Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Gothars]

Mh, cooperative reminds me indeed mostly of law enforcement. How about "Supportive"? That's a nicer word, also emphasizing action. Or "Solidary" would fit very well, too.

Welcoming isn't perfect either, but better than cooperative. Wouldn't mind it staying. Alternatives might be "Obliging" or "Amicable".

By the way, will the dialog options get an overhaul for the next release?

Not sure which dialog options you mean, could you clarify?

Just the standard fleet encounter dialog. Do the fleet commanders have different things to say, depending on your standing with their faction? Maybe they can even share real information with you (like market conditions, local threats...or whatever two fleet commanders might chat about). Just thought it might be good fit for this update.

[Cycerin]

Amazing stuff, love how the scope of the patch keeps growing. It makes the wait worth it.

The Sindrian Diktat sort of came outta nowhere, will there be other "minor" factions to spice up the setting?

[SafariJohn]

I find the relationship names "tolerable" , but I agree they could perhaps be improved. Right off-hand I can think of Civ4 that had pleased and friendly, but that doesn't seem like much help. I can't help but think Gothars' suggestion of Solidary is just way too close to "Solitary" to work.

Neutral->Favorable->Welcoming->Friendly->Cooperative    Hmm... Have to keep it in context. Space factions in desperate times where many resources are scarce. Well, something to keep in mind is that these terms should work for both when you are a single fleet, and when you are running a faction yourself.


Some brainstorming later...


Perhaps flipping favorable and cooperative?

Cooperative->Welcoming->Friendly->Favorable

That would put Cooperative and Suspicious opposite one another, which I think fits. Welcoming-Inhospitable and Friendly-Hostile also work as opposites, already. Favorable and Vengeful don't mesh so well... Holding judgment on Favorable for a sentence or three, perhaps Vengeful isn't a good choice? Hateful seems like a suitably strong word, but doesn't seem to quite fit the mold. Forsworn randomly popped into my head for some reason lol . Hmm... turning to Favorable, it just doesn't seem like a strong enough word to represent the final level of positive relation. I had "Close" flop into my head, but, like Hateful, it doesn't fit the form of the other relation levels. Allied has come up in this thread, but it doesn't seem like a state of relations that would come from anything less than joining the faction or some sort of treaty between your faction and theirs. I've been assuming the top relation level doesn't require practically or literally joining the faction to reach. If it does, though, then Aligned could be used.

Cooperative->Welcoming->Friendly->Aligned
Suspicious->Inhospitable->Hostile->Hateful

I guess Vengeful could work if it wasn't a level a faction would typically stay at if they got their revenge on you or whomever. 

This brings up a question... are the 4th relationship levels supposed to be ones that are easily maintained? E.g. once the 4th positive level is reached, you would have to actively work against them to lose it and the 4th negative would also require work by you to get rid of, or would they both "degrade" to the level below them given only time/actions of the faction in question? If the 4th levels are unstable, would the 3rd levels be stable?

I think we need more information from Alex to come up with the best names for the relationship levels.

Battles involving multiple fleets, though (but with only 2 sides), I do want to look at eventually.

I'm sure you've read my suggestion about non-"instant" battles in the suggestion forum, but simply didn't comment, but I hope you keep my suggestion in mind when you decide to work on this! Here's the thread if you haven't: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8143.0

[MidnightSun]

Great blog post, Alex. Chiming in with the others, I too found the "good" relationship statuses a bit confusing. In my mind, the rankings would make more sense like this (with the minimal amount of renaming):

- Neutral: intuitive
- Favorable: intuitive as well, shows you're moving in the right direction (with "a favorable reception," you can be sure they're not going to shoot you)
- Friendly: to me, this is less extreme than "welcoming" ("a friendly reception" in my mind would have acquaintances shaking hands)
- Welcoming: again, to me, this is the more extreme emotion than being merely "friendly" ("a welcoming reception" would have good friends hugging each other with warm conversation)
- Allied: as you mentioned earlier, "cooperative" implies some action. It's not an overly "friendly" descriptor, though: a prisoner can be cooperative with the police, but that doesn't mean they'll be hugging it out anytime soon. Allies would be much more likely to honor agreements, overlook minor transgressions, etc.

[Mattk50]

allied implies some kind of formal treaty. cooperative isnt great either.

nitpicks tho.

[heskey30]

Well, cooperative kind of make sense actually - the only time you would be co-operating (as in actually working together for common goals, as opposed to them hiring you or trading with you) is if important people in the faction knew you personally and thought you were on their level, which, with some of these factions, is a pretty high honor. The law enforcement thing kind of gets in the way, but other than that, it does make sense.

Also, as for friendly vs welcoming, welcoming can be very impersonal. Someone can welcome you to listen to their speech. But you wouldn't usually be friends with them. If your friends are welcoming it does sound more... well... welcoming than if your friends are just friendly, though. So there are different ways to look at it. But if you are dealing with an impersonal faction I think the first one makes more sense.

But anyway, it doesn't matter much. The game itself can set these definitions. When you play the game and see how the words are used, you will fit the words to the definitions the game provides, as long as it isn't too much of a stretch.

