Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 538 - 521: Autonomous Behavior of Silicon-based Dwarves

Chapter 538: Chapter 521: Autonomous Behavior of Silicon-based Dwarves

After clicking the leader’s first Troublemakers Technology Point, nothing seemed to happen.

After clicking the leader’s second Troublemakers Technology Point, the silicon-based dwarves wandering the map appeared to be a bit more active.

After clicking the first Troublemakers Technology Point on the Governor’s line, no significant changes were observed.

Gan Di went on to click through them one by one.

The two technological trees of the leader and the Governor could essentially be seen as expanding their own powers.

But the technology points related to public opinion on these two trees had the opposite effect.

For example, the leader’s Troublemakers Technology Points aimed to increase the minimum public support necessary for the leader to make decisions, boost the success rate of recalling the Governor with high public support, and speed up the research and reduce resource consumption of subsequent political technological points.

This means that these Troublemakers Technology Points, at first glance, seem to slightly affect the leader’s centralization, but they are often predicated on "high public opinion support."

The same applied to the Governor.

If one wanted these public opinion related technology points to work, one first had to ensure that the Governor’s own public opinion support was very high, otherwise these points were moot and might even backfire.

When public support was insufficient, the success rate of the leader recalling the Governor would be reduced, the speed of progressing in political technological points would slow down, and resource consumption would increase.

In simpler terms, it meant the troublemakers became more troublesome.

Thus previously, Gan Di nearly never clicked on such technology points while playing.

Because compared to other points directly increasing the power of the leader or the Governor, the gains from these public opinion-related technology points were too low.

I clicked on technology points, and I still have to act depending on public opinion?

Weren’t those technology points wasted?

Moreover, Gan Di had previously clicked on the technology tree in a straightforward manner.

To increase the leader’s power, only the leader’s line was selected, to increase the Governor’s power, only the Governor’s line was selected.

This also conformed to most people’s gaming intuition: clicking on everything, spreading attention everywhere, meant mastering nothing.

After all, when it came to technology trees, the later technology points looked more tempting.

The final technology points of the leaer could lead to dictatorship, and those of the Governor could lead to usurpation. How thrilling is that?

Pointing at the other line previously was simply wasting resources.

The game’s resources were tight, time was tight, and often the leader and the Governor were in opposition, only one could be focused on, so why would both sides be considered?

But this time, since Gan Di hadn’t planned on playing the game seriously, he simply clicked through all the technology points related to public opinion on both lines.

Due to the Governor’s passivity, the resources and development time required for political system technology points were rapidly decreasing, to the point where hardly any resources were needed.

Gan Di continued clicking this way.

While clicking, he suddenly realized something seemed amiss.

"Huh, how did these silicon-based dwarves start moving on their own?"

Initially, when these technology points were clicked, there were some changes, although they were very weak and hard to notice.

Mainly, it appeared that the enthusiasm of these silicon-based dwarves had increased slightly.

Since the Governor was not engaging in building, these silicon-based dwarves could only idle around or manually mine some minerals, doing some very basic, rudimentary work.

But as Gan Di increased his clicking of technology points, the initiative of these silicon-based dwarves also seemed to be increasing.

They originally did some very simple mechanical jobs, like mining, and then remained idle, but now, they had actually built a mining site on their own?

"Hey, isn’t that wrong?

"How can these troublemakers work on their own?

"Is it a hidden mechanism of the game? Or is there some kind of problem?"

Gan Di felt very surprised, as he had never encountered such a situation before.

At this time, the silicon-based dwarves were still doing some of the most basic work, such as building mines, smelting plants, and so on. They would also connect these factories with conveyor belts and then build a warehouse to store the resources.

But that was about it.

This capability was basically equivalent to that of a beginner who had just learned the basics.

There weren’t any advanced techniques, and there wasn’t much attention to the placement of the production lines, but it was much better than doing nothing at the beginning.

At least they were getting something done.

"Could it be... a fake-AI?

"To think about it, when the Governor and the leader had internal strife before, and sometimes the silicon-based dwarves didn’t strictly follow the Governor’s orders, was it also one of the functions of the fake-AI?

"The ’Star Plan’ used the official editor, and the official editor has always come equipped with fake-AI, which has been continuously updated.

"It seems like not long ago, players had been saying that the fake-AI technology actually already supports imitating players in gameplay, fully supported by the mechanics, it’s just that the official hadn’t really openly confirmed this.

"Could it be, the autonomous actions of the silicon-based dwarves were created using fake-AI technology?

"Hmm, it’s very possible!"

After some serious thought, Gan Di quickly had some guesses about the general cause and effect.

He had noticed before that, like other games, ’Star Plan’ also had troublemakers, and these troublemakers’ behaviors were even more extreme.

In other games, troublemakers could only affect satisfaction level slightly, and then trigger some special events.

Although these were also annoying for the players, overall, they were manageable.

But ’Star Plan’ was different—these troublemakers would even sabotage.

For instance, in the later stages of the game, the autonomous consciousness and intelligence of these silicon-based dwarves seemed to get higher and higher.

Not only causing trouble and triggering collective events but they might also commit actions like arson or even stuffing parts into the production line, purely chaotic maneuvers.

Gan Di had encountered this once before when he was selecting technology points; he had selected some that improved public opinion. Although he hadn’t focused on them like now, as time went on in the game, public opinion would gradually increase.

This was commonly known as "Civilization Enlightenment."

As a result, a production line got stuck because it contained a component that didn’t meet the requirements.

Each manufacturing plant had a recipe, and the conveyor belt would continuously bring the necessary materials. However, if there was a component on the conveyor belt that wasn’t part of the current recipe, the manufacturing machine would halt, causing the entire conveyor belt to jam.

At the time, Gan Di thought it was the Governor player messing around on purpose.

After all, apart from the Governor, no one else could put things on the conveyor belt, right?

Moreover, there was a natural distrust between the leader and the Governor, so it was normal to suspect each other first.

But now it seems...

There might be a third party in this game, and that is AI.

Just that because the conflict between the Governor and the leader had been too intense before, and AI had hidden itself very well, it was very hard to notice.

Now, with the unlocking of the technology points concerning public opinion and as time progressed in the game, the awakening speed of these silicon-based dwarves’ AI seemed to be unusually fast.

Some tech experts had already analyzed and practiced this, using the current fake-AI technology, if the game mechanics were manipulated more, it could fully make autonomous decisions and play the game on its own.

Just like many companies that use AI technology to play MOBA games or chess.

The designers had even integrated fake-AI technology into the bottom layer of the editor for easy access whenever game creators wanted to use it.

And as is widely known, Heavenly Games has always highly valued fake-AI technology, leading the way in several previous games. So, using AI technology to introduce some new twists in this game seemed entirely possible?

Gan Di became interested, he initially thought that this game had been mostly figured out, but now, it seemed there was still a lot to explore.

With these autonomously built production lines from the silicon-based dwarves and resources replenished, Gan Di hurriedly invested more points into the public opinion options, eager to see if more outrageous situations would occur.