Killer Betties Interview

You can play without the keyboard but there are hotkeys, they are remappable and by default they use spatial mnemonics instead of letter mnemonics.

Even though we intended for keyboard support, its a good design philosophy to design it for a mouse because it helps keeps things organized, symmetric, transparent and accessible. The number of options on the keyboard can make it very easy to lose control over each of these categories and you are more likely to end up with a sloppy mess that confuses, frustrates and annoys people. Only the hardcore players will stick with it.

Psychology studies on spatial mnemonics seem to give better results, and I know personally it works better for me. The idea is that you can see on the screen where the button to attack is (say 1,2 in the action grid) and that would correspond to the same grid position on your keyboard (or A in this case). We've organized it primarily for the wasdf left hand position that most people who play first-person shooters are now very used to and it provides a fair bit of flexability and accessability (which is probably why fps games use it in the first place).

Sins GUI   Keyboard
12345  ->  qwert
12345  ->  asdfg
12345  ->  zxcvb

The other idea is that buttons that do the same or similiar actions will appear in the same position across multiple units and across races.  The button to build the basic scout unit for example will always appear in the same location even if the unit building it is different and the unit being built is different.

Wow this was really a good interview

one of the things i really like is

Killer Betties: Can you talk about the fully adaptive enemy AI? How exactly does it react to player and how does it learn from its mistakes? Blair Fraser: I should make it clear that the AI does not 'learn' in an academic sense. Instead of following a scripted pattern for everything, it analyzes the state it knows about and makes decisions on how best to achieve its various goals. The AI is built up of many systems that all work in unison to achieve those goals, some of which are in a strict hierarchy and some which are at the same level, but share information. Examples include each individual ship's AI, the tactical AI, the strategic AI, the economic AI, and the diplomatic AI. The adaptation comes in when it realizes something failed and then makes adjustments to either improve the previous attempt or to try another. The classic example is attacking an enemy force. If it goes to attack and is beaten by a much larger force, it won't keep coming back with the same small force on regular intervals. Most likely it will do something like build and consolidate a fleet that can beat the enemy, or determine that a large enemy presence at that planet means it can probably hit elsewhere without much resistance.

VERY need indeed
So, we can ekspect too see different behavior from the AI, in every game? or will it be like, after a few games, ill know what it will most likely be doing next? (hope not). And i guess that is more likely when its "scripted" as said.

Blair: you can set fighters to build automatically on capital ships, auto-upgrade capital ships, auto attack - with corresponding stance control, auto use of special abilities

Like this auto things, specially the "auto use of special abilities" as i hate when in games, to get the max out of your units, you will have to go to each one, and use the ability.


And can i now ask for a screenshot (sigh... yeah im at it all the time) of the galaxy, where its totally zoomed out? I know there is a small bite of "image" within the trailer. But was that totally zoom out? It didnt look very interesting, though it was from an earlyer build.

OH and Blair, keep the tactis info comming, as my ships needs DEV's fodder

Ok, good to hear Blair. Thanks.

Just had me slightly worried because you can play Homeworld without the keyboard (for the most part) but I just find that a hotkey is much faster and more precise than having to click on stuff and navigate menus with the mouse.

the fact that you can does not mean that you should though.

Bandboxing, right-click auto actions, tooltips, unlimited unit selection, infinite waypoint queuing, and dynamic rally points are just some examples.

What is a dynamic rally point?

While auto use of abilities is not new, I'd like to be able to set the level at which they should use it. for example, i wouldn't want my Uber solar flare ability to trigger on a single scout ship. (thinking of the Destroyer in RA2)

Wow i have to say that was pretty informative and confirmed many of my theories. I still wonder how trade and diplomacy will work.

Exellent Interview, Blair...