Heh, I suggested doing Faction/Civilization thing also viewtopic.php?f=5&t=646

I also think that colonies can also be put in the game, where you can try populate an empty planet, if the condition on the planet is right to live in. All the idea you suggested kinda reminds me of Cowboy Bebop and Victoria II.

jimhsu wrote:Would be interesting to introduce genetic algorithms into this (when one faction assimilates another, peacefully or through war, traits of the assimilated faction (alleles) would be bred with the assimilator faction and subsequent units for that faction would inherit those traits). Would be interesting to see what "optimal" faction comes out of that, or whether there even is an "optimal" faction.

I was looking over this thread to see what discussions had already taken place re: factions and the like. However saw this post and thought it was worth chiming in: this is an excellent idea. If Josh really wants to be far reaching with his approach to factions, a genetic algorithm approach would be fascinating.

I work with GAs for the purposes of performing automatic history matching of computer models to actual data. Starting from random seeds, the GA allows you to reach, after a certain number of generations, at least a local maxima, or several local maxima (i.e. best solutions). I could easily see this being done in the background upon game setup in order to create history. The Player can then enter the game after X generations, when there could well be several dominant factions (local maxima) and multiple smaller, less successful but still viable factions.

I think this concept is worth a serious look.

I've been trying to imagine how a player starts a new faction, and the exact mechanics of it. It has led to larger ideas.

If you imagine the scenario in which the player has acquired a fleet of his own ships for his personal use. What is the game mechanic that allows the player to become an admiral of this fleet? In the LT prototype it just appears to be a given - that selecting a ship for a mission means it is AI controlled and trying to achieve the same objective as the player. I wonder if this is how LT proper is going to work? It feels like there's plenty of fertile ground for discussion here.

For instance, you could have faction types. A potential list of faction types would be:

• Private military - you're Blackwater (or Academi as it apparently is now called). The key difference between this and having lots of personal ships is that starting a private military faction allows you to hire NPCs to fly your fleet. A private military faction has no source of income other than the money received from performing missions.
• Corporate - starting a corporate faction (which in effect means starting a corporation) allows you to acquire production facilities. This the way in which you can cultivate a source of income that is self-sustaining, or doesn't need your undivided attention.
• Research - This is how you would go about discovering new techs and creating new blueprints.
• Governmental - Starting a new governmental faction is the way in which you would go about colonising virgin systems on the edges of known space, and how you could start a new civilisation.

This allows you to imagine a game that pans out as follows:

1. Just starting out, the player trades and takes missions and acquires new ships/items for their private collection. They can only be flown by the player, so no fleets.
2. Player forms a private military faction at the seat of government for the faction he is most friendly with. This gives the faction legitimacy and ensures he gets the best paying missions (though could further deteriorate his standing with other factions). He now has a fleet, but also running costs that must be met.
3. Player gets fed up paying $$$ to refit his ships so decides to setup a corporate faction to resupply his private military. This cuts his costs substantially.
4. At this point you're getting powerful, so you'd naturally have enemies. To gain the advantage, you need to development new advanced weapons. You create a new research faction and new corporate faction to produce items from the blueprints that the research faction creates.
5. Ultimately your power is getting to large and your standing with civilisations is suffering as a result. This is driving up your costs and drying up your opportunities. You need to find a more welcoming place... it's time to start a new governmental faction and colonise!
6. Start again!

Note I'm thinking out loud, and not necessary advocating this. However it would allow some really great, but hopefully manageable, gameplay. The one thing that is not obvious is: how do pirates fit in? Should there be a "gang" or "political" type? How would the Liberty Rogues fit this structure?

Thoughts?

Katorone wrote:Instead of assigning strict roles to an AI faction, perhaps it would be enough to assign attitudes to races, factions and NPCs.
A race could have the same attitude overall, different factions belonging to this race would have variations of these stats. Some attitudes might be even on the NPC level (xenophobia?)

Besides these attitudes, NPC should also have a morality. Will they kick a man that's down or help him out?

Attitudes can include:
- Bravery : 0% = Coward / 100% = Captain America
- Aggressiveness : 0% = not inclined to act aggressively / 100% = very aggressive
- Passive: Not the reverse of aggressiveness. How passive someone is influences how quickly they'll take action.
- Technologist: 0% = not inclined to discover new technology / 100% = driven by technology and the will to discover more.
- Protective: 0% = not very concerned about their peers or property / 100% = very protective and loyal to their peers & property
- Xenophobic: % afraid of other races / cultures
- Isolation: % prefered not to deal with other races / cultures, not fear based
- Expansionist
- Swarm: Swarms are inclined to stay close together. Individual NPCs still have free will, but will think of the good of the faction.
- Hive: High hive rating will mean less free thought. Everything they do is for the good of the group. Kamikaze is a valid option for them.
- Neutrality
- ...

