Factions - writing and background discussion

[bszlrd]

Started from Evachart's thread about facegen, to avoid derailing it.
So let's start thinking about about the fiction on the factions of pioneer. I based my thoughts on the story article on the wiki, but that's quite sketchy, and there are points I think we should think trough.
The basic three factions (SolFed, CIW and Haber are a good basis in my opinion, but they need a bit of flesh.
I'm imagining SolFed as a pushy, centralized imperialistic faction. Democratic but not so democratic. Somewhat rigid and hierarchical. It matters a lot who you know if you want to progress in career. Slavery is illegal. There's quite a room for individuality if you don't try to push the boundaries too heavy. There's a certain distrust for outsiders, but only on a level that doesn't hamper the expansionist attitude.
Military service is professional. No mandatory training.

CIW is more keen on freedom (especially it's own), more decentralized, but tight alliance of systems. Less rigid then SolFed and less dependent on networking for advancement. Slavery is illegal. Lot of room for individuality until it's destructive to the faction. Quite open to outsiders, with a grain of distrust the visitor needs to prove trough, but very open after that.
Military service is professional. Extensive training is mandatory for every citizen at a you age, and everybody could be conscripted if needed (except for certain important professions (like locomotive drivers in the old times).

Haber in my mind is a very hierarchical, rigid, bureaucratic corporate faction. Everybody is an employee with clear boundaries (but not necessarily clear rights and requirements) assigned at young age. This assignment procedure is based on the capabilities, aptitudes, temperament, talents and such, at a young age. People are more like a HR question. There's no real slavery there, because people are already assigned with little hope for change or advancement. Not much room for individuality.
Outsiders are generally distrusted and handled in a quite official tone. Contact to outsiders are controlled and limited for the general population. Heavy on propaganda, but in the tone of office communiques and motivational posters and such.
Military is a branch of the corporation, force is made of assigned people. A very basic military training is mandatory for every citizen, and it's mostly about hierarchy and order taking with only a little actual military training. The actual military is trained extensively, to almost a brainwashed level.

At least this is where my thoughts are right now.

I agree that it would be nice to have an imperial faction. I think we were thinking/discussing it a while ago, but can't really recall. I think using the roman empire as a basis would be good, but it seems to be a common ground for fictional empires already. Maybe we could mix it with the old Chinese empire and some communist dictatures. Heavy on bureaucracy, propaganda, heavy emphasis on patriotism. Clear-cut levels in the society with predefined ways to go up or down. And the lowest level is slavery. But you can climb up from there too, even if it's very hard to do so. And you can also fall to that level, especially if you are a criminal (and/or outsider, if you are not cautious enough) There are some room for individuality, but with quite clear boundaries (depending on your social status) and equally clear repercussions if you cross them.
Serving in the military is a thing to be proud of, and comes with a lots of upsides and rewards. The military is professional, and you need to qualify to be able to enter (and there's always more applicants then workplaces there).

[Evarchart]

Juicy. I like this a lot.

[impaktor]

I think using the roman empire as a basis would be good, but it seems to be a common ground for fictional empires already. Maybe we could mix it with the old Chinese empire and some communist dictatures.

Oh, the uniforms could have tons of medals, and giant hats, like Russian and Chinese military ;-). Or just look a bit sinister in some way.

Just to "zoom out" a bit, the way I imagine it is that one would want factions with the following qualities (or similar):

Faction A.
Democratic, freedom, not particularly aggressive. I'm thinking UN/Starfleet in Star Trek, or Federation in FFE. From what I understand it CID would be the closest to this. Perhaps too naive of me to have "super good guys" like Starfleet?

Faction B.
Dictatorship, slavery legal, militaristic/nationalistic, aggressive, service to the emperor is key. Can be modeled on Rome, China, WW2 Japan, or third Reich (say what you will, but those Hugo Boss designed Nazi uniforms looked pretty rad), for instance, and maybe similar to the Emnpire in FFE. So this isn't Haber exactly, I guess, but maybe our current "Red" faction (which is just a place holder name, I guess) which has a lot of slavery.

