Tweet
Unused guard lives are more "vulnerable" than thief lives because the guard AIs are in play and able to be blackjacked or killed.
One way to balance this was already suggested: make a second pool of guard lives beyond that which is in play. For example, the guards might have 10 lives with 5 being in play as AI and 5 simply "in the void" like thief lives.
Here's another suggestion: allow human guards who talk to AI guards to set these additional options:
(1) If the AI enters the "suspicious of a thief" state I jump to control that AI.
(2) If the AI takes damage I jump to control that AI.
Naturally, only the human who has chosen one of these most recently receives the benefit. The guard-body vacated would simply revert to being an AI guard. The inventories would be exchanged.
The result? Something that is hopefully easy to progam, but makes the risk of alerting an AI much more serious because a human might suddenly be there!
---
True, a human using this might be chasing a thief and really not want to jump to an AI guard's body at that moment. The easy solution is simply to say, "Then don't use the new feature."
The harder solution would be to add a new keybind for "jump guard body", and the triggered "switching" merely brings up a message saying something like "One of your AI guards reports an emergency! Press [key] to respond." Besides adding another keybind, or the awkwardness of using an existing keybind in a new way, this would require keeping track of which AI guard is most recently calling for aid (necessary if a human guard has set the trigger for more than one AI guard, and more than one sense a crisis during the wait for the key-pressing).
---
And if the scouting orb ever gets programmed, it might be possible to have HUD views from the "switching body enabed" AI guards!
One way to balance this was already suggested: make a second pool of guard lives beyond that which is in play. For example, the guards might have 10 lives with 5 being in play as AI and 5 simply "in the void" like thief lives.
Here's another suggestion: allow human guards who talk to AI guards to set these additional options:
(1) If the AI enters the "suspicious of a thief" state I jump to control that AI.
(2) If the AI takes damage I jump to control that AI.
Naturally, only the human who has chosen one of these most recently receives the benefit. The guard-body vacated would simply revert to being an AI guard. The inventories would be exchanged.
The result? Something that is hopefully easy to progam, but makes the risk of alerting an AI much more serious because a human might suddenly be there!
---
True, a human using this might be chasing a thief and really not want to jump to an AI guard's body at that moment. The easy solution is simply to say, "Then don't use the new feature."
The harder solution would be to add a new keybind for "jump guard body", and the triggered "switching" merely brings up a message saying something like "One of your AI guards reports an emergency! Press [key] to respond." Besides adding another keybind, or the awkwardness of using an existing keybind in a new way, this would require keeping track of which AI guard is most recently calling for aid (necessary if a human guard has set the trigger for more than one AI guard, and more than one sense a crisis during the wait for the key-pressing).
---
And if the scouting orb ever gets programmed, it might be possible to have HUD views from the "switching body enabed" AI guards!
Comment