Some of these attitudes can also be motivations. Meaning they'd reinforce the inclination of an AI to go up a certain path.
A culture based on expanding that thinks it needs to expand, will expand. The way they do it is determined by their other attitudes.

Most of these attitudes can be linked to ship layouts and combat behaviour too.

I like the idea of holding on to a list of general characteristics. A range of things that each faction can be - all that factor into how dangerous one group is versus another. These characteristics can change and adapt as that faction grows / shrinks / destroys / dies, etc...this will be visible as the data for the faction is being tracked.

But also breaking it down into, as mentioned earlier, groups for specific categorization. Militaristic, Governmental, Technologic... and the sub-categories of these..preferably consisting of 2 levels (for the sake of complexity)

The NPC interaction + multiple interactions shift your relation (as well as other faction's relations) with each other. It doesn't have to be a rigid system. It's constantly changing. Much like your relationship with others, it's all in those details/characteristics. It also helps decide who you want to ally with / destroy.

I'm also against the idea of befriending everyone. Not everyone is going to like you, and that's just a fact you have to deal with. Even if you get to the top of your game. It would be interesting the in the future for multiple factions that dont like you to team up and try to destroy you. Granted you would have to consider each factions relation to the global scale of the game..

I don't want to go on a long-winded talk as I could do this for hours, but I'm interested to hear more of what you guys have to say on this topic as this could really be a fantastic adventure if done correctly.

Legryf wrote: Races, factions and civs are procedurally generated when a new game is created and evolve (expand, explore, conquer or are conquered and even face extinction) as the game progresses.
These races, although random in their placing, tech and even nomeclature each time you create a new game still draw from a set table so you always have Humans, Alien Race 1, Alien Race 2, etc.
Races would either a) have no in game stat/trait bonus or b) have race specific bonus which also impact on Main Character Creation.

Overall, I love the idea of Culture/faction/civilization. It makes wonderful sense. This part (quoted), however I don't like. I think picking from a table is a bad idea in a procedurally generated game. Period (sorry, I don't mean that to sound mean, just I feel a little strongly about it). Fortunately, I think there's a smart way to do procedural civilizations.

Generating a culture/starting civilization
So, to take a page from the history book. The most important thing I learned in history is The environment in which a culture/civilization develops is the primary key to it's development and success. Just look, the most powerful early civilization developed on arid lands new rivers (Nile, Tigris/Euphrates, Ganges to name a couple). Secondly, a culture adapted to meet the challenges of it's territory and surroundings. Egyptians developed irrigation and drainage as a way to manage the flooding of the Nile. I think in LT it makes sense to have cultures/early civilizations to develop according to where they're seeded and the local resources. If one civilization is seeded on a planet with little natural metals, but has a local asteroid belt, perhaps they develop advanced mining techniques earlier. If a civilization is placed close to a number of other civilizations, perhaps they become aggressive so that they can control resources and defend themselves (think early Rome!).

A nice benefit is that this should tie into Josh's Even paradigm very nicely. It's technically simple to predict the trajectory of whatever variables you choose to assign to a culture or civ linearly. For example, it's easy to say "I see that XYZ civilization will be running out of ABC in about QRT time. That culture/civ will then do FGH at that time." You could also insert random events (famine, plenty, flood, drought, etc) as well as random mutations to a culture's personality easily by having a Famine Event or Mutate Event.

Relationship between Culture/Faction/Civilization
This one's definitely tough. Since I like the current suggestions, maybe just a tweak on the conception of them. Let's see if my definition of these terms works, or if my understanding isn't right.

• Culture: A group of people, defined by their genetics and common history.
• Faction: A fiscal entity (e.x. a large corporation or military branch), generally concerned with a limited spectrum of work (e.x. mining, safety respectively).
• Civilization: A political/legislative AND fiscal entity.

Now that I have defined Civilization, it may be helpful to define two types of faction:

• Public or Controlled Faction: A faction directly funded, controlled and managed by a civilization (i.e. military, police, etc.).
Note: A player character would directly control a Public Faction if they were in charge of the corresponding civilization, or perhaps more indirectly by setting a budget and stance (or something like that).
• Private or Uncontrolled Faction A faction funded and controlled independently of a civilization, but still beholden to it's civilization's laws. Such a faction may, given the correct conditions, operate in multiple civilizations.
Note: A player character doesn't control this type of faction (unless president of that faction), even if the faction is part of their civilization.

