Seeking Development Team and Players

[Geo]

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? 

You never checked the smacwiki?
Read the attached guides.
As for giving a faction a free ability, the Pirates can be used as an example with their Marine Detachment ability.
But it should be FREEABIL, 11 - the 12th ability in the #ABILITIES section of alphax.txt.

[Trenacker]

You never checked the smacwiki?
Read the attached guides.
As for giving a faction a free ability, the Pirates can be used as an example with their Marine Detachment ability.
But it should be FREEABIL, 11 - the 12th ability in the #ABILITIES section of alphax.txt.

I did read them, but I'm afraid I wasn't always able to make sense of the directions.

So, we're swapping out COMBAT 125 for FREEABIL, 11. ++PROBE becomes SOCIAL, ++PROBE, correct? What else do we need to do?

[Geo]

You never checked the smacwiki?
Read the attached guides.
As for giving a faction a free ability, the Pirates can be used as an example with their Marine Detachment ability.
But it should be FREEABIL, 11 - the 12th ability in the #ABILITIES section of alphax.txt.

I did read them, but I'm afraid I wasn't always able to make sense of the directions.

So, we're swapping out COMBAT 125 for FREEABIL, 11. ++PROBE becomes SOCIAL, ++PROBE, correct? What else do we need to do?

YOU need to do it.
Seriously, if you don't understand the file, at least compare it with the factions Firaxis gave us.
Also, 2 of the parameters won't work because you go above 8 of them. You need to redesign your faction and remove (at least) 2 of the parameters.

[Geo]

Got nothing better to do anyway. Or at least I'm not in the mood to do anything better right now.

What you wanted and wrote:

Code: [Select]

TECH, Doctrine: Mobility, ++PROBE, --GROWTH, +PLANET, +EFFIC, --POLICE, ++MORALE, -ECONOMY, -RESEARCH, COMBAT 125
Provided the game would accept more then 8 major bonus slots it would have to look like this:

Code: [Select]

TECH, Doctrine: Mobility, SOCIAL, ++PROBE, SOCIAL, --GROWTH, SOCIAL, +PLANET, SOCIAL, +EFFIC,
SOCIAL, --POLICE, SOCIAL, ++ MORALE, SOCIAL, -ECONOMY, SOCIAL, -RESEARCH, OFFENSE, 125, DEFENSE, 125
But that won't work because that are 11 major bonusses.

So what you need to do is either remove 3 of them, redesign it so that 3 major bonusses are switched to minor bonusses, or a combination of the previous 2.

For instance, if you decide to let the Hunters only have extra combat power for psi, you can remove the OFFENSE and DEFENSE parameters and replace it with the minor bonus PSI, like this:

Code: [Select]

TECH, Doctrine: Mobility, SOCIAL, ++PROBE, SOCIAL, --GROWTH, SOCIAL, +PLANET, SOCIAL,
+EFFIC, SOCIAL, --POLICE, SOCIAL, ++ MORALE, SOCIAL, -ECONOMY, SOCIAL, -RESEARCH, PSI, 25
Or at least when following what is written in the guide. It could as well be 125.

That brings you down to 9 major and 1 minor bonus.
One to go. You have a number of options here.
There's the minor bonusses TECHCOST, MORALE, RESEARCH, MINDCONTROL, that can replace or emulate what you want from your -RESEARCH, --PROBE, ++MORALE ideas. I suggest you read up on them again, and see how it agrees with what you want for this faction.

[Buster's Uncle]

Since you always ask, edited to not make the page display extra-wide...

Those code lines are one line in the .txt, Tren. Replace the carriage return at the end of the first line of the two two-line examples with a space.

[Geo]

Since you always ask, edited to not make the page display extra-wide...

I rarely ask.

[Buster's Uncle]

Disagree.  I rarely need to edit you.

You usually ask.

[Trenacker]

How's this?

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, SOCIAL, --GROWTH, SOCIAL, +PLANET, SOCIAL, +EFFIC, SOCIAL, --POLICE, SOCIAL, -ECONOMY, MORALE, 1, TECHCOST, 125, PSI, 25
 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 get us out of this bloody great mess you've put us in, with your processed foods and your drone armies and your poxy wonder-drugs
 [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] piss down my back and tell me it rains
 [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 keep this piece a' dirt from reclaiming what we've built
 [I shall instruct] the Main Force Patrol [to see that no such]
 [You are in contravention of] good, 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 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}
^-1 ECONOMY {skepticism toward labor-saving technologies retards material development}
^+1 MORALE {democratic traditions result in increased personal efficacy}
^+125% RESEARCH COST {lack of interest and investment in traditional professions retards scientific progress}
^+25% to all PSI combat {practical experience of managing mindworm attacks has hardened 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."