[Alex]

I feel that cooperative has a negative connotation. Perhaps Allies? Although, Close Allies would better describe the willing ness to help, but it has TWO WORDS (it ruins the simplicity/unified feel IMO)!

Mh, cooperative reminds me indeed mostly of law enforcement. How about "Supportive"? That's a nicer word, also emphasizing action. Or "Solidary" would fit very well, too.

Welcoming isn't perfect either, but better than cooperative. Wouldn't mind it staying. Alternatives might be "Obliging" or "Amicable".

Hmm, I don't get a negative connotation from cooperative. I can see how it could have one used in a coercive context, but I don't think the word has that associated with it by itself.

I did consider "supportive", but that feels like it has "emotional support" associated with it too strongly. Which someone else might not get from it, the same way I don't get negative connotations from cooperative Ah, what fun!

allied implies some kind of formal treaty

Yeah, that's my trouble with it.

But anyway, it doesn't matter much. The game itself can set these definitions. When you play the game and see how the words are used, you will fit the words to the definitions the game provides, as long as it isn't too much of a stretch.

That's a good point. As long as the words aren't too far off, they'll just become natural.

Not sure which dialog options you mean, could you clarify?

Just the standard fleet encounter dialog. Do the fleet commanders have different things to say, depending on your standing with their faction? Maybe they can even share real information with you (like market conditions, local threats...or whatever two fleet commanders might chat about). Just thought it might be good fit for this update.

Ahh, I see. Not really, no - there are other ways for you to get all that information. I can see adding this type of stuff in the future (and feeding it into the "reports" you have available, which is the current way you get info), but for this release I think that'd be straying too far afield.

There *is* some new dialog stuff - for example, when you're caught hacking a comm relay - but that's a one-off. It's done in a moddable way, though, so adding new conversation options is entirely possible.

The Sindrian Diktat sort of came outta nowhere, will there be other "minor" factions to spice up the setting?

Possibly! That's David's domain, so I really can't say.

Spoiler

I find the relationship names "tolerable" , but I agree they could perhaps be improved. Right off-hand I can think of Civ4 that had pleased and friendly, but that doesn't seem like much help. I can't help but think Gothars' suggestion of Solidary is just way too close to "Solitary" to work.

Neutral->Favorable->Welcoming->Friendly->Cooperative    Hmm... Have to keep it in context. Space factions in desperate times where many resources are scarce. Well, something to keep in mind is that these terms should work for both when you are a single fleet, and when you are running a faction yourself.


Some brainstorming later...


Perhaps flipping favorable and cooperative?

Cooperative->Welcoming->Friendly->Favorable

That would put Cooperative and Suspicious opposite one another, which I think fits. Welcoming-Inhospitable and Friendly-Hostile also work as opposites, already. Favorable and Vengeful don't mesh so well... Holding judgment on Favorable for a sentence or three, perhaps Vengeful isn't a good choice? Hateful seems like a suitably strong word, but doesn't seem to quite fit the mold. Forsworn randomly popped into my head for some reason lol . Hmm... turning to Favorable, it just doesn't seem like a strong enough word to represent the final level of positive relation. I had "Close" flop into my head, but, like Hateful, it doesn't fit the form of the other relation levels. Allied has come up in this thread, but it doesn't seem like a state of relations that would come from anything less than joining the faction or some sort of treaty between your faction and theirs. I've been assuming the top relation level doesn't require practically or literally joining the faction to reach. If it does, though, then Aligned could be used.

Cooperative->Welcoming->Friendly->Aligned
Suspicious->Inhospitable->Hostile->Hateful

I guess Vengeful could work if it wasn't a level a faction would typically stay at if they got their revenge on you or whomever. 

[close]

Thanks for giving it some thought

This brings up a question... are the 4th relationship levels supposed to be ones that are easily maintained? E.g. once the 4th positive level is reached, you would have to actively work against them to lose it and the 4th negative would also require work by you to get rid of, or would they both "degrade" to the level below them given only time/actions of the faction in question? If the 4th levels are unstable, would the 3rd levels be stable?

I think we need more information from Alex to come up with the best names for the relationship levels.

That's very much TBD. I think a future release will probably flesh a lot of this out.

Battles involving multiple fleets, though (but with only 2 sides), I do want to look at eventually.

I'm sure you've read my suggestion about non-"instant" battles in the suggestion forum, but simply didn't comment, but I hope you keep my suggestion in mind when you decide to work on this! Here's the thread if you haven't: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8143.0

Yeah, I had. Some of my ideas are of a similar direction, but it's not something I'm prepared to discuss in detail - the more I talk about it, even in "I'd like to try it" terms, the more it starts to look like a "planned" feature. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get that in the game, but I can 1) see some technical reasons why it might be problematic, though hopefully they can be overcome, and 2) it *could* unexpectedly not actually turn out to be good gameplay wise. So, to sum it up: at some point, I'm going to try some things to do with that, and hopefully succeed in putting together something good. FWIW, I'm excited about it Just no chance to look at yet, and definitely not for this release.

