Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)
To help consider how to narrow down the faction traits, here is how I would categorize them with lore justification.Of the MbG, these are their core faction personality 'flavour' traits- "neutralist", "temperamental", "paranoid", "devious"Lore reasons: Isolationist (neutralist), they have infighting among faction elites and rogue AI activity, never certain exactly who is in charge (temperamental). Worried about debtslave insurgency, don't want foreigners liberating their slaves (paranoid). Phase ships, covert activity and organ/slave smuggling with Sindria (devious)For the KoC, these are the core faction personality 'flavour' traits- "devious", "submissive", "helps_allies"Lore reasons: they are war profiteers who want more war for profits (devious), will seek alliances for protection (submissive), and then goad the bigger allies into fighting so they can sell industrial exports (helps_allies). And these are the traits that both factiosn have but are for gameplay reasons only, not lore or 'flavour'- "monopolist", "lowprofile", "irredentist"Monopolist to make them attack players, lowprofile to keep them alive when they have only 1 planet and the Angry periphery is not used, irredentist to help them recapture homeworlds when Angry Periphery is used.
"diplomacyTraits":["monopolist", "lowprofile", "submissive", "helps_allies"],
"diplomacyTraits":["monopolist", "lowprofile", "devious", "temperamental"],
I think that Monopolist can honestly be dropped, Paranoid and Devious will make them engage in more than enough hostilities (Opportunistic wars, failed agent actions)Low Profile makes more sense for the isolationist M-G than the KoC, Irredentist isn't really required for either of them.
It doesn't need to be positive. It just needs to be not negative. You could set their alignments to 0 if you wanted. That being said, I see a much clearer case for Hierarchial over Militarist.
Other than the stuff I did bring up, basically yes.
Nyct, would you be willing yet to commit to a final traitlist for the factions?
They're both greedy as *** megacorps. TT has the monopolist trait and it just seems very appropriate to all have that in common. However they are differentiated by exactly what export goods they are monopolists about.For MbG I dropped paranoid but kept monopolist. If MbG exports only organs then it actually makes monopolist redundant, since I don't think the player can actually build structures to produce organs, or am I wrong? Since we're balancing for vanilla, we're assuming only 1 planet (and I don't use Angry Periphery in my test game) so lowprofile seems like a survival necessity. Since koC is designed to ally with either Heg or perseans I can be sure they will be in a big nasty war so it seemed like they need the help. In your experience, is it not really necessary?
Given what we've went over, what are the other lore/gameplay reasons do you think make the case for reducing militarism?
That's a relief, but in my own test agme I lowered the values by 2/3 and it seemed more appropriate. Or did you already read that aprt and take that into account?
...Paranoid assumes that there's somehow a war they can win.
Nyctophonik, thanks for your contributions. I hope you can understand that I will direct all negative feedback from mod users directly into your PMs lol.
Letting them keep monopolist will hopefully make them drag a bigger alliance partner into negative relations with the economic competition, or does it not actually work like that? So both factions have different ways of dealing with economic competition; either agents (MbG) or alliance partners (KoC).Would the pacifist trait interfere with the intended behaviour for KoC?
Does the monopolist trait cause factions to attack non-player factions as well as player colonies? I didn't know that.
I'm absolutely positive that we'll find more reasons to make more changes though...I can't resist tweaking.
Hopefully this can be the final version?
By the way, do you have the new economy files (with updated Nomios/Agreus/other systems/etc.)?I've just been looking over the econ files of the mod and Angry Periphery. I will note that a couple markets might want some minor revisions and that overall the population counts of all territories are VERY low, which I'm willing to concede as part of simply being creative. But I do still want to look at the new market information.