One final definition:

• Alliance: A group of fiscal entities (factions or civilizations) who either share resources, or co-operate on legal matter depending on the exact nature of the alliance.

One important thing to note is that a civilization will gain bonuses proportional to it's population of cultures. Factions will similarly gain whatever bonuses from the cultures in the civilization(s) it is part.

We can now define start to define some sensible (In my opinion) rules to define combinations of culture, faction and civilization:

• A Culture is required to be part of >0 civilizations.
• A Civilization must have >0 cultures.
• A Faction must be part of >0 civilizations. In the case of pirates (or other independents), the specific faction will be considered as having it's own civ for the purposes of simulation.
• A civilization may acquire a population of a different culture through either hard (military) or soft (economic/political) power.
• A population of two cultures co-existing in a physical location may give rise to a population of a new culture (but both other cultures continue to exist).
• You get the idea...

It seems like a nice, fluid and flexible way of having the relationships work between culture, faction, and civilization (and alliance)

The Problem
Unlike Dwarf Fortress, we only ever see a portion of LT's universe at any one given time. That is, no matter how much we've explored, there are systems, constellations, and regions that simply haven't been generated yet. For that reason, we don't know if there's a new culture, faction of civilization just beyond the current generated edge that could potentially break the current balance of power.

An illustration: Suppose the regions we've generated in a particular game are controlled primarily by a loose alliance of civilizations that thrive peacefully and trade. That is all we know. Now the player travels to a new system and triggers the generation of a new region, which spawns a highly aggressive, very strong civilization. Technically speaking, had we known of this civilization's existence prior to the creation of the old simulation space, this new civ would have been at war with the trade federation for some time. Not only that, but the trade federation may have militarized, solidified into a single government or any number of things. However as it stands, we have mistakenly generated an imbalance in power, opening the chance for the entire balance of power to shift in a matter of a few hours of playtime from the generation of new content.

One potential solution
The idea is to, again, used an idea from the history book. The idea is to adopt the idea of 'sphere of influence'. Instead of randomly spawning a new homeworld in newly discovered space, calculate a 'estimated' number of new civilizations encountered in the new region. After rolling the basic characteristics and letting them develop as I proposed for long enough to weed out the weaker races and local alliances/relations to develop, calculate a sphere of influence for the new races. When you enter the newly created space, you will enter their sphere of influence. In fact, the location of their homeworld (the data for which is saved with the civilization) may not be encounted until a few more regions have been generated. This means that, in our example, the aggressive nation would only have the faintest knowledge of the existence of the originally generated material. In this way, the spheres of influence would blend naturally, and allow the trade federation to react in a natural way to the new relations with the powerful aggressor.

I hope this all makes sense, and I applaud you if you made it through this post without wondering what the heck I'm talking about.

I've been mulling the last few posts over and I've concluded that I think the idea of "culture" is redundant. You'll never see NPCs because the game is played inside a spaceship and you can't get out and walk around bases. Does it matter which culture they are from? All the gameplay aspects that culture may introduce can easily be handled by attributing characteristics to a civilisation and making all NPCs originate from at least one in-game civ.

On the other hand, I think that distinguishing civilisations from factions is a good idea, as is having public factions that are under the control of civilisations. This nicely allows for police forces and navies - which are probably the only ones required. Anything more complicated just wouldn't be visible to the player and adds unnecessary overhead without enhancing gameplay IMO. I doubt it's a co-incidence that these are the only two that made it into Freelancer.

Clearly, if you're having public factions then by extension you also get private ones. This is a nice simplification, though I think we should just bite the bullet and call them corporations. Corporations can then be the umbrella term that covers any type of faction, whether it be for research, military or production. A corporation is defined by what it owns/does without needing a specific classification that the game is aware of.

Thus after some consideration, my proposal would be that you can break the whole thing down into three entities:

• Civilisations, which are governmental entities but also lend NPCs characterstics
• Insitutions that enforce order and are controlled by civilisations; namely the navy and the police
• Corporations that are privately held entities and can be used for research, production or military action.

I reckon these three entities would enable all of the gameplay mechanics we want to see. Note that this still leaves plenty of room for further characterisation of civs along the lines of the early posts in this thread.

