What I propose is will involve a relatively complicated algorithm.
What I propose is the ability to set carrier orders, that cause them to take certain actions in response to opponent actions–which will cause them to autonomously move or take an action given a specific use case when a player is unable to act (either between turns, or to allow players to sleep while not losing territory).
For example, a carrier could be assigned an “intercept and defend” order, that essentially targets any enemy carrier/fleet within range should it be en route to one of your world.
By way of example:
Say you have 3 worlds, A, B, C.
Your enemy has 50 ships at planet A. You have 60 ships at planet C which you control and 10 ships at planet B, which you also control. You set your an auto-order to the carrier of the ships at planet C to “intercept and defend.”
Your opponent sends his 50 ships from Planet A to Planet B.
For whatever reason, you’re not able to login or it’s between a turn gen, and your fleet at planet “C” automatically heads to the destination of inbound enemy fleet, which is your planet, “B.”
Does this make sense? Would be a good way to allow players a lot more strategic control.
Even better if you could set at threshold of enemy fleet size that will trigger the action as well as a maximum range for defensive auto-movements.
I was thinking the other day about how it might be neat to have a more complicated kind of carrier that cost more money.
Like $25 for a regular (dumb) carrier, $150 (or something) for an advanced one.
I didn’t have this in mind exactly, I was thinking more along the lines of advanced destination actions (build/destroy warpgate, build more carriers and give them X number of ships and send them to these other stars, evacuate ships and abandon the star, etc.).
I’m not sure how I feel about giving the carriers a kind of AI, most of the strategic fun is being forced to anticipate enemy actions and try to counter them in time!
I really like the real-time aspect of Neptune’s Pride, but I dont like all the unnecessary pressure it places on your real life, and I really hate the thought that some players are losing sleep worried about what is happening to thier empire while they sleep.
I have even seriously considered dropping the real-time game and only supporting the turn based game. I can’t really support both properly. I’m only one guy and the game is getting big!
So, anyhow, I was thinking to at least reduce the stress of being destroyed while you sleep, I was thinking it might be intresting to be able to ask an AI to manage your defenses, and perhaps even allow it to launch a counter attack while you sleep.
My first thought was to have some kind of trigger based system like you suggest, but the triggers would be too complicated to set up and would not really deal with all the complicated things that might happen.
Instead, the last thing you could do at night, or anytime you want to be away from the game, would be to put and AI in charge of your empire.
We could add some flavor to the whole systems, so if you put a crazy war monger general AI in charge of your empire while you sleep you might find they launched an attack on somebody just to take advantage of an opening, or you could put a pacifist in charge who will only move ships in position to defend and nothing else.
Anyhow, my dream is to one day have an AI that is actually fun to play alongside and not completely hopeless, so this might be a good way to leverage that work.
A real time game is practically a 1 hour turn wait 1 tick jump game,
sort of like a turn based game, except for the AFK kick times.
User created games could add an optional feature,
allowing the creator to define game pause times.
NP2 already knows each players own time zone,
so then the game creator could define the game should pause between
10 PM and resume at 8 AM, or whatever, using adjustable sliders.
The AFK kick times could be adjusted also.
Players who want to join a game can read the game settings.
NP2 will translate all times to each players local time zone.
Hopefully all players from either camp, turn based or real time, can find some settings that they like to play.
personally, i dont like what your threatening with here i quite enjoy checking in on my empire every our, and all players have the same disadvantage (sleep), so i think if you prepare well for it, you can easily take 8 hours of. It might be nice of the AI would “sleep” too though.
The main problem with paused periods is when a game has players from different time zones. As a Brit I’m pretty used to being the odd duck when it comes to multiplayer time zones, and this would generally make things even worse.
Let’s say I’m in a game where everyone’s else is in the US. So not only would the pause be over a chunk of my play time, everyone else would be playing while I sleep. Worst of both.
I’m trying to play more turn based anyway, I’ve always preferred turn based over real time games, in general. However, I’m pretty rubbish at turn-based NP compared to standard, and don’t feel the same … connection, immersion, investment, something; not sure what or why. (I’m probably not as good because I tend to play more defensively and that’s harder with turns.)
However, I have considered some smart, scripting style rules for carriers on several occasions - ironically I’ve thought about them more for during turn based than standard; a lot can happen in 8h!
(Does anyone remember B.A.T.? Programming B.O.B. was awesome.)
Also, are there plans to stop the AI cheating during turns?
i quite enjoy checking in on my empire every our, and all players have the same disadvantage (sleep), so i think if you prepare well for it, you can easily take 8 hours of. It might be nice of the AI would “sleep” too though.