Bobs scripting woes

[TheBob]

I'm not quite sure why I thought a ship might work better than a cargo container. Mostly because I could spawn a ship when landed, I guess, but of course it doesn't change the fact that the thing keeps falling through the floor... I take it LANDED state and its advantages can only apply to the player, and there's no way to force an AI ship into it?

[FluffyFreak]

Actually I'm starting to think there's also a bug with things falling through the floor ;)

In support of this observation I have just bounced along under the surface of Venus at over 6km/s :D

[TheBob]

I can absolutely see the problem with surface collision and time acceleration. As long as the vessel isn't held in place artificially, there's just too high a chance of it slipping. Let's not forget that the terrain is only precisely calculated in the players vicinity, so a ship on the other side of the planet simply doesn't have anything to physicaly stand on.

But to be able to force them in the landed state would be quite nice. For my purposes, anyways.

Besides that, every spacesim seems to have its surface collision prblems. Pioneer swallows you whole, Orbiter launches you into space at the speed of light... :lol:

[FluffyFreak]

We used to have the speed of light problem too :) but only with certain Visual Studio compiler options apparently :S screwy machines.

I did write an alternative method some time ago for another branch as I couldn't use the current method. It generated a mesh equivalent to the highest detail level in a small area and then did a mesh collision against that. Might be worth me digging that out or recreating it to solve the problem.

Sorry, gone a bit off topic.

[TheBob]

I'll need a few more functions to make these surveys actually fun... otherwise it's just "go land on planet and return", with the possibility of a shootout involved. There's just not much more that can currently be done with the limited means of communication and interaction with the game world.

So I thought about taking a look at the factions. Nice Autogenerate, lends itself very well to extension. However, It seems like someone forgot to provide a call like Game.GetFactions() or somesuch, so we could actually have access to existing factions via script. Maybe I just don't see how to do it, but currently it would seem as if there is no way to get a list of the existing factions, is that correct?

[FluffyFreak]

I just didn't add the faction functions, partly because I didn't know what people would want to have.
If you tell me what would be helpful to have, and what you'd use it for, then we can work out how best to do it and I'll implement them :)

Also some of the autogenerating stuff was done by another guy (can't recall his name now), I'm not sure it's what we really want but it's what we've currently got!

[Luomu]

some of the autogenerating stuff was done by another guy (can't recall his name now)

Stefan Kapusniak. MIA.

[TheBob]

Also some of the autogenerating stuff was done by another guy (can't recall his name now), I'm not sure it's what we really want but it's what we've currently got!

Oh, it pretty much hits my style, is all. The more procedural, the merrier...

I just didn't add the faction functions, partly because I didn't know what people would want to have.
If you tell me what would be helpful to have, and what you'd use it for, then we can work out how best to do it and I'll implement them :)

Ok, the plan would look something like this:

Bare Bones:
At the heart, a faction relation matrix that notes faction relations among each other. Can be done in LUA, but needs access to the complete faction list
A simple baseline diplomatic model, that changes faction relations over time. Code gets called periodically, can be done in LUA.
Additional faction attributes for average techlevel, Industrial strength and Military strength and... Moneys! Probably could be added in LUA.
Additional faction attribute containing a list of ship types serving in the military/police of the faction, same as above.
Player relation to factions (player must be part of a faction if game started there, or can be independant if starts in independant system).
Faction behavior towards player is influenced by faction relations, agreements, treaties, etc. Might be temporarily impossible for player to trade legally with a faction, or there might be tarifs. Would need calls to set the behavior of starports towards the player.
Different faction relations enable different missions for mercenary type characters. Tense relations or Cold-War scenarios can lead to spy, reconaisance and assasination missions in the other faction territory.
All-out war might enable anything from seek-and-destroy, blockade running, supply drops, etc.

Nice to have:
Faction attribute (persistent character) for faction leader and other important people in the faction.
Function to override procedurally determined faction of a system and giving it to another faction. Enables all kinds of fun stuff like conquests, dissidents, territory exchange for peace treaties, etc.

I haven't quite got a grasp of how the savegame system works. The major change would be that faction properties must be saveable and loadable. As far as I can see, it would be no problem for a script to add the additional attributes to a faction without having them hardcoded, as it is done with Character skills, Player statistics, mission parameters etc. In that case, the only thing needed would be to make faction data part of the savegame and provide a function to access the complete faction list. The toughest part would probably be making calls so a script can set the precise behavior of a station/starport towards the player (doesn't let him land, doesn't let him trade, shoots him on sight, taxes the beejeezuz out of him... wait, the two last ones could be done by script already. It's the integration with actual starport functions that is the problem)

So, to summarize the wishlist in a format that's easier to look up and reference:
1. Make Factions saveable entities
2. Provide access to complete faction list
3. Provide calls to deny starport functions to player (landing and trading most notably, could also include denying billboard access)
4. enable possibility to manually set faction of individual systems

I think that's about what's neccesary from the core side. This setup would open countless possibilities for Mods to do with factions what they want. It would also provide the opportunity to steer faction relations in a scripted story campaign if anyone should ever want to do one.

The player can be held up to date about the political developments by... TEH RETURN OF TEH NEWSPAPERS!!!

Seriously, it's probably the one reason why I always liked FFE better than Frontier. Always wished they were as procedural as the Galaxy, not pre-scripted...

[FluffyFreak]

I'll need a few more functions to make these surveys actually fun... otherwise it's just "go land on planet and return", with the possibility of a shootout involved. There's just not much more that can currently be done with the limited means of communication and interaction with the game world.

Oh and feel free to suggest the things you'd like to know more about, they might already exist or they might not but if you don't suggest them then we won't know to add them ;)

[TheBob]

Oh and feel free to suggest the things you'd like to know more about, they might already exist or they might not but if you don't suggest them then we won't know to add them ;)

You'll find the most important one already on the issues list. And, as I later noticed, you'll find it twice. Looks like I already requested it the last time I tried my hands on Pioneer, shortly before my life got all crazy. I thought about adding one for landable AI ships, but there already is an issue for that, so I just added my support to it... Maybe someday somebody will get around to it.

I was sorely tempted to peak into the source code myself last night... But I just can't afford that kind of commitment at the moment. It would drive me crazy...