{ "starSystem":"arcadia", "markets":[ { "entities":["nomios"], "faction":"MaybeGoogle", "size":5, "startingConditions":[ "population_5", "thin_atmosphere", "cold", "volatiles_abundant", "organics_common", "rogue_ai_core", "stealth_minefields", "trade_center", ], "industries":[ ["population", "orbital_fusion_lamp"], "spaceport", "cryosanctum", "heavybatteries", "militarybase", ["commerce", "dealmaker_holosuite"], "cryorevival", "orbitalstation_high", "mining", ], }, { "entities":["arcadia_station"], "faction":"hegemony", "size":5, "startingConditions":[ "volatiles_abundant", "outpost", "population_5", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "militarybase", "starfortress", "mining", "commerce", "grounddefenses", "waystation", ], }, { "entities":["agreus"], "faction":"KoC", "size":6, "startingConditions":[ "shipbreaking_center", "ruins_extensive", "population_6", "ore_sparse", "volatiles_trace", "cold", "no_atmosphere", ], "industries":[ "population", "megaport", ["refining", "catalytic_core"], "militarybase", "heavyindustry", ["heavybatteries", "drone_replicator"], "techmining", "KoC_Breaking",# "orbitalstation", ], }, ],}
{ "starSystem":"nergal", "markets":[ { "entities":["nergal_planet_1"], "faction":"sindrian_diktat", "size":4, "startingConditions":[ "population_4", "cold", "thin_atmosphere", "poor_light", "ore_abundant", "volatiles_trace", "rare_ore_moderate", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "heavybatteries", "militarybase", "battlestation_mid", "mining", ], }, { "entities":["nergal_planet_2"], "faction":"MaybeGoogle", "size":5, "startingConditions":[ "population_5", "cold", "thin_atmosphere", "poor_light", "ore_moderate", "volatiles_trace", "ruins_scattered", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "heavybatteries", "militarybase", "battlestation_mid", ["commerce", "dealmaker_holosuite"], "refining", "cryorevival", ], }, { "entities":["nergal_obs"], "faction":"MaybeGoogle", "size":3, "startingConditions":[ "population_3", "ore_moderate", "rare_ore_moderate", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "heavybatteries", "orbitalworks", "orbitalstation_high", "patrolhq", ], }, ],}
{ "starSystem":"wurzle", "markets":[ { "entities":["scrumpy"], "faction":"KoC", "size":4, "startingConditions":[ "habitable", "cold", "population_4", "water_surface", "poor_light", "organics_trace", "pollution", "low_gravity", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "patrolhq", "heavybatteries", "fuelprod", ["orbitalworks", "corrupted_nanoforge"], ], }, { "entities":["little_k"], "faction":"KoC", "size":5, "startingConditions":[ "cold", "population_5", "free_market", "low_gravity", "thin_atmosphere", "ore_moderate", "rare_ore_moderate", "ruins_extensive", ], "industries":[ "population", "megaport", "highcommand", ["heavybatteries", "drone_replicator"], "battlestation_mid", "techmining", "commerce", "waystation", ], }, { "entities":["big_k_syphon"], "faction":"independent", "size":3, "startingConditions":[ "population_3", "volatiles_plentiful", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "mining", "patrolhq", ], }, ],}
{ "starSystem":"nergal", "markets":[ { "entities":["nergal_planet_1"], //cryovolcanic planet "faction":"sindrian_diktat", "size":4, "startingConditions":[ "population_4", "very_cold", "poor_light", "ore_abundant", "volatiles_abundant", "rare_ore_moderate", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "heavybatteries", "militarybase", "battlestation_mid", "mining", ], }, { "entities":["nergal_planet_2"], "faction":"MaybeGoogle", "size":5, //maybe even 6? cryo stuff wild "startingConditions":[ "population_5", //maybe even 6? cryo stuff wild "cold", "poor_light", "ore_moderate", "volatiles_trace", "ruins_scattered", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "heavybatteries", "militarybase", "battlestation_mid", ["commerce", "dealmaker_holosuite"], "refining", "cryorevival", ], }, { "entities":["nergal_obs"], //is this an observatory? it seems like one but then the ore wouldn't make much sense "faction":"MaybeGoogle", "size":4, //maybe even 5 "startingConditions":[ "population_4", //maybe even 5 "ore_moderate", //what are they observing? maybe replace this with something more wacky "rare_ore_moderate" //what are they observing? maybe replace this with something more wacky "volatiles_diffuse" //what are they observing? maybe add this if it's something wacky "organics_plentiful" //what are they observing? maybe add this if it's something wacky "toxic_atmosphere" //what are they observing? maybe add this if it's something wacky ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "grounddefenses", "mining", //ignore suggestion if actually an observatory "orbitalworks", "orbitalstation_high", "patrolhq", "cryorevival" //if this is an observatory this feels like the only colony that would absolutely have to have this ], }, ],}
