Communications

[Enur_74]

So far I have played about 10 hours...is there no way to communicate with other ships and stations?? I think this would make space feel less empty if you could tell someone to leave terran space or what not...well just my two cents really...

I love the game and I hape you don't mind any new ideas SC

I would just love to have an option to diplomatically get out of tough fights...

Rune

[XenoZohar]

"uh, I'm sorry, nice Gammulan StormCarrier...but I forgot my Vagrants at home....Can I go get them? Pretty please? I promise to come back....uh,...hey, don't touch that but*BOOOM!*"

[Enur_74]

Come on...you know what I mean...it seems noone wants to talk over the radio....we do have communications why not use them??

Rune

[Rosko]

I think the quote was "you are not a diplomat, so don't try to be one" hehe, be the diplomat class if you want to negotiate!!

[Enur_74]

Yeah but you still can't talk to other ships, planets, or spacestations unless I'm wrong here...

Some of you beta testers who know more can answer this

Rune

[Zuul]

quote:

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Originally posted by Enur_74:

I would just love to have an option to diplomatically get out of tough fights...

Rune

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I'd have to agree. I was hoping there would be tons of diplomacy options. Alliances, trade agreements, non-aggression pacts, declaring war, threatening, improve relationships, etc... but it does'nt take away from the game any considering you can sorta do all that without a diplomacy menu. I'm just used to Sim/Strategy games almost always having some sort of Diplomacy options. Other then that I could'nt ask for anything more!

[ 11-23-2001: Message edited by: Zuul ]

[Gallion]

Cant do this - yet. Mayhaps in a future BC release. Until then, only talking that is done is with weapons fire

No miscommunications there IMO

TTFN

[Enur_74]

So I wonder if this could come about cause I could see a whole new game opening up if you could talk to other factions...maybe not change alot of things but maybe make it so you don't feel alone? love the rest of the game though

Rune

[Soback]

Talk to one ship, and give it a choice of droping it's cargo or be destroyed, and if you are attacked then telling the attacking ship that you will drop your cargo so don't kill me is about all you need.

As for diplomatic negotiations. Come on. You are one, one tiny commander in a huge space empire, be it human, gammulan or any other, who are you to propose packts or station negotiations for all the other captains to follow.

[Enur_74]

Thats all i was really talkin about really.

Rune

[CommanderJohnson]

I think the main point is, why do we have the "C" button. You hit it and you get "No Comms response from target".

Ok, my comm officer must be an idiot. I KNOW there aren't any comms responses from my target, or i'd HEAR THE TARGET's COMMS! Now, if we have already established that there probably won't be a response when I hit the "C" button, then WHY DOES MY COMM OFFICER keep informing me when there isn't one? Why is the "C" key even binded to anything? Why doesn't the comm officer just SHUT UP. I already know they aren't going to talk, they know they aren't going to talk, my comm officer knows they aren't going to talk, the game code knows they aren't going to talk, so why even waste my time by letting me hit "C" so I can hear the comm officer tell me something I ALREADY KNOW!!!

[Zuul]

quote:

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Originally posted by Soback:

As for diplomatic negotiations. Come on. You are one, one tiny commander in a huge space empire, be it human, gammulan or any other, who are you to propose packts or station negotiations for all the other captains to follow.

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Soback, you are only refering to the Commander carreer when in fact there are many other careers you can choose from in which case one of those happens to be a Diplomat.

[cschoch]

I believe you will have to use the C key during certain campaign missions. I could be wrong, but I think I remember using it a while back playing BC3000AD. Would definately be awesome to contact other ships though!

[ 11-24-2001: Message edited by: schoch1 ]

[Cmdr Nova]

Yeah, I was wondering about that also, Dread. That same command was also in BC3k, and I had no idea what the hell it did. Still don't.

[Guest JohnMoo]

Didn't it give you docking permission in stations? (its been a while since I played)

[Gallion]

Communcations can be included in a script. In which case the C keyboard command would work. However, this is a scripting nightmare in my experience and not worth the effort.

I hate canned, non-flexible, communications in any game's (not just the BC series) campaign or mission. Gets to predictable.

Granted it would make somethings in the BC series more realistic; i.e. a diplomat that actually is funtional.

Bottom Line: No comms in the BC series until the SC releases a new product. When? When its ready

TTFN

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Enur_74:

Come on...you know what I mean...it seems noone wants to talk over the radio....we do have communications why not use them??

Rune

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Because its not support in the single player game....and won't be?

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Enur_74:

So I wonder if this could come about cause I could see a whole new game opening up if you could talk to other factions...maybe not change alot of things but maybe make it so you don't feel alone? love the rest of the game though

Rune

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1. I don't want to open up a whole new game

2. This is a different kind of game

[Supreme Cmdr]

Player to NPC (and vice versa) comms is something I always wanted to do. In fact, around early 1991, I had a full blown NLP (Natural Language Parser) I developed just for that. However, due to the hectic nature of the game, I dropped it. I mean, do you want to be typing something in the comms console (ala NLP) while your adversary is lobbing missiles at you? By the time you hit the send key, you'd be down to 0 integrity.

So, it would have to be a canned response database.

Well, I'm not notorious for putting in half-assed features in my game. If something is worth doing, do it right. As such, to do a lookup database of responses....for over 25 castes and 12 alien nations, would be quite an undertaking. I'm talking thousands of message and response combinations.

And say you actually got that done, now you need new rules which determine what the NPC responds in relation to what you send to it.

....it gets worse

You now have now to determine how the valid messages you can send are partitioned based on stance and instancing. For example, if you asked a diplomat in a transport to disarm his weapons - he's just going to tell you to f*ck off (if he's hostile), while a friendly would have to tell you something else or totally ignore you.

Then you need an interface for that. Which means

1. Selecting a target
   
2. Hitting the C key
   
3. Selecting a canned message to send.
   

The end result? ITS NOT EASY!

Communicating with an NPC is not the same as communicating with some jackass in mp. Even then, you'd still be caught typing crap while he's lobbing a rocket up your pipe.

To do this feature, I anticipate would take about 3-4 months of work and testing.

OK, so who wants to cut me a cheque for about $50K?

[ 11-24-2001: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Captain Dread:

I think the main point is, why do we have the "C" button.

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Multiplayer

And did you just conveniently happen to miss the description of the C command on the keyboard sheet? You DO have a copy of the game, right?

[Islander]

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

The end result? ITS NOT EASY!

Communicating with an NPC is not the same as communicating with some jackass in mp. Even then, you'd still be caught typing crap while he's lobbing a rocket up your pipe.

To do this feature, I anticipate would take about 3-4 months of work and testing.

OK, so who wants to cut me a cheque for about $50K?

---

LOL. This is what I love about the SC; he explains everything out so that those of us who don't have a clue what it takes to develop a game can begin to get a clue.

BTW SC; you remind me of my Senior Drill Instructor in Marine Corps boot camp (this is intended as a compliment SIR!!)

Gamaliel out.