klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post your best tactics and strategies for getting the big bux in Vega Strike
w03
Mercenary
Mercenary
Posts: 125
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:47 am

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by w03 »

@Deus Siddis: Actually, the Rlaan and Aera both hate the uln right now. I always see news about Rlaan or Aera blowing uln fleets out of the sky.

Therefore, killing uln would actually give you a positive relationship with the Rlaan and Aera.
Neskiairti
Confed Special Operative
Confed Special Operative
Posts: 334
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:10 am

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by Neskiairti »

by 'leaving the sector' i mean either you leave the sector or they do.. once it passes out of 'direct memory' what ever potential it posesses is passed to the faction. as to sensors.. yeah, they shouldnt notice anything happening unless they can see it on sensor.
Deus Siddis
Elite
Elite
Posts: 1363
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:42 pm

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by Deus Siddis »

w03 wrote:@Deus Siddis: Actually, the Rlaan and Aera both hate the uln right now. I always see news about Rlaan or Aera blowing uln fleets out of the sky.

Therefore, killing uln would actually give you a positive relationship with the Rlaan and Aera.
Nope it gives you a negative relationship, you can look it up in factions.xml in SVN.

This is why I'm saying there are huge bugs in the player-faction relations system. It's even more evidence that the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" argument others have made is more than a little ludicrous, if the headlines are indeed reporting major conflicts between factions that treat each other like allies when the player gets involved.

So right now, we just need to come to some kind of consensus over what the relations should look like, to fix these issues, for the upcoming release. We need a quick fix, overhauling the AI is another issue that won't happen in the short term.

1) We can neutralize all relations between initially player friendly and player hostile factions, while pushing the Uln into one of the two categories, instead of the impossible, illogical, bullshit position they currently enjoy. This makes the most sense, by far, I wholeheartedly recommend this route.

OR

2) We can create a delicate love/hate balance between the hostile factions, so that killing them in equal proportions actually does balance out and add some positive reputation with the friendly factions that have connections themselves to them. This means making the Uln neutral to Aera and strongly hostile to Luddites, plus any necessary rebalances to how the Purist Citizens and Forsaken love/hate hostile action taken against the Luddites and Pirates.
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by klauss »

Ok, too much to read right now.

But I stand by my previous comment: the faction relationship matrix is a matrix that applies relation modifiers.

If you're enemies with faction X, and Y is friendly to faction X, since faction X will eventually attack you and you'll kill off X in self defense, your relationship with faction Y will tend to the worse.

If faction Z is enemies with faction X, your relationship with them will improve.

The system is asymmetric. This means if you're friends with someone, that won't improve your reputation to anyone else. So this is a delicate situation that tends to go the way of redness really easily (ie: everyone hates you, because the propagation mechanism propagates hatred and not friendliness).

Right now, the problem is, if you apply that matrix repeatedly on your starting reputation, you end up being enemies of all. That Is A BUG.

This happens because there is uncontrolled feedback. Attacking faction X damages relations with faction Y which in turn damages faction Z... until you damage every relation, back to X. That cannot happen in a balanced game.

Factions have to be dissected into "sections", and there cannot be frienship among the sections. Neutrality or enemity is the only option between sections, and that should guarantee controlled feedback.
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
Deus Siddis
Elite
Elite
Posts: 1363
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:42 pm

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by Deus Siddis »

klauss wrote: Right now, the problem is, if you apply that matrix repeatedly on your starting reputation, you end up being enemies of all. That Is A BUG.

This happens because there is uncontrolled feedback. Attacking faction X damages relations with faction Y which in turn damages faction Z... until you damage every relation, back to X. That cannot happen in a balanced game.

Factions have to be dissected into "sections", and there cannot be frienship among the sections. Neutrality or enemity is the only option between sections, and that should guarantee controlled feedback.
That's exactly how I see it. My only question was how we wanted to slice these sections (or "alliances"). I think the most canonical would be to divide things up into the following sections:

1) Human Confederation + Rlaan Assembly
2) Aeran Ascendancy
3) Miscellaneous Fringe and Downtrodden-- Uln + Forsaken + Pirates + Luddites + ISO

Though it might be equally canonical to have the Confederation and Assembly as separate factions, neutral to each other.

And whenever a faction in one section is canonically sympathetic to a faction in another section, they will be "neutral" to each other rather than positive or negative.

So what do you say Klauss? Should I throw together a balance in factions.xml that divides up the alliances like the above?
-REBEL3-
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:43 am
Location: Alaska

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by -REBEL3- »

Here're my 2 cents on the alliances:

Here's what the Development PDF says:


HUMANS:
Uplifts/Client Species
• Dgn • Mishtali • Purth • Super Cetaceans (SuCets) • Super Simians (SuSims)
Subspecies
• Homo Sapiens Sapiens • Homo Sapiens Superioris • Homo Sapiens Pluralis • Homo Sapiens Cyberis • Homo Sapiens Suprahomo • Homo Sapiens Cosmonatalis

Existing groups I see here: Merchant guide, Hunters, Homeland Security, LIHW, Mechanist, Andolian, Highborn, Shaper, Unadorned.


