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Author Topic: Hostile Activity  (Read 13447 times)

Alex

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #30 on: September 01, 2022, 05:24:19 PM »

Thank you! :D
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Brainwright

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #31 on: September 01, 2022, 06:09:07 PM »

You know, if I got my hands on this system, I'd be sorely tempted to map out a faction from it.  You know, use the system to keep track of relationships with various NPCs until certain event thresholds are reached.  It sounds like you could even add penalties for not doing certain things, like assisting in the defense of a planet.  I might even be able to limit the effects to certain systems where the player has been industrious.

I would even have a set of final events that would start whenever the player reached the end of the progression, chosen procedurally.  Some kind of narrative-defining event such as an AI Inspection of Culann or a titanic battle as Sindria raises some kind of slap-dash mega project that will turn Askonia into a mildly habital world after a couple hundred years of terraforming.

It's just a good concept.  Can't wait to get a better look at it.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2022, 06:15:23 PM by Brainwright »
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Histidine

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #32 on: September 01, 2022, 06:17:40 PM »

Does this mean the regular Pirate Activity condition with its -stab and -access is gone now, or at least no longer has that effects? What about the Pather cell's -1 stability passive?


Can a mod readily implement [a derivative of] the Hostile Activity intel item for NPC factions?

I was thinking about how I might port Nex raids/invasions against the player to occur as the top-tier outcome in the hostility system (possibly under a separate "Warfare" event rather than sharing the pirate/Pather one), then I thought it'd be good if I could maintain mechanical commonality with warfare between NPC factions. So these factions would gradually escalate from raids and other lesser actions to full-blown conquest. Whereas now it's something like "we have a few enemies and our domestic industry has just finished making a new hammer for us, pick someone to use it on".

Now that I think about it, do NPC factions now suffer any consequences from pirate/Pather activity?
(Thinking of Megas's complaints about major factions doing nothing while -3/-50% pirates bleed them dry, and the feature I specifically implemented in Nex in response)


Interesting items along the progress bar. Number 1, 2 and 4 look like growing levels of harassment fleets in system; 5 is the faction-specific "special", and from the Kites leaving a planet, I'm guessing 3 is a raid.
Mods can stick whatever item thresholds they want on the bar, I assume? (Though it could get visually crowded pretty fast!)
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Twilight Sentinel

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #33 on: September 01, 2022, 06:33:07 PM »

Doesn't commerce also add the open market to the planet?  That's a very useful tool when you're far away from the core and want to do trading.  Admittedly this is significantly less important with gates, especially considering you don't gain access to the superior black market.
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Alex

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #34 on: September 01, 2022, 06:45:19 PM »

You know, if I got my hands on this system, I'd be sorely tempted to map out a faction from it.  You know, use the system to keep track of relationships with various NPCs until certain event thresholds are reached.  It sounds like you could even add penalties for not doing certain things, like assisting in the defense of a planet.  I might even be able to limit the effects to certain systems where the player has been industrious.

I would even have a set of final events that would start whenever the player reached the end of the progression, chosen procedurally.  Some kind of narrative-defining event such as an AI Inspection of Culann or a titanic battle as Sindria raises some kind of slap-dash mega project that will turn Askonia into a mildly habital world after a couple hundred years of terraforming.

It's just a good concept.  Can't wait to get a better look at it.

Hmm, yeah - thinking about this a bit more, it could also make for an interesting commission mechanic, sort of progress that's parallel to your reputation with the faction, too. Lots of possibilities! Which also probably means lots of ways to overuse it; this'll be interesting to figure out :)


Does this mean the regular Pirate Activity condition with its -stab and -access is gone now, or at least no longer has that effects? What about the Pather cell's -1 stability passive?

Sort of - right now, Pirate Activity still used for non-player colonies (NPCs, heh?); this may or may not be a temporary state of affairs. Pather cell -1 stability is still there for the player.

Can a mod readily implement [a derivative of] the Hostile Activity intel item for NPC factions?

