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: Bottomless Reputation Score  (Read 2249 times)

IronBorn

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 45
    • View Profile
Bottomless Reputation Score
« on: March 28, 2020, 10:45:19 AM »

I would like to see no max to how low your reputation can go with a faction. Once you hit -100, there are not further consequences for you actions. It makes the diplomatic system too easy to game. I would prefer every hostile action continue to add to the pit one would have to dig themselves out of if they wanted to fix relations in the future. Things like sat bombing a planet should be an immediate -1000. Well, probably more like -10000. Wiping out millions of people in an act of genocide isn't something that should be easily forgotten.

On the opposite side, as your reputation with a faction improves past >50, you should face lower rep hits for minor violations from smuggling or flying without a transponder on. Instead, the rep loss is replaced with fines, and once you are over >90 in rep, you only get fines for smuggling/no transponder with no rep penalty. Basically, you are so well connected, you can flaunt the laws and only face a slap on the wrist. However, it should also be harder to gain rep above >50, and can only be achieved through military assistance.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2020, 11:08:40 AM »

If player cannot recover from extreme hostility, is there any reason not to kill their worlds (after player steals all of their blueprints and nanoforges), whether by mercy-kill through sat bombing or slow painful suffering by raiding and waiting until decivilization?

Independents should not go hostile with sat bombers unless an Indie world gets hit.  If they go hostile with my faction just from sat bombing an enemy, they effectively side with the enemy and declare war on my faction, which means they get sat bombed too for getting in the way!  None of the factions get ganged up by others when they sat bomb my colonies.  Yet, when the so-called "upstart" that has acquired godlike power greater than all of the factions combined (not to mention my faction being the only one keeping pirate raids in check) sat bombs a world for any reason, most factions plus indies get angry, even if none of them were a target.
Logged

IronBorn

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 45
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2020, 11:23:18 AM »

That is my exact point. You shouldn't be able to raid a faction to death and then be able to easily fix relations. If you want to raid someone, but want to maintain relations with them in the future, you'd better limit your negative actions. The more negative actions you commit will require more positive actions to off-set. Solution? Don't keep raiding said faction and instead do missions that gain positive relations.

Actually, you bring up a good idea. Chain raiding a colony should have increasing negative effects. So, if you keep raiding someone relentlessly, it should cause a spiral of negative relations to the point that recovery would be absurdly hard.

And sat bombings should trigger all out hostility from all factions against the player. After all, you are an upstart that just committed genocide! Obviously, AI factions should not carry out sat bombings, and if they do, they should suffer the same fate as the player. (Exception being to player built colonies in a claimed system. Blowing up 1000 colonists is nothing. Glassing a core world is not nothing.)


Perhaps saturation bombing events should be treated the same way nuclear weapons are. If a faction carries out a saturation bombardment, sat bombing them in return does not anger other factions.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2020, 11:44:17 AM »

Right now, doing nothing is a negative action once player has colonies, because the factions keep sending expeditions (especially with Free Ports on).  Constantly mopping up pirates or turning in cores to fix reputation loss gets tiring (part of the babysitting problem), but if I ignore it, they will go hostile eventually.  Sure, there is bribing, but it does not feel good paying tribute to extortionists, not to mention expeditions become too frequent to afford bribes (worth a million each) once the free ports are on.

Quote
That is my exact point. You shouldn't be able to raid a faction to death and then be able to easily fix relations.
There is an easy loophole - pirates!  If I do nothing, they will decivilize some worlds after some years because core worlds have grossly inadequate defenses to repel pirate raids.  (Anytime pirates raid a system, they almost always succeed unless I intervene.)  At times, part of the punishment for expedition spamming I want to inflict on core worlds is withdrawing my protection from pirate raids.  (In the end, I lose patience and sat bomb all of them out of their misery.)

If repairing relations is too hard or too annoying, I want to end it by killing them all (after I have sucked their blueprints and items dry), which my faction is more than capable of doing by endgame.

I guess my point was if relations are too hard to fix, why not keep doing more bad things like raid them more for their valuables before destroying them?  If sat bombing is a real problem, starve them with raids (and player does not need to raid, just let the pirates do it).