[Trenacker]

One for the road (literally). I'll be out of town until Wednesday night.


The Human Ascendancy (led by Research Director Tamineh Pahlavi)
The Ascendancy stands on the proposition that mankind must assume control of its own evolutionary destiny. As Chief Geneticist of the Chiron Interstellar Probe, Dr. Tamineh Pahlavi was charged with conducting initiating long-term studies to determine whether and how exposure to an alien environment was affecting the colonists' DNA. Instead, Pahlavi diverted resources toward a selective breeding program with the intent of producing a human better-suited to the rigors of life on Planet: stronger, faster, and unhindered by the nitrogen-rich atmosphere. In doing so, Pahlavi and her team chose to ignore the comprehensive ethical safeguards governing their profession -- safeguards that they regarded as the outmoded relics of retrogressive folkways. The first of "Augment" was decanted from an iron womb less than two years after Planetfall.

Following the Exodus, Pahlavi gathered to her a majority of the expedition's experts in the life sciences. In company with their first crop of "children," the researchers established for themselves a geniocracy under which they could continue their grand project.

#ASCEND
Human Ascendancy, The Supremacist, Ascendancy, F, 0, Pahlavi, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0
 TECH, Biogenetics, SOCIAL, --GROWTH, SOCIAL, +EFFIC, SOCIAL, ++POLICE, RESEARCH, 1, FACILITY, 2, TALENT, 2
 Values, Knowledge, RESEARCH
 Politics, Fundamentalist, nil
 Ascendancy, Ascend.
 Arik, Soong, Cold Station 12
 Director, courageous, precocious, trailblazing, supremacist witch
 [Together we shall both] secure the evolutionary future of our race [and]
 [My intent is] to take the radical steps from which we so foolishly withheld on Earth
 [She is bent on] reducing us to servants for the benefit of her mishappen science projects
 [You seem bent on] creating a race of super men who will be more likely to stove our skulls than lead us to greatness
 [I shall not stand here while you] lead midgets to the slaughter when we could be standing on the shoulders of giants
 [He spends his time] subjecting his hapless followers to the most depraved experiments
 [You spend your time] attempting to rehabilitate the discredited art of phrenology
 [I have been accused of] reckless disregard for ethical boundaries
 [Your] little science experiment [does not impress me]
 [Think how this could benefit your] project to bound the next hurdle in human evolution
 [I trust your] paramecia races [are proceeding to your satisfaction]
 [It is customary to remit me a small] bit of seed money [...]
 [...for the services my forces provide in] keeping the lesser examples of our doomed species at bay
 [I shall instruct] my praetorians [to see that no such]
 [You are in contravention of] Ascendancy Code

#BASES
The Pinnacle
The Vault

#WATERBASES
The Primordial Waters


^"The Prophet said it best to Ishmael and his mates: 'A soul's a sort of fifth wheel to a wagon.'"
^               -Dr. Tamineh Pahlavi
^                     "Homo Sapien Superior"

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Tahmineh Pahlavi}
^BACKGROUND: {Iran, CIP Chief Geneticist}
^AGENDA: {Produce homo sapien superior}
^TECH: {Biogenetics}
^

#DATALINKS2
^-2 GROWTH {artificial reproduction is a slow and difficult science}
^+1 EFFICIENCY {slave laborers require few provisions}
^+2 POLICE {superhumans make for highly effective oppressors}
^Improved Research {resources dedicated to breeding the master race}
^Free Children's Creche at each base {children raised in common}
^Extra Talent for every 2 citizens {genius is bred on an industrial scale}

#FACTIONTRUCE
“This war is to the detriment of humanity, $NAME1. Let us end it now before we wreak on Chiron what was wrought on Earth.”

[Acceptance dialogue] “It is agreed, then. Peace, for all our sakes.”
[Rejection dialogue] “My alphas are closing in. Negotiation is the posture of the weak.”

#FACTIONTREATY
“I recommend cooperation. I trust that your thinking on this subject will be... evolved.”

