Atrocities—datalinks redraft

[Guv’ner]

As part of Scient’s update there is a refresh of the datalinks.

This is a fork of GooglyBoogly 1.3 2008 update.

Work was originally done using the wiki but the versions on the wiki are now out of date. When the game files are finalized, the changes will be copied back to the wiki.

General changes

Information about unit abilities has been moved from the unit articles to the weapon module articles.

Information from flavour.txt (which is unused by the game) has been moved into the relevant weapon module, special abilities, and armour articles.

Where appropriate the voice has been changed to the impersonal passive.

The idea has been to include as much background text from the manuals as possible and to explain the mechanics whilst preserving the story. To remove duplicate information and to regularise references and terms.

I’ll soon be posting the whole conceptsx.txt and helpx.txt files, in the meantime I’m posting the more significant rewrites for comment and discussion.

The first one is atrocities:

Atrocities

Some actions are considered atrocities, committing them against other factions will permanently damage relations with them and make them more inclined to respond in kind (obliterating or nerve stapling bases within 50 years of capture is considered an atrocity agains the faction from whom they were captured).

If the U.N. Charter’s prohibitions on the use of atrocities are in place there are other commercial and ecological repercussions:

Minor atrocities

Nerve stapling and the use of Nerve Gas Pods against human faction units outside of bases both incur economic sanctions of 10 years multiplied by the total number of Simple Atrocities ever committed by that faction. If it is carried out prior to that faction ever committing a Simple Atrocity then it will be sufficiently shocking to also count as one itself.

Simple Atrocities

Genetic Warfare against human factions, using Nerve Gas Pods against units in a human base, and obliterating a base (unless within 50 turns of being most recently captured from a progenitor faction) blemish integrity and incur sanctions of 10 years times the total number of Simple Atrocities ever committed by that faction.

Major Atrocities

The use of Planet Busters and each Simple Atrocity after the twelfth (at Transcend, the number increases by four for each lower level of difficulty) causes a Major Atrocity and all human factions will declare vendetta regardless of existing diplomatic relations (including factions in submissive pacts). The outrage generated will also effect the fungus’ neural matrix and generate ecological damage equivalent to each of the perpetrator’s bases producing an additional five minerals. Progenitor factions will declare vendetta against any faction that causes ecological damage through atrocities.

The Charter also obliges human factions to declare vendetta against a progenitor faction that uses a Planet Buster.

If sunspots are disrupting communications most atrocities will only be known to the victim and perpetrator and will have no other effects. Due to the clear seismic signature, the use of Planet Busters can always be detected.

[Yitzi]

-You probably should say how many atrocities until they're considered major for each difficulty, rather than only the highest.
-You probably should note that atrocities against aliens don't count, except for planet busters because of the ecological damage they do.
-In my patch (2.0 is coming out soon, by the way), there's an option to have ecological damage be based on planet busters (even with the charter repealed) rather than major atrocities, so you might want to have a variant text for when playing with that rule.

[Guv’ner]

I accidentally culled the footnote about progenitor factions but that could do with a re-draft to improve its clarity—so I will crack on with that.

I've tested the number of atrocities required at other levels but have two left to complete before they are included.

[Petek]

Does your work incorporate the information in this CGN thread?

[Guv’ner]

Does your work incorporate the information in this CGN thread?

It was that thread that got me started. I have attempted to clarify the oddity of your first atrocity being a use of nerve gas pods on a unit outside of a base or nerve stapling and the subsequent treatment of those actions. I’ve also tried to ‘bake in’ the treatment of Progenitor atrocities and added in the limits for different difficulty levels.

I’ve updated the draft above.