Not sure why this wasn't done already.

All non-specific AI; Wattages, Monochromes, Equans, Forgones, etc...

Give them all the same name and all the exact same gear.

So a level 1200 Forgone would be name Forgone and have X gear

A level 1800 Forgone would be named something like Ascended Forgone and have X gear + Y gear to make it stronger. No AI would drop inventory items, and all drops would be based on drop tables, so that you could still get any basic aug from any properly teched AI.

Why? Makes things easier, eliminates confusion, standardizes wildslaves, that sorta stuff y'know?

This is already how it is, they just have random name generators applied to each tier of ai. Generally higher tier ai gain more random name prefix/affixes.

It's not already done, AI of a given type do not share common name, their aug setups are varied, as are their levels.

And granted it hasn't happened in a while since SS is effectively dead right now, but back in C1 when something other than AI inhabited the nexus I very frequently had to tell people that the AI that just killed them was in fact not a player (which is why the flies in the first level were all given the same name, if I am not mistaken). The system works though, and that is why other games use it. If an AI has a name it should be special in some way, whether it's a boss, a mission AI, or flavor AI like Paxius has. Every AI in the game having a randomly generated name is pointless (you could argue that it adds immersion or some bullshit like that, but no one has ever asked for dynamic names on the AI fodder).

Ignoring the name thing for a moment though, from a balance perspective standardized levels, gear and augs with all drops coming from a drop table, vice the inventory, is just good business as it allows the admins to determine the EXACT power level of any given AI and the amount of experience it gives, so one guy doesn't get hooked up with a good spawn and one guy doesn't get fucked by a bad spawn.

Go into a DG and look at the name schemes of things like Forgones/Big Greens/MF versions, etc. They have a normal set of names, like Green Meanie or something of that like. Sniper version gets another name affix, then triple MF gets another name affix.

This goes for Reaver/MF version, Icepick/MF version, Forgone/MF2/MF3 version, etc.

I am not talking about giving them all a list of 50 names they can have + Adjectives. I am talking about giving them all the SAME name, the SAME gear, SAME, SAME level. That is what standardized means.

Standardized AI, like almost every successful MMO in existence uses.

Every single regular Forgone would be named "Forgone"

Every single level 1500 would be named something like "Risen Forgone"

Every single level 2000 would be named something like "Ascended Forgone"

I'm in favor of this. I remember being a nooby and the whole naming scheme confusing the shit out of me.

Yea that sounds boring as fuck. I like our name generator. Standardizing the aug setups is fine with me though, super ai/bosses are kind of annoying.

Yea it may be more boring but atleast you won't confuse the lowbies. Took me a while to learn to look at the hull name rather than the AI name. Also, that theme per AI you talked about, nobody will notice that untill they killed like 100+ of that AI

I noticed it within my first few dg levels back in C1, but I guess I'm not your average MMO player.

Yeah, and the majority of people probably do notice, but those that don't get a pass considering this is a system that *basically every successful MMO uses.*

Most games use names as a way to denote an AI as special, so (1) people aren't looking for uniquely named AI when they come to SS so a name usually means a person, and we help them in this assumption by giving standardized names to most of the AI in the nexus, and (2) this system is smart because it gives people a clear message to someone when they are looking at a special AI, "Oh look has a name, I should investigate further" there is no reason for Wattage #34,679 to have his own name.

Also, whoever made the current names did a damn good job of misspelling enough names that it's noticeable, but not enough to make them easy to find and fix, for instance the Wattages named Keenan Invetigates", these misspelled names also only do more to convince new players that it's a player that can't spell, instead of clearly an AI name.

Jeff likes his random name generator.

jeff probably coded it himself and Am Proud Parental Unit all over it.

I kind of enjoyed the fact that ai could have either weak augmenter sets or very strong ones.

Would be awesome to see some pspace ai with fucked up augs like raging apphro =)

I agree.