[Acceptance dialogue] “Excellent.”
[Rejection dialogue] “I see no need to sully the gene pool with inferior stock at this time.”

#BREAKTREATY [Don't know if this is even in the game.]
“Homo sapien sapien? Greet your new master, homo sapien superior.”

[Buster's Uncle]

Rip it apart on stats, because we love, boyz.

[Trenacker]

I'm back in town and able to post another faction this weekend. Perhaps the Honored Dead? Stretch goal is to do the New Two Thousand as well.

I'm going to assume that both the Hunters and the Ascendancy are solid at this time.

[Trenacker]

So, help me. Let's talk about the Honored Dead as a pseudo-colonial society and about the New Two Thousand. What does a faction like the latter bring to the table if we assume that its leader financed an expedition-within-an-expedition? Extra credits seems weak. Perhaps a stronger military unit? More Talents?

[Buster's Uncle]

Tell us whatever you know, within reason, about that leader that isn't in the material you've already posted, or may not be obvious to us lazy people.  What makes him tick?  What's the central theme?

[Trenacker]

The Dreamers of Chiron
Formed in the very final hours of the Exodus, the Dreamers began as an alliance of convenience between colonial charter-holder Roshann Cobb and Chief Neuroscientist Aleigha Cohen. It was Cobb who provided the experimental military technology that allowed Cohen to confirm her suspicions regarding Chiron's transformative effects on the human brain, and Cohen who facilitated access to test subjects in the form of re-socialized criminals placed under her care by trusting superiors.

As a factor for Struan's, one of the Probe's prime contractors, Cobb's instructions were to pave the way for the trading house to exploit Chiron's natural riches. He brought with him more than four hundred of the company's employees and vast storehouses of equipment as well as a serious drug addiction. Consigned to Cohen for treatment, Cobb soon became deeply interested in her work to identify the source of the nightmares plaguing the settlement. Cohen, for her part, convinced Cobb to supply her with resources that faction leadership would not provide. Soon, Cohen was sharing the results of her off-record experiments on the expedition's convict population and inviting Cobb to perfect his extraction techniques at their expense. Together, the pair recorded the first indications that certain members of the crew might have developed genetic mutations conferring extrasensory perception. It was only natural that this close cooperation would extend through the colony's demise.

#DREAM
Dreamers of Chiron, The Dreamer, Dreamers, M, 1, Cobb, M, -1, 0, 1, 1, 0,
 TECH, Neuropsych, Social, +++PROBE, SOCIAL, --GROWTH, ++POLICE, FUNGENERGY, 1, DRONE, 3, COMMERCE, 2, PSI, 25
 Values, Knowledge, PROBE
 Values, Power, nil
 Dreamers, Dream
 Hauser, Quaid, Rekall
 Tai-Pan, imponderable, vacant, pathbreaking, hopeless addict
 [Together we shall both] plot the myraid tributaries of the fully awakened mind [and...]
 [My intent is] to plumb fully the mysteries we are only now beginning to perceive
 [He is bent on] shattering the minds of all those unlucky enough to fall into his clutches
 [You seem bent on] reducing us all to lobotomized meat bags
 [I shall not stand here while you] refuse to recognize more than an inkling of your full potential
 [He spends his time] devising all manner of reprehensible tests, and us the unsuspecting subjects
 [You spend your time] breaking and entering into places where no man should tread
 [I have been accused of] stalking other mens' dreams
 [Your] drug-addled ranting [does not impress me]
 [Think how this could benefit your] little pharmacy
 [I trust your] adventures in hydroponic gardening [are proceeding to your satisfaction]
 [It is customary to remit me a small] toll [...]
 [I shall instruct] the Asset Control Division [to see that no such ...]
 [You are in contravention of] the Rules of Extraction
 
#BASES
The Fountainhead

#WATERBASES
Tigerlilies

#BLURB
"Name the most resilient parasite. A bacterium? A virus? An intestinal worm?
No. The most resilient parasite is an idea. Explosive. Highly contagious.
Once formed in the brain, an idea is impossible to erradicate. My scientists tell me
that even what is allegedly forgetten is still in there... somewhere. I haven't got a map.
That, I admit freely. But I do have a lovely box of dynamite."
^
^   -Roshann Cobb,
^      “The Art of Extraction”

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Tai-pan Roshann Cobb}
^BACKGROