PROLOGUE In the last major versions, we refered to some NPCs and groups of NPCs in a way that would let you imagine, those are real factions - but they still were only "NPCs" grouped in a POI. There was only ONE enemy that attacked you with drones and troops. This has changed now - and will change in the future versions. With Alpha 9 we introduce the first iteration of a real NPC FACTION & REPUTATION system, starting with the global NPC Factions of - Zirax Empire (the former "always bad guys") - Talon (the natives) - Polaris (A company with a monopol on machines & mining) - Aliens ( default faction for all the "always bad" guys; it is always hostile and you cannot change/influence the standing towards this faction; Will be refered to as "The Legacy" for future Story implemenation - but not yet added Starting from Alpha 9 you basically can be friend or enemy to any of these factions - or all of those. This means that you can walk into a Zirax Dronebase and not bein shot, but walk into a Polaris Trading station and be attacked right away...or the traders will not share their offers with you at best. Important note: This NPC Factions system should NOT be confused with the Player-ORIGINS and the Player-Factions. Both are technically different systems, given you need fixed rules to define a standing, you also need to pre-set the factions as the game cannot work with factions it does have no infos about. What means: as Player-Origins and Player-Factions are dynamic, customizable and may or may not exist in the game or on a server and might have different "relationships" given on how the creator designs those, there is currently no real "touchpoint" between those two systems. As a player - or player-faction - you can not join any of the NPC Factions, for example. Said that, the NPC Faction system and its underlying "Rivalry & Reputation" matrix (See below) will be constantly evolved up to a point where you, as a creator, will be able to also customize these elements and the NPC Factions as a whole. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR ALPHA 9 1. Action leads to reaction. Killing or looting and other actions now come at a cost or with a reward of REPUTATION POINTS 2. NPC Factions have TERRITORIES. Performing the aformentioned Actions inside or outside the territory might show different results 3. You can make friends, but due to the RIVALRY of faction, you might make enemies at the same time Technical notes: - The NPC Factions do not grow their territories. - It is possible to set the game-start standing vs. NPC Factions individually for the Player-Origins in the DefReputation.ecf ! This means: THAT will be the standing a player of THIS origin will start with. It does not mean that all players of this origin contribute to a common standing vs. NPC factions!
FACTION GUIs and GRAPHICAL Infos This is how the territories look on the map. They are static and NPC factions do not expand them (maybe in the future On the HUD in the upper right corner you can see the territory you are currently in - and the Standing towards this faction On the lower right the info will pop up about Reputation Points gathered or lost In the upper right message box you will get an info if your Standing changed towards this faction. In the Player Menu (TAB) you can see the current Standing towards any faction. More factions are planned.
1. REPUTATION POINTS and STANDING There are 6 dedicated standing levels which are tied to a defined Reputation Points threshold in a 6000-per level interval 0 - 6000 : Hostile 6001 - 12000 : Unfriendly 12001 - 18000: Neutral 18001 - 24000: Friendly 24001 - 30000: Honored Example: If you see “Hostile: 5800/6000” you just slipped into “hostile” with 200 points. Gain 200 points and the counter will reset to 0 and you will advance to “Unfriendly”. You need 6000 more to get to Neutral then. Same for Neutral: 199/6000 means that you are 199+1 point away from “Unfriendly” WHICH ACTION TRIGGER WHAT AMOUNT OF RP Points? 1. Open the NPC Faction tab in the Faction Menu 2. Hover over a faction and find the reputation effects displayed on the right SPECIAL STANDING ACTIONS (Summary) As noted above, some of the aformentioned actions depend on a given standing level, eg. you can only do an action as long as you are on the correct standing level with the NPC faction member in front of you On Honored State: > get a discount at the faction trader > mine ore without RP penalty > spawn structure without RP penalty On Friendly State: > able to trade with a faction trader > stay in territory (BA or vessel) without RP penalty > harvest plants without RP penalty Player outside hostile territory When you are on HOSTILE stage with a faction you get RP for staying outside their territory until you dropped to UNFRIENDLY. Technical notes: - No reputation loss if opening container/device in any NPC faction POI that is set to 0000 - Actions with a frequency, like "StrucStayinTerritory" will award the pt each 5 realtime minutes (example) - All other: award “on impact/action/collect” (per hit, for example)
2. RIVALRY Factions are not necessarily friends to each other - they might even be rivals. Given the Lore behind those factions, certain actions you as a player (or faction) do in favor or against a faction might lead to your faction standing towards another faction changes. The faction rivalry is also added to the HOVER-Info of the NPC faction Of course, running missions for a faction might rise or drop your faction standing as well.
