NPC Village overhaul [Trade/Lordship/Colonies/Companions/Relations system]

Keep in mind while reading this that I am fully aware that npc interactions has been requested before this. This post is to try and elaborate on that idea. Also, please note that this is te eexact same thread as before. The title has bean changed to more accurately describe the thread.

Now, for the first, and probably most requested NPC related feature:

IMPROVED TRADING
This feature would probably work just like buying an item.
there would be a little button near the bottom of the buy
page which says "Sell". Clicking this button would take you
to a page that is exactly like the buy page, but lists all of your
items and how many pixels the vendor is willing to pay for
them. This price would have one set base value, with different
vendors making small variations.

MORE CHAT OPTIONS AND THE RELATIONSHIP METER
More chat options basically means adding a dialogue tree.
Instead of pressing "E" on an NPC and them just saying the same
thing every time, have them say their standard passive dialogue,
then have there be boxes with chat options next to the main
dialogue box. Each box would have a different option. Merchants
would have an extra box on the other side of their dialogue box
marked "TRADE".

The first box would have a friendly option, such as
"Hello, nice weather we're having" or
"I'm [INSERT CLEVER CHARACTER NAME​

HERE], what's your name?"

The second box would have a neutral option, or an inquisitive
response, such as
"Do you know where I can find X?" or
"Where am I?" or
"What are you?"

The third and final box would be for hostile or negative responses,
such as
"Ugh, you're an ugly one." or
"What mud pit did you crawl out of?" or even
"I'm bored. How about I kill you?"
​

A hostile response may have a 15% chance to aggro the NPC. So, let me
explain what I'm leading to with these different response types. There might
be a sort of relationship meter to indicate how friendly a single or group of
NPCS are toward you. If the bar is low enough, they may attack you on sight.
If the bar is high enough, they may give you a discount on merchandise.
Attacking NPCS or killing their livestock might cause a relationship
drop. Giving gifts may help your meter.

COMPANIONS
When you get your relationship meter high enough for a single NPC,
they might consider becoming a companion. Companions would be
NPCs that follow you, and fight for you. Through chatting with them, you
could open their inventories to have them equip armor and weapons, have
them help you mine, or even fly to other planets with you. Having the
companion with you when you enter a village of their race may give you
a small relationship boost. Another idea is that if your relationship is good
enough with a village, you could hire bodyguards. These bodyguards would
follow you and fight for you (for a price, of course), until either they die, or
you decide to leave them behind.

STARTING YOUR OWN COLONY
Before you begin building your colony, you must first do several things:

1. You need to build two colony markers. This will mark the area for
your town or village. One on the left of it, and the other on the right. Before
anything else, you will need to build houses for your citizens. This would
have requirements that need to be met, such as:
-An enclosed space with a door
-Must be 5x4 blocks at LEAST
-Requires a bed

2. To get your first citizens, you must use the companion system to bring your
first civilian to come live in your town. One you arrive in the house you have
built for them, a chat option will appear to have them move in. Once they do,
you can find them in the house, or wandering around between the colony
markers.

3. Either you can continue with the previous method, or use the spawner
method, if you have the metalworking station. Also, see the next section.

4. Appoint a leader. Either you can stay the colony leader, and manage
their affairs, or you could appoint one of your citizens to do it. Becoming
leader may unlock new chat options, or allow you to interact with leaders
of other villages, such as forming alliances or going to war. Interplanetary
war is always fun.

Over time, issues in your colony may arise. The guards may not have
enough weapons and armor. Food supplies may be lacking. You may
have to fix this. Bring metals to the weapon maker (blacksmith if it's a
Glitch or Novakid colony), and he will make weapons and armor for your
guards. Give seeds to the farmers, and they will start farms, planting seeds,
picking their food, planting the seeds they get from that, and store excess
seeds and food in farm chests.

PERSONAL NPC RELATIONSHIPS
I needed to come up with another way to populate the colonies, so here's what
I'm just gonna dub PNR. Personally, I don't really like the idea of it being in the
game, but I figured that there needed to be another way that made sense of
villagers respawning, or populating your colonies. And so, here are the steps to
a successful PNR.
1. Establish a healthy relationship with the NPC. This may involve giving them
gifts, or solving village issues.
2. Don't let them catch you maintaining an overly healthy relationship with
any of the other villagers. You may lose everything, including the entire
relationship meter. There may be a very small chance that they might aggro.
3. Marriage. Ask a priest or other village leader to marry you to your new beloved.
You can do this yourself if you are the leader.
4. Create a child. Whether you're building them or doing it through more...
conventional methods, you've got a child. This is what I was talking about with
other ways to populate your colonies. If you're a Glitch, it may basically show
the respawn animation, but with your character and the NPC standing by. Other
races may just fade to black.
While, once again, I don't really like the idea of this being in the game, I'm just
presenting it as an idea, because there are probably people out there who would.

