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Author Topic: Alignment  (Read 2626 times)

Dark.Revenant

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Alignment
« on: October 01, 2015, 05:15:12 PM »

A possible mechanic for a long term goal/statistic/trend for the player is the idea of an Alignment.  This differs from Reputation (though, I would have liked for the terms to be swapped around, since "reputation" fits this better), in that Alignment is not relative; it's your personal attitude, public reputation, and global appearance.  Alignment would describe not your friends and enemies but how the sector itself treats you.

A starting character would have no alignment: a nobody.  As time goes on, your character's actions and choices would contribute to alignment, growing the character's reputation in one way or another.  This is what would separate a peacekeeping, world-saving industrial magnate and a ruthless military commander who considers happiness to be the lamentations of the women whose mates they slaughtered in glorious battle.

No doubt you already plan for most of these choices to be in the game.  What this mechanic would do is present the player a tangible indication of what kind of person they've become, and what the public thinks of them.  Strong descriptive words would be useful: Thug, Guardian, Dictator, Made Man, etc. would show not only the nature but also the magnitude of your alignment.

Because of this, it can tie in to campaign mechanics.  Certain missions would only be readily available to certain types of commanders; other types of commanders would have look further or try harder to get work that they are not "suited" for.  Some officers would only work for certain types of leaders, leaving if you strayed too far in a direction they don't agree with.  Fleets might be more willing to surrender to someone who is not a known butcher, someone willing to let a crippled enemy go; if you don't take prisoners, nobody will leave you any.

Something to consider for facilitating content development later on, I suppose.
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Schwartz

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Re: Alignment
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2015, 05:51:33 PM »

The problem is that there is not a single public but factions. Each faction is fed a dogma and a select few news sources. A ruthless raid on a Hegemony supply line might be seen by Tri-Tach as something that saved them hundreds of lives in an ongoing war. There is very little room for altruism, unless it was a result of disasters or starvation. Most other things are morally relative. This is represented by faction relations. One goes down, the other one goes up.

I could see this happening if a framework for procedurally generated missions, quests and sector power struggles was implemented, and it gave you straight-up choices to make, personalities to ally with or to oppose.
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Tartiflette

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Re: Alignment
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2015, 06:14:52 PM »

I think what DR implies is that factions have alignments too, thus more favorable to certain types of player's avatar.
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Toxcity

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Re: Alignment
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2015, 07:05:44 PM »

I'm pretty sure its what you as the player are. If you were to only do bounties your Alignment would be a bounty hunter, or if you only did food starvation events, you'd be an opportunistic merchant.

I do think that reputation can already do this idea pretty well. For example, if faction A hates faction B, and the player always destroys faction B ships (even when they try to surrender) then faction B will see the player as a monster and faction A will see the player as a hero, something which is already done via faction reputation.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: Alignment
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2015, 07:20:58 PM »

That's a different type of dynamic.  Reputation can change very quickly, is specific to particular factions, and is action-agnostic; you can become friendly with a faction through any means whatsoever, so long as they benefit that faction.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Alignment
« Reply #5 on: October 01, 2015, 07:36:58 PM »

This is very interesting - this is't reputation, it's much more subtle than that.  The actions that you take change how the AI feels toward you, and how they will react to certain situations - if you've been kind to your enemies and let the flee without perusing, then maybe they'll return the favor when your fleet gets smashed the AI.  With that, you might become a kind-hearted commander who feels the pain of his crew as well as the enemy's - perhaps an officer who's always on the attack and persistently poking the enemy wouldn't like your mindset.

I really, really like this.  It's a silent mechanic that makes a fairly large impact, especially with the upcoming persistent NPC (they might remember what you did to them, good or ill).
« Last Edit: October 01, 2015, 07:38:38 PM by The Soldier »
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