3. For Creators: setting up POIs for a faction As a creator you can adjust the faction settings of any POI in the game. The territory will be created automatically around these areas then. Where: in .yaml of the playfield: add Faction: <Factionname> Available for <Factionname> at the moment: Zirax, Polaris, Talon, Alien, None, Public* Use the additional parameter "Territory: false" if you do not want to create a territory with this faction building Special Notes: None = this is not a real faction, but a Non-faction to be used with anything you do not want to affect the other factions standing (like for wreckages and co). NONE is also default if no faction entry is added! None also means: - turrets do not work - spawners do not work, no attacks by drones Public = The structure is set to PUBLIC, what means that anyone can change, grind or claim the structure (by placing a core) and of course codelocks and stuff will not work. Public is also not a real "Faction" as well. Same as with "None" there is no standing or interaction in terms of Reputation. > See TemperateStarter (playfield_static.yaml) and SpaceOrbitStarter (space_dynamic.yaml) for more examples!
4. How do PLAYER Factions interact with NPC Factions? First: as soon as you join a faction, your RP with a faction are calculated into the factions. There is not "private" standing vs. any NPC Faction anymore, only the factions standing vs. the NPC factions. Example: 2 Players founding a faction. Player A has a standing of 30.000 with Zirax (Honored) Player B has a standing of 0 with Zirax (Hostile) The Player-Faction that results will have a standing of (30.000+0)/2 = 15000 Player C is joining with a standing of 0 (Hostile) The Player-Faction Standing will result in (15.000+15000+0)/3 = 7.500 Player D joining wit a standing of 30.000 The Player-Faction Standing will result in (30.000+7500+7500+7500)/4 = 13.125 Player A is then killing a Zirax The Player Faction will drop to HOSTILE for all players Player D now leaves the faction. His private standing will then start again on the standing the faction had with the NPC Factions at this point. (You do not "get back" your initial private NPC Standing you might have had BEFORE joining the faction) 5. How does the ORIGIN interact with NPC Factions? It does not interact at all. Scenario Creators CAN set up a NPC-Standing for players that join an ORIGIN. This is basically only the "starting point". The player in an Origin do NOT collect or contribute to the standing of the Origin to any NPC Faction, as there is no mechanic Player Origin vs. NPC Factions yet.
IMPORTANT NOTES - The ALN creatures do not add RP when being killed outside of any faction territory. They are handled like Predators and Prey in this context - A list of all creatures and their faction/group origin (also their effect on turret targeting settings) can be found here: https://empyriononline.com/threads/knowledge-npcs-and-their-factions.47287/
There should be no reputation loss for looking inside an NPC container, add a warning pop up with a tickbox to prevent it to show up again when trying to pick up an item or add a permanent text/colored frame on container inventory depending on faction standing.
I'm sorry, but if you're visiting my house, that doesn't mean I'm happy with you nosing around in my drawers, under my bed, in my trashcan. There must be an initial penalty with opening a container that don't belong to you, that is just normal. And I'd like to see : - an extra penalty for taking items out (depending on item value, say -100 RP for taking a gold ingot) - a bonus for putting items in (but less than if taking the same item out, to encourage "donations" to a faction -- eg. +50 RP for the same gold ingot)
I like the faction system, the way it's currently implemented give is a nice foundation. I don't have criticisms because this system will certainly be expanded in the future. So with that in mind, I have some thought's on where it can go. Regarding the Zirax, it seems they are the "main enemy", no? So if we are to face them everywhere until the endgame, it would be nice to make them more interesting. One way to do that is to borrow from Ai War: the threat/escalation system. No, it doesn't need to be as complex as in that game, but as it stands right now the Zirax are in the game just for the player's amusement and not as an entity on it's own. So for example, when you start the game and crash land. The Zirax would send a "Scout Drone" to the crash site's location, and look around for survivors. If said drone found you, it would just follow you around for some time, evaluating your current capabilities, threat, resources, etc. That's it, no aggressive behavior. As long as the player doesn't shoot the drone, engage in larger scale operations or engage other drones/POI, the Zirax would just send these Scouting Drones from time to time to keep a tab on you. When the Zirax start to feel threatened, they would try to send some drones your way. Not to kill you, or destroy your base. Nope, they would go for your cargo, steal your resources. They would use you as an involuntary "gathering bot". If you fought back, they would send more drones, this time to also hunt you down. If it got to the point where stealing your good is more trouble than it's worth, then the Zirax would send in the grunts. HVs with drone support, light stuff initially, and from there it would escalate in a full war on your for control of the current planet. Roughly, that's what I have in mind for the Zirax faction, and it's interaction with the player. For now at least! XD
Since you are certainly not the first human that Zyrax see, they should rather kill you right after landing, before you get a chance at becoming an actual trouble. Assuming of course that Zyrax are intelligent.
