Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's  (Read 3573 times)

BulbasaurWizard

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 27
    • View Profile
Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's
« on: October 17, 2019, 12:14:30 PM »

I find it a little immersion breaking when I see a bounty or have an officer that has the same portrait as my character.  Sometimes it can even be confusing.  This suggestion has come up before and been mostly supported, so hopefully it can move up on the To Do List;D ;D ;)

Admittedly it is pretty insignificant, but also, hopefully, could be a quick and easy fix?
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's
« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2019, 12:19:30 PM »

I avoid hiring NPCs that have my character's face, and I have turned down one or two promising officers for that reason.
Logged

LucusLoC

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 64
    • View Profile
Re: Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's
« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2019, 03:30:25 PM »

I use a custom portrait, and only have it configured in the player portrait file so it is not available anywhere else. You can easily do the same by removing the reference to your preferred portrait from everywhere but the player file.

Portrait files are added (or removed, as the case may be) to the .faction files in <install directory>\starsector-core\data\world\factions. You will need to add the file path to your portrait file to the "player.faction", under the section "portraits":{ or remove the same from all the other faction files to prevent them from using it. Order does not matter, just make sure the right path is in the list. By default portraits are kept in the <install directory>\starsector-core\graphics\portraits directory, so if you are doing this all manually that is as good a place as any to stick custom images. There is probably a more clean way to do it with proper modding tools, but that is beyond my current skill set. Maybe someone else can respond with a method that does not involve editing core game files.

I have never attempted this with other resolutions or file formats, and I have no idea what the game would do with an image files that is different in those ways, so I just make sure every portrait file I add is a 128x128 .png file.

I am not sure preventing the game from using the player portrait is the best over all solution, because quite a few of the portraits are space suites, and you would expect to find other people wearing the exact same thing flying around. Trying to add all kinds of rules for which ones can and cannot be duplicated would add a lot of complexity without giving much actual utility for the average player. People who find this kind of thing to be an issue can easily modify their files so it is no longer a problem.
Logged

goduranus

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 925
    • View Profile
Re: Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2019, 08:17:59 PM »

I bet many of the sector’s people are clones, how else could they produce 10 billion people in ten years when the biggest existing people colony is only 100 million. The guy using the same portrait as you is just a clone frome the same gene pool.

Dread Lord Murubarda

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 105
    • View Profile
Re: Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2019, 01:48:40 PM »

I avoid hiring NPCs that have my character's face, and I have turned down one or two promising officers for that reason.
what if they were your long lost twin? or even something more sinister.... now you'll never know
Logged

Serenitis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1458
    • View Profile
Re: Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2019, 10:25:39 AM »

If there were a mod or setting I could use that explicitly reserves a portrait for the player, I would jump on that in a heartbeat.

<snip>
The problem is, this doesn't solve the problem.
All defining your custom portrait in player.faction does is restrict that portrait to the players faction. So you will still see 'your' portrait in your NPC fleets and hireable officers on your colonies.

Also, don't mess with core files.
Make a mod. All you need is notepad.



Logged

Schwartz

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1452
    • View Profile
Re: Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2019, 05:27:23 AM »

I don't mind this at all, tbh.
Could be a brother from another mother.
Logged