I don't see why not. I think it'd have to be fairly different, though, since "giving the player sort-of-missions to do around resolving hostile activity causes" is one of the primary points, it's just a very player-centric thing. I think one for NPC factions could get away being a highly simplified version. (Which, I might also look at at some point for vanilla. Just, for the moment, retaining Pirate Activity was simplest.)

Also having one of these per faction might get to be a bit much?


Now that I think about it, do NPC factions now suffer any consequences from pirate/Pather activity?
(Thinking of Megas's complaints about major factions doing nothing while -3/-50% pirates bleed them dry, and the feature I specifically implemented in Nex in response)

Well, reduction in ship quality/fleet size/etc. And whatever consequence from Pather sabotage (which no longer happens on NPC faction worlds, at least as of right now).

Interesting items along the progress bar. Number 1, 2 and 4 look like growing levels of harassment fleets in system; 5 is the faction-specific "special", and from the Kites leaving a planet, I'm guessing 3 is a raid.

#3 is "increased defenses", responsible for the green -10 progress lower down.

Mods can stick whatever item thresholds they want on the bar, I assume? (Though it could get visually crowded pretty fast!)

Yeah. Mods have fine grained control over the icon size and how far the icons are from the bar, too (down to the pixel, not picking from a bunch of presets).


Doesn't commerce also add the open market to the planet?  That's a very useful tool when you're far away from the core and want to do trading.  Admittedly this is significantly less important with gates, especially considering you don't gain access to the superior black market.

It does, yeah. It's just nice to add more special things to industries. I feel like ideally every industry would give you something that's exciting and fun and makes you really want to build it so you can engage with the mechanics it adds/promotes. Not sure how feasible that is in all cases, but, ideally!
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Brainwright

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #35 on: September 01, 2022, 06:58:47 PM »

Honestly, I think the highest hostility Pather event would be an anti-matter containment breach at the space port.  Nothing like a gamma-ray suntan to brighten your day.
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Brainwright

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #36 on: September 01, 2022, 07:03:17 PM »

You know, if I got my hands on this system, I'd be sorely tempted to map out a faction from it.  You know, use the system to keep track of relationships with various NPCs until certain event thresholds are reached.  It sounds like you could even add penalties for not doing certain things, like assisting in the defense of a planet.  I might even be able to limit the effects to certain systems where the player has been industrious.

I would even have a set of final events that would start whenever the player reached the end of the progression, chosen procedurally.  Some kind of narrative-defining event such as an AI Inspection of Culann or a titanic battle as Sindria raises some kind of slap-dash mega project that will turn Askonia into a mildly habital world after a couple hundred years of terraforming.

It's just a good concept.  Can't wait to get a better look at it.

Hmm, yeah - thinking about this a bit more, it could also make for an interesting commission mechanic, sort of progress that's parallel to your reputation with the faction, too. Lots of possibilities! Which also probably means lots of ways to overuse it; this'll be interesting to figure out :)

It's very interesting, because this system can be used to aggregate numerous tiny events into a palatable progress bar.
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #37 on: September 01, 2022, 07:10:56 PM »

Loved it, Alex!

What about letting players set different levels of regulation for Commerce, less regulation gives a higher boost to income and higher negative stability?
Also can we have some patch notes please? Especially where HBL and Cybernetic Augmentation are concerned. :P

MOST IMPORTANTLY, will the event system be reused for new Tech Mining?
« Last Edit: September 01, 2022, 07:53:26 PM by SonnaBanana »
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #38 on: September 01, 2022, 09:43:30 PM »

It might be time for me to start working on another icon builder PSD for this. It wouldn't be up to David's usual painterly standard, but we could set the floor a little higher.
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Cenwulf

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #39 on: September 02, 2022, 01:02:18 AM »

I really love this as a way of abstracting faction relationships and tensions in general, not just hostile activity.

Have you thought about integrating this with some sort of espionage mechanic?

The player could put resources into discovering the relationship/tensions status between two AI factions or an AI factions stance towards the player, how close they might be to an event like war, or on the opposite end maybe even forming an alliance, and give the player options to affect that relationship and push it one direction or the other.

