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Joining factions?

The general place to discuss MOD''ing Freelancer!

Post Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:07 am

Joining factions?

I've had an idea lingering in my mind for a while now and I just gotta get it out.

I don't know if it's possible at all or how much effort it would take to program this mod but here's the idea anyway:

Joining factions. A guy in the bar at the factions homeplanet/base. Talk to him about joining and he will tell you what you need. First you must have one of their ships and only their weapons. When you do he gives you an initiation mission. Finish the mission and return to him, you are now a member of the faction and he will give you a few special missions. When you’ve finished them you will get the chance to buy a ‘special’ ship, until you leave the faction again.
If you leave a faction with their special ship they will give you a set time to change ships, if this time expires, the faction, its allies and its enemies will go hostile until you change ships.

When you have joined a faction your reputation will be locked. The factions enemies are your enemies and its allies are your allies.
If you shoot down too many ships from your faction or allies you will be kicked out of the faction and all your friendlies will turn to hostiles and your hostiles will STAY hostile. If you change ship or weapons to another brand when you are a member of a faction you will get kicked out for not showing respect.
If you want out go talk to the same guy that let you in. When leaving a faction this peaceful way the friendlies will drop down to just above neutral and the hostiles will go up to just beneath neutral.
Note that some factions might not approve of you leaving and kick you out of the base and turn hostile instead of just above neutral.

Is this, or something close to it, possible to program at all?



Edited by - Dugge Dank on 3/22/2004 1:18:43 AM

Post Sun Mar 21, 2004 12:57 pm

hmm
Why haven't anyone said anything?

If someone has asked this already then you could at least point me to that thread? I can't find anything anywhere...

Please?

Post Mon Mar 22, 2004 12:30 am

one you probably couldn't do all that without touching the exe and that is bad. (refer to the 'your rights as a modder' thread for details) second is ideas strangely enough are ussally laughed at or looked down on in forums like this (no offence ment to anyone what so ever... It's just true ok?) most people will tell you if you have an Idea go and learn everything and make it a reality or not. if not that then you'll probalby be ignored.

That's not my opinion. I think some people have time/energy/desire/other to learn a specific set of skills and not another. So I would help but it's far above my capasity to mod. but hey you might just get lucky.

Smile for today you live, tomarrow the clowns will eat you.

Post Mon Mar 22, 2004 1:13 am

Thank you for showing me that I'm not invisible!

Yeah, I know you can't touch the exe, but I thought that it might be possible to alter the "bribe" function so that it does what I had in mind. I would be happy if I managed to do the reputation thing, the ships and missions and all that is less important.
I found an old, old thread in the tutorial forum where this very idea was mentioned. But no one ever said anything more about it.

Oh well, I know that I have to learn how to mod myself, and make this mod myself. But I just don't know where the hell to start! I guess that if I post some questions in a few newbie forums I might get some answers.

I'll keep asking and hoping. All you people can't ignore me forever can you!?

Post Mon Mar 22, 2004 3:25 am

The idea is intruiging...Maby there is a way to do some of the stuff without touching the exe. I'm no expert FL modder (the only thing I made are 3 new ships, a system and some other modifications), but there are some around here.
Too bad they allmost never show up (Hell, on the HLP forums{Freespace2} you allways get tons of feedback and help...comunity is as solid as rock)

Post Mon Mar 22, 2004 10:24 am

"All you people can't ignore me forever can you!?" - Well, I could give it a go...

There simply isn't the functionality in regualr FL to do what you're suggesting. However, a lot of it would be possible using the single player missions where you could use the scripting commands.

p.s. I answered your question about locking factions here

Post Mon Mar 22, 2004 10:56 am

The single player scripting commands?

This mod is mainly for myself and I play single player, so I would like to hear more about this. Can I read about it somewhere?

Post Mon Mar 22, 2004 11:59 am

Good idea... i dont know how to do it though...have never seen it any other mod either...

TommY out

Movin' in for the kill

Post Wed Mar 24, 2004 12:58 am

This thread isn't very interesting to you hardcore modders it seems...
Ah well, I won't give up!

I'm thinking of a few different ways to make my mod possible:

a.
Lock the reputation changes from killing things (removing the freelancing option). Everyone is neutral until you “join” a faction. Joining is done with a fixed bribe conversation. When “joining” them, your reputation is set to their enemies/allies/neutrals. Only friendly factions sell/buy things, except for the Zoners. Make it impossible to do anything but fly around when everyone is neutral.
This way forces you to join a faction if you want to play the game. Without being a member of a faction you can’t sell/buy/get missions, only fly around and destroy ships. This way is open to abuse though. Join a faction – buy a ship and weapons – leave the faction – fly around and kill everything without any worries of reputation changes – join a faction – sell all those guns you’ve picked up. Setting a limit on how many guns and ammo your ship can carry limits this abuse.
But there is always the option of attacking targets that are neutral to you while a member of a faction, there should be a way to punish such “neutral-bashing”.

b.
Leave the reputation changes from killing things alone (keeping the option to freelance). When you are friendly with a faction you can “join” them. Joining is done with a fixed bribe conversation. When “joining” them, your reputation is set to their enemies/allies/neutrals. Since the reputation changes still apply you must return to the guy in the bar if you want your reputation to stay with the faction’s. Only friendly factions sell/buy things, except for the Zoners.
This way gives you the chance to both freelance and join factions. The joining of factions might get a bit strange though when you must go to the guy in the bar to “reset” your reputation now and then. “Neutral-bashing” is possible here as well because you can repeatedly attack neutral targets and then go back to “reset” your reputation. A good thing with this way is that I can make it possible to be kicked out of a faction. And it is possible to make reputation changes when leaving factions. For example: The Bounty Hunters would be very interested in a criminal that leaves his gang, maybe he can be convinced to become a hunter himself. Another funny thing would be to make some gangs hate you for trying to leave them and so you must escape all the way from their home-base/world to safety.

c.
Like option ‘b’ but with these changes: While a member of a faction, lock the reputation changes. When leaving the faction unlock it again. This is probably the best way to accomplish my Mod, but I fear that it is not possible to edit the .ini files while still in the game. And the .ini file is probably only loaded on start-up so it wouldn’t matter if it was changed in-game.

As you can see I'm relying heavily on the edit the Bribe function. If that isn't possible, I'll probably have to scrap the idea.

I did find a little something about bribes here and there on the forums but they don't really answer my questions. Obviously the bribe function stretches into the .dll files. And it doesn't seem like I can do what I want to. But I'm still hoping...

Can someone clear things up for me?

Post Wed Mar 24, 2004 10:39 am

Option a seems like the best one to me. You could make it difficult to just switch factions whenever you want, so you have to think about what you do, much like a serious career choice. Option b is virtually the game as it is now if you distil it to its essence. And you're right, option c isn't possible, unless you're willing to come out of the game, change ini files and go back in each time you join or leave a faction.

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't"

Post Wed Mar 24, 2004 10:50 am

Make it so that killing some poeple will make you be disliked by their friends, but NOT liked by their enemies instead.

Doing missions will only be against enemies, so it won't matter...........at all

Killing chums will result in eventually you being hated by everyone...........oh dear.

There may be issues with this, but what the heck - suggestions are just to put ideas into your head to help ya

Post Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:28 pm

Since I got two replies with no mention of the Bribing I take it that altering a bribe so it chanes your reputation completely is possible. Then I just need some help learning how to make a custom bribe. Remember that this bribe would change the reputation of every single faction in the game. Not just three or four like any other bribe. So please, is it's not possible, tell me before I get to far into my idea.

@ Darkstone:
Yes, I'm having trouble choosing which one of A and B would be best.
When I think about it...
Say I lock all reputation changes. Add in the "only sell to friendlies" option. Add those "super-bribes" on the homebases of the factions. Move around the ships so that they are sold at the correct bases (bloodhound being sold by rogues not junkers for example). Make the spare weapons and ammo you are carrying take up cargospace (can't understand why they didn't do that from the beginning).
With this setup I can still add the "Corsairs don't like you leaving them, while the Bounty Hunters would be very interested" function. And some other ideas my sick brain is thinking about.
Yes, I agree with you now! I was more into option B from the beginning but now I see how option A can work out great! Thank you

EDIT: CRAP! I just realized that I can't make factions not offering you to join them until they are friendly if I go with this way. I wonder if that can be fixed in any other way........

@ Chips:

Make it so that killing some people will make you be "disliked" by their friends, but "NOT liked" by their enemies instead.

You're contradicting yourself here, what do you mean? Or are you being sarcastic? Aow I hate the internet in these situations...
Yes, I now that the missions will loose some effect. They will still level you up though and with your level up you are forced to change factions to get the new ships and weapons. But when you've reached lvl 38 and have explored 90% of the universe, the random missions don't do anything for you anyways.
It was when I got to that point I got the idea of actually making it possible to join a faction. In the original game you can decide to "ally" with, say the Mollys, and kill Bounty Hunters, Bretonian Military and Bretonian Police. But what happens when you do this? You end up having enemies in Liberty just because they are allied with the Bretonians. But I'm a Molly you think, I'm only terrorizing the Bretoninans, not you Libertians! That's where my mod kicks in to make a difference! With the reputation locked you can kill as many Bretonians you want, and the Molly membership would effectively stop the Liberty police from interfering, those Irish are Great Britains problem after all, why would the United States care about them? The same applies if you are a Liberty cop, you would only hunt the larger and local criminal organisations.

It's my way to try getting that little extra out of the game. Does it make any sense?

And, flying around killing everyone will make everyone hate you in the original freelancer as well, just try it and you'll see.

Now I ask again. Is it possible to make a custom bribe? To make it affect every single faction in the game? All I need before I can start modding is to know wether the bribe functions is possible or not.



Edited by - Dugge Dank on 3/24/2004 2:12:36 PM

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