Update NPC grids

Space engineers has been updated since launch for approximately a decade now. We have received a combat overhaul, several performance uplifts, grid AI, trade stations, and more. PVE, however, has been falling behind due to updates to the game combined with the increasing average skill of the players.

I do not believe that there are any NPC grids with post-warfare 2 weapons. This means that anyone trying to fight, say, a SPRT ship, will simply be able to target lock from 2 km away and then shell the enemy with little resistance. Most of these NPCs have no way to fight back effectively and their defenses are effectively a joke. Adding some of the new weapons to existing hardpoints is easy and will greatly increase their threat as a target, particularly in conjunction with the next suggestion.

Now that automatons has come out, it is easier than ever to make drones with features available to players. Current enemy drones use scripted remote control blocks to grab a location near the player and chase, then fight and chase until they are destroyed. the recent update has rendered this method outdated now, and it would be easy to make those drones work with these new features. A task block can start with a gps position on the player, as current ones do, then it can patrol near that area. An offense block can detect the player and initiate combat based on the existing functions. the Frostbite campaign has some more advanced drones compared to what is usually used, but even those are simple in operation. The ability for drones to perform attack runs, circle opponents, or act as missiles would be both easy to implement and a great addition to the PVE experience.

As I mentioned previously, the same can apply for larger ships too. Some of them (rust freighter comes to mind) have basic logic to use thrust override to flee, or detonate warheads if boarded, but that is all quite basic. These larger ships can now be made to engage in maneuvering and combat with just two new blocks added to them. If a ship is equipped with a defense block instead of an offense block, it can be made to flee and turn on an emergency antenna, which are already used by the game to spawn in NPC drones.

These suggestions so far would require the modification of all AI-based grids with the addition of three blocks (ai move, ai task, ai offense/defense) and the replacement of some existing weapons (which can even be done just by modifying the blueprint file. A python script can do this automatically, or it can be done manually with minimal effort). However, I would also like to suggest three more additions to the game that I believe would increase the player experience with a moderate amount of effort.

As of right now, planetary stations only spawn if they are pre-planted, such as in the case of SPRT stations in Easy Start scenarios, OR if they are trade stations. As trade stations already spawn on the ground, and NPC mods have made station spawning work before, it should not be too difficult to make these spawn too, giving life to planetary bodies. The same can be done for large flying encounters as well, but that would require several new blueprints to work; let's get back to that later.

Most, if not all, of the existing NPC ships are built to be quite simple and basic. This is for good reason, as back in the day that most of these were added, the game's performance was significantly worse than it is today. I have personally seen the performance impact of my ships get cut in half (no, I'm not exaggerating) from an update. This means there is ample room to increase the complexity of encounters without harming the player experience. While upgrading old designs and adding new ones can be time consuming and slow, you have an entire community of people who love building. Find ships posted in the discord server and steam workshop, then ask the authors if they can be added to the game. Doing this takes only a few minutes every couple of days, acts as a massive boost to player happiness and pride, and shows the community that KSH *cares* about what their players are building. While some might be too large or use mods, many people would be more than happy to offer an alternative project or remove mods to make it work. If they don't, then it is still not a problem as there are many ships and stations being made and shown off daily. It would also be easy to have community events asking people to revamp existing NPC ships (perhaps give a few workshop and mod.io links to existing NPC designs per event). Many people would jump on the opportunity to show their skill.

The final request I have is to flesh out the Space Spiders faction. With upgrades to existing NPCs, they could become far more interesting. Still, though, there is a lack of distinct challenge in those PVE fights, particularly for experienced players. Space Spiders is not SPRT, which can remain the same as it is (a low to mid level threat to the player), and is instead a blank slate with no grid NPCs. I suggest that this faction become home to NPC grids that give players a real challenge and show them the real depth of this game. I personally specialize in making highly powerful ships and custom weapons in vanilla, so I know it can be done, and it can be done *while staying reasonable* as well. I'll give an example encounter with this fleshed out faction:

A player is flying in space looking for ores when an NPC spawns. They look at the antenna broadcast and see "SPID. Hive". It isn't approaching, so they pay it no mind and carry on. A minute later, a swarm of drones with new guns and AI blocks get close enough for their broadcast to show up. The player decides they want a fight and stand their ground. Six small drones with autocannons start peppering their hull while running when the player tries to approach. Two bigger drones pass by the player, firing assault cannons before they break off and line up another approach. If the player has good point defense, then after a minute of intense combat they mop up the last of the drones and decide they want to get their revenge. They drop their own drones, which start following the player's ship, and rush towards the hive. Once they get within 2.5 km, the hive detects them with a defense block and opens its hangar doors, where a dozen more autocannon drones and four heavy railgun drones jet out in search of prey. The player's drones luckily draw the railgun and autocannon fire and the player comes in with their gatling ball turrets and assault cannon turrets, wiping out the threat. All that's left is the hive itself, now alone. The player pops into their camera view and snipes out the few turrets on the hive before approaching and claiming the loot inside. A few traps and winding corridors slow the player, with gravity changing around a few times inside to fit the maze-like contours of the hive's internal rooms. Reaching the end, the player grinds open the cargo containers to find a bounty of resources and credits, making their hard-fought encounter well worth it.

This encounter would take less than a work day to complete from scratch, and would provide a more nuanced encounter than anything in the vanilla NPC spawn pool right now. Similar encounters would be possible as well, from motherships that chase the player, shooting out their engines and eating them with grinder drones, infestation pods that act as supply caches if the player can fight their escort off before it self destructs, small or large scale mechs that spawn on planets, scouring the land before they despawn, and more. All of it is possible to do with moderate effort combined with the existing NPC framework and the latest updates.

I enjoy making complex vanilla combat designs. The idea for fleshing out the SPID faction came from thinking about what it would be like to have my builds as encounters in the game. As such, I would love nothing more than to be given the opportunity to create some of those encounters for KSH to add. If adding new NPC designs and fleshing out the SPID faction is too much, then I still hope that, at the very least, NPCs are updated to use modern weapons and AI functions.