Hi there. A short while ago cames me a thought, that could be interesting if it is made well. All of us use the ships AI to a Point, we only need the different "environmentally shields", the Special Abilitys and the 3D Printer. But wouldn't it be nice, to give the AI a little of an own Personality and some more speech options? Status Report, Sensor Feedback, Gossip, such things. Every AI could have its own custom or random personality (so every start it would have another one so the Game Feeling would be more unique), so the answers to the Players Question would sound a little other then from another Personality. ^^ Then it would be interesting, to bring a modified ship AI to the Planet vie a special Holo Console or Monitore, connected to a Terminal and Mainframe. With this, the player could maybe connect the Turrets and some Sensors, or put a Antenna on the Base to make contact with the Space Ships AI. And then give the NPCs the possibility to call an SOS if the Colony (maybe in future builds) is random attacked by Space Pirates or hostile Monsters (Bosslevel) or some sort of Slavers? And naturaly an option to call a Planet from Space to check if all is Okay. (To generate Random Missions for Recource delivery or find special Recources to make a cure for something...) But first of all, give the AI more meanings, more possibilitys to interact with, some Humor maybe, make it more like it is now. Would give Modders a whole new world of possibilitys, to create custom AIs with more then only a other AI Picture in the field. Maybe some interesting background stuff, new storys and so on. Maybe even a quest, to give the AI a custom Body of its own some day. ^^ What do you think?
Sounds great! All of this is quite complicated however so it would take a long time to develop. Still, it's totally worth it so that AI's won't just be the player's "tool" but rather his companion.
There came me another Idea for the AI; A Ships Diary Function. First only on the Ship, later with some sort of Mobile Device... or from the beginning. It should save every entry as a separate file, so it can be read like that. AND It would be cool, if the Game would have the possibility, to save this Entrys as txt Files in a separate file in the Save Game file, one for every character. So it would be possible, to write over the Adventures the own Character has lived threw on his or her Journey, and because every one plays his saves a little different then others, there would be, if they use this function, a whole bunch of new storys. ^^ I mean, it is a shame to need every time go out of the Game and start writing on a program like Wordpad, Openoffice or other licenced products. So why not integrate such a function Ingame? Sitting an a fireplace in midden of nowhere, play a guitare and after lunch, dictate some logbook entrys? Oh and for the "Portable AI", the Player maybe later could make some sort of HUD device, that let him or her show some sort of whips, that is his or her AI in a little holographic form... like Navi from TLoZ Master Quest (Or majoras Mask), not bigger then one of the Bugs, but as one undieable companion on the lone way threw the Universe, and a connection point between the Player and the ship AI. ^^ And it would bring some RPG Elements Ingame. (for some Race Mods it would give the Possibility to bring in an ASK function like: Anything new from Home? or Any readings from other "Race" ships? And the AI give then some possibilitys to answer... and maybe some random quests, if the AI finds something here and there. A wreckage on a planet, or in an Asteroid field, or a small colony on a planet or something else. Maybe they even could build in, that there are not only possibilitys to make the ship bigger, but to integrate new systems aswell. For example new sensore systems, a landing shuttle insted of beaming what would bring something like a small "portable" home, some Weapon Systems that may now have no function and are more cosmetic, but maybe have in future or a much faster engine? So much possibilitys and all beginns with a better AI functionality. ^^
