Creating Bases and Generating "Fixers"

Thinking about improving the Artwork in Vega Strike, or making your own Mod? Submit your question and ideas in this forum.

Moderator: pyramid

Post Reply
tdoc
Just a tourist with a frag'd nav console
Just a tourist with a frag'd nav console
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2005 7:56 pm
Contact:

Creating Bases and Generating "Fixers"

Post by tdoc »

I have been playing around with VS for a little while now and want to begin to contribute where I believe there is something lacking. I want to work mostly on designing base and planets in terms of what they look like and behave when you are landed. More specifically I want to work on the random "fixers" who pop up every now and then when you are docked at a base and the variety of missions/payments/affiliations they offer.

I'm curious what in regard to this is already in the game. Is it possible that the "type" (luddite, bounty hunter, rlaan, confed, smuggler, pirate, merchant, et al.) of fixer the player encounters could change to favor a certain group if a player has done missions for certain people. Also is it possible for the missions to increase in difficulty and payout the more the player does.

I'll give an example of how I invision it working.

You start out as a normal guy (what would be ideal is an abillity to at the start of a new game select your race/sex/affiliation/occupation which would determine the base/system/ship you start with) and at the first base there are 3-5 fixers located around the place each offering different simple assignments. Depending on the one you pick the next time you land it would effect the fixers that pop up, favoring the group/groups you've already worked for. The more you work for a different group the more they pay or as things get more difficult they may offer you equipment or ships in payment. This would also effect the friend/foe status of the ships you encounter in space.

This may already be in the game, but I'd like to add more to it. If anyone can give me a good starting point and point me to which files to edit that would be great. I'd prefer to make additional files that the normal config files can load as amendments in case I break things in the tinkering.

Any help/comments welcome.
hurleybird
Elite
Elite
Posts: 1671
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 12:46 am
Location: Earth, Sol system.
Contact:

Post by hurleybird »

Awesome, someone new who wants to help!

Yeah theres a lot that can be done with bases, and you are welcome to improve on them. Also, if you have questions, the people on the forum will aid you in whatever way they can.

Any way, since we're talking about improving bases, I think it would be cool to have NPC's at places besides bars. For example, a sales man at an upgrade centre, or other pilots and landing crew at docking bays. Even some random people in the walkways would be cool. Another cool addition would be mulitple conversation choices. Of course, base animations would also be up there in terms of immersion factor.

Anyhow, thanks for the offer of help. Hopefully you'll be able to show some work soon :)
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

If you're able to paint good fixers, the game is yours, I believe. Right now fixers look like line drawn cartoons, which clash apocallyptically with the semi-realistically rendered background. And if you could get a few 3D human models, and paint the fixers onto "skin" textures that wrap on the models, then render the models for the final pics, that would be even better, because, eventually, we'll have a second 3D engine for bases. When that happens, we'd be able to take your original models and skins and import them into the 3D environment.
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Post by klauss »

Anyway... to get started, you can take a look at the python scripts inside the bases folder. All those control the layout of bases, including fixers.

However, what fixers do is specified in other places (and I don't know about them).
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
tdoc
Just a tourist with a frag'd nav console
Just a tourist with a frag'd nav console
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2005 7:56 pm
Contact:

Post by tdoc »

Thanks for the expressed interest. I've looked over the fixers.py and also the documentation about the way fixers work and it's quite strait forward. Mostly what I need is input about the way different people look and the general attitude of members of different memegroups and species.

An examples I can think of would be like the only place you see Unadorned fixers is in the hangar, because as they would say, "I need a pilot so I'm looking in the hangar, why look for a pilot in the bar, that's where I'd go to find a drunkard." Afterall, thats logical.

Here's some of the ideas I have so far.

For beginners, "in system/jumpless missions" can be had from various Spaceborn fixers found on mining bases and other space stations. They would hire the pilot to retrieve foodstuffs and organic materials from planet settlements, which they can't go to due to their physical limitations, to be either brought back to the base they are at or to another base.

Andolian merchant (perhaps even Andolian Confed) fixers might hire a pilot to take loads of small arms and rations to the Shmm, or hire hunter types to help help along the Shmm/Aera border.

Mechanist Hunters and Homeland Security hiring pilots to escort Merchant vessels along routes prone to Luddite attacks.

