Starship Crafter NPC AI System, an EU Funded GameTech Project
- Field
- Game technology
- Type
- EU funded innovative product
- Scope
- GameTech joint project | NextGenerationEU
- Our role
- Design, development and release
Field
Type
Scope
Our roleGoal
Our goal was to build an enemy AI that scouts the player's base and attacks as a team, and to get Starship Crafter ready for its commercial release.
Starship Crafter is a starship repair and crafting simulation. The player runs an open top workshop in space, repairs ships, crafts components and builds defences while pirate drones raid the base. Mainstream game engines give no real time three dimensional navigation and no believable large scale enemy behaviour out of the box, so the raids needed an AI of their own.
The Project
The call "Promoting the development of innovative products or innovative product prototypes by start-ups in the field of GameTech" (02-113-J-0001-J07) of the Innovation Agency Lithuania is funded by the European Union under NextGenerationEU and the New Generation Lithuania plan. MB Rysesoft applied on 30/06/2025, the application was approved on 29/08/2025 and the project (02-113-J-0001-J07-00039) was financed in full, 59,296.65 euros without own contribution. The plan was to complete Starship Crafter by adding the NPC AI system and the final polish, and to end with a fully playable PC game ready for commercial release.
What We Built
The NPC AI was developed with Unity ML-Agents and has four drone types. The Scout enters the workshop, scans the base and sends what it finds to the Leader. The Leader assembles a team that scales to the player's defences, never overpowered and never too weak, and decides when to retreat. Fighters attack the defences and protect the Leader, Guardians put up shields in front of the team. Under them run 3D volumetric navigation, a formation system, flocking, pathfinding, an AI budget manager, an AI level of detail system and a shared blackboard for the drones to talk to each other.
The Result
The achieved result matches the application in full. The AI is in the game, the game is polished with player feedback, and Starship Crafter is published on Steam and the Epic Games Store. The project took part in the twelve week GameTech accelerator run by GAMEBCN, took first place at the Demo Day in Vilnius, and GAMEBCN (Peninsula Corporate Innovation S.L.) committed an investment of 42,000 euros. After the release PlayWay S.A. offered to publish the game, and MB Rysesoft accepted. The implementation report was submitted on 24/03/2026. Funded by the European Union (NextGenerationEU).