Krissethi vs. Archaeloid Combat (part 4)

To pick up where we left off yesterday, we're still waiting to find out who succeeded and who failed in the gunfire exchange. The Krissethi dove for cover and is prone on the floor—that dive through the air gave him a +1 against Ranged Dodge, which was just enough to avoid the Archaeloid's attack with the Urban Warrior—the bullet whizzed past the Krissethi and punctured a metal crate behind him. However, because the Krissethi had spent his movement phase aiming, his +1 to attack essentially negated the +1 to Ranged Dodge the Archaeloid gained from the Sidestep talent, and the thorn bullet successfully hit the Archaeloid. Erwani Thorn pistols do 3 points of damage, and the Archaeloid has natural armor of 2, which is basically damage resistance. Only 1 point of damage goes through, so the Archaeloid is just Lightly Wounded. However, 1 point of damage was all the Krissethi needed for his bullet to deliver the Jitters poison into the Archaeloid's nervous system. In 1 more round, the poison will take effect and the Archaeloid will suffer -1 to all of his skills for the next 2 hours!

Krissethi vs. Archaeloid Combat (part 3)

The Krissethi decides to spend his Movement phase aiming at the Archaeloid to give him a +1 bonus to hit the heavily-armored alien. The Archaeloid walks forward, not seeing the Krissethi at first, but when he finishes his movement, the Krissethi is in his line of sight to the right. During the Action phase, both attack simultaneously—there is no turn order in Solar Echoes because all attacks resolve together. The Krissethi fires his Erwani thorn pistol, a weapon preferred by assassins because of its ability to deliver toxins to the target. At the same time, the Archaeloid fires his Urban Warrior pistol at the Krissethi, who is now in full view. The Krissethi uses his Reaction, which may interrupt any move or action but may only be used once per round. The Krissethi's reaction is to Dive for Cover, which gives him a +1 bonus to his Ranged Dodge as he dives for an adjacent square, the only downside being that he ends up prone in that square. The Archaeloid also uses his Reaction, but he has a slightly better version of Dive for Cover—a talent he selected called Sidestep. The Archaeloid also moves one square and gains a +1 bonus to Ranged Dodge, but he stays on his feet instead of ending up prone. Find out tomorrow who gets hit by an attack and who manages to dodge!

Krissethi vs. Archaeloid Combat (part 2)

We find our two combatants facing off in a warehouse, with only a few scattered shipping crates to use for cover. The Archaeloid is on the side of the law, and he prefers a straight-forward fight, but the Krissethi smuggler knows better than to take the powerful Archaeloid on directly and has positioned himself behind some cover. As the Archaeloid angrily prowls the warehouse searching for the Krissethi, he must make an Awareness check vs. the Krissethi's Stealth in order to see the skulking reptile. As the Archaeloid nears, the Krissethi is positioned behind a crate well enough that he has 3 points of cover (meaning that out of any line drawn from the corners of the Archaeloid's square, only 1 out of the 4 can be drawn directly to the Krissethi without passing through the crate.) In Solar Echoes, you can't stealth in plain sight--the Krissethi could not have made a Stealth check if he didn't have at least 3 points of cover, though he could also stealth if he was in darkness, smoke, or otherwise be completely out of the Archaeloid's line of sight.

Krissethi vs. Archaeloid Combat (part 1)

Just what is going on under the hood in the Solar Echoes combat system? The game moves fast, but there are a few quick calculations conducted to measure skill and chance. Each alien race has its own set of attributes, which determine the number of dice you can roll when attempting a skill check. You may only consider the roll of the highest die, but the more dice you roll, the better your chances of rolling high. After the roll, you may then add in any skill ranks you have invested in the relevant skill, the limit of skill ranks being the current level of your character. It sounds like a lot, and when written out it looks a little busy, but the simplicity and speed of this system keeps the Solar Echoes combat engine running fast. This week, we'll take a glance at some combat between two characters as we lead up to a short video showing their combat. Who will win? Place your bets now!

 

AI in Video Games (part 5)

How will AI influence and change video games we play in the future? PC and console hardware is getting more and more robust all the time, so game developers are now facing new territory—games so vast that they might not be able to fully playtest it before release. In the recent past, many big-name game releases have been plagued with bugs at the beginning, and developers scrambled post-release to patch the problems that the gamers discovered—bugs that the developers themselves couldn't possibly have discovered in the limited time they had to produce the game. Once a game releases, hundreds of thousands of gamers will be playing it, and if there's a bug to be found, it won't take long. Consider the cost of hiring even a small portion of that number of gamers to playtest a game—we'd rarely see any games hit the market. The cost of an AI program, however, is much more reasonable, and an AI can fully explore and test a game, reporting back with data on all encountered errors. We may be seeing bigger and better games released to the public much faster than we've seen before, and these AI tested games are likely to have fewer bugs. Imagine starting up a new game and being able to play it right away, instead of waiting for an hour while a huge update patch slowly downloads. Hard to imagine these days, but it's the wave of the future!

AI in Video Games (part 4)

Developers at Hello Games are also using AI to test their game, No Man's Sky, a procedurally generated universe so huge that thousands of players wouldn't be able to playtest everything. Even the developers themselves have admitted that the game's universe is so expansive that they haven't even seen everything. Normally, no publisher would release a game with content that developers have not personally inspected and tested, so how can a game this large be released to the public? The nearly infinite algorithm used to create the game's universe produced tens of millions of planets with unique lifeforms inhabiting the planets, dynamically breeding as time progresses. The developing team could not possibly playtest the game and see everything the algorithm had created, so they designed virtual, automated AI drones that journeyed throughout the game universe, taking screenshots and sending them back to the team for viewing. With procedural generation, huge amounts of game content can be created without the need for hundreds of dedicated developers, and with AI playtesters, games can be tweaked and bugs fixed without the need for thousands of hours of playtesting.

AI in Video Games (part 3)

Another example of AI changes in video games involves a game where a powerful AI program is dedicated to operating the game's antagonist. In Alien: Isolation, Developers at Creative Assembly designed a complex AI for the deadly alien that prowls a space station looking to devour the main character, Amanda Ripley. You play as Amanda and must improvise to survive while the AI program reacts and behaves differently every time you play, learning from every decision you make, hunting you relentlessly. The AI learns based upon your actions, and the adaptive AI will not be fooled by the same tactic twice. You are unable to survive a direct confrontation with the alien, so you must outwit the AI program that makes use of all the data it has gathered on you—the AI notes your patterns of behavior and the deductive alien will hunt you relentlessly. With AI becoming more and more advanced in games, developers may soon need to start toning down just how smart these programs are. Otherwise, games are likely to become too difficult to play and enjoy.