If I were to answer my own question from earlier in the thread here - where would Liberty Rogues fit in to such a system? - they would clearly have to be a civilisation with a navy. This makes sense, though perhaps Civilisation is a strong word; the top level could simply be called "Political Entities" to cover such eventualities.

The one area I'd would like to see more discussion over is whether the player should have the freedom to control all of the different factions and faction types that end up in the game. For instance, if you took my proposed factional split, it would be my contention that players should not be able to control civilisations. They can start civilisations through the mechanic I described above - building and populating a colony ship - but once established, I think the civilisation should run be run by the game. Of course your reputation with that civilisation would nearly always be stellar, affording you special tax breaks and the like... but you wouldn't be in direct control.

This would leave the player free to own corporations, take jobs from the Police or Navy or perhaps even enlist and rise up through the ranks. Such an approach would offer extensive in-game freedom, but hopefully may be feasible for Josh to implement in the time he has allotted for himself.

Through exposition and ship design the Homeworld games managed to cram a lot of culture into something you never reeeally see people in. I really admire that.

•Civilisations, which are governmental entities but also lend NPCs characterstics
•Insitutions that enforce order and are controlled by civilisations; namely the navy and the police
•Corporations that are privately held entities and can be used for research, production or military action.

Hmm. Say that civilizations are entities composed of:

• internal ideologies: attitudes (curiosity, aggressiveness, etc.) + high-level goals
• resources: the mineral/vegetable/animal/population of star systems aligned with the civ
• institutions: public factions expressing political, military/police, and economic (production/trade) force

and I'm in.

I do like the idea of private factions, which I'd call "organizations" -- orgs for short -- since they don't have to be just economic. But even for me that might be taking the civ-simulator part of LT a little too far. I certainly wouldn't object to their inclusion; for core gameplay, though, I think defining the active elements of a civ as its public institutions would be enough to support interesting civ-interaction gameplay with a plausible feel.

One other note: the one thing that, more than any other, interests me in defining a civ as a collection of factions is letting those factions have relationships with each other, which change as a result of their own goals as well as through second-order effects of player interactions.

What I mean by this is two things. First, for second-order effects: suppose Org A likes Org B (and vice versa) but hates Org C (and vice versa). You perform some action that increases Org A's positive regard for you. That's a first-order effect; maybe Org A trusts you enough now to give you better missions. But the second-order effects are that Org B also likes you a little more, while Org C likes you less. Your one action has ripple effects that change the structure of the gameworld toward you even though you didn't directly interact with all those other internal elements. This helps the world feel more plausible, but players do need to understand that these indirect effects will have gameplay consequences.

The other feature is something I've taken to calling "multifaction" (a post on my own blog from the days when Star Trek Online was being designed). Multifaction is about making the universe feel more dynamic and alive by allowing internal groups to change how they feel about each other over time without direct input from the player.

As an example, suppose the military and political institutions of a civ like each other ("like" is a crazily oversimplified abstraction, but you get the idea), while the political and economic institutions are at odds. As other actors (individual NPCs or simulated forces) also perform tasks for each faction, all the factions will gain more or less regard for each other. This means it's possible that, over time, two institutions or orgs that don't like each other will come to regard each other positively (or vice versa). As this process happens, it will change how those groups regard you the player. The group that likes you today may decide tomorrow that it's more important to keep their other factional friends happy, and you're no longer on their preferred customer list. Alternately, maybe some group will like you more tomorrow because they've become friendly with a group that does like you today.

One other nice element that multifaction allows is diplomacy as gameplay. If civ groups can have regard for each other, then it's possible to have gameplay mechanics for letting players try to modify how groups feel about each other. Assuming that LT is not meant to be about combat, or combat plus some economic play, including diplomatic gameplay could be a lot of additional fun of a kind that's not often found in games.

...

Which reminds me: all of this discussion depends on what kind of game LT is meant to be. How does the player, and the forces which the player is presumably able to amass, fit in the LT universe? Just how much power can the player have compared to existing (and procedurally generated) civilizations?

Is the point for players to have a powerful ship controlled in first-person perspective? This implies that the point of having a fleet is tactical -- the player's fleet exists only to beat up the fleets of existing civs. In this case, civs and their ships exist only as generators of tactical combat opportunities, and the whole notion of factions is unnecessary.

Or are players expected to be able to interact with civilizations in non-lethal ways, but only up to the point of managing an independent fleet of ships to engage in medium-scale mercenary operations? If so, then public factions are all that are needed for giving the player some reasons to take on different operational targets.

