Seeking Development Team and Players

[Trenacker]

Marsh's folks will have a starting hovercraft or rover, like the Spartans.

Kurtz's would probably have a benefit to defense.

[Buster's Uncle]

Offence, if you're going that way.  Dangerous fighters and paranoid enough, but sloppy because cuRAZZY!

[Trenacker]

Miriam is the one with the bonus to attack, isn't she? We might try tinkering with that a bit, to be honest. Rework the original factions, too, when we do our faction design tonight.

I think that Marsh might have an advantage to attack, don't you? Knowing the lay of the land. The hunter's advantage, and all that.

It seems to me that a faction based on standing its ground would be especially good on the defensive.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, a hunter's skills can be very useful in war, but tends to be a ranger/scout skillset, not a standard infantry one.  Probably fantastic snipers, though, maybe with a bonus to artillery to simulate that distance advantage.

What they really ought to be good at is, along with the +Planet, collecting food and therefore growing among their carefully-managed nature.  I'm not bothering to try to suggest only what I know is possible -not my focus/expertise, which is creative- but what I don't know isn't.  A growth bonus might have to do if you like this idea.

If you're married to military advantage, possibly cheap rovers to simulate knowing the lay of the land and consequent mobility.  Or zone-of-control immunity ability to simulate (well) stealth.

[Trenacker]

So, +1 square of sight or movement over rough terrain? I wanted to give them a starting rover to reflect the tools they had on-hand at the time of the exodus from the main settlement.

[Geo]

So, +1 square of sight or movement over rough terrain? I wanted to give them a starting rover to reflect the tools they had on-hand at the time of the exodus from the main settlement.

Simple, let 'm start with the Doctrine: Mobility tech. Their infantry becomes a rover then, just like with the Spartans.

[Trenacker]

Here are the Hunters of Chiron with their full faction write-up. Veteran faction designers among you, please help me with the syntax. Everyone else, what do you think of the "feel" of the faction? Does this dialogue give you a sense of the character?

The Hunters of Chiron (led by Game Warden J.T. Marsh)
The Hunters are an amalgamation of the various colonists caught "outside the wire" when the Quarantine was imposed. Consolidated under the leadership of Game Warden J.T. Marsh, they are a motley collection of scouts, pioneers, miners, and roughnecks. Their blueprint for success is simple but effective: trade survey data and sell their services managing Chiron's fungal blooms where possible, stealing ("salvaging") moveable goods when the opportunity arises. As one might expect, the Hunters take a certain pride in their rough-and-tumble existence, regarding settled populations with something close to disdain. Marsh has also successfully increased his followers' suspicion of technologies that might render their skill sets obsolete, gradually developing a coherent "Philosophy of the Frontier" that pits Man in an idealized struggle to retain physical as well as mental mastery over his domain. The Hunters generally start and remain small but do not suffer from the same environmental maluses that limit the activity of other factions during the early game. As befits their experience battling mindworms and other threats, the Hunters also receive significant bonuses on both the offense and defense.

#HUNT
Hunters of Chiron, The Hunter, Hunters, M, 1, Marsh, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1
 TECH, Doctrine: Mobility, ++PROBE, --GROWTH, +PLANET, +EFFIC, --POLICE, ++MORALE, -ECONOMY, -RESEARCH, COMBAT 125
 Politics, Democratic, MORALE
 Politics, Police State, nil
 Hunters, Hunters
 Patrick, Muldoon, Jurassic Park
 Warden, keen, thieving, vigilant, savage
 [Together we shall both] adopt the attitude of the knife [and]
 [My intent is] to find on Chiron the self that we so carelessly abandoned on Earth
 [He is bent on] our collective reversion to a bunch of Neanderthals, scarce able to make fire
 [You seem bent on] rejecting the very tools that got us this far, and thereby condemning us all to die horribly in this pitiless place because it somehow flatters your vanity
 [I shall not stand here while you] practice your panegyrics to primitivism
 [He spends his time] engaging in all manner of uncivilized behaviors, to include: rustling, poaching, smuggling, and piracy
 [You spend your time] getting drunk around campfires while the human race slowly reverts to barbarism
 [I have been accused of] dragging my knuckles
 [Your] blatant piracy [does not impress me]
 [Think how this could benefit your] efforts to achieve liberation from dependence upon machines
 [I trust your] cattle rustling operations [are proceeding to your satisfaction]
 [It is customary to remit me a small] subscription [...]
 [...for the services my forces provide in] helping to manage Planet's less salubrious qualities
 [I shall instruct] the Main Force Patrol [to see that no such]
 [You are in contravention of] the tents of common sense

#BASES
High Hide
Jurassic Park
Delta Echo Niner
Ice Station Zero

#WATERBASES
The Barge

Architects tell us that form follows function, but the man in the bush knows that function must needs follow form. We are now, through a combination of indolence and indulgence, abandoning mastery of our form. Motion and excellence -- progress -- have somehow become inconveniences, better left to machines.
^
^               -Warden J.T. Marsh
^                     "The Hunters of Chiron"

