More Sovereign Relationship controls

[Arisaya]

What I would like is the ability to do is to use 'alignment="someAlign"' in a <Relationship> instead of a 'sovereign="&svSomeSov;"'

Like this:

Code: Select all

<Sovereign UNID="&PseudoAlignment;"
     name="inert"
     alignment="neutral"
     >
     <Relationship alignment="destructive chaos" disposition="neutral" mutual="true"/>
     <Relationship alignment="collective" disposition="neutral" mutual="true"/>
     <Relationship alignment="sterilizer" disposition="neutral" mutual="true"/>
     <Relationship alignment="megalomaniac" disposition="neutral" mutual="true"/>
     <Relationship alignment="perversion" disposition="neutral" mutual="true"/>
</Sovereign>

I could then do this:

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<Sovereign UNID="&mySovereign;"
     name="alien debris"
     inherit="&PseudoAlignment;"
     >
</Sovereign>

What this effectively does is map everything that is of an enemy to the standard neutral alignment to be, and then by inheriting it, it effectively replaces the need for a standard alignment.

This can technically be done already by defining a new sovereign for each of the alignments, and then manually setting this up, and then going back and overwriting all the original alignments, but that again, requires overwriting core xml stuff.

(edited for clarity)

[Lightvader]

Well,i have absolutely no idea what you're talking about,so can you explain?
Also,since this is about sovereigns,is it ok if i post my suggestion here?
I would like to see more sovereigns and in the beginning you are neutral. As the game progresses,you develop better/worse alliances with the sovereigns. Like,when you kill pirates,you gain better/cheaper/more services at commonwealth because pirates and commonwealth are enemies,and that if you use the black market often,your military rank can demote,to the point the military just shoot you.
But it could be more complicated. The sovereigns have also formed allies/enemies with other sovereigns,and if 2 soveriegns are allies ,it doesnt mean that all enemies of x automatically become allies/enemies of y.

[george moromisato]

What I would like is the ability to do is to use 'alignment="someAlign"' in a <Relationship> instead of a 'sovereign="&svSomeSov;"'

I like that. Yes, that's possible. The advantage is that the relationship would hold even for new sovereigns (i.e., sovereigns that have not been created yet or that you (the developer) don't know about).

Another addition, is that it should be possible to refer to a sovereign that others descend from:

Code: Select all

...
<Relationship sovereign="&PseudoAlignment;" disposition="neutral" mutual="true"/>
...

That is, some sovereign could set a relationship to all sovereigns that inherit from a particular class. Essentially this allows you to define new alignments (I think).

One thing to worry about is conflicting relationship directive. We'll have to come up with rules for which wins.

[Arisaya]

That's great! Sort of the exact behavior I was looking for. I think that conflicting directives should use a 'leaf-priority' scheme.

Effectively due to inheritance, you get a tree:

At the top is a dummy root, from which all the hardcoded alignments stem.
At the bottom are the sovereigns used in the game.

I believe that conflicts should be resolved by setting mutual to false and throwing an error in debug log if in debug mode?

[george moromisato]

Well,i have absolutely no idea what you're talking about,so can you explain?...

FYI: We're talking about adding new functionality to the modding system; in particular, Wolfy is suggesting some improvements for how to define the relationships between sovereigns, such as whether two sovereigns are friends or enemies. This is all about modding enhancements (so technically it should go in Shipyards, but I don't mind).

Your idea about dynamically changing the relationships between sovereigns and the player is great. I would like to do that for Black Market vs. Corporate vs. Military (somehow).

It is all certainly possible with the current modding system (look at the Huari missions).

[Lightvader]

Oh,i see...
Thanks for explaining. Also, i hope wolfy doesnt mind i invaded his thread. It seemed like a good idea yesterday,but not today