NPCs have no feelings and if the player isn't supposed to see what's inside a container, it should be locked, no problem. Some containers like tanks and some fridges are transparent, we should see what's inside. I accessed a container by accident when I wanted to use the med equipment just next to it, -100. If the player can see inside a container, he get new choices, he could decide to loot or get access through high reputation. If the player find a container filled with gold, it could be worth it to betray his friend, a story for the player.
That is one deep observation, I would never have thought of it... That really changes everything... So you made a keyboard mistake, and now want to remove an entire game mechanics because of it? Which is why I propose the initial penalty for opening the containers, and extra penalties for being shortsighted. Or desperate newbie. Or just greedy. Would also help some players learn some self-restraint, even if they deal with NPCs with no feelings. Yeah, no comment.
Hi, the reputation system seems to be a bit bugged for me. First, when I'm outside of the "unfriendly territory", it does not slowly increase my reputation with them. This post says the threshold is "Unfriendly", but in game the threshold is "Hostile". Second, only negative actions are having consequence. I became unfriendly with the Talon by opening one of their containers, and I went and killed some Zirax to increase my reputatuion with the talon. However, when I killed Zirax, I lost reputation with the Zirax, but did not increase reputation with the Talon. Is this a bug, or is there just something I'm missing?
Loving the system so far with the npc factions, I became friendly with talon, 3 spiders attacked me inside a talon settlement, would be cool if your friendly faction could somehow attack things that attack you. Watching the talon warriors have a good go at the spiders would have been fun Also if the chief of any npc faction could give special missions once you are friendly with a faction and after completing those missions you receive a sort of honorary status that allows you to share their resources (loot the containers) does that sound like an idea ?
Don't Know if this is a bug or not but, I went from Honored to unfriendly with talon and Polaris simply by joining a player faction and I have not been able to increase my rep with Any of the 3 NPC factions since. Playing on the US server starting as a Trader.
You are completely right, and I agree! That's why the first course of action of the Zirax would be sending a scouting drone, to see how much of a threat you are and send the minimum appropriate response. I mean, certainly the Zirax would like to deal with you ASAP, but using a nuke to deal with an ant would also be way overkill and a waste of resources. Not only that, but by having this kind of escalation mechanic (again, having AI War in mind) would mean that you would have a more "personal" and dynamic relationship with the Zirax, instead of just having a rep bar and raiding their stuff. Think of a "progression" system within the Zirax faction. =)
I knew i forgot to explain something For Player factions vs. NPC factions > https://empyriononline.com/threads/a9-npc-factions-and-npc-faction-standing.46787/#post-284866
Reputation GAINS for killing anything doesn't seem to be working. On the official server I've killed spiders raptors those odd things in the water, even Zirax in their home turf,Rep LOSS works fine but im getting nothing for gains Same thing for the US server except there I'm part of a player faction so the loss happens faster >.<
If I was a Zyrax, I would send out 6 drones, engage with two, and if they take serious hits, I engage with all. Using minimum response is not a good strategy if you want to ensure a kill, since the target may just survive the attack and initiate a retaliation before I can send reinforcements, or go totally dark and gather forces that are far more difficult to deal with. It's the same reason that antibiotic treatments must be followed through till the end, to ensure no surviving bacteria remain that can develop resistance. Yet people tend to cut it short when symptoms improve, and it starts looking like a waste of money. Then we end up with superbugs... So I say, kill that lowly human right now! Enough with this weakling and trickster scum!