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Jeremy Tanner (J.T.) Marsh}
^BACKGROUND: {Kenya, CIP Game Warden}
^AGENDA: {Pursuit of physical and mental excellence through adversarial relationship with the natural environment}
^TECH: {Doctrine: Mobility}
^

#DATALINKS2
^+2 PROBE {decentralization and limited organizational capacity reduces effectiveness of enemy intelligence operations}
^-2 GROWTH {very high proportion of men to women limits population growth}
^+1 PLANET {wilderness skills facilitate effective interaction with alien biome}
^+1 EFFICIENCY {faction members specially trained and equipped to live off the land}
^-2 POLICE {independence-minded citizens reject strict social controls}
^+2 MORALE {most faction members already reconciled to itinerant lifestyle}
^-1 ECONOMY {skepticism toward labor-saving technologies retards material development}
^-1 RESEARCH {lack of respect for traditional professions retards scientific progress}
^+25% to all combats {practical experience of managing mindworm attacks, combined with wilderness skills, heightens effectiveness of faction militia}

#FACTIONTRUCE
"If it’s all the same to you, $NAME1, I’d just as soon not die for no very good reason. Don’t let’s go to the dogs tonight. Only buggers what profit are the worms.”

[Acceptance dialogue] “Sense in those words, I admit.”
[Rejection dialogue] "Hard pounding, is it? Let's see who pounds hardest."

#FACTIONTREATY
“‘Never run the war path alone,’ that’s what I always say. Been cutting the same trail a long time, your mates an’ mine. Figure it’s time we made it official.”

[Acceptance dialogue] “All right. Let's do that."
[Rejection dialogue] "Where I come from, the legacy of a poacher is a good, strong rope. Let's say I'm a traditionalist."

#BREAKTREATY [Don't know if this is even in the game.]
"Say, #NAME1? It's no slander to say there's many a clever trick done by an overlander."

[Geo]

++morale and COMBAT 125 combined makes this a too strong faction offensively. An offensive player might use this faction this way to gain an edge by perpetual conquest of bases to get population. I'd change the COMBAT with a free Empath Song ability. If the 'hunter' succesfully stalks native life, victory is theirs. if vice-versa, see you in hell.
To 'force' bases to be kept small (outpost sized), the hab complex limiter could be used.
I see 10 modifiers there. Have you checked if all 10 of them are enabled ingame? I thought there was a hard limit of 8 modifiers (excluding certain modifiers which I don't know out of my head) in the faction.txt file.

[Yitzi]

++morale and COMBAT 125 combined makes this a too strong faction offensively. An offensive player might use this faction this way to gain an edge by perpetual conquest of bases to get population. I'd change the COMBAT with a free Empath Song ability. If the 'hunter' succesfully stalks native life, victory is theirs. if vice-versa, see you in hell.
To 'force' bases to be kept small (outpost sized), the hab complex limiter could be used.
I see 10 modifiers there. Have you checked if all 10 of them are enabled ingame? I thought there was a hard limit of 8 modifiers (excluding certain modifiers which I don't know out of my head) in the faction.txt file.

There is such a limit, and none of those are the excluded modifiers.  Also, ++PROBE would have to be SOCIAL, ++PROBE and similarly for the others, and COMBAT is not a valid modifier (you'd have to do OFFENSE and DEFENSE separately, raising it to 11.)

[Buster's Uncle]

The creative element is pretty excellent.  It's got a thematic hook, and is well-expressed.

[Geo]

The creative element is pretty excellent.  It's got a thematic hook, and is well-expressed.

Sure. But also needs to work ingame.

[Buster's Uncle]

Of course.  That's a moby dick issue.  I was just talking about the creative end which is my focus.  The original seven did a pretty good job of hogging the most evocative universal themes and ruining it for every faction that followed, but this paints a picture, sets up a story, and is not bad at all.

[Yitzi]

Of course.  That's a moby dick issue.  I was just talking about the creative end which is my focus.  The original seven did a pretty good job of hogging the most evocative universal themes and ruining it for every faction that followed

Nah, I think  has room.

Actually, he has room for two: One that's focused on equality (ideology: Planned), and one that's focused on the merits of the laboring classes and material productivity (ideology: Wealth).

[Buster's Uncle]

Agreed about ; but he's pretty much hands-down the most popular of the second seven, isn't he?    a distant second, I think.

[Trenacker]

++morale and COMBAT 125 combined makes this a too strong faction offensively. An offensive player might use this faction this way to gain an edge by perpetual conquest of bases to get population. I'd change the COMBAT with a free Empath Song ability.

Okay, so we swap out the broken COMBAT 125 bonus for a free Empath Song ability. Do you by chance know how that's coded? 

There is such a limit, and none of those are the excluded modifiers.  Also, ++PROBE would have to be SOCIAL, ++PROBE and similarly for the others, and COMBAT is not a valid modifier (you'd have to do OFFENSE and DEFENSE separately, raising it to 11.)

Can you help me with making the fixes?

The creative element is pretty excellent.  It's got a thematic hook, and is well-expressed.

I appreciate the compliment!