An espionage system could also be a fun way to generate events to thwart an upcoming raid, for example by scattering a minor mustering point or disrupt supply lines by taking out a smaller station. Giving the player options to deal with the threat without having to take on the main pirate station or pirate fleet directly if they’re not quite capable of taking on such large threats yet.

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Igncom1

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #40 on: September 02, 2022, 02:21:42 AM »

I wonder if this system will apply only to the player will there be global events that effect particular factions for various reasons? Such as the piracy and panther events?
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Cyan Leader

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #41 on: September 02, 2022, 06:19:54 AM »

Seems great, I'm really hoping this will provide a lot more different types of encounters during the mid/late game, as fighting a lot of pirates can get tiring.
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Alex

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #42 on: September 02, 2022, 07:49:37 AM »

Honestly, I think the highest hostility Pather event would be an anti-matter containment breach at the space port.  Nothing like a gamma-ray suntan to brighten your day.

Who's to say what that "spaceport operations disrupted for 180 days" doesn't mean they're just rebuilding it a couple of kilometers away from the crater? :)

It's very interesting, because this system can be used to aggregate numerous tiny events into a palatable progress bar.

Yes! That's one of the main things I really like about this, it's so easy to make a bunch of things instantly matter.


Loved it, Alex!

Thank you!

What about letting players set different levels of regulation for Commerce, less regulation gives a higher boost to income and higher negative stability?

Hmm, I feel like that's probably too fiddly. You've already made the choice to build Commerce, adding like 5 different flavors of that just dilutes that and encourages doing exact math to minimax it.

Also can we have some patch notes please? Especially where HBL and Cybernetic Augmentation are concerned. :P

At some point!

MOST IMPORTANTLY, will the event system be reused for new Tech Mining?

Who can say!


I really love this as a way of abstracting faction relationships and tensions in general, not just hostile activity.

Have you thought about integrating this with some sort of espionage mechanic?

The player could put resources into discovering the relationship/tensions status between two AI factions or an AI factions stance towards the player, how close they might be to an event like war, or on the opposite end maybe even forming an alliance, and give the player options to affect that relationship and push it one direction or the other.

An espionage system could also be a fun way to generate events to thwart an upcoming raid, for example by scattering a minor mustering point or disrupt supply lines by taking out a smaller station. Giving the player options to deal with the threat without having to take on the main pirate station or pirate fleet directly if they’re not quite capable of taking on such large threats yet.

Hi! Hmm - I'm not sure what that might look like, when expanded out to the possible set of all inter-faction relationships? You wouldn't want, like, 20+ of the things... it feels like it'd have to be a single Event, somehow...

Basically, my feeling is that this probably *could* be applied to a ton of things, but I want to be at least somewhat judicious regarding what exactly to apply it to, if you know what I mean. Suggestions/ideas are good, though, it helps think this through - so, thank you for that!


I wonder if this system will apply only to the player will there be global events that effect particular factions for various reasons? Such as the piracy and panther events?

Maybe? Nothing specifically planned there. I will say that Hostile Activity is very player-centric, focused as it is around giving the player a bunch of things to do.

Seems great, I'm really hoping this will provide a lot more different types of encounters during the mid/late game, as fighting a lot of pirates can get tiring.

It *should*, if not immediately - I'm not sure exactly when I'll be able to flesh it out with more encounter types (though, encountering the odd large Pather fleet in one of your systems already feels like a step forward in this regard), but ultimately that's the plan/hope, yeah!
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Amoebka

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #43 on: September 02, 2022, 08:14:45 AM »

Explicitly lumping all hostilities into one event feels odd, but I guess it's less busywork the player this way. Are Hegemony inspections a part of this event too? The post makes it seem punitive expeditions are gone, but surely our orange heroes won't stop being the blight upon the sector?

Quote
including some one-off special ship modifications
I hope it doesn't mean what I think it means.
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Igncom1

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Re: Hostile Activity
« Reply #44 on: September 02, 2022, 08:17:39 AM »

I guess it's so you get them one at a time rather then being absolutely dog piled by half of the sector at once?
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