Faction Packs for Community Content

[Panpiper]

The NPC ships that are currently and likely going to be in the near future, included in the faction update, are not combat monsters by any stretch, they are in fact quite weak by most standards. This is perhaps necessary for a new player's single player game, as it is a long learning curve towards being able to build truly effective ships. However once that mountain has been climbed, the standard, frankly very wimpy ships currently being used in game offer absolutely zero challenge whatsoever. To remedy this, I would very much like to see...

Faction Packs, available in Community Content. These would be everything that is necessary to define not just the ships of a faction, but the faction's behavior as well. It would be a bundle which would include the blueprints for that faction's ships. In addition there would be a separate XML file which would define whatever characteristics the developers have created to dictate the in game behavior of the NPC factions..

The game client would need a feature to allow importing Faction Packs. A player would download and then import whichever factions they felt would create the game experience they desire. That done, next time they create a new world, those factions would be active in the game. (A provision of course would need to be made to deactivate any of them as well.) One player might simply enjoy the look of other regular and tame NPC factions and simply desire to encounter them in an otherwise normal game. Others seeking a much greater challenge might import The Reavers, The Berserkers and The Shadows, into their game and desperately try to survive the ensuing onslaught.

 

[Reilly Reese]

I've already been assembling a faction pack. Have a good sized fleet and such for them.


Just need to build a station. >_>

 

[jayman38]

I think even faction packs might not be "ambitious enough" to maintain challenge in a dynamic way. There has always been a subtle interest in modular ship-building, to allow pirates (or any other faction) to cobble together templates into bigger, more powerful ships. It might be ugly, but it would be a dynamic way to present challenge up until the player generates a server-breaking titan.

Another problem I have with increasingly difficult pirates, including modular cobbling, is "how to protect lesser players" from bigger players that spawn in heavy enemies, and then leave, leaving the lesser player to try to deal with an overwhelming challenge and being beaten. I can't think of any solution other than an admin running interference.

On the other suggestion, I really like the idea of a data file that defines behavior to match the "fleet".

Faction packs will likely be a necessary element of Starmade if Schine wanted to give it a singleplayer-style "storyline" or at least a solid lore base with established factions that look and behave a certain way.

 

[MacThule]

This would be good. Community content section needs expansion in general. A new player doesn't even know what he's looking for or what ratings really mean, and a pretty ship might be rated very highly but have zero functional capabilities. It would be nice if ship functionality, style, etc, could all be separately rated to give potential downloaders more information in a structured way.

 

[philthy mcnasty]

A faction config menu would be great as well. It would give everyone an easy means to make custom factions and update them when new ships come out.

Also, a means to reskin faction NPCs. We have too many good starwars and star trek skins to not reskin the factions in this game.

 

[jayman38]

Yeah, it's almost a given that faction pack XML would include reskinning the NPC astronauts and maybe even adding any kind of "jitters", movement speed, and any other behavior modifiers to NPC astronaut movement.

As for updating faction XMLs, I wonder if it would be possible to somehow reload a new XML file into the game without having to restart the server. That would help.