Factions NPCs, Missions & PvE

Faction NPCs, Missions & PvE
We know that not everyone wants to PvP. And that’s fine with us. Age of Ascent isn’t about dictating a play style that people have to conform to; it’s about providing all the options players need to play the kind of game they want.

The core systems, of which there will be many hundreds, (or thousands depending on stretch goals!) are run by a variety of old-Earth geopolitical and ideological factions which have carved out their own empires in the vastness of the galaxy – and if you stay on their right side, they’ll try and keep you safe and, just maybe, they’ll offer you technologies and trades you won’t see elsewhere.

Space in Age of Ascent is so large, that if playing with or working for others isn’t your thing, then there’s every chance to get out to a part of the galaxy that’s entirely your own, far from the crowd, and disappear for years.

These NPC Factions will offer multi-threaded, multi-outcome missions. We feel the linear, pretty much identical, rinse-repeat quest/mission gets tedious very quickly, and we want to build mission systems that can change dynamically, according to local circumstances and which can have the scope to change entire regions of space depending on what players do and how our AIs respond to that activity.

We won’t be re-spawning the same ships a hundred times, our AIs are going to see what you’re doing and react. Outside of missions, the NPCs in universe of Age of Ascent will run on emergent behavior systems rather than orthodox scripting, and there’ll be plenty of opportunity to interact with them as you go about your day-to-day business – be that helping them or “hindering” them as you choose.