{ "starSystem":"arcadia", "markets":[ { "entities":["nomios"], "faction":"MaybeGoogle", "size":5, "startingConditions":[ "population_5", "thin_atmosphere", "cold", "volatiles_abundant", "organics_common", "rogue_ai_core", "stealth_minefields", "trade_center", ], "industries":[ ["population", "orbital_fusion_lamp"], "spaceport", "cryosanctum", "heavybatteries", "militarybase", ["commerce", "dealmaker_holosuite"], "cryorevival", "battlestation_high", "mining", ], }, { "entities":["arcadia_station"], "faction":"hegemony", "size":5, "startingConditions":[ "volatiles_abundant", "outpost", "population_5", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "militarybase", "starfortress", "mining", #"commerce", //stability drop and free market really isn't Hegemony's style "grounddefenses", "waystation", ], }, { "entities":["agreus"], "faction":"KoC", "size":6, "startingConditions":[ "shipbreaking_center", "ruins_extensive", "population_6", "ore_sparse", "volatiles_trace", "cold", "no_atmosphere", ], "industries":[ "population", "megaport", #["refining", "catalytic_core"], //shipbreaking "militarybase", "heavyindustry", ["heavybatteries", "drone_replicator"], "techmining", ["KoC_Breaking", "catalytic_core"], //moving the item over #"orbitalstation", ], }, ],}
{ "starSystem":"wurzle", "markets":[ { "entities":["scrumpy"], "faction":"KoC", "size":4, //tempted to make this size 5 "startingConditions":[ "habitable", #"cold", //the hazard rating on this planet is really high "population_4", //tempted to make this size 5 "water_surface", #"poor_light", //the hazard rating on this planet is really high "organics_trace", "pollution", #"low_gravity", //the hazard rating on this planet is really high ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "patrolhq", "heavybatteries", "fuelprod", //not calling for it's removal but am pointing out that the Diktat won't like this. but the KoC don't seem like the Aquaculture type lol ["orbitalworks", "corrupted_nanoforge"], //why does this exist on Scrumpy and not Agreus? ], }, { "entities":["little_k"], "faction":"KoC", "size":5, "freePort": true, //better than adding the condition manually "startingConditions":[ "cold", "population_5", #"free_market", "low_gravity", "thin_atmosphere", "ore_abundant", "rare_ore_moderate" "ruins_extensive", ], "industries":[ "population", "megaport", "highcommand", ["heavybatteries", "drone_replicator"], "battlestation_mid", #"techmining", //not 100% sure what the lore/decision behind this is "lightindustry", //so I'm suggesting they exploit their free port and make some drugs while sidestepping the Path "mining", //or maybe get some local mineral production going "commerce", "waystation", ], }, { "entities":["big_k_syphon"], "faction":"independent", "size":3, "startingConditions":[ "population_3", "volatiles_plentiful", ], "industries":[ "population", "spaceport", "mining", #"patrolhq", //rare for indies to have patrols ], }, ],}
Note: Argeus has 5 industries on it - Shipbreaking, Refining, Military Base, Tech-Mining, and Heavy Industry. Also no Orbital Station? I remember you saying that was deliberate though & I don't think it's a complete dealbreaker, but... well... the Mayasuran Navy uses the same doctrine of "many ships no orbital station & a big usually friendly base" and rarely fares well.Also, with M-G's lack of good deterrents and poor diplomacy I think they could use a Battlestation on Nomios.I'd also like to point out that neither faction contains any Light Industry, even when expanded.
My random mess of personal modifications (which you really don't need to listen to) (and includes a lot of semantic stuff, like collapsing # of conditions down to vanilla levels):