Faction C
Some kind of lose union/alliance of independent systems. Maybe just coordinated military alliance to better defend themselves from the expansionistic factions.

So, SolFed would be somewhere between Faction A&B, and Haber would be similar to Faction B.

Well, that was what was in my head. I think we all imagine the factions a bit different.

Since Evarchart was interested in factions, here is an IRC discussion from January, which might be of interest to him, especially the link nozmajner posted there.

Code: Select all

[Thu Jan 29 2014]
<impaktor> About factions: I don't think Elite/Frontier have monopoly or the
           rights to having some Empire modelled after the Roman empire. This
           is something I'd like to see. Federation puts its citizens and
           their freedom first, while the empire puts the awesomeness of their
           empire first.   [10:36]
<nozmajner> Federation is not that democratic actually
<nozmajner> at least based on the wiki
<impaktor> In pioneer? Or elite? Or star trek?
<nozmajner> in Pioneer
<impaktor> Hm, so Earth is a shit hole, and freedom seekers leave the Fed to
           establish some colony.   [10:37]
<impaktor> or faction.
<nozmajner> something like that
<nozmajner> but I have to reread the story, and it needs some organization
            too, it's not a too good read right now  [10:38]
<nozmajner> "Cloak and Dagger: Solar Federation doesn't officially worry about
            all the independents out there. Unofficially, it wants to rule
            everyone."
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<impaktor> I guess it's the wiki outline isn't written in stone, and can be
           changed, if we decide the direction is wrong?  [10:42]
<nozmajner> I think so
<nozmajner> I like the more proud and pretentious solfed idea  [10:43]
<nozmajner> and CIW as a paranoid freedom proponent  [10:44]
<robn> yeah, the stuff on the wiki is not settled  [10:51]
<robn> its a good start, but its all up for grabs
<nozmajner> Maybe it would be a good idea to cut it back to the basics there,
            nad build up a more orgaized article on top of that using the
            current article  [10:52]
<robn> works for me
<impaktor> What will be the definition of a faction? Should it span several
           systems? Have military (missions)?  [10:53]
<impaktor> that might be a starting point, since it's not clear to me at
           least.  [10:54]
<robn> I think not necessarily several systems (though single-system would
       probably be a special case), and a proper military
<robn> political influence and the strength to back it up
<robn> though I'd expect to see corporations etc with private security, but
       less politically inclined I guess  [10:55]
<robn> I don't know exactly
<impaktor> So will there be independent systems belonging to no faction at
           all, or will they belong to _one_ "independent faction"?
<nozmajner> There could be sub-factions, related to the main faction, with a
            level of independency
<impaktor> Sounds like an extra level of complexity.   [10:56]
<robn> independent will be word for "no allegiance". ie the default
<impaktor> How would one notice these sub factions?
<robn> something like CIS is a broader political thing  [10:57]
<nozmajner> CIS military could be a subfaction
<robn> a sub faction might be more like a treaty? independent, but the feds
       will defend them if necessary
<nozmajner> something like that  [10:58]
<nozmajner> the ship manufacturers could be subfaction too
<robn> also might be a military system. like a secret weapons development
       planet
<impaktor> Will this be noticeable for the player?
<robn> so might not have the normal faction trade rules, but will call in the
       faction military if you pick a fight
<nozmajner> is the current faction system noticable? Apart from the colors on
            the map  [10:59]
<robn> nozmajner: ship manufacturers might be specific to a faction then?
<robn> I imagined that some might be independent, operate everywhere
<robn> I suppose that's an option too
<robn> nozmajner: no. I think its exposed to the lua environment somewhere,
       but nothing uses it
<robn> its a mess. I do not like its implementation at all.
<impaktor> (Different factions have different newspapers in my news event)
                                                                        [11:00]
<nozmajner> an idea about factions, subfactions:  [11:42]
<nozmajner>
            https://www.evernote.com/shard/s12/sh/1c5243d9-576c-4734-b46a-6919ef84b191/fa032d0dbc8775262d739def174e2e2d
<jameson> [ Factions ]
<impaktor> I might be daft, but I don't get how a faction's
           police/trade/military are sub factions? Feels like they are just
           the factions police/military/etc.  [11:45]
