[Tweak] Faction.XML

Need help testing contributed art or code or having trouble getting your newest additions into game compatible format? Confused by changes to data formats? Reading through source and wondering what the developers were thinking when they wrote something? Need "how-to" style guidance for messing with VS internals? This is probably the right forum.
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denyasis
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[Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by denyasis »

Sir,Maam;

Is this the right place for this? oh well, whatev...

Symptom:
-As Noted in several threads, to summeraize, acting in "Self-defense" or shooting the generic "Bad guys" results in negative relations with more significant factions.
-Eventually a negative relationship cascade occurs. Only positive relations with Aera exists...

Problem:
-Player is locked into the exact same game everytime, Limits gameplay... uncool

Primary cause:
-Uln and Uln_Citizens have no negative relations with any other faction. Both have positive/neutral relations with Pirates, luddites and Area. Despite, for example, the Luddites are openly Hostile to the Uln.
- Unlike Purists and Forsaken, who can be kept positive by balancing Luddite/Pirate kills, Uln will always become hostile.

Solution:
Altering Uln's relationship, chaning thier opinion of Aera, Pirates, and Luddites to 0. Thus they will no become hostile for "self defense", but will not think better of the player for killing Pirates, etc.

The privateer faction (I assume that is the starting base for the player?) was given a 0.01 boost for forsaken,Forsaken_citizen. This will allow the player to kill pirates early without being instanly attacked by forsaken ships.

I downloaded the Factions.xml file from: SCM Repositories / vegastrike / trunk / data / factions.xml
And made the following relationship changes.

Uln =>
Pirates = 0
Aera = 0
Luddites = 0

Uln_citizen =>
Pirates = 0
Aera = 0
Luddites = 0

Privateer (I assume that is the base matrix for the player) =>
Forsaken=0.01
Forsaken_citizen =0.01

Purist_citizen still favor Luddites(.05), and Forsaken (and citizens) still favor pirates (.1). So the player must still balance Pirate/Luddite kills

Concerns:
-There are potential cannon issues, however, it is probably best to simulate the positive Uln/Pirate relationship through mission scripting than in the engine in its current state. For example, a ConFed Fixer would offer the Player a mission to eliminate a pirate convey or something, the "pirates" are actually a mix of pirates and Uln sympathyzers. Faction v Faction action = bad (diplomatically speaking), so use a Privateer. Its a logical mission, would simulate cannon correctly, and would prevent the negative relation cascade, except...

-Uln still have no negative relationships, so a negative relationship with the Uln would still result in the cascade... One would have to be careful about Uln Kills. Perhaps a -0.01 modifier for Luddites (Luddites are -0.6 towards the Uln, so it would make sense for the Uln to be slightly hostile toward Luddites). I think that would need dev approval first though.

Using these changes, I'm up to about 5M credits in my new game, with about 50 pirate/luddite kills. So far no major anomolies. Most factions think higly of me, with Uln/citizen at around 30/9. Lots of trading/F1 pressing.

Enjoy... I hope it is something useful for you all.

+------+
Edit 3/31/2009 Fixed a typo I had because I am a moron and changed the wrong faction. Also updated Whraven's patch (Many thanks) to fix the same typo.

Here's the updated ones - yay.

+-----+
4/1/2009
Added a 0.5 compatible version for players playing 0.5 instead of SVN - yay
Cleaned up some formatting in the SVN Version - yay

FOR VEGA STRIKE 0.50:
factions.xml0.50.txt
FOR VEGA STRIKE SVN:
factions.txt
factions.patch
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Last edited by denyasis on Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
whraven
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by whraven »

If the devs are interested, here's a patch that makes the above changes to factions.xml:

Code: Select all

--- factions.xml        2009-03-20 11:24:42.000000000 -0500
+++ factions.xml.fixed  2009-03-26 11:20:29.000000000 -0500
@@ -678,11 +678,11 @@
     <Faction name="uln" citizen="false" logoRGB="logos/ulnPri.texture" secLogoRGB="logos/ulnSec.texture" contraband="contraband" sparkred=".302" sparkgreen=".502" sparkblue="0">
       <stats name="privateer" relation="0.05"/>
       <stats name="confed" relation="0.05"/>
-      <stats name="aera" relation="0.05"/>
+      <stats name="aera" relation="0"/>
       <stats name="rlaan" relation="0.05"/>
       <stats name="merchant_guild" relation=".2"/>
-      <stats name="luddites" relation="0.05"/>
-      <stats name="pirates" relation=".3"/>
+      <stats name="luddites" relation="0"/>
+      <stats name="pirates" relation="0"/>
       <stats name="hunter" relation="0"/>
       <stats name="homeland-security" relation="0"/>
       <stats name="ISO" relation="0"/>
@@ -1093,13 +1093,13 @@
                <stats name="ISO" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="unknown" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="andolian" relation="0.05"/>
-               <stats name="highborn" relation="0"/>
+               <stats name="highborn" relation="0.01"/>
                <stats name="shaper" relation="0.05"/>
                <stats name="unadorned" relation="0.3"/>
                <stats name="purist" relation="0.05"/>
                <stats name="forsaken" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="LIHW" relation="0.05"/>
-               <stats name="uln" relation="0"/>
+               <stats name="uln" relation="0.01"/>
                <stats name="dgn" relation=".1"/>
                <stats name="klkk" relation="0.05"/>
                <stats name="mechanist" relation="0"/>
@@ -1113,9 +1113,9 @@
                <stats name="shaper_citizen" relation="0.05"/>
                <stats name="unadorned_citizen" relation="0.3"/>
                <stats name="purist_citizen" relation="0.05"/>
-               <stats name="forsaken_citizen" relation="0"/>
+               <stats name="forsaken_citizen" relation="0.01"/>
                <stats name="LIHW_citizen" relation="0.05"/>
-               <stats name="uln_citizen" relation="0"/>
+               <stats name="uln_citizen" relation="0.01"/>
                <stats name="dgn_citizen" relation=".1"/>
                <stats name="klkk_citizen" relation="0.05"/>
                <stats name="mechanist_citizen" relation="0"/>
@@ -1546,7 +1546,7 @@
                <stats name="rlaan" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="merchant_guild" relation=".2"/>
                <stats name="luddites" relation="0"/>
-               <stats name="pirates" relation=".3"/>
+               <stats name="pirates" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="hunter" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="homeland-security" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="ISO" relation="0"/>
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denyasis
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by denyasis »

Thanks for the patch code, friend.

Looking at it, I noticed this segment (I assume from the privateer section?):

Code: Select all

@@ -1093,13 +1093,13 @@
                <stats name="ISO" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="unknown" relation="0"/>
                <stats name="andolian" relation="0.05"/>
-               <stats name="highborn" relation="0"/>
+               <stats name="highborn" relation="0.01"/>
                <stats name="shaper" relation="0.05"/>
                <stats name="unadorned" relation="0.3"/>
I'm not a coder, but it seems like the patch code is altering the Highborn relation. I think it should be the Forsaken relation as the Forsaken favor the pirates slightly (unless I'm totally reading the XML incorrectly - totally possible). The intent is to give a new player a tiny bit of breathing room with out being chased around by various factions navy's.

Peace!
whraven
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by whraven »

Yeah, that's what it looks like. I made the patch from SVN 12542, so it may be an artifact of which SVN you based your Faction.txt file attachment on. Basically, the patch updates the SVN 12542 version to match your Faction.txt file, which does list the highborn and highborn_citizen relations under the privateer section as 0.01.
denyasis
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by denyasis »

really? hrmm, I might be getting the wrong Factions.xml then...

When I went into trunk/data/factions.xml, I saw it at revision 12323 with an age of 9 mo.s. I just went there now and it it the same revision; here is the link:

http://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/v ... l?view=log

I assumed that was the most current version. So I viewed as text, copied into notepad, and hacked away.

that one has the Highborn relation as 0, which I had no intention of changing, Just the Forsaken from 0 to 0.01

I guess my question is, where do I find the more current version?

On a side note, I dug through Stderr and Stdout, and It appears that the player uses the Privateer faction setting as initial settings, so ummm yay,

Sorry for the confusion, friend, I hope that helps.
loki1950
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by loki1950 »

The faction file has indeed not changed in a long time :wink: whraven's patch should be applicable to any version.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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denyasis
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by denyasis »

ahh ok groovey

Must be my butter fingers :-)

Yeah, I found it, I had a typo in my version, where I changed the Highborn instead of the Forsaken. I'll see if I can edit my first post and fix that.

Thanks for the help, everyone.
denyasis
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by denyasis »

Hello, I added a Version 0.5 Compatible version. The SVN version is post- extenstion-renaming, so players trying to use it on thier 0.5 Version would get really weird results when trying to load a save gave :shock:
Zebedee
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by Zebedee »

Having a bit of trouble with the 0.5 standard version I'm afraid.

I've renamed the file as instructed in the OP (OS is XP), but the file is still showing as a .txt and I'm guessing this is why VS is now crashing on the load screen.

Any advice/help would be gratefully accepted :)

edit: hmmm, make sure you can see all file extensions is the key :) Doh!
denyasis
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by denyasis »

sweet - glad you got it working!!

As I mentioned, I did this mostly with SVN and had to back track it to 0.5. I havn't noticed any thing too unusal (in either version), but as VS is still being actively developed, I can't garuntee anything (particularly with saved games).

Hope it helps!
Zebedee
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by Zebedee »

Finally switched over to SVN, to see if I can help contribute while I've got some free time, and downloading the version for that. Was having one of my infamous 'duh' moments when trying to change the file name - far too much space grog ;)

Can definitely give the 0.5 version the thumbsup though - it really does help mitigate some of the silliness in the early game where a couple of pirate kills can leave you in deep trouble with the Uln and you have no chance of spamming F1 quick enough to get them off your back. Much appreciated as without it I may well have shelved the game yet again until the next stable update. Thank you :)
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Re: [Tweak] Faction.XML

Post by denyasis »

I'm glad it helped!
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