Where are all the AI ships?

[Hoimar]

Hello everyone!

I really like Pioneer as I also loved the original Elite II back then, and I'm also excited to see the progress of Pioneer with each new version.

However, what I'd love to have are more, and more vivid AI ships, that land on and launch from the station/base you're in. I always see multiple ships in the system view, but I never encountered one due to the Newtonian physics and the high traveling speeds. That also makes it very difficult to be a pirate (if not impossible). Also, real AI pirates appear very rarely. Some of you might remember the original Elite, where you always encountered ships, not only near stations, but also in deep space (friend and foe). Sometimes you could even see a formation of ships, which was very cool too.

I know that it's problem with the high speeds that the possibility of the player meeting other ships in space is low, but at least spaceports and planets should be populated (by ships). The "highlight" of AI action I saw so far was a ship that already was docked in a station and then left after a few in-game days. Otherwise they just hang around passively, which is very sad. :-)

So, is it just me, or are there really too few ships and AI action in the game?

Cheers

[bszlrd]

It's not just you, the ship traffic script is quite sub-optimal in this regard. You can increase the frequency of ships, but it is a resource hog, and they won't really do much anyway.

[Keeper]

One reason to do the Search & Rescue jobs is so you get up close and personal with another ship.

Personally I don't have a problem with not seeing traffic everywhere. Space is big, so realistically you wouldn't have many encounters close enough to see. If you check the system map and click the button to view ships, you can see that there are indeed plenty of ships flying around, so it's not like you're the only one in space. It's just a reminder about how big space is. I'd rather have realistically few close encounters than to have artificially generated close encounters.

Sure, an improvement in what those AI ships do would be welcome (often they tend to end up inside the local star). I've never seen an AI ship dock anywhere -- only undock and immediately hyperjump away. Perhaps unlucky, or maybe the AI doesn't know how actually to land.

[bszlrd]

True, but there could be local traffic too. Shuttles back-and-forthing between stations and starports for example, patrols of police and military ships, etc. The vicinity of planets should be more lively in my opinion.

The inside the local parts is a display bug of the map, they aren't in fact there.

[Hoimar]

It's not just you, the ship traffic script is quite sub-optimal in this regard. You can increase the frequency of ships, but it is a resource hog, and they won't really do much anyway.

I already tried to search the Lua docs for exactly that (increasing the frequency of ships), but I didn't find anything. My next idea was to teleport myself close to the ships that I could see in the sector map, but again, I don't know how to do this. The wiki page about the Lua console doesn't say much about that too.

Personally I don't have a problem with not seeing traffic everywhere. Space is big, so realistically you wouldn't have many encounters close enough to see. If you check the system map and click the button to view ships, you can see that there are indeed plenty of ships flying around, so it's not like you're the only one in space. It's just a reminder about how big space is. I'd rather have realistically few close encounters than to have artificially generated close encounters.

I see your point (space is indeed big), but on the other hand, imagine a metropole like Los Angeles in the 31st century with only you docked and maybe another AI ship – and no other traffic at all. Thats what I mean. Or have a look at Oolite: If you go to larger stations, you'll have to wait in a docking queue because of all the AI traffic. And that feels vivid, wathcing other ships dock and launch etc.

Sure, an improvement in what those AI ships do would be welcome (often they tend to end up inside the local star). I've never seen an AI ship dock anywhere -- only undock and immediately hyperjump away. Perhaps unlucky, or maybe the AI doesn't know how actually to land.

That's the same thing that I watched: I saw another ship undock, and excitedly went after it, but it immediately hyperjumped, sooo… :-)

True, but there could be local traffic too. Shuttles back-and-forthing between stations and starports for example, patrols of police and military ships, etc. The vicinity of planets should be more lively in my opinion.

The inside the local parts is a display bug of the map, they aren't in fact there.

Thats what I mean. Deep space is not very populated, sure. But the idea with the shuttles is good. Would that be hard to implement in a future version? I'd love to help, but unfortunately I'm not very good at C/C++ as I'm a Java programmer mainly. Though I think I could help out with Lua scripting.

By the way… is it a bug that all the celestial bodies are rendered white in the sector map? Maybe something with shaders?

Cheers

[bszlrd]

Traffic can be completely controlled in lua, so you could give it a shot if interested.

Having white sphere is not a bug, it's how the map works. Might change eventually, but not in the close future.

[Hoimar]

Traffic can be completely controlled in lua, so you could give it a shot if interested.

I'd like to, and I've already had a look into many of the scripts in "data/libs/" and "data/modules/", but unfortunately couldn't find a script that would control AI traffic. Could you give me a pointer where to start experimenting? (Given that I already have basic Lua knowledge)
Also, I'd really like to know how to teleport to a specific location with the Lua console and how to increase the ship frequency, like you said.

Having white sphere is not a bug, it's how the map works. Might change eventually, but not in the close future.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I don't have a problem with the white spheres, though it was my first impression that it's a bit strange when you zoom in. Remember the original Elite II? You could see the actual model of the object you were looking at, which was quite cool. But thats not a very important feature.

EDIT: I think I found some scripts that look interesting: "data/modules/TradeShips.lua", "data/modules/BulkShips.lua" and "data/modules/Pirates.lua". But I still don't really know how to use them.

[bszlrd]

Yup, TradeShips.lua it is. Look at line #386 and onwards for number adjustments. There's also a PolicePatrol.lua, which is quite bare-bones.
BulkShips just spawns static ships next to stations, does nothing else as far as I know.
If you happen to start working on it, don't hesitate to come by IRC, usually there are people around who has at least a marginally knowledge of the game and modules.
Also, this might be useful: lua api docs.
And the Scout+ fork of walterar has a local traffic script, might give some ideas, even though it doesn't work with Pioneer.

[Hoimar]

Thanks for your info, it is really quite helpful.

So to summarize: Pioneer indeed has functional AI ships, though the probability of the player actually encountering one is minimal. But they are actually flying around and trading (from what I read in the TradeShips.lua-script), right?

I think it would really add to the gameplay experience if we had some local traffic and more traffic in general, because the "game of LONELY space adventure" lives up to its headline.

I have already started to work on it, though it is a heavy task for a newbie and I might not succeed, so it would be better if the developers handled this as a feature request :-)

Cheers

[impaktor]

I haven't read the full thread, but the propper way, that fluffyfreak was considering, for making pioneer less lonley is separating simulation of AI ships, so only those close to you are fully created, and the rest only show up as blips on the screen, until distance is reduced. There are threads on this here at the forum.

scout+ cranked up the AI ships, I think by just increasing the number in TradeShip.lua. That leads to slower game, and you'll also get bugs when there are no free landing pads, as the AI (to my knowledge) doesn't have any propper system for lining up in queue, so a bunch of open issues will get triggered.