<nozmajner> yes, but they do different things
<nozmajner> Military =/= government
<nozmajner> and there's quite much rivalry among us Navy and Air Force as I
            heard  [11:46]
<impaktor> I imagined a sub faction to have it's own worlds etc? Kind of like
           southern states of US could be a sub faction of USA.
<robn> it makes sense to me.
<nozmajner> could have, but not necesseraly
<impaktor> I still fail to see the point.
<nozmajner> a military won't have it's own systems or planets, but could have
            bases on several system  [11:47]
<nozmajner> same for a trade company or a manufacturer
<robn> nozmajner: actually a military could have its own systems/planets
<nozmajner> but the systems that are SolFed for example, but not closely
            related would have their own systems, planets and bases, with some
            SolFed military bases for example  [11:48]
<robn> though I'm inclined to thing that a system has an overall allegiance
       (ie solfed/ciw/haber/none), and then each base has an associated
       faction  [11:49]
<nozmajner> robn: I would imagine that would be quite rare
<impaktor> OK so NATO has forces on Iceland for instance. Thus Icleand is a
           sub faction
<robn> which isn't necessarily the overall system allegiance. could have a
       haber spy base in a solfed system
<nozmajner> Iceland is a subfaction which has NATO (another subfaction)
            presence on it's territory
<robn> impaktor: Iceland is a planet.  [11:50]
<robn> nozmajner: yes, quite rare.
<impaktor> For placing military missions, it might be useful to have some
           parameter saying how strong the military presence is on that star
           port, like in Frontier, both Fed and Empire had some very strong
           connectivity between two worlds, making it easier to gain rank by
           delivering secret documents. or?  [11:52]
<nozmajner> for example  [11:53]
<impaktor> Is a faction just the sum of its sub factions?
<nozmajner> each subfaction could have  a parameter for it's presence in the
            system
<nozmajner> not just a sum, but an umbrella organization  [11:54]
<nozmajner> but I indended this as a seed of tought :)  [11:55]
<robn> nozmajner: this makes complete sense to me, fwiw :)
<impaktor> Well, if robn sees some way of coding this, who am I to object.
                                                                        [11:56]
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<robn> its just a list of factions grouped by a broader allegiance. or if you
       want to have sub-sub-factions, its a tree.  [11:57]
<robn> neither a big deal.
<impaktor> I just thought it seems over complicated. Seeing how we hardly
           notice factions now, how are we going to notice something which is
           even finer grained.
<robn> impaktor: you don't notice factions now because they don't exist except
       for colours on the map
<robn> they don't do anything at all.
<impaktor> yet
<impaktor> :)
<robn> exactly. and that's why you don't notice them  [11:58]
<robn> I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
<nozmajner> and subfactions could compete with each other, like trade firms
<impaktor> Should independent factions only have on world or one system? Some
           faction having only two systems would not be independent?  [11:59]
<nozmajner> so if you are part of say Joe's traders, then Sara's haulers won't
            shoot you, but if they let you land, then their prices would be
            quite worse then on another station  [12:00]
<nozmajner> I think independent should mean single systems. If two systems
            enter into a closer relationship, then it's a faction already
                                                                        [12:01]
<impaktor> ok
<impaktor> I was thinking that there should be a limited number of "main"
           factions, i.e. the big players, where you can do a military career,
           so a two system faction would not have a military.   [12:03]
<nozmajner> agree
<impaktor> ... but still be a faction I guess, with some nice logo, name,
           police force, etc.
<robn> maybe. though their police might be a private security firm  [12:04]
<nozmajner> logo is a bit problematic, but I want to think about ways to
            generate those
<robn> independents can have that too. random independent government is still
       going to have a name
<robn> nozmajner: we can assemble random logos from parts
<impaktor> But all factions should be made by hand, I guess?
<nozmajner> robn: yeah, I was thinking about something lie the facegen  [12:05]
<robn> impaktor: maybe. we could generate a few minor ones
<nozmajner> but maybe with a tree-like structure, so it less likely to become
            a mess: a base shape - selection of elements on that base shape,
