Goonhub
02-03-2015, 05:14 PM
I've been noticing a lot of complaints about the way the AI navigates the station, and was unsurprised when they eventually snowballed into half a page worth of posts from different people in the Something Awful thread. Let's face it, working through the clunky camera interface, especially when you're trying to keep tabs on several events at once, is not fun. You can't tell me it's an important and integral "part of the AI experience" when half of the players Alt+F4 just so they don't have to suffer it.
tl;dr: We need a new AI camera system, and I would like to suggest the following:
-Allow the AI's camera view to move around like a Ghost, deployable with a simple move of the directional keys; the AI itself cannot move from its spot on its own, so this shouldn't conflict with anything.
-Places the AI can see are still dictated by its active cameras, it's just given more freedom. As for the places the cameras (or the AI from its current physical location) can't see, these can be covered with some kind of blue static overlay that is unique to the AI's viewpoint. It can still move through this static, but cannot see or interact with anything obscured by it.
-Cutting a camera would create a new blot of static, repairing a camera would get rid of the static. Obvious, but it needed to be said.
-Active cameras can still be warped to with the AI's camera menu, like a Ghost would Teleport to an area of the station; the only difference is that the physical camera is the dedicated warp point, and it cannot be used if the camera in question is cut.
-"Track With Camera" would work similar to the Ghost's Observe command in that it would follow the target, but a target wandering into an unobservable (static-laden) area would "exorcise" the AIobserveghostthing from the target's body, leaving it where he just entered the static from. (If this is too difficult code-wise, it can just default to the AI's current physical location instead.)
Thoughts? Changes you'd make? I really want to see this happen.
tl;dr: We need a new AI camera system, and I would like to suggest the following:
-Allow the AI's camera view to move around like a Ghost, deployable with a simple move of the directional keys; the AI itself cannot move from its spot on its own, so this shouldn't conflict with anything.
-Places the AI can see are still dictated by its active cameras, it's just given more freedom. As for the places the cameras (or the AI from its current physical location) can't see, these can be covered with some kind of blue static overlay that is unique to the AI's viewpoint. It can still move through this static, but cannot see or interact with anything obscured by it.
-Cutting a camera would create a new blot of static, repairing a camera would get rid of the static. Obvious, but it needed to be said.
-Active cameras can still be warped to with the AI's camera menu, like a Ghost would Teleport to an area of the station; the only difference is that the physical camera is the dedicated warp point, and it cannot be used if the camera in question is cut.
-"Track With Camera" would work similar to the Ghost's Observe command in that it would follow the target, but a target wandering into an unobservable (static-laden) area would "exorcise" the AIobserveghostthing from the target's body, leaving it where he just entered the static from. (If this is too difficult code-wise, it can just default to the AI's current physical location instead.)
Thoughts? Changes you'd make? I really want to see this happen.