Living Galaxy

from StarControl Forums

I thought I would explain “Needs, Wants, & Desires” within the context of Star Control in a little more detail. This is at the foundation of how Will Wright's games work, and it is very obvious that he learned this from a book called “Designing Games & Simulations” which, in the 1980's, was one of the only books that existed related to game design. It is much more obvious in Sim City then it is in Spore, but is also there in Spore.

Most modern game designers would attempt to create a “Living World” simply by assigning a route for each “AI Object” to endlessly repeat. This will create an illusion of a “Living World”, but not nearly as well as Needs, Wants, & Desires will. Within each category there is an order of precedence that determines which needs will override any other needs an AI Object might have, and the same goes for the other two categories. So, instead of simple “endlessly repeating routing” that eventually becomes obvious too the player, “NWD” will make it far more difficult for the players to discern what is going on. And, as a result of this, the AI will appear to be far more intelligent... and yet this is still a “board game simple AI”.

That “endlessly repeating routing” would exist for each AI Object, but within the NWD system. So imagine a “mercenary”. You would incorrectly assign the “wants” to make money as a “needs” to make money, and this will make that ship appear to act like a “mercenary” who's primary “thought” is to make money. But getting fuel when needed would still be a higher ranking need than making money, for example, because it can't make money without fuel. So this ship might have a “stock” programming within this system that has it endlessly repeating a route between 3 or 4 star systems. Get fuel in star system 1, move cargo from star system 3 to star system 6, conduct piracy operations in system 9, sell looted goods in system 12, at which point it is low on fuel and returns to star system 1 to repeat this endless loop.

Then the player comes along and has a conversation with this ship. Different player choices might then add higher ranking needs, wants, and/or desires for that AI Object (mercenary ship). But not necessarily how the player expects. In your conversation maybe you made a deal with them to steal something for you, and meet you in a certain system later to give/sell it too you. This objective becomes its highest ranking want. But then it heads in the opposite direction you were expecting... because it doesn't have the fuel to complete the task, so its highest ranking need tells it to first go get fuel. Once it has the fuel, your quest then outranks its normal wants and desires to do its endlessly repeating route, so it breaks from its normal behavior to go get the thing you asked for and meet you where you had agreed too meet.

This was a very simple example. Interaction with the player creates new needs, wants, & desires and breaks this AI Object out of its normal “stock behavior” of the usual “endlessly repeating route”. Once it has fulfilled those needs, wants, & desires it will return to that “stock AI” that keeps it in its “home area”. You can see how “real” this appears too be to the player on a lot of different levels, including the ship not immediately heading to the quest location if it has needs that need to be fulfilled for it to be able to do that. They almost appear “unreliable” in some ways, as a “mercenary” should, and appear to be “thinking on their own”.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the most obvious example of this is in Will Wright's Sim City. The classic example, and the exercise that inspired Sim City, is applying this to the survival of a self-sustenance level village.

66,403 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

So what would trigger change in NWD apart from running out of fuel and player convo?

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

Anything at all.  Anything you can imagine can be fit somewhere within the order of precedence of one of the three categories.  And an unlimited number of new instructions might wind up being placed into them, which could keep an AI Object busy for quite a long time.  It is a very simple system that is actually infinitely capable.  This, operating with Avalon Hill's phased turns, had been an emerging science in the last days before computers began to become a thing that anyone could have and use.  It is a simple, uniform system of simulating just about anything... depending on how you use it.


EDIT: I should also add that it isn't only the player that might create new NWD.  It might be taken out of its "endless loop" example above by coming within range of a freighter carrying $1 million dollars or more worth of freight, for example.  On its way to conduct piracy it passes within range of this million dollar freighter.  As in the original example, its want to make money has been intentionally mis-classified as a low ranking need (in order to make it behave like an "unreliable mercenary").  So, simply by coming within range of this million dollar freighter activates its need to make money, so it breaks from its normal endless loop and takes the freighters cargo.  This fills its cargo hold, creating a need to go sell it and empty its cargo hold... and it has broken from its endless loop with no involvement of the player.  It is "alive", a "living universe".

 

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Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top

Wouldn't you think that it's a bit too much extra coding for SCO scope?

P.S. You know, you don't need to double space after each period. You're not typing it on the typewriter... or are you?..

Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

It's not as much as you think it is.  Not every ship out there has to have an AI "attached" too it, some are still just the type of "background" AI ships that you would have doing it the way that most people would and just having them on an endless loop through a few destinations.  Just like the planets, and black holes, etcs, those ship can be thought of as a part of the "passive map".  Any AI Object you choose to attach an NWD AI is like an NPC in an RPG.  Or, said another way, becomes a part of the "active map".  So only the ships with "attached AI" are a part of the "active map".  And the NWD AI is just three listings of orders of precedent, within the categories that themselves are an order of precedence.  And you take another tiny step toward Rube and, a long time down the road somewhere... something that starts to look an aweful lot like "The Matrix".

This is still a 26-mile marathon away from being a PDU game, but it is a very simple way creating "Living Galaxy" that will work well for SCO.

Do I still sound crazy?

 

 

Reply #5 from StarControl Forums Top

My dad literally does the exact same double-space after each period, and no matter how many times I try to tell him it's not necessary, or even etiquette anymore, he CANNOT break the habit. Drives me crazy.

Reply #6 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Kavik_Kang, reply 4

It's not as much as you think it is.

As a dev (not games), yes it is a lot of work.

  1. Trying to shoehorn it in late in the framework dev, adds potentially significant expense depending on design decisions made
  2. Having it attached to selective entities adds work
  3. Adding the statement that the rules can be 'anything at all' - that adds WAY more, especially when considering the complexity of forcing arbitrary rules into logic statements.