            colors
<robn> and maybe one day, make them at game time based on events
<nozmajner> that would be awsome :D  [12:06]
<robn> nozmajner: sure, if the components were designed with a particular set
       of selection rules in mind, we can implement that
<nozmajner> so much to work on, right? :D  [12:07]
<nozmajner> I'll try to come up with a logo for CIW now, so at least we have
            one for all three bigger factions from the wiki
<robn> always :)
<Pioneer> [pioneer] robn pushed 2 new commits to master: http://git.io/kBgBRA
                                                                        [12:09]
<Pioneer> pioneer/master 4d63174 Szlrd: New starting ships
<Pioneer> pioneer/master 3aac443 Robert Norris: Merge remote-tracking branch
          'nozmajner/start_ships'
<nozmajner> I think the one I showed a few weeks ago could be SolFed logo
                                                                        [12:11]
<nozmajner>
            https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/gytOtht81CGCKqJxW5UQx_45klGnCDZIbl-Jw_wg_40?feat=directlink
<jameson> [ Picasa Web Albums - Blint Szilrd ]
<nozmajner> Haber already has one as the manufacturer logo  [12:12]
<robn> I do like that one
<robn> I want the red to be yellow, because I want it to be the sun, and the
       blue the earth. and then the white dots are the other planets in the
       federation
<robn> but I don't know what you have in mind :)  [12:13]
<nozmajner> I made it red to indicate Mars
<nozmajner> blue is earth
<robn> ahh yeah that works too
<robn> and the sizes are better
<nozmajner> and the background brownis is supposed to be an orange sun
<robn> yeah I see it now :)  [12:14]
<nozmajner> I just didn't wanted tube orange
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    #pioneer  [12:36]
<Pioneer> [pioneer] robn closed pull request #2695: Fix issue 2656
          (master...tag_landing_issue_2656) http://git.io/322u3Q
<nozmajner> robn: so it's time for me to add tag_landings? :)  [12:37]
<robn> heh yep :)
<robn> add tag_landing to the Model_system topic on the wiki  [12:40]
<nozmajner> ok
<robn> there's no mention of shield meshes in there, we should add that
<nozmajner> I have to check, how you add that to the model
<nozmajner> ok, I see now  [12:41]
<robn> it has a special node name iirc
<nozmajner> oh, so you already added tag_landing  [12:42]
<robn> oh crap
<robn> I typo'd
<robn> added*
<nozmajner> you want to do shields too?
<robn> yeah ok  [12:43]
* robn figures out the details
<robn> >---static const std::string s_shieldGroupName("Shields");  [12:44]
<robn> >---static const std::string s_matrixTransformName("_accMtx4");
<robn> ugh
<robn>   Group - Shields  [12:45]
<robn>     MatrixTransform - 0_accMtx4
<robn>       StaticGeometry - sgMesh0
<nozmajner> This as a CIW logo:  [12:52]
<nozmajner>
            https://picasaweb.google.com/114396283540873280380/Pioneer?authkey=Gv1sRgCOPo58agr7ujkgE#5974283651883416546
<jameson> [ Picasa Web Albums - Blint Szilrd - Pioneer ]
<nozmajner> ?
<impaktor> infinite scroll.  [12:56]
<nozmajner> ?
<robn> had some trouble with the link. this thing with the red/brown/orange
       triangles and the dark blue and the stars?  [12:57]
<nozmajner> yes
<nozmajner> sorry, I didn't realized it's a bad link
<nozmajner>
            https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/YdWXjak44K57v-LAX3ixvf45klGnCDZIbl-Jw_wg_40?feat=directlink
<jameson> [ Picasa Web Albums - Blint Szilrd ]
<nozmajner> it worked while I was logged in  [12:58]
<robn> yeah that's a better link
<robn> heh
<impaktor> A cross just like the south/confederacy in US civil war.  [12:59]
<robn> not a fan, I think. there's nothing in it that really draws my
       attention
<robn> its not offensive. its just not giving me anything
<robn> sorry
<robn> that's not very constructive  [13:00]
<nozmajner> it is
<nozmajner> it's a bit of struggle to come up with something
<impaktor> What was the description for the CID again? Peace lovers?
<impaktor> *CIW
<nozmajner> the description on the wiki has torches and stuff, but I'm affraid
            that will be overdetailed
<impaktor> so would olive branch?   [13:01]
<robn> open hand, closed hand. we can be friends but if you try anything I'll
       punch you  [13:02]
<robn> sleep time, night guys :)
<nozmajner> night
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<impaktor> Fist with two thumbs.   [13:06]
<impaktor> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Gonzo.svg
<impaktor> been done of course.   [13:07]
<nozmajner> fist with an olive brach?  [13:09]
<impaktor> sword with olive branch?  [13:10]
<impaktor> I have now clue.
<impaktor> *no clue  [13:11]
<nozmajner> I'll try that hand and fist first, and olive branch too  [13:12]

