Brainstorming: How to make autons viable?

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Song
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Autons....are a bit of a bother right now, honestly. They have a lot of issues, and they combine to make them generally poor fighters. This affects the COnstellation heavily, as that is the auton ship in the game, and it becomes pretty terrible after about the first half of the game.


Note: My observations and thoughts are based on 1.6.3 balance, so they will be somewhat out of date already.


First up. What the actual problems are:

Auton setup
-The basic low-level auton lacks a shield and dies very easily. It cannot be fitted with a shield.
-Reactor power capacity is generally low, and until 1.7 Alpha 2 fixes it, cannot be fully utilised.
-Autons cannot use ammo weapons. This is a problem, since the best low-power weapons are always ammo weapons.
-Autons don't use omni/swivel weapons correctly. (On the cards for fixing in 1.7a2)
-Armor repair is difficult and discourages the use of unique and niche armors, as you have to repair with the same segments you used in the first place.....effectively, you cannot repair armor, only replace.

Fundamental problems

-Autons have too few facings, and thus have difficulty aiming.
-Autons have no progression system for the second half of the game. Lumiere autons, which are hard to get at best don't count. Partly because they're a rare drop, mostly because not everyone has Corporate Command installed.
-Autons will stop running away from danger if they get hit, making a retreat impossible unless you deliberately sacrifice autons.
-Generally poor AI.
-Installing an auton bay means you can't mine or smuggle, and the conny cannot uninstall the auton bay, severely limiting the ship.

THis is a partial list, and I encourage others to add to it. I'll edit things in/out as required.


Secondly, how to fix these.

First off, the bugs need fixing. We need better AI, more facings, and those two bugs for 1.7A2 out of the way.

It's plain to me that Autons need a progression system. Right now, they're all clustered at the beginning. That needs to change. Here's what I'd say:

-An auton-handling skill is introduced. This improves auton performance in some ways. This could be AI-based, but I'd suggest it make repair items more effective, improve the chances of an auton being salvagable after it's destroyed, and....
-Autons have a fixed chance per type to "go rogue". THis is obviously highest for the 200A. A saving throw is rolled against this value the first time an auton is launched. If it passes, the auton is fine and will always work properly. If it fails, the auton goes rogue. Analysers could be used to inspect the auton beforehand and get the check out of the way with no risk. The check is made easier by having an auton bay, or a high auton handling skill. This means that the 200A is a gamble to use, rather than a junk item.
-Autons gain a small cargo hold for ammunition only. Can only be used if an ammo weapon is installed.


-Autosentinel gains a Class A shield by default (And the constellation gets 2 of them to start, rather than the single 300D)
-A varient of the Autosentinel with reduced stats (maybe armor limit?), that has an integral short-range point defense unit. This unit cannot be removed and sold, and provides basic protection against missiles.
-200A becomes an intermediary between the Autosentinel and the 300D. Stock config is slightly altered so it's not just a 300D that goes insane.
-330M mules are available, but fairly rare. Mules gain the ability to have smugglers cargo holds installed on them and if you have an auton bay will dock with your ship when you dock with something else, so you get the extra inventory. (Maybe limit the number of mules that can do this, to avoid hilarious imbalance). Smuggling items in a smugglers hold inside an auton works, but the hold does not improve cargo space.

These 3-4 autons would be all that you would find, mostly, up to St. Katherines Star.
-300D and 310A autons get improved to fill the niche in the Milita sections of the game. They probaby keep their current layouts but seriously that Longreach is insane.
-The 1M/i would work here, but honestly......I think it'd work better if a 300D varient became the EMP auton.
Once you start getting more military turning up, you move up to military-grade autons:

-The 1M becomes a battle-ready platform with a crappy gun that you can modify into an endgame auton. It needs to be able to fit low-power endgame guns like the Ion Blaster.
-The 1M/i would be useless here because of EMP resistance...but maybe an ion disrupter varient instead?


And somewhere in there, the Lumiere autons get slotted in as a set of autons with different characteristics and unique quirks over the standard autons. They should augment the range, not fill it.

This is just one way to handle progression, obviously. And if George does go for a revamped system I have no doubt it'll be very different to that....but that's one way I see it potentially working.