VILLAGE LEADERS
Obviously, villages need people to lead them. Be it a priest, a king, a mayor, or a
general, it depends. Village leaders would spawn in a leadership building, which
might include castles, churches, offices, or offices. Each one would act as a small
miniboss, and would generally have some sort of tech to help them, should you be
attack them. Jerk. After killing them, you might receive the tech they used in the fight,
a weapon, or a piece of armor. As well as this, every NPC that witnessed the fight
would aggro, both before and after. But be warned! If you don't kill all the witnesses,
news spreads fast. Every NPC in the village will attack you on sight.
On the flip side, you can befriend them and start trade between your colony and
their village, you could offer them some of your guards if they appear to be lacking,
and could even force them to pay tribute. (If your colony is big and bad enough).




So, that basically concludes my little suggestion thread. Feel free to post feedback or post new ideas. I just think that the NPCs definitely need to be fleshed out more than they are, and I know a lot of other people feel the same way.

 

If they do anything less than this, I will be disappointed.

 

Yeah. Excited to see how the NPCs will actually be in the final game.

 

I hope they take a page out of dwarf fortress's adventure mode regarding NPC generation. That has the best of any game I've seen so far.

 

I shall have one wife for each planet, where I will have conquered the great kings castles and made them the home for my many children! "COME MY CHILDREN! I HAVE CHEESEBURGERS FOR EVERYONE! DEVOUR! When you grow old you shall meet your brothers and sisters, and together as a family we shall conquer the entirety of space!"

 

Then this happens in multiplayer and we have a great galatic war of colonies!
There have been several colony and family ideas and I think the devs should definitely incorporate system for a game that finally has lore and many npcs unlike other games of the genre.

 

I'm just guessing, but developing the idea into something functioning well would most likely be a much later step as well as having to start out quite simple. "Simple", may be enough for space baby armies though!
I just can not stop thinking about all the scenarios though, like I'd end up trying to escort my wife to our great castle and a bird mob shoots a fire breath and one-shots her. "..." "WHY YOU NO LET WIFE LIVE?!"

 

An idea may be that there's a limit to the amount of children you could have, or maybe that if they meet or see each other, the other parents are alerted.

 

I would like to have like this implementation, being able to start a colony, like in Terraria, you can build houses and people live in them. If any one has seen any of the Avian colonies on moons then thats what I would like too see. Having guards and traders and townsfolk, and you being the Mayor of said town. That would be awesome!

 

very good idea man! or could have a option to ressurect your lost companion for a price (higher prices for companions who has equips that you gave to then) or something like that

(reviving then to dont lose the equipments you gave to him)

 

Another way may be that they drop the gear, and you will need to give it back to them when they are back to life. Maybe make use of the targeting/training dummies by making them a required item to allow your companions to train their combat skills, the higher their combat skills the more expensive the revives will be. The higher farming/smelting and so on, same story. Though, I guess gear-way could be less trouble, due to that maybe you will end up having a whole ton of geared up dear and near companions members die to some evil creature.

 

Lol you want to make a strategy game out of starbound, but I'm not blaming you it does sound really good. The thing is most likely it might not be done.

 

I had a similiar idea close to your "relationship-meter", not as detailed though. My idea was that if you are nice to people of a race, that race will spread good rumors about you, and if you do bad things they will spread warnings amongst planets about you being a villain.
I was thinking like you could become a "Legend" to NPC's, either a good or a bad one. Being a good person would make NPC's offer you gifts and better prices and people offering you more/harder quests. And being a bad person would make NPC's hate you and try to kill you, I was thinking something like "Wanted" posters being placed randomly around planets and towns. NPC's would run away or try to kill you on sight and bounty hunters would sometimes ambush you to take your head. I was thinking there would also be Wanted outlaw NPC's you could track down and reclaim a bounty for capturing/killing.

 

I like all the idea's but like every other post like this there is one idea I always disagree with. In real life you cannot stop the growth progress of a town unless A. there is another town right next to them B. Nature is in the way Ex. Huge mountain is in the way they have to build around C. There is another country nearby so the borders won't allow you to grow. I know what some people are gonna say "But what if they build over my base!" Well if the devs do go through with an idea like this they could make blocks that you can put on either side of you base so they don't grow over your base. My other argument is you shouldn't put your top secret base right next to a town your building if you don't want your citizens growing over it.Also something else I think should be added is ( don't know if this is what you mean't by one of your ideas) The NPC's are people (not really lol) they don't need to rely on you to get their food, build their houses,and etc.

 

I have made a similar post but this is just so much more detailed, i love the idea and all of the suggestions in this thread. I higly recommend the Devs to implement this into the game

 

I like most of this except two things. First off the colony markers should be either replaceable/expandable or only done horizontally, so that you can build upwards. The second issue I have is that of the relationships, romance and whatnot in games is always something that I find somewhat dumb in games that are mostly sandbox, with the exception of games where it becomes part of the side story, but in terms of this it seems like "Shove gifts in their face, receive child", I'd love to see NPCs fall in love and the like with each other, but for doing something where you romance an NPC.. well Starbound just doesn't seem like the right kind of game for it.

 

I think this is a good idea.It would really make the activity of colonization more interesting.

 

I really want usefull npc's... Not the ones that only exists to die by you or other minor threat... Love the idea

 

It really can be frustrating to have to babysit NPCs.

 

Awesome idea. I want this!