[Evarchart]

I just had a good look through that, excellent b/g info thanks guys. So players will be able to work their way up the ranks in these various factions? Awesome!
I have some cool ideas to create very unique looking factions and uniforms. The comment about Hugo Boss' uniform design nearly made me spit my drink haha, but yeah, those uniforms were sharp and cool as hell. I might draw some inspiration from North Korea also as their uniforms are just hilariously mental...how they can sit straight with all that metal dragging them down on one side. Ohh...there's an idea..what about players winning medals that can be displayed somewhere on their profile? Maybe...

[impaktor]

what about players winning medals that can be displayed somewhere on their profile? Maybe...

Yes, I've previously discussed with nozmajner about him designing medals or ribbons when that part of the game (i.e. military missions) is done. I have military missions pretty high up on my to-do list, but at the moment I'm ripping out the police from c++ and re-implementing it in lua. (That is almost done, apart from some bugs that must be fixed.)

[Evarchart]

That sounds really cool indeed, I am seriously dying to complete these assets as I cannot wait to see them in game. Also, I don't know if this is the right place to mention it but there appears to be a horizontal distortion in-game making the profile images appear fatter than they are, I am playing on a widescreen monitor so I assume that is the reason? If so, is there a way of adjusting them for widescreen monitors? Forgive me if I'm too off-topic here

[bszlrd]

Yes, it seems that the game assumes 4:3 right now when displaying those guys and gals. I don't know how deeply entrenched that in the code though. I know that icons aren't distorting. But I'm not sure, so I just checked and they doesn't seem to distort on my end.

Screengrab is from fullscreen 1366*768 laptop monitor.

[Evarchart]

I'll double check when I get home that I am not making a mistake in what I say, I may be mistaken. Thanks nozmajner

[bszlrd]

There are parts that distorted on 16:9 for sure. The dashboard or the crosshairs for example. Ant the faces were too on the old gui. That's why I wasn't sure if they are correct now, but they seem to, at least on my machine.

[Evarchart]

Apologies, I just tested it out and you're right, there is no distortion on the newer version. It's been a long day haha, time for a beer I think.