Empyrion - Galactic Survival News

Hello Galactic Survivalists!

When we made our first announcement we said that version 1.5 will focus on code work.

One of these code-heavy topics we are working on is artificial intelligence. Today we want to give you a little insight on what is going on with that.

The main goals of the introduction of the new ground AI creatures in version 1.5 is as follows:

● Introduction of a new set of AI vs AI interactions. This starts with predator AI hunting prey AI to feed. Or scavengers AI looking for corps to eat. In this way the player will have the new ability to not be at center of the action but also to observe action around him. This will let some new survival strategy arise.

● Some new states are added to the creature like the hunger, the thirst or the ability to hide. This will bring some slightly more sophisticated behavior that will create a more immersive environment.

● Overall some more complex behavior of creatures have been developed to bring some more unique action for each creature that will challenge the player in some new and unexpected way.



The following four, already existing creatures will mark the start of our efforts in terms of improving AI but also make the worlds of Empyrion even more immersive!.

Alien Insects
The Alien Insects now have territorial behavior and will defend their chosen edible plants within their territory that is an area of about a radius of 30m. The behavior has also a new hunger state that will make the creatures eat their favorite plants whenever they are hungry.



Parasaur
A hunger state and a thirst state have been added to the creature. This will imply that the Parasaur will have a hunger and a thirst that will increase over time. Whenever the creature reaches a hunger and thirst threshold it will go to eat his favorite plants or will go to drink nearby water. During the night the Parasaurs will hide in the grass to spend the night and avoid the predators.



Raptor
The new version of the Raptor AI will have some new abilities like scavenging corpses, hunting AI prey, stalking the player and hiding to ambush him.



Alien Bug Group
This mixed group of bugs will show a behavior of the mother bug creature spawning some guard bugs around her and firing at some distance. The guard bugs are aggressive and go for some melee attacks to any intruder.

These four updated AI creatures will be available with version 1.5.

We are looking forward to your suggestions and thoughts right below in the comments.

Have a great sunday! Read you soon.
Empyrion Dev Team

PS: we will announce the start date and details about the upcoming Experimental version early next week.

Hello Galactic Survivalists!

Although the version 1.5 is heavily code-focused, we not only have new content for story runners and explorers (as detailed in the past dev blogs). We also have a few gifts for our builders.

To conclude the April fools joke from last year, we added the ‘modern’ variant for the restrooms to complete this model set, with the modern variant showers already available. We hope you know how to use the three sea shells.



Speaking of sets: when we added the Heavy Window, we also had an additional lineup idea with a few more ‘emperor style’ variants in mind. We are looking forward to what you will be doing with the Heavy Windows (patterned).



motivational posters, made by Rumepelstilskin! You can either get them as a reward from playing the story missions or find a GIN console in one of the trading stations and get a random poster for a minimal ‘GIN Gallery’ support fee! ːsteamhappyː

A few examples:



You want something more menacing for POI bases and NPC vessels? We have you covered! With version 1.5 we have set up the small ‘bulb turrets’ of The Legacy ships with different variants, colored in red, blue, green, cyan, yellow, orange, purple and black to guard the galaxy in style. Their weapons of course have the matching effect color as well! As a little side note: we have added these not only because we could, but with some future (post v1.5) weapon rebalancing in mind. ːsteamhappyː



Last, but not least, if you ever were done with building, but still envious of the Talon having these nice crossbows and you instantly remembered that hairy fellow wielding a similar, but lazer pew pew based weapon .. maybe check out the renewed Tales of the Past story mission!



We hope these new toys will be enjoyable and we had enough movie allusions for this dev blog. :D

Read you soon.
Empyrion Dev Team

Hi Galactic Survivalists!

Here is the changelog for v1.4.6 with some more changes & fixes we have been working on.
Have fun and please report bugs and problems as usual - thanks a lot!



Fixes:

• Fixed dedi server exception
  
• An exploit
  

====



Changes

• Changed: Players can now respawn on Control Station as additional fallback for Ancient Revelations mission (Station is set to CIVILIAN now)
  
• "Explosive Devices" can damage shields again
  
• Added server-side anti-cheat feature "short session monitoring" - this is configurable in dedicated.yaml under "ServerConfig":
  

  
      ShortSessionMinutes: 0 #how many minutes of a client play session are regarded as "short session" (0 = disable short session feature completely)
      ShortSessionCountToLog: 0 #after how many consecutive short sessions write a warning line in server log (0 = disable log feature)
      ShortSessionCountToBan: 0 #after how many consecutive short sessions ban the player (0 = disable ban feature)
  

Fixes

• Fixed multiple exploits
  
• Fixed 07866: PDA NearPOI Waypoint does not work in MP
  

EAH

• Patch notes: https://empyriononline.com/threads/tool-eah-empyrion-admin-helper-v1-55-x.5771/page-72#post-433380
  

Hello Galactic Survivalists!