Quoting Kavik_Kang, reply 4

And you take another tiny step toward Rube

This is not Rube, this is SCO.

Quoting Kavik_Kang, reply 4

Do I still sound crazy?

No, just not knowledgeable in the complexities of software development.

Reply #7 from StarControl Forums Top

I was just providing the simplest possible way of creating the "living galaxy" they say they want to have.  There isn't a simpler method than this, not if you want it to live up too the concept of a "living galaxy".  I am already aware that they may be too late in the process to do it this way, but then again maybe not.  This is "board game simple" and can easily be done on a table top.  I do understand the "complexities of software development" at a basic level, but of course not like a programmer who does it for a living.

When I said it can do "anything at all", I wasn't imagining that they would have the time to do anything that extensive.  All they need is what they need.  It could later be added too, very easily.  But the three simple categories can handle anything you can imagine, and all that is needed to expand it into that is to add new needs, wants, or desires and the locations/game elements that satisfy them.  Somewhat like Rube on a much smaller scale, you would still be working on this 100 years from now if the goal was "The Matrix".

No, this is not Rube.  This is just Needs, Wants, & Desires... an almost insignificant component of one kind of Rube;-)

 

EDIT: My favorite example of your point are insects.  If the goal was "The Matrix" I would begin with my Struggle 1, "GIBROH" which is the closest thing too that of my games.  It isn't at a LOD that would include insects, but if it was you would start with an "illusion" of insects by having just a few dozen types of them.  After 100 years of development it would be looking a whole lot like "The Matrix", but you'd still be a long way away from having every insect on this planet in the simulation.  It doesn't need to be complete to function, and function very well.  Space combat is not actually my thing, that's SVC's thing.  I just possess a lot of the knowledge of the SFU, not all of it.  Only Steven Petrick knows everything;-)  This is my "signature thing", what Stardock is calling a "Living Galaxy" and what I call an "artificial universe" (Or... MeeSo!!!).

 

 

 

Reply #8 from Stardock.net Forums Top

I'm really loving these broad strokes.  However, my brain is very small (probably a head injury I don't recall) so I tend to deal better with concrete examples. 

Can you come up with a few specific examples you have in mind?

Reply #9 from StarControl Forums Top

NWD is just a broad stroke, meant to be applied to what ever you want to apply it too.  The point, for the academics who were thinking along these lines, was a "universal and uniform" way of doing simulations for the purpose of learning from them.  It can be applied to almost anything.  It really is as simple as I described, as a concept, and only becomes as complex as you want to make it. 

The classic example was a self-sustenance village.  A citizen of that village has "needs, wants, and desires" and an order of precedence for any of those NWD within each of those categories.  From just this, you can create a simple AI for almost anything.  Another example is evolution, which is what inspired Spore.  The example of evolution was used as an example of how complex a subject this simple system can be used to simulate.  Today, this can be used as the basis of a "living galaxy" buy making what I call "AI Objects" in the background seem "alive" and like they are living out their lives in the universe in a pretty simple but still convincing way.  And this, of course, is still just one thing that you can do starting out with the basic concept of NWD.

I barely remember anything about the game design book I posted in the other thread other than it having been one of the ones I read back when I was in high school and college.  But I wouldn't be surprised if there was some discussion of NWD, or at least examples you'll notice are related too it, in her book.

Reply #10 from StarControl Forums Top

I had forgotten that I had thrown in a few very basic aspects of Rube in what you were replying too, and that you were probably asking more for an example of Rube than you were NWD. I can't provide a simple example of the specific function of Rube because only world class SFB experts have a frame of reference from which to have any idea what I am talking about. That means about 50 people in the world. However, I can explain a little bit about it that doesn't get into the “time combined with reality” aspect of it that requires that prerequisite knowledge to understand. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” really says it better than anything else. I realize how that sounds, but it really is the best way of saying it.

In the context of Star Control... You can think of AI as a “plug-in” for Rube. Rube is not AI, Rube needs AI. It is a general structure of a simulation of “time combined with reality”. When other people make games they make a map, the “terrain” whether it is rolling hills or a city it is a “map”. Then they put things on the map, things I call “AI Objects”. Rube's map has a little more too it than that. Within Rube there are both “AI Objects” and “Soul Rubes”. I call this the “Active/Passive Map”. “AI Objects” are a part of the “Passive Map” and have an “instinctive AI”, “Needs, Wants, & Desires” which is best used to represent instinctive behaviors. These “instinctive AI Objects” are a part of the Passive Map within Rube, just like buildings, hills, terrain, etc are. It is all a part of the background, even the moving and “thinking” AI Objects are just a part of the map.

Anything that is given a “Soul Rube” becomes a part of the “Active Map”. An NPC would have a “Soul Rube”, for example. These generally have a different AI than the NWD AI of the AI Objects that are a part of the Passive Map (or, “Living Galaxy”). For the sake of example, let's use “Deep Mind”, which as far as I know is the most sophisticated gaming AI in the world. So the AI Objects of the Passive Map act on instinct (NWD), while the “Soul Rubes” of the Active Map are running on Deep Mind (or just a scripted AI, or... whatever). When I say “Attached AI”... that is actually “attached” too the player, and is separate from all of this and a key aspect of how Rube functions.

This aspect of Rube, the “Active/Passive Map”, is what is relevant to Star Control and your “Living Galaxy”. This is a relatively simple, but very powerful, means of achieving the “Living Galaxy” you had talked about in the video.

Reply #11 from StarControl Forums Top

Reading through this, especially the mercenary and what priority would be assigned to his NWD, was anybody else thinking, "The Slylandro got this part really, really wrong"...?