AI and Artificial Companions

Necrom

I'd like to direct your attention for a short while to a game called "Dig or Die", with a similar concept to Subnatica. The game is all about retrieving material to build a rocket to escape a planet you crashed on. Sound familiar? Anyhow, the wreck of the ship you crashed in still houses the AI of the ship, which has a personality and gives you tips on what to do next to escape, like telling you where certain rare resources are. In the late game, you build a gunship drone for him to inhabit, and he joins you on your journey. I'd say it's not to much of a stretch that AI exists in the Subnatica universe, as it's very technologically advanced.

So lets say the player gets lonely, tired of just the bodyless voices that plauges him when he's out of water or food. He builds a solar powered stalker replica, and either uses his AI or makes/finds/pulls another one to inhabit it. Boom, now you're got a friend. And I don't know about you, but I,ll take a robot fish over a real fish any day. This brings up an interesting question, could we build an army of aquatic workerss to mine and build for us? Like PRAWN suits, but smaller and with a few slots for tools and items. Imagine the late game potential of having an AI do the work for you. No more tiring trips to find basic material, more time and energy for exploring. And at the very maximum, imagine weaponizing them with knives, a legion of near invincible warriors at your beck and call. I can already imagine art of hordes of them in combat with a Leviathan. And it would mean a way to repair the Aurora, if you had enough of them. Not to mention, if the precursors are hanging around, it creates a way to free the Emperor. Another scene that comes to mind, is a clash of warpers and these bots in the bottom of deep abyss.

Anyways, It does have a good many flaws. But how bout it? I see it as a way to move the story forward and inspire more exploration.

Artorius

Having a protective friend to defend you would be nice too. Maybe there could be an A.I. bot left on the Aurora that is some sort of basic worker A.I. but with a few tweaks (or better still, because of the crash) it has a bit of self awareness. Not true self awareness but close. Like your own personal Jarvis. Don't make it too helpful, but more of a companion. But being able to scare away or defend against small to medium predators would be awesome. Have it follow you everywhere whether you are in a suit or not. Unless you tell it to stay someplace or return to base.

A little automation would be nice but it would need to be late game and still require player input, just allowing the player to expand their capability. Like a manufacturing plant that allows raw materials to be stored in bulk and then whatever the player needs can be made by taking from that storage. (Like a warehouse & factory setup)

And having some robot scavengers that collect resources would be awesome when the player gets far enough that doing those things becomes grinding. But I would require that the player have to go and set some sort of beacon for the bots to go to. Then they would mine that area within maybe 300 meters of the beacon then return to base and await being sent out again.

I say that, but I love having to go out and forage for stuff. hahaha. But I love the idea of a robot shark that would be your personal guard dog. ...it could even sniff out certain resources when you take him along to look for stuff. Give his snout a 30 meter range to find any material you've discovered so far.

DagothUr

Bugzapper

Might I respectfully direct your attention to the stories 'Aurora Falls' and 'Borealis Rising' in the General Discussion forum?

I've already addressed this possibility at some length.

dealwithitdog

Perhaps there could be different AIs that could confer different bonuses, ala RvB?