Extra stuff:
-Auton AI, as usual.
-We need to be able to name autons
-Being able to group them together as little squads would be good as a ROM upgrade for the auton bay. Then command as a squadron, as a unit, or as individual autons. Much easier to manage.
-Mining autons are probably gonna be needed.
-"Launch all" and "recover all" commands for the auton bay.
-Being able to use armor paste and repair items on recovered autons to upgrade and repair them. Maybe also being able to use ore to repair?
-Recovering parts from destroyed autons, so you don't lose things as much

It's pretty late here, so I'll post this and come back to edit it later, which should clean it up. If you're going to quote me heavily in a reply, keep in mind that what I'm saying is probably going to change when I've had some food and rest. I'm sure I've missed stuff, written things wrong, and suggested things that don't work. Share your ideas, add new problems and potential solutions, keep it civil......same as usual for one of these threads.
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Xephyr
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I would still like to see Luminous turned into usable autons for the lategame.

Luminous drones are 150 tonnes (if memory serves) and so aren't really usable with the auton bay, so adding some of the supplementary Luminous ships from EP in to Corporate Command would be cool - Messengers can be NB autons and Soldiers can be UT capable, with Drones becoming OR balanced by not allowing upgrades (They're plenty powerful as-is).

Not sure if they would tie in to algorithm cubes or what, but I think its a cool idea.
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JohnBWatson
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Xephyr wrote:I would still like to see Luminous turned into usable autons for the lategame.

Luminous drones are 150 tonnes (if memory serves) and so aren't really usable with the auton bay, so adding some of the supplementary Luminous ships from EP in to Corporate Command would be cool - Messengers can be NB autons and Soldiers can be UT capable, with Drones becoming OR balanced by not allowing upgrades (They're plenty powerful as-is).

Not sure if they would tie in to algorithm cubes or what, but I think its a cool idea.
Given the Lumiere autons for midgame and the CH autons for early, late game Luminous autons make sense. The drones themselves can already be claimed as escorts through a cube, after all. It also ties in well with my suggestion of adding Luminous messengers and soldiers to the vanilla faction in order to both make the faction more interesting(and thus a better advertisement for EP than the current faction with one station and one very ship that has a very exploitable weakness) and make their one appearance each in EP less jarring.

As for how this would actually work, here's my idea. We'd add two new autons, the Luminous Soldier and Luminous Messenge, to the drop table of their Assemblers. The Soldier would be upgradable to 200MW per slot(plus heavier armor than the Lumiere BAs), and the Messenger would have the a power limit of 50MW, but would occasionally use 7ame and scramble cubes while in combat, and have the ability to scout out Luminous stations like the mapping auton.

Shrike wrote:Autons....are a bit of a bother right now, honestly. They have a lot of issues, and they combine to make them generally poor fighters. This affects the COnstellation heavily, as that is the auton ship in the game, and it becomes pretty terrible after about the first half of the game.
Agreed. I think our goals here should be the following:

- Make using autons worthwhile for non - Constellation players.

- Make a Constellation's auton bay about as central and useful to it as the Manticore or Freyr's comparable gimmick.
Auton setup
-The basic low-level auton lacks a shield and dies very easily. It cannot be fitted with a shield.
Eh, I don't mind the weakest auton being weak. It's a decent help against some early game enemies. That said, a class A wouldn't make the thing overpowered, either.
-Autons cannot use ammo weapons. This is a problem, since the best low-power weapons are always ammo weapons.
Adding to this, they'd need some manner of auto - reload function. For ammo weapons, this would involve simply letting the player set a number to the auton, which specifies how much ammunition it will take upon running out of ammo and docking with the player. For launchers, the player would have to select a missile, in addition to a quantity.
-Armor repair is difficult and discourages the use of unique and niche armors, as you have to repair with the same segments you used in the first place.....effectively, you cannot repair armor, only replace.
Given how the Patcher arm mechanic works, my suggestion here would be to repair stored autons over time with the auton bay. An idle installed patcher arm on the ship could increase that rate.
-Autons have too few facings, and thus have difficulty aiming.
I think this is an AI issue, rather than a facings issue. When the AI is fixed so that ships compensate for the facings system, I believe this will be resolved too.
-Autons have no progression system for the second half of the game. Lumiere autons, which are hard to get at best don't count. Partly because they're a rare drop, mostly because not everyone has Corporate Command installed.
No worries, adding them to the Lumiere drop table is already in progress.
-Autons have a fixed chance per type to "go rogue". THis is obviously highest for the 200A. A saving throw is rolled against this value the first time an auton is launched. If it passes, the auton is fine and will always work properly. If it fails, the auton goes rogue. Analysers could be used to inspect the auton beforehand and get the check out of the way with no risk. The check is made easier by having an auton bay, or a high auton handling skill. This means that the 200A is a gamble to use, rather than a junk item.
I like that. Very roguelikeish.
-A varient of the Autosentinel with reduced stats (maybe armor limit?), that has an integral short-range point defense unit. This unit cannot be removed and sold, and provides basic protection against missiles.
Yeah, having the more expensive stuff come in virtual form is definitely needed. Adding unique stuff to autons as virtual items would also be a major improvement, like what I suggested with the Luminous Messenger.
-330M mules are available, but fairly rare. Mules gain the ability to have smugglers cargo holds installed on them and if you have an auton bay will dock with your ship when you dock with something else, so you get the extra inventory. (Maybe limit the number of mules that can do this, to avoid hilarious imbalance). Smuggling items in a smugglers hold inside an auton works, but the hold does not improve cargo space.
Mule inventory being accessible when they're nearby would be a good QOL improvement. No idea whether it's feasible, though.

