NPC Group Improvements

eristhevorta

I'd like to see an improvement for all NPC groups. For example, it should be possible to switch the status "Allied", "Neutral" or "Enemy" for every possible NPC group when selecting it in the beginning. It should also be possible to alter the status from any to any after every dialogue or mission objective change. That way we would no more need any pre-defined NPC groups with fixed statuses.

Right now, for example, I don't like that the Reman Resistance and the Romulan Republic, and also the Benthan Guard and the Borg Cooperative NPC groups are enemy only. They were always allies in the game, so why enemies in the foundry? I did LOVE the addition of enemy Federation (Rogue) squads and allied KDF squads. Please more of that, or even make it possible - as described above - to let US set the status/allegiance of an NPC group at any time.

Also, having a Dreadnought strength (with four strips) enemy in space would be nice. We can only set battleships and have to reskin them. On ground, we have so many captain spawns to choose from. Why not in space? I know, it's a scaling issue, but I've seen single-player boss fights in normal Cryptic missions, why can't we do the same in our own missions? It would be so epic to be able to fight like "Hassan's Dreadnought" or "Borg Queen's Tactical Cube" or an Undine Tethys Bio-Dreadnought in a foundrisode. Please make this possible. Thank you in advance!

~ Meow

thegreendragoon1

eristhevorta wrote: »

I'd like to see an improvement for all NPC groups. For example, it should be possible to switch the status "Allied", "Neutral" or "Enemy" for every possible NPC group when selecting it in the beginning. It should also be possible to alter the status from any to any after every dialogue or mission objective change. That way we would no more need any pre-defined NPC groups with fixed statuses.

The impression I've gotten, is that allegiances are set at the faction level, so we may never see this tech.

eristhevorta wrote: »

Right now, for example, I don't like that the Reman Resistance and the Romulan Republic, and also the Benthan Guard and the Borg Cooperative NPC groups are enemy only. They were always allies in the game, so why enemies in the foundry? I did LOVE the addition of enemy Federation (Rogue) squads and allied KDF squads. Please more of that, or even make it possible - as described above - to let US set the status/allegiance of an NPC group at any time.

The Reman Resistance, Romulan Republic, Benthan Guard and Borg Cooperative are all friendly, not enemy.

eristhevorta wrote: »

Also, having a Dreadnought strength (with four strips) enemy in space would be nice. We can only set battleships and have to reskin them. On ground, we have so many captain spawns to choose from. Why not in space? I know, it's a scaling issue, but I've seen single-player boss fights in normal Cryptic missions, why can't we do the same in our own missions? It would be so epic to be able to fight like "Hassan's Dreadnought" or "Borg Queen's Tactical Cube" or an Undine Tethys Bio-Dreadnought in a foundrisode. Please make this possible. Thank you in advance!

ZeronousRex had mentioned in a recent Priority One interview that she has been looking into the feasibility of adding boss-level mobs to the Foundry. The problem is that many existing bosses are built with heavy amounts of scripting which cease to function if you try and pull them out of their respective missions.

eristhevorta

Hi green dragoon! As for the bosses, I actually thought we could have our own bosses with custom HP and shield strength, but with common dreadnought abilities from the generated script in random encounters. It doesn't have to be THE Borg Queen Diamond or THE Hassan's Dreadnought from that very episode. It can be anything.

As for the RRS, RRP, BG and BC groups ... they show up as enemy in the foundry editor, I didn't try them out because they are in the enemy filter. So if they are infact friendly in the game, then I didn't say anything. ^^ However, they should get listed in the correct category then.

Allegiances are set at the faction level? Then how was it possible to get KDF-Allied Federation and FED-Allied Klingon squads to work? I am sure that anything can be done with this tech, but maybe it will clutter up the list if there is an option for every single species squad for every single allegiance status (neutral, ally, enemy, non-combat). Still, I hope something can be arranged.

deaftravis05

apologies but certain groups are listed as enemies but are in reality allies. It is a request I've asked to be fixed in the foundry bug reports.

markhawkman

To make allied Klingons... they basically cloned Klingons and rewrote their tiny brains to be Feds. So yeah, making every group like that would make the list a lot longer.

eristhevorta

However, if all groups were in all three categories, they would kinda remain the same length. Right now, you can almeowst have everything as an enemy, so that list can't get a lot larger anymore.

drogyn1701

Do not trust the Friendly and Enemy filters. They have never been updated as new mobs are added to the game. So while it may tell you that Benthans, Romulan Republic and Reman Rebellion plus the opposite-allied faction KDF and Fed mobs are enemy, they are in reality friendly.

What dragoon means is that combat NPC groups can have one faction and one faction only. They cannot be altered on the fly. It's just how the game is set up and how the Foundry interacts with it. The way we can have KDF allied Fed mobs is that Zero made a separate copy of the fed mobs and changed the faction on the back end.

Giving us a button where we can change the faction of any mob on the fly is what she would call "non-trivial" cause it goes against how the game itself is built.

deaftravis05

you can change its skin but not their abilities, which is what frustrates me

eristhevorta

Meow, I see. Thankies for the replies.

paxfederatica

deaftravis05 wrote: »

you can change its skin but not their abilities, which is what frustrates me

That's one of the main reasons why the cross-faction mobs (i.e. KDF-friendly Feds amd Fed-Friendly KDFs) were so badly needed. Even if you reskin a regular KDF mob as Feds to be friendly, the faux "Feds" will still fight with bat'leths, spawn targs, fire green disruptors instead of orange phasers, etc.

This is important for the first scene I have planned for my KDF trilogy, wich involves the Klingon player and BOffs fighting alongside MACOs (i.e. reskinned KDF-friendly Feds).

eristhevorta

The "Rogue" squads already help a great deal. I can now eventually continue my planned episode with the Bluegills inside Federation space, infecting Fed ships and they turn into an enemy all of a sudden. Nice!