Earlier this week we told you about an upcoming AMA from Star Citizen focused on Quantum, the background simulation that will effectively let the devs spawn resources and points of interest, which in turn controls invisible NPCs known as Quanta to perform a variety of economic-focused tasks, whether its resource gathering, manufacturing, or even piracy. The AMA has since closed and fans can now skim through the answers.
The answers revealed that Quantum will spawn be able to spawn content like NPCs, derelict ships, and planetary missions, and once more confirmed that Quantum will eventually mean that resources can be depleted and later added by the devs. However, the idea is not to necessarily let the devs play god. “Quantum should be influencing the behaviors of Quanta and economic activity, not spontaneously generating resources from the god seat,” explains one answer.
The AMA also went into some detail about the Quanta NPCs themselves, touting the fact that each individual Quanta has a risk profile as well as access to different ships, which will affect how Quanta behave and in turn affect how the entire simulation operates. It, effectively, reads a bit like the Sims that move about the newer Sim City titles, with each individual Quanta having their own desires and basic personalities which combine to ultimately see the economy flow.
In one given example, if behavior patterns see piracy as a non-lucrative venture, then even Quanta that have no qualms about committing crime will take up honest work. “We’re not aiming to make action-defined AI, we’re aiming to create behavior patterns and then see what they do,” reads a post.
The AMA is a pretty interesting read for an even more interesting system, but it doesn’t provide any sort of window for when the Quantum system will enter testing.
Discussion about Quantum wasn’t the only thing that came from Star Citizen this week, as the Inside Star Citizen video series has made its return. This episode mostly discusses the challenges that CIG’s teams face working from home and how those challenges are being met, while also granting a look at some updates to the GrimHEX location, a peek at bartender NPCs, work on the Cutlass Blue space ambulance and the Hercules gunship, and a look at the Aaron Halo location among other updates.