Regarding the idea for military autons, could be something that gets released alongside CSC America.
Extra stuff:
-Auton AI, as usual.
The way I see this working:

- Auton dealers allow the player to access the AI settings of active autons. The Auton bay lets the player do this anywhere.
- The AI can be set to basic, flyby, or standoff, and the player can adjust settings for retreating, from disabled, to flee on shields down, to return to cargo hold on shields down.
- This interface is also used for the ammo weapon reload feature I mentioned earlier.
-Mining autons are probably gonna be needed.
I doubt the IMU would care much for that. Would be an interesting storyline in some future update.
-"Launch all" and "recover all" commands for the auton bay.
This is a must.
-Being able to use armor paste and repair items on recovered autons to upgrade and repair them.
Both good ideas.
Maybe also being able to use ore to repair?
I think just letting them repair over time would be fair, given that there are already devices that do exactly that and the autons are micromanagement - intensive enough to use as it is.
If you're going to quote me heavily in a reply, keep in mind that what I'm saying is probably going to change when I've had some food and rest. I'm sure I've missed stuff, written things wrong, and suggested things that don't work.
Honestly, I think it's pretty good. This is my attempt to simplify it a bit and elaborate on the AI thing, what do you think?
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Song
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@Watson: Seems good to me.My main concern with quoting was that it's late, and I was tired while writing (I'm still tired, but I've at least eaten).

The problem with Lumiere is that while they're actually pretty neat autons, they cannot fill in gaps left by the other autons....because that will penalise people who haven't bought Corporate Command. So they need to fit into the progression line somewhere off to the side, so they compliment the vanilla auton set....but don't leave a great big capability gap for people running on the free version of the game.

I also agree with having repair over time be an auton bay function. This could also use the auton-handling and armor repair skills, if that's felt to be a good thing.

Being able to adjust AI on a per-auton basis would also be a game-changer, definitely.
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JohnBWatson
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Shrike wrote: The problem with Lumiere is that while they're actually pretty neat autons, they cannot fill in gaps left by the other autons....because that will penalise people who haven't bought Corporate Command. So they need to fit into the progression line somewhere off to the side, so they compliment the vanilla auton set....but don't leave a great big capability gap for people running on the free version of the game.
I've always thought of 'auton controller' as more of a means of supporting one's ability to fight than a class, so long as a player doesn't have an auton bay(which is only used in CC). I do like the idea of giving Lumiere autons some sort of unique trait, though.
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Isn't the ability to have powerful autons a big selling point for Corporate Command, though? I don't think it's a problem that autons stop being useful (offensively) in combat in the mid to late game in vanilla.
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NMS wrote:Isn't the ability to have powerful autons a big selling point for Corporate Command, though? I don't think it's a problem that autons stop being useful (offensively) in combat in the mid to late game in vanilla.
It's not absolutely necessary for any ship but the Constellation for there to be useful non - early game autons, but if they're going to be coming from Luminous it makes sense that they go in vanilla. Adding some solid content to Luminous would also be a good advertisement for EP, given that right now it's the main antagonist of EP's storyline but doesn't feel very threatening in vanilla.
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Song
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NMS wrote:Isn't the ability to have powerful autons a big selling point for Corporate Command, though? I don't think it's a problem that autons stop being useful (offensively) in combat in the mid to late game in vanilla.
This is true. However, autons should not be crippled in vanilla in order to sell Corporate Command.
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Shrike wrote:
This is true. However, autons should not be crippled in vanilla in order to sell Corporate Command.
Naturally. They should be worth using and fun to use in all versions, they just have a different set of requirements to fill in CC than in Vanilla.
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