firestorm79 wrote:Just an observation Shush, but shouldn't there be an intro at the start of this post about what LIFE is and what it does and what the player can do with it?
My initial post had a summary very well hidden somewhere in the deep dark recesses of the black hole abyss that is that message. I used all of mankind's technological know-how and available online super computer resources, (if your local grid lost power for a couple of hours last night, that was me!), to search for and find this:
- LIFE is made up of a number of different modules:
a) The old school X2 news articles provided by the Galactic News System, (GNS), see http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=260555.
b) A live real time dynamic news system built on top of the GNS, that provides system wide information on bounties, skirmishes, conflicts and outright wars. Friendly stations within a sector will spawn light bulbs allowing you to interact with the local system's news representative.
c) A sector wide emergency broadcast channel that only friendlies can use and listen too; using the unused voice samples within X3's data files to attempt to liven up the normally all too quiet sectors.
d) Explosion shock waves; these incorporate forces that accelerate ships, damage ships and provide screen shake, (only for the player ship), for any ships within the vicinity of the explosion. The closer the ship is to ground zero, the larger the force and damage.
e) NPC leveling; NPC's are able to level based on the number of kills they obtain, this works OOS as well as in sector. As an NPC ship levels up, it's abilities also increase, with level 10 being the maximum which provides a 50% increase to an NPC's speed and turning ability.
f) Dynamic mission generation; civilian as well as military craft will issue maydays and provide missions to kill their current targets. None of this is pre-generated, this mission system reacts in real time to current sector events.
g) A rewards based system for the dynamic mission generator that attempts to use the current possessions of the NPC rewarding the player, rather than magic'ing items out of thin air.
h) A standardised menu based configuration system that provides complete control over the entire LIFE system as well as each individual module.
I've since re-organised and re-formatted that initial post so that you don't need a double doctorate in linguistics and quantum entanglement to traverse it, hopefully it'll be a little more comprehensible now.
firestorm79 wrote:I mean I'm slightly lost with it. Apart from rewards for helping ships out in battles and adding immersion (both of which are awesome), does it do anything else (and its fine if the answer is no)? Other questions may be, what are we supposed to do with the rescued pilots?? (the ones with the ticking counter)
The rescued pilots appear as sickly passengers in your cargo hold, (obviously you need cargo space and and cargo life support), once you grab one you'll get an incoming message and a mission briefing that explains the rest. I'm going to expand this mission to stations that are involved in all out wars, stations will offer dynamic missions for the rescuing of bailing pilots. The floating ships and helpless pilots will still be targets for whatever enemy happens to be attacking the defending force and station, so that you cant just claim 50 ships and score massive monies at the end of it.
This won't be your normal scripted mission, it will be dynamically generated just like the rescue pilots missions; i.e. you'll never get this kind of mission unless your universe is lively enough for a station to be attacked by a large enemy force and then defended against by enough locals to cause them to bail in the first place.
The news, (either setup a hotkey for accessing the sector owner's news), or converse with any news representative residing at your local trading/shipyard/equipment stations. The news is completely dynamic, (apart from the old school X2 static articles), it shows you where special events like suicides, same race violence, accidents with stations/asteroids etc occur. But more importantly it gives you a real time idea of where all the battles are occurring.
There are also bounties that each race will put out on fugitives who start racking up kills on innocents, which you can collect or just read news about NPC's collecting them if the NPC's beat you to them.
NPC's can level up, as they get more kills, they increase in level and get access to re-supplies and extra engine and turning tunings. This needs to be balanced, especially the hull resets as they level.
firestorm79 wrote:and I regularly get the 'rare' bug, where you end up in the other side of the sector after the shockwaves! I think it's kind of cool so I just roll with it (temporary rift in the space time continum)!
Yeah it makes me giggle like a chipmunk inhaling helium.