Player faction is only an "upstart" by name by endgame, when it is more powerful than all of the core worlds.

I have read the expeditions will try to sat bomb your colonies after they successfully raid it previously twice.  I have not allowed them to get that far, so I cannot confirm that.
Logged

IronBorn

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 45
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2020, 02:00:33 PM »

Yes, it is easier to gain negative relations than positive. This would have to be balanced with potentially bottomless negative relations. Of course, it is much easier to keep positive relations in Nexerilin because of agents and prisoners. So more diplomatic options will need to be added to the game.

And to prevent an impossible hole to fill in relations, negative impacts to relations could decay as the relationship worsens. So once you cross  100, relations require twice the negative impact to lower. Past -200, it would require 3x. However, positive actions to recover relations would always be equal to 1x.

So, if your relations with a faction was at -120, and you destroyed a fleet that would normally cause a drop of -20 points, because past -100 requires two points per rep hit, your relations would drop only by 10 to -130. If you did a positive action worth 20 points, your reputation would increase by the full value, so if your rep was -130, it would rise to -110.
Logged

Prolbo

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 27
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2020, 06:40:15 AM »

Sounds quite reasonable. Many games make the same mistake: they put a cap on a negative reputation. Which a) is not realistic even within the game bounds b) allows a lot of exploits and tricky manipulations. So, yeah, great idea there shouldn't be any caps on negative. There is no bootom and way out of eternal bloody hatred. Also makes sence to put deminishing returns on good deeds reputation impact.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #6 on: March 29, 2020, 07:30:46 AM »

Once I have big enough colonies, reputation goes down by default because factions will keep invading my colonies (to keep up with an artificial combat quota), until all of their worlds are completely wiped off the map, which is very tempting to do to make them stop, and I do not want to pay tribute to extortionists.  Reputation boosters like cleaning up pirates or turning in cores are only a temporary fix before more expeditions undo all of the player's hard work.

Bottomless reputation that is too hard to fix means there is no incentive not to do more bad things to the factions for fun, or even just minding my own business once they send expeditions non-stop (because rep will fall when they fail), especially if the factions are powerless to stop me.  Factions cannot even defend themselves from pirate raids.  What can they do to stop my faction after my fleet becomes strong enough to solo two or more Ordos fleets with Radiants, and my faction is at least as big as the Hegemony or League?

If there is bottomless reputation, then it would be nice to subdue factions and (after I overpower them) threaten them with annihilation if they do not do what I want.  It would be nice for my faction to get the respect of a major faction after it grows that strong.

Simply put, I do not want bottomless reputation if nothing else changes.  It may encourage more bad behavior if it is too hard to fix things.
Logged

IronBorn

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 45
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2020, 05:11:42 PM »

Simply put, I do not want bottomless reputation if nothing else changes.  It may encourage more bad behavior if it is too hard to fix things.

With bottomless reputation, I would expect things would have to change. Certain negative actions, like defending you colonies for expeditions, should have no real impact on your reputation after it reaches a certain level. So, once you hit -100, defense actions should no longer harm your reputation.

However, aggressive actions by the player should always have consequences. Chain raiding a faction for everything they got should cause a huge reputation penalty.

And more positive actions for the player to choose to do would also be useful. Forming trade agreements and such with factions that provided certain reputation boosts. Nexerlin already has things link this, though they are random and the player has no real control over it.

Mods can fix the lack of reputation options, but the max negative reputation is coded into the game. So this would have to be changed by Alex, if he likes the idea.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2020, 06:34:35 PM »

It sounds like your want relations below Vengeful.  For a level to show they are even angrier than angriest. (Huh?)  Just so player needs to grind Ordos for yet more worthless gamma (and maybe beta) cores to turn in for an even bigger pay day to be friends again?

There are always consequences for raiding, but it is easy to cover your tracks, in necessary.

Openly raiding colonies causes reputation to drop all the way to hostile if not already there.  I bet those who raid factions while on good terms do it stealthily (i.e., transponder off) for plausible deniability and minor rep hit - I do.  After relations are already hostile, who cares?  Both sides are enemies at that point.  When I raid, if I care about preserving positive rep, I always do it with transponder off so they cannot identify my fleet.  If I raid while hostile, I do not care about rep at that point and will probably destroy them one way or another eventually.

The one faction that is fiendishly hard to build relations with are pirates.  Few missions, no bounties from them, and no way to turn in (junk) cores to them for easy rep.
Logged

Prolbo

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 27
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2020, 03:53:54 AM »

Wait! But this is exactly how real life works. Once somene truly hate you, you cant go back and fix it. This is exactly how game designed/coded. Once your colony stop starving, being poor and miserable, all factions turn on you and want you dead. So there is no any seriouse deviations from original design. It is exactly opposite, it is logical complemention of existing system.

If you really want to have mechanisms to compensate negative impact, I can imagine/suggest something like Dimplomatic Corps. Non industry bilding wich will allow to send envoys/dip_missions to improve relations with other factions (for the sertaion fee).

Also I want to point that game at the moment unfinished and lacks of many features. Some of them may be critical of change gameplay drastically. For exaple interactions with other fleets except battle engadgement: bribery (patrol), joint attack offer, request, trade, etc. (just check Space Rangers or something)
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2020, 06:22:10 AM »

Then all factions should be enemies with each other - permanently.  If not, then they become permanently hostile when hostilities break out.  There might have been a bug in a previous release that did that by accident.

Not that it means much since they send more enemies at you, even if rep is in the green, than they do against pirates or other mortal enemies.
Logged

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2020, 06:30:53 AM »

It doesn't matter much if deep negative reputation is fixable, when player has no incentive to try fixing it by endgame anyway.
The only solution to expeditions is to destroy all core factions except TT (commission faction won't raid you and they are the only ones who won't care about sat bombing everybody else) and maybe Indies (but you'll have to fix rep once you kill everybody else).
But then you are stuck protecting TT and Indies from infinite pirate works. Which just means trading one whack-a-mole for another.

Or you could grind pirate rep and kill everybody else. But pirates don't have enough economy to sustain trade. It's still probably best endgame state overall.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2020, 06:37:04 AM by TaLaR »
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2020, 07:25:37 AM »

Or you could grind pirate rep and kill everybody else. But pirates don't have enough economy to sustain trade. It's still probably best endgame state overall.
In the long run, trade does not matter when player can colonize dozens of worlds with cores and get income from population.  Income stinks if player only has about seven worlds and no income from trade.  But a hundred making about 10,000 each, that is nice.  Of course, I would need to abstain from killing Nexus to keeping the Ordos gravy trains rolling.

Problem with saving one major faction plus indies is player needs to babysit them from pirates.  I do not want to spend the majority of my time playing whack-a-mole pirates.

P.S. Diktat does not care about atrocities either.

The only solution to expeditions is to destroy all core factions...
That is why I wrote something like player loses reputation over time by default after he has built large colonies.  If player cannot be bothered to fix rep, factions will eventually get angrier at the player than at their mortal enemies just by doing nothing.  The only long-term solution?  Extermination of the core worlds.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2020, 07:39:00 AM by Megas »
Logged

Amoebka

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1313
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #13 on: April 07, 2020, 01:44:15 AM »

One thing that bothers me with this suggestion is that it makes the game even more asymmetric between the player faction and default factions. Default factions will declare war between each other at random, but they will also just as casually declare peace and go back to neutral. Having bottomless reputation will mean that the player will be the only non-pirate faction everyone eventually hates permanently.

Honestly, it might be interesting to simply decouple player's personal reputation from their faction's reputation.
Logged

TJJ

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1905
    • View Profile
Re: Bottomless Reputation Score
« Reply #14 on: April 07, 2020, 07:32:50 AM »

Personally I'd like to see relations be between individuals, rather than factions.

So each NPC would have a relation with the player, and alongside this they'd have a list of other NPCs with whom they're associated; either positively, or negatively.
Friends, enemies, fellow faction members, family, business competitors, frequent trading partners etc.

Perform an action that lowers opinion with one NPC, and there would be a knock-on effect with all those they know; growing animosity from their friends, but endearing you with their enemies.
You could even have extreme opinions traverse further, to associates of associates.

A web of relationships; individually simple, but collectively creating complex interactions & results.
Logged