Or is the plan for LT to allow players to actually become so powerful that they can create or take over a civilization (or several) If so, then the gameplay changes from a dogfighter to a fleet tactics simulator to a 4X-like game of galactic domination on a strategic level. In this case, private factions start to make sense -- they're useful for giving the player multiple internal elements that need to be managed in order to achieve the top-level strategic goal (whatever that might be).

...

Again, I feel like we're sort of whistling in the dark here. Without some idea of the high-level gameplay intended for LT, discussing how civilizations might be implemented is fun but probably low-utility.

Oh, and finally -- anyone who enjoys thinking about how civilizations can be understood (either generally or with an eye toward implementing abstracted versions of them in games) seriously needs to grab a copy of Carroll Quigley's The Evolution of Civilizations. It's one of the most phenomenal pieces of analytical art I've ever read, and has made a major contribution to my understanding (such as it is) of human history.

Flatfingers wrote:Again, I feel like we're sort of whistling in the dark here. Without some idea of the high-level gameplay intended for LT, discussing how civilizations might be implemented is fun but probably low-utility.

Yes, I agree; it's difficult to know if these long-winded discussions are helpful or not. Either way, I enjoy the process, even if Josh reads and discards. I get the impression that we're discussing things that aren't locked in stone though. The only "official" mentions I recall seeing in relation to this topic are the Kickstarter promise of "Planetary Ownership" and Josh's statement that all tech comes from a faction in one of his dev logs. Neither of these things contradict any of the ideas in this thread.

Onto the discussion proper.

How about splitting civs into:

• Political elite
• Institutions
• Corporations instituted under the civ

The political elite would control the institutions, but would also be a group you could run into as you fly around the universe. If you ran into a member of the political elite you'd find one heavy cruiser which contained the political player and a large number of elite, die-hard ships protecting him/her - i.e. the Imperial Guard. The political elite have high-level goals intended to extend or protect the power and influence of the civ.

The institutions would be split into however many are necessary. Personally, I think having navies and police forces are enough. Navies governs military action against other organisations, and police forces keep the peace and govern trade.

Corporations are tied to civs, and so fall under the protection of their institutions, but also have to abide by their rules. Otherwise they are independent actors. Corporations are the legal way to trade, conduct research and produce.

You can then encounter/establish unaffiliated groups outside of the civ umbrella. These would include: freelancers (i.e. how the player starts); political activists; terrorist organisations; mercenary groups; you name it. These guys can trade, conduct research, produce go to war... but they are effectively lawless.

This would establish a system much like Freelancer with some nice additional subtleties.

We can now get into the mechanics of how these different groups relate to each other and to the player. I'd be interested to know if the player should be able to join a faction. Joining a faction would be different than having a stellar rep, though that would obviously be a prerequisite of joining. It would unlock different types of missions and opportunities. Joining the political elite of a civ, for instance, may establish how players can control a civ. Joining factions would have serious impacts on your rep with other factions however. There may have to be an "ex-communicate" option to make sure that joining factions isn't a permanent shift in your rep.

Man, the options are endless...

mcsven wrote:The only "official" mentions I recall seeing in relation to this topic are the Kickstarter promise of "Planetary Ownership" and Josh's statement that all tech comes from a faction in one of his dev logs.

In the context of this discussion I would rather refer to the accomplished Kickstarter stretch goal of "Faction Creation and Ownership".

Flatfingers wrote:I do like the idea of private factions, which I'd call "organizations" -- orgs for short -- since they don't have to be just economic. But even for me that might be taking the civ-simulator part of LT a little too far. I certainly wouldn't object to their inclusion;

...

Which reminds me: all of this discussion depends on what kind of game LT is meant to be. How does the player, and the forces which the player is presumably able to amass, fit in the LT universe? Just how much power can the player have compared to existing (and procedurally generated) civilizations?

Is the point for players to have a powerful ship controlled in first-person perspective? This implies that the point of having a fleet is tactical -- the player's fleet exists only to beat up the fleets of existing civs. In this case, civs and their ships exist only as generators of tactical combat opportunities, and the whole notion of factions is unnecessary.

Or are players expected to be able to interact with civilizations in non-lethal ways, but only up to the point of managing an independent fleet of ships to engage in medium-scale mercenary operations? If so, then public factions are all that are needed for giving the player some reasons to take on different operational targets.

Or is the plan for LT to allow players to actually become so powerful that they can create or take over a civilization (or several) If so, then the gameplay changes from a dogfighter to a fleet tactics simulator to a 4X-like game of galactic domination on a strategic level. In this case, private factions start to make sense -- they're useful for giving the player multiple internal elements that need to be managed in order to achieve the top-level strategic goal (whatever that might be).

