The end of every week features a new developer broadcast out of Star Citizen, and this past Friday was no different as members of the AI team got together to talk about… well, AI. Specifically, NPC behaviors and the ability to command NPCs to perform tasks.
For those who have been following along, the plan to let players give tasks to NPCs isn’t exactly new, but the roundtable is one of the first times where we see NPCs doing a selected task, as well as a first look at a functional spaceship subsystem panel. Basically, players will be able to tell an NPC to do something like fix shields, and the NPC will do the task to the best of its ability, including trying to find needed tools or items. The AI team did note that these commands can be taken only so far, as making every possible NPC interaction would take a long time to animate and program.
The roundtable further outlined that NPCs will have different levels of knowledge for specific tasks, like engineers being more capable at performing engineering tasks instead of custodial ones, or NPCs who don’t normally enter combat displaying ineptitude like not finding cover or holding a weapon wrong. Naturally, this means that players will want to make sure the NPC getting a task is qualified for the job.
These AI behaviors are going to be in Squadron 42 first, so don’t hold your breath on seeing these functions anytime soon. Still, those who want to see what’s in the works have a video to watch below, or a synopsis from TheNoobifer below that.
