can u send me the info on how u created the faction (my attemps have so far not been sucsesful) and il have a look at the problem.

EDIT: Capt.Harlock is right: it cannot be done. So consider the rest of this post as obsolete


The problem might be caused by one, or more likley a combination, of the following:

a) you did not create a new name for your faction in (but that would not explain why its enemies' names aren't shown) ---> initialworld.ini; ---> your own dll.file

b) you made it's reputation neutral to every other faction, so that it doesn't have enemies (but that would not explain why its own name isn't shown) ---> empathy.ini

c) you made an error in the bribe line, maybe used an incorrect nickname ---> mbases.ini

Should be something like bribe = nf_?_grp, 10000, 16101 , where nf_?_grp is the nickname of your faction.



Edited by - hans olo on 05-07-2003 16:50:03

Edited by - hans olo on 05-07-2003 19:45:12

sorry dewd.. i did everything correct... i added the names actually to the existing dll without no probs..coz they get shown in the system and it appears in the reputation window.. also empathy.ini has been updated with the new factions. (hell that was annoying to do ).. and the bribe line is also correct in mbase.ini .. i tried out the rep and it works fine.. it does make it better for the faction and does make it worse with the enemies.. but they just don't get shown.. do you have any clue from where those variables get taken? Or did you already create a new faction and a bribe for it and it worked? Ok i mean.. if i can't figure it out i'll just make my own custom thing.. but it would be cool to figure out what the problem is..

Damned! I hate to remove my post, but I made a quick check and it seems that the problem you descrive does indeed occur!

The first time i tried to create a new faction, it was sort of a twin brother of The Order, because I wanted the Order to show up in the rep screen, and it's hard-coded not too. So I made a faction also called The Order, which had exactly the same stats as the original Order (except, of course, for the nickname), and was very very close to it, so that the player would always have the same rep with both Orders.

Anyway, this is where I got the impression that you can just use the bribes for your custom factions. But I just looked, and all my bribes mention the original order, not the custom one. And my quick check indeed made it clear thqt my custom faction did not show up.

So, I distributed false info, for which I apologize.

Now, it's time to start searching for a solution. Thanks for bringing this up!!


Edited by - hans olo on 05-07-2003 19:10:52

Edited by - hans olo on 05-07-2003 19:16:54

ok. thanks dewd .. well i completely made them new.. and believe me
that is some hard long editing there ..especially the empathy.ini but anyhow
they are completely new and are not replacing any existing faction. Indeed
actually all the others seem to work coz i had a bribe screen that shows for example. Universal Shipping as the faction to get a better rep.. and one enemy of them.. and then just an empty enemy spot. Which is probably one of my new factions that should be there.. i guess there is no way to make that work. But anyway.. one solution is still to create a complete new info for that with the names in it. Of course it's not the solution i would like.. but hey. it's better than nothing if anyone though still has managed to make a new faction and a working bribe..please let me know..

oh btw.. han .. no need to apologize .. thanks for the help

oh and also..maybe so you all know what i did..

i put the names for my factions in the nameresources.dll there are free tables after the faction names.. so i added them there.. but that's not helping..

even tried to put them into resources.dll but that's not helping either.. i have some feeling they are hardcoded..

Edited by - Capt.Harlock on 05-07-2003 19:18:42

Man, I'm sorry for declaring that it can be done. Seems you are right - it can't, at least not the easy way. This sucks!

There might still be some ini file I have overlooked, but I fear this problem has to do with how the game works, and I wouldn't know where to look. Indeed, let's hope someone with the know-how, will find the solution.

Capt.Harlock wrote "one solution is still to create a complete new info for that with the names in it "

Yes... that is a solution, but it removes the interactive part. And part of the faction fun is that there is a shift in who are best friends and worst enemies.

On a side note: this is not as flexible as I imagined at first. I think it's not possible to make a faction make loving two sworn enemies; you cannot make a faction be good friends with, for example, both the Red Hessians and the Corsairs. At least, that's my guess. I had a couple of desktop crashes when I tried this. The game probably found out that a potential conflict existed: what if
this faction would be witness to a war between the Corsairs and the Hessians? On whose side should iot be? I would say: neutral, but the game simply crashed to desktop.

Capt.Harlock wrote "i have some feeling they are hardcoded.. "

I don't think the faction names are hard coded, but the routine to get the contents of the bribe variables probably is, and I fear the limitation is in this routine.

Anything I can say about this, is pure speculation, and the last time I was into programming was years ago,before the Windows era. And this was Q-basic. lol!

But, suppose that the game will only proces a fixed number of factions? I believe there are 55; maybe it will just stop looking for a name after that? That would be very uncool, but this problem *is* very uncool.

Another solution might be somewhere in how the fations are initilaized. I assumed this was done in initialworld.ini, but maybe this is not the whole deal.



Edited by - hans olo on 05-07-2003 19:36:47

Take a look at \DATA\RANDOMMISSIONS\vignetteparams.ini

I have no time now to analyze what this file exactky does, but it is about factions, and there are parameters like Offer_group and offer_text.

this file seems to define parts of jobs you can take.. like for example the messages you get while doing a job and stuff.. haven't found anything interesting in it....but i might be wrong..

Edited by - Capt.Harlock on 05-07-2003 20:04:25

Yeah, you're right (I couldn't resist to look around a bit longer ) Well, I fear the solution is not in an ini-file then.

well..we tried ..hey..atleast you can still ad a own infocard ..so we're not completely screwed

Capt.Harlock wrote "so we're not completely screwed"

That's true, could have been worse; we'll just have to make some custom bribes, either generic or specific, that don't use the faction variables. We can still use the amount-of-credits.

Except for this bribe problem, you can make your faction do everything that a normal faction does. Although I haven't yet looked into how the random missions are done... This bribe thing shows that there apparently can be some unexpected limitations to what we can mod, so I guess it's smart to expect nothing and hope for everything

*looks at Zen's Ship Building Tutorial. Noices something. Opens freelancer.ini. Sees

[Resources
DLL = OfferBribeResources.dll ; Contains random mission offers and bribes

Opens it in Resource Hacker. Notices TONS of names and the like.*

Perhaps this DLL file has something to do with your new faction not showing up. I really don't know right now...

You might have a point... I looked briefly into this file earlier, but dimissed it; thought that it was about texts used in SP. But indeed String Tables 63 - 85 contain faction names, some factions more than once...

Now we must investigate how this could be connected to a bribe... But I am going to sleep now; it's 1:20 AM here.