Gameplay: Interactive Intelligence

Neurotoxin · 2012-06-11, 04:48 PM

Interactive Intelligence is quite similar to Artificial Intelligence, except that it is actually being driven by the mind of a human. With I.I., soldiers are able to enter a sort of stasis chamber that handles the maintenance of their body while their mind is directly networked to their faction's intelligence systems. This allows them to remotely handle the functions that would require human interface, and let them jump to other tasks or systems instantly.

This would be used for things like gunning a vehicle or operating a base turret, or being able to look out from the perspective of optics inside owned facilities. Other than facility optics, a turret would require an engineer to attach an ACE inside with an Interactive Intelligence Control Device. For vehicles, the driver would have to select the IICD as their vehicle's optional module, but it would indicate to all I.I. operatives that there is a vehicle in need of a gunner, so the vehicle would have a gunner pretty much all the time. Facility optics include internal and external spotlights, cameras, and active tracking systems, which help provide an informational or visual advantage to fellow soldiers.

The additional advantage of I.I. is that soldiers don't physically need to be in the battlefield. They aren't seen, their gear isn't accounted for, and they are able to control facility optics and things which IICDs can be applied. They may even be able to access I.I. stasis from a neutral location (non-continent space, especially to alleviate server or continent queues) so more soldiers can take to the battlefield and get I.I. support. The downside is that they are restricted to I.I. systems, and so their ability to earn experience and resources and Auraxium will be limited to gunning with IICDs, or spotting enemies with facility optics and having those enemies be killed by friendlies.

So one last thing... I hinted at it in the last paragraph... this would expand the players per server. Less physical models, more players interacting in-game. Unless there are more servers than we can possibly fill at launch (maybe 20?), I expect every server to have a queue almost all the time. This system would allow for a major alleviation of server queues, and the annoying problem of not being able to join one's outfit because the server or continent is full.

MedicDude · 2012-06-11, 06:38 PM

I'd rather see this integrated with a window-pane for platoon leaders (commanders?). Higsby has hinted that engineers and infiltrators are going to be the major intel collectors.

Integrating it with the soldier, instead of a stand-alone pod or structure, would give more options, and integrate better with the battle.

That being said, I'd also love to see a 'spectator' feature available from the sanctuary/log-in, similar to the replay features we see in RTSs.

Further, this wouldn't allow any additional players per server. The majority burden for a server isn't receiving individual data, it's distributing all that data to every player. As you'd still need to receive everyone else's data, you're not reducing server load. Major server load is based on the number of actions performed, calculations on that data, and the number of recipients for that data. Drawing player models has no effect on server performance at all, that's all done client-side.