Aliens are just a nuisance, or only valuable for their assets.

I have beefed up Standard Ferrengi in my games to "simulate" a game with more real players at the keys. But, I had the most fun in games with 50 - 200 active players in a cozy little 5k universe, that's why I would support the idea of higher AI Gold Aliens.

There are actually a lot of people who play this game single-player. But aside from that, my goal with these features is to use them as training tools. So before a player is comfortable with engaging other live players, especially in a game with truce rules, or if the player is playing at home before entering a live game, they can experience more "player-like" interactions with aliens. They can learn about the contract and wanted lists and experiment with hunting without having to attack other players, and they can learn how to use Grimy to track port activity and potentially earn a profit by collecting bounties or contracts. Or learn how to use Limpets to track ships.

A common complaint I hear is that aliens are just too easy. So giving them the ability to respond to fighter reports and TWarp into a sector will go a long way toward making them more of a challenge (for those who actually want to play against aliens), as will the ability for aliens to follow you if you've ticked them off.

My philosophy is that alien interactions should be as close to player actions as possible, so anything that a player might do an alien should be able to do. Until Botlink is available, we won't see aliens that approximate real player activity, but with Botlink, it should be possible for an alien race to play a game exactly as any corporation would play a game. Why not, since most players are just using sets of scripts today anyway?

Oh, I forgot to mention another feature. The ability to have a "leader". In the case of the Ferrengi, it would be "Kriv Rylach" in the Scorpion. So if you enabled this feature, you would specify what ship the leader would use, the name to use, etc. This ship would be outside of the alien's ramp-up time, so he would start at full strength even if all of the other aliens are starting very weak.

These are all things I've played around with in the prototype, and I've really been enjoying the interactions with the aliens. I know it's not for everyone.

I think the key will be make certain that the behavior is pretty random, not easily predicted. Yeah, if there's a grudge they will hunt you down, but don't make that behavior so easily predictable that players could easily call them out and trap them.

I think you can make the current Gold Aliens pretty aggressive. I have one game that's very challenging, very few ports and what ports there are, are pretty much drained along the alien trading lanes.

Speaking of alien trading lanes, those are pretty predicable as well, can you make a setting that will make them explore the entire universe and not just beat a path from the Zero ports to their home worlds?

As for scripted play, there are a lot more "oops's" than one would imagine. A lot of the scripts are written for high turn games, players using them in low turn limit games don't fair as well. But, there are still plenty of scripts like the SD scripts that make it nearly impossible to attack anyone lifting off SD. And without time limits, there are defensive photon scripts that manual players cannot get past.

So, you may very well be able to mimic how a manual player plays... let me know when you've installed TWX.

Well, it doesn't sound like there's a lot of enthusiasm for these Gold alien options. I'll just leave them out of the public release for now, and consider turning them on later after we've discussed the implications a bit more.

Actually I don't think it matters much to the veteran players. Very few of us play edits that have aliens, and none of the major tournaments implement aliens. If you think that these features might attract new and solo players then by all means implement them in any version that you prefer. I don't think anyone will give you any grief at all over these changes.

I also feel a nice change would be 2 SD. 1 for blue the normal Stardock, and maybe the underground be a place just for red's. Where can buy ships, and everything like Stardock just red's can t-warp there and blue's can't, maybe its discovery only. Just my 2 cents .

Also more aliens are good. Maybe make an alien race that's hireable, you can pay them to launch an attack. Or colonize for you for solo players playing against 3 man corps.

Re: 2D Maps...

You should check out the guy that does the 2D maps for EVE-Online fansite over at dotlan (http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/Aridia#sec) as fairly good example of how to graphically represent the maps 2D. I believe that those maps are actually generated using 3D coordinate system, and that he does it via script.

Re: Aliens....
You should definitely include them...if for no other reason, then for single or limited player games. AI tweaks and randomization are never a bad thing.

This is a good point. I, for one, would certainly not complain about these features. I'm just not excited about them.

Finally. Changes to the Aliens



Exactly. Having the Aliens react/respond in similar fashions to the player will open the dynamics a bit, particularly in our server where we can traverse back and forth in the games we have created. This will give us some more ideas to try.



Not true. We've been wanting to see changes to the Aliens for a long time. I know it was not on the "priority" list, but now that you are looking at them, please do. We certainly would take a release with these. And Daala will stop threatening to "pod" me when she is bored.

Something I didn't see... Will the aliens be under the same rules if the game has a time limit / turn limit?

I like the ideas purposed, I am not really playing any games at the moment but this might give me something to do if I decide to play again.