RLAAN:
Uplifts/Client Species
• Lmpl • Nuhln
Saahasayaay

Subspecies
Rlaan Defender
Rlaan Worker
Rlaan Hybrid


AERA:
Uplifts/Client Species
• Bzbr


Then, we have the unaffiliated groups:
Klk'k
Shmrn
Uln
Hoffman's blobs
I'm putting the Forsaken, Pirates, Purists, and ISO in here too-they don't seem like they'd play well with "mainstream" humanity.

One thing, posted here so I don't forget-the Rlaan should hate you MORE if you kill worker ships (i.e. unarmed, defenseless ships) then if you kill defender ships.

~R3
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:So what do you say Klauss? Should I throw together a balance in factions.xml that divides up the alliances like the above?
Consult the division with someone more canon-aware. But, although your division makes sense, I smell a lot less factions than there should be. You're probably grouping a lot under "human confederation".

That aside, seems to make sense the way you proposed.

Remember you can play with relations within sections any way you like, but it would be best if you subdivide each section just as well, and try to limit the propagation effect across subsections, to give the system a sense of hightened complexity. Otherwise we'd end up with a simple tripartite system, and that's not entirely good either.

In essence: be very very careful with friendship ties, and consider their ramifications. When in doubt, go neutral. But do stray from neutral often, to keep the system alive. You can also go "almost friendly" among members of the same section.
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
Neskiairti
Confed Special Operative
Confed Special Operative
Posts: 334
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:10 am

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by Neskiairti »

i'll say again.. faction propogation should simply be committed when a faction member observes the act first hand.

the game of telephone wont work.. even with small groups unless you change the very nature of it. like an instance of something created and added to the memory of all factions instead of faction a's relation changes, which changes b, which changes c, and so forth..
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by klauss »

@Neskiairti: but you're proposing deep changes that can't be done overnight, or even quickly. We want to fix a serious gameplay issue first... don't we?
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
Neskiairti
Confed Special Operative
Confed Special Operative
Posts: 334
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:10 am

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by Neskiairti »

i just dont believe the system is capable of being paved over with anything less than complete and total isolation of each faction.

just because the game of telephone is smaller, doesnt mean its not going to cause the same problems, just on a smaller scale.

I suppose it minimizes the problem a bit.. so you only piss off one group at a time :P
Deus Siddis
Elite
Elite
Posts: 1363
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:42 pm

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by Deus Siddis »

Klauss, I created a new factions.xml balance based on what you said and PMed it to you.

To illustrate how the positive faction relations work now, I made a chart. The boxes surrounding clusters of factions represent mutual alliances. The green arrows represent one way protection. This means when you attack a faction, all the factions with arrows pointing to it will like you less, but not the other way around. It's a one-way relationship. This helps limit the flow of player hatred, while also making a good deal of sense if you think about it and consider the canon documentation.

Image

As you can see, the confederation has several member states that don't really care about each other either way and don't directly support the confederation (because they're already sending taxes and military detachments) while the confederation protects its member states. So if you get into trouble with the shapers, for example, their Dgn serfs and the Confederation (of which Homeland Security is a division) while attack, but the other human factions will leave you alone, because they like that you're a thorn in the side of the competition. :)

The Merchant Guild on the other hand is supported by both the Confederation and every local government that doesn't have its own freighter fleet. And the factions that do have their own commerce fleet, the Guild actually has a secretly negative position against, because they don't like things that stand in the way of them having a monopoly. So you can actually slowly win their favor by destroying privateers or andolian freighters, for example.
klauss wrote: Consult the division with someone more canon-aware. But, although your division makes sense, I smell a lot less factions than there should be. You're probably grouping a lot under "human confederation".
Also, a lot of factions mentioned in the documention are not implemented in game. Bzbr, Mishtali, Lmpl, Nuhln, Saahasayaay, Rlaan Hunters, etc.
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by klauss »

Nice chart. Seems to make quite some sense.

This (with chart) could go into the wiki, right?
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
Deus Siddis
Elite
Elite
Posts: 1363
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:42 pm

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by Deus Siddis »

It could, but where in the wiki exactly I'm not sure, atm. I'd probably need to cover the hostile relations too, though that's a bit more complex to describe visually.
Neskiairti
Confed Special Operative
Confed Special Operative
Posts: 334
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:10 am

Re: klkk_citizen/mechanist_citizen faction relationships

Post by Neskiairti »

just group up the factions by 'these guys fit this category' and do a venn diagram with lines of red death pointing to other groups of factions they are at war with?
Post Reply