Well, if I'm not mistaken, then Limit Theory is meant to be each of the kinds of games you mentioned. So the answer to each one of the questions is "yes". See the "Gameplay" and "How will you play?" sections of the main Kickstarter page.

Commander McLane wrote:In the context of this discussion I would rather refer to the accomplished Kickstarter stretch goal of "Faction Creation and Ownership".

Yes, fair comment, that's probably more relevant. The point still holds however, which is that aside from a few small mentions, there's not been much from Josh about how factions will be implemented. So hopefully we're not conducting this discussion in a vacuum.

You raise an interesting follow up point: how are factions to be created and controlled? I've mentioned a few of my own thoughts about this, but let's throw out some ideas.

Civilisations

• Creation: With a colony ship. Colony ships should be expensive, so that players can't be starting civs left and right. Colony ships should be able to do only one thing: settle a planet. Settling would establish the seat of government for the civ, and simultaneously create its institutions.
• Control: Controlling a civ is a tough question. The mechanism and meaning of control is not obvious. The concept I outlined above is that there's an faction within each civ called the "political elite", and that by joining this faction you gain control over the civ (or gain voting rights, or whatever level of complexity it's feasible to support).

Corporations

• Creation: These should be start-able from any planet or major base under a civ's control. Starting a corporation should incur a fee, and clearly the player should be able to name it whatever they want. I didn't mention it above, but it's obvious it's something we should discuss: corporations are subject to taxes. The tax burden on corporations would likely be one of the key distinguishing features between civs, and a key governing factor for the player to consider when choosing where to start their first corporation. You own 100% of the corporation at creation (but can sell interest later?).
• Control: Control of corporations is simply a matter of directing how the facilities owned by the corporation are used.

Unaffiliated organisations

• Creation: I think this is handled by you owning a bunch of ships and hiring NPCs to fly them. This would cover all the different aspects of what you'd want to do with an unaffiliated organisation. An interesting idea would be to decide if you want to be a public or secret head of the organisation. Being secret may allow you to do some interesting things...
• Control: Expressed through the fleet control game mechanics.

Interested in the forum's views on this.

I will read through this later to add my commentary, but from what I've read so far.

What I mean by this is two things. First, for second-order effects: suppose Org A likes Org B (and vice versa) but hates Org C (and vice versa). You perform some action that increases Org A's positive regard for you. That's a first-order effect; maybe Org A trusts you enough now to give you better missions. But the second-order effects are that Org B also likes you a little more, while Org C likes you less. Your one action has ripple effects that change the structure of the gameworld toward you even though you didn't directly interact with all those other internal elements. This helps the world feel more plausible, but players do need to understand that these indirect effects will have gameplay consequences.

The other feature is something I've taken to calling "multifaction" (a post on my own blog from the days when Star Trek Online was being designed). Multifaction is about making the universe feel more dynamic and alive by allowing internal groups to change how they feel about each other over time without direct input from the player.

Yes. Adds realism and allows the game to be dynamic without micromanaging everything. I also think there should & always will be someone out there amassing power to overthrow you, and part of the balance of the game will be not allowing you to get too powerful, or you'll at least have to fight very hard to amass and maintain such power.

JoshParnell wrote:Very interesting ideas, I haven't though much about the "traits" of a faction other than size. What exactly would differentiate a loose gang of mercs versus a large corporate entity is an interesting train of thought...I'm sure there will be a time and a place for a serious discussion on it

Josh mentioned the exact question mulled over in this thread, so perhaps it's time to bump.

It's interesting going back over these posts a few months after writing them; I find that I both agree and disagree with myself!

A thought occurred to me the other day re: factions. When you start Freelancer, you already have a reputation with ALL of the factions in the game, and they are therefore already known to you (even though you haven't actually "met" any of them).

How is LT going to handle this?

For instance, I assume the starting condition will be to know all of the factions that are present at the location where you spawn. From then on, you build up a list of your known factions? It's not obvious to me how this should work.

mcsven wrote:A thought occurred to me the other day re: factions. When you start Freelancer, you already have a reputation with ALL of the factions in the game, and they are therefore already known to you (even though you haven't actually "met" any of them).

How is LT going to handle this?

For instance, I assume the starting condition will be to know all of the factions that are present at the location where you spawn. From then on, you build up a list of your known factions? It's not obvious to me how this should work.

this is bast on what thay no of you and type of civi thay are. and how you meet one of them.