Spaceborn may also hire pilots to defend space stations that are under construction or ferry workers and materials from other locations.

If the player ends up on the wrong side of the law there could be pirate fixers who offer tips about merchant runs, these wouldn't be paying missions but would offer a healthy payoff if the pilot succeeds in hijacking the target.

Fixers representing the Forsaken might be helping to arrange passenger transport for colonists to outlying systems.

--

What would be very helpful is if the folks who created this stuff could give me info on all the different systems and which species/factions/worlds/bases are in each.

Also, do any of the memegroups have problems with the others? Is there veiled hostility between the Purists and the Shapers for example?

Any input is welcome. I'm more concerned with coming up with the content at the moment rather than scripting it into the game. I'd like to also work on the documentation side of the species/factions/worlds/bases.

Other than the Wiki and docs that ship with the game is there any other place where more info is located?
jackS
Minister of Information
Minister of Information
Posts: 1895
Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2003 9:40 pm
Location: The land of tenure (and diaper changes)

Post by jackS »

tdoc wrote:Other than the Wiki and docs that ship with the game is there any other place where more info is located?
There are the posts in the "Documenting the VS universe" forum, not all of which have had their content entirely translated to the Wiki in easy to follow format, though I think most have by now.

Unfortunately, there's a fair bit of info which exists so far only in AIM logs, or worse, shared recollections of discussions or in my head. Attempts to get everything put down in more useful formats have yet to meet with particular success due primarily to their poor performance in competitions with RL time-sinks. This is to say that I've done a better job of conversing about and answering questions about the universe than sitting down and just expounding (the latter, for me, requiring large blocks of contiguous time, and an appropriate mental mood and physical environment - I can be a picky writer)
tdoc wrote: Thanks for the expressed interest. I've looked over the fixers.py and also the documentation about the way fixers work and it's quite strait forward. Mostly what I need is input about the way different people look and the general attitude of members of different memegroups and species.

An examples I can think of would be like the only place you see Unadorned fixers is in the hangar, because as they would say, "I need a pilot so I'm looking in the hangar, why look for a pilot in the bar, that's where I'd go to find a drunkard." Afterall, thats logical.

Here's some of the ideas I have so far.

For beginners, "in system/jumpless missions" can be had from various Spaceborn fixers found on mining bases and other space stations. They would hire the pilot to retrieve foodstuffs and organic materials from planet settlements, which they can't go to due to their physical limitations, to be either brought back to the base they are at or to another base.

Andolian merchant (perhaps even Andolian Confed) fixers might hire a pilot to take loads of small arms and rations to the Shmm, or hire hunter types to help help along the Shmm/Aera border.

Mechanist Hunters and Homeland Security hiring pilots to escort Merchant vessels along routes prone to Luddite attacks.

Spaceborn may also hire pilots to defend space stations that are under construction or ferry workers and materials from other locations.

If the player ends up on the wrong side of the law there could be pirate fixers who offer tips about merchant runs, these wouldn't be paying missions but would offer a healthy payoff if the pilot succeeds in hijacking the target.

Fixers representing the Forsaken might be helping to arrange passenger transport for colonists to outlying systems.

--

What would be very helpful is if the folks who created this stuff could give me info on all the different systems and which species/factions/worlds/bases are in each.

Also, do any of the memegroups have problems with the others? Is there veiled hostility between the Purists and the Shapers for example?

Any input is welcome. I'm more concerned with coming up with the content at the moment rather than scripting it into the game. I'd like to also work on the documentation side of the species/factions/worlds/bases.
This is a good idea for exposing some more universe depth to the player. Several of the examples are pertinent, although a few are flawed - but that's evidence that we need better documentation on the various groups :).

If you contact me directly (PM works well) that is, nag me every once in a while (or better yet, actually converse with me on occasion), I'll be more likely to remember that I need to document the answers to such questions in a reasonable framework (so that people other than YT and the people I've chit-chatted with might know something more about the backstory too :)).

(@ no one in particular:

I'm currently in paper-submission-deadline-mode(and why then am I spending time posting? Have to catch up sometime on what I missed during my trip to dasCMP and MICRO, too tired to do much research work - sounds like a good time for forum surfing to me). Today was the abstract submission deadline. If you (the reader) are/were a grad student, you've been here too. Whee.)
Post Reply