In the last blog we teased you a little with the story arc that would be concluded later this year. This is still a bigger project, but we can update you on some other stuff in that regard.

Those of you that are with the game for a while might have played through most of the story missions already several times. Some of the major updates changed things here and there, due to the technical possibilities changed as well. We are trying to take advantage of every new addition that helps storytelling. Be it planet design, mission feature or dialogues.



That being said, with 1.5 the content team finally found the time to achieve most of the badly needed rework of the first six story chapters. These once existed individually, were joined together later but were lacking a lot of consistency - not only in the information they give to the player. This has now been improved to a merely pre-final state and will be ready for testing in the upcoming Experimental phase.

Without too many spoilers: the initial missions on the starter planet have been revamped a lot. The following missions have been spread in the starter system and do NOT take place in the same starter orbit anymore. Also: as we hope these are now in good shape in terms of story content, the missions are now following a certain progression of a literal story LINE, although most of them will NOT activate automatically anymore. Instead you will be given enough info on where to find the next story tidbit and how to activate it.

The question if this setup works and if the information is given in an adequate way, is of course to be answered with your feedback we hope to see a lot in the upcoming Experimental phase. ːsteamhappyː



Last, but not least, there is one open topic which is a quite delicate one: the ingame tutorial. For 1.5 we have re-added an improved ‘Robinson Protocol’ for everyone starting out in the galaxy of Empyrion the first time.

As always the tutorial can be skipped at game start for those that do not need it, but for all the others it should offer the most basic training for the most basic things you need to know about the game.

This is, again, a question that we hope to answer with your help in the upcoming Experimental phase. Although those participating in the Experimental are usually not new to the game, we hope you can help us to answer the question of the tutorial steps will help a new player to survive his first hours and be specific enough to give valuable info, but not be too annoying at the same time.



There is one addition to this topic, which might be quite important for those helping out on that topic: When playing the tutorial, most of you might still find it quite linear. It is still very linear, that is true, but the goal for 1.5 is to track down which elements are really necessary for a new player.

As we wrote in the first paragraph: we aim to include any new technique the game code allows us to use. While we develop version 1.6 and 1.7, new technical features will be added that shall allow us to leave most of the linearity behind and improve to a point where the presentation of the necessary lessons will feel more like an “inline explanation” than following a guide. Not only for the tutorial, but also for mission design.



Which of the current game story missions did you like the most? Which do you think needed improvement because they were too hard or confusing? Anything else you wanted to say on this topic?

Let us know - we still have time to evaluate your feedback. ːsteamhappyː

Have a great day! Read you soon.
Empyrion Dev Team

Hello Galactic Survivalists!

Last week we made our first announcement on version 1.5 (read here). The main content of this update is quite code-heavy, which means a lot of things are going on behind the curtain without offering a good way to do a nice visual representation.

But while our programmers do their work to prepare the game for future feature changes and additions, quite a few things happen on the art and content side of things as well.

For example we will be adding a new NPC faction with tons of POIs and an own galactic territory, created by spanj and a lot of creators, contributing POIs and vessels: the Brotherhood of Farr!



In case you want to read more info about the new faction or even support the creations, join the discussion over here: https://empyriononline.com/threads/the-brotherhood-of-farr-needs-you.97421/

Speaking of factions and POIs: those that have ventured into deep space might not only have run into the Colonists faction and even more Pirates, but also in the always-hostile Warlord faction and its various sub factions, like the Skaar, Tresari and others. Thanks to the contribution of the community, these factions have seen a serious upgrade in their lineup. So watch out next time you aim to warp to a seemingly non-claimed solar system.



Both the Warlord and the Colonists NPC factions will gladly welcome any contribution to their lineup. Visit this forum and send in your builds or workshop links: https://empyriononline.com/forums/showroom-submissions.108/

Besides those named, most of the established and recently added factions, for example the Pirates, Tesch and others, got new ships and POIs as well.

Most of these factions, their bases and vessels, might play a role when the game's main story arc is concluded later this year. ;)



What are your thoughts about the current composition of the galaxy, its factions and the POI and vessels you ran into? What are you missing from the lineup or would suggest to add?

Let us know! :)

Enjoy the weekend & read you soon.
-Empyrion Dev Team