[Cosmitz]

One thing i'd love to see emerge out of this is a change to aggro range. When you're vengeful to a faction, almost every fleet in half a sector should home in on you. When you're just hostile, maybe you have to get close enough to be called a danger and attacked.

This would tie into smuggling. Smuggling into vengeful factions territory should be a difficult feat of a fast ship, Millenium Falcon, some kind of heavily armored blockade runner that can tank encounters and evade or just a huge fleet that obliterates everything.. though in the latter its no longer smuggling but just.. agressively setting up a new trade route. 


All in all, i'd love for the sector map travel gameplay to be expanded.

[XpanD]

Definitely seeing some inspiration from Mount & Blade here, haha. Looking forward to it, seems like it'd make for a more interesting game once again past the already amazing customization and combat.

[Alex]

...

All in all, i'd love for the sector map travel gameplay to be expanded.

Yeah, that's really something I want to take a look at. I think that probably warrants being the focus of a dedicated update, though.

Definitely seeing some inspiration from Mount & Blade here, haha. Looking forward to it, seems like it'd make for a more interesting game once again past the already amazing customization and combat.

How so? Oh, I guess the relationship level names - but those are the product of some time spent with a thesaurus, so that's more convergent evolution than inspiration As far as the mechanics, I don't think what M&B does is similar...

[XpanD]

Definitely seeing some inspiration from Mount & Blade here, haha. Looking forward to it, seems like it'd make for a more interesting game once again past the already amazing customization and combat.

How so? Oh, I guess the relationship level names - but those are the product of some time spent with a thesaurus, so that's more convergent evolution than inspiration As far as the mechanics, I don't think what M&B does is similar...

Maybe I worded that a bit poorly, but what you said pretty much nails it. I mostly just had a bit of a chuckle when I saw the faction relationship stuff having just finished a world domination run in Warband. Reading through the blog post I do see a few parallels with the way M&B does things, though the different setting does change things up a good bit. For what it's worth, I still love both games dearly and I don't think this update will do any harm there.

[Alex]

Oh, no worries, I didn't take it in a any bad way The names are very similar. (This is totally making me want to play Warband. Must resist.)

[Aereto]

One thing i'd love to see emerge out of this is a change to aggro range. When you're vengeful to a faction, almost every fleet in half a sector should home in on you. When you're just hostile, maybe you have to get close enough to be called a danger and attacked.

This would tie into smuggling. Smuggling into vengeful factions territory should be a difficult feat of a fast ship, Millenium Falcon, some kind of heavily armored blockade runner that can tank encounters and evade or just a huge fleet that obliterates everything.. though in the latter its no longer smuggling but just.. agressively setting up a new trade route. 


All in all, i'd love for the sector map travel gameplay to be expanded.

Though taking note that dropping cargo/contraband might not make the engaging fleet break pursuit. The Millenium Falcon had to drop cargo in detection of an Imperial ship.

A high-speed ship would do as a blockade-runner. Having a heavy fleet would get rid of a blockade than penetrating the trade barrier. I might have to begin anew once the new version is up; makes no sense starting up in the old station with a 4-Onslaught fleet ready to take on the Hegemony or the Pirates (not Tri-Tachyon, due to significant technological advantage, except a Paragon Pair/Triad fleet), overstocked in fuel, supplies, credits, and crew.

[Toxcity]

I think you'll have to restart anyway to get all the new systems and factions.

[David]

All I've gained from this blog post is that everyone's a circle in space. Every single faction's banner is a circle in the middle except for pirates. Not complaining, just noticing. Also blah blah, great post, new stuff blah. I'm really excited about it, actually, just don't have much to add to the discussion.

... aw, heck!

- but not the Diktat, as Alex mentioned, and not the Ko Combine! ... which no one else has seen yet I guess.

The thing with circles in space is that it's such an easy and obvious symbol for ... stuff in space. It feels spacey. Everything in space is a circle. Planet? Circle in space. Star? Circle in space. Orbit? Same. Gate/portal. Galaxy. All circles.

So yeah, I am aware of some repeated motifs. Some I consider okay because they can be thought of as a lot of factions using the symbolism of a shared predecessor in order to appeal to its authority, eg. the circle motif of Independents, the Hegemony, and Persean League all (in my mind) harken to whatever the symbol of the Domain was (I'm guessing it's a circle of some kind). It's like how half of Europe used the eagle as a symbol of authority due to the Romans.

Ah, and now that I look at it again, the Diktat also has the circle in it - plus wings! Intended partly as a reference to the Hegemony's phoenix symbol, but heavily modified, and the red circle really is there for the star Askonia. Which, yes, circle.

Edit to add more commentary on factions:

Amazing stuff, love how the scope of the patch keeps growing. It makes the wait worth it.

The Sindrian Diktat sort of came outta nowhere, will there be other "minor" factions to spice up the setting?

I love how interesting and revealing the messiness of politics can be. Factions of highly varying ideology and levels of influence can do much to enliven the drama of Starsector's world; they're like characters with their own stories that are biased one way or another but altogether form a picture of 'what is actually going on'.