StarMade Dev Update: Factions

[schema]

Hi there,
after things were rather slow at the end of the year, I still managed to put some hours in to work on the factions system.

So now it will be in pre-testing for all the testers, since its a delicate system which could contain major bugs.
The reason it took so long was basically because I added more and more (unplanned) features to it while I was making it.
So look forward to:

• 
  fully manageable factions: admins can dynamically assign rights to members depending on their role
• 
  public and private factions: you can freely join public factions
• 
  invitation system: only invited players are allowed to join private factions (invitations are consistent, so the invitation doesn't vanish if the player logs out or the server restarts)
• 
  news posting: faction members (having the permission) can post news to all faction members
• 
  faction chat: chat to only the members of your faction
• 
  faction relationships: declare other factions as an enemy, a friend or neutral
• 
  NPCs: they will use the exact same system to determine their relationship to you
• 
  Factions will actually have more impact in the game than just being a topology of players. More game changing features for factions are in work. stay tuned...

the first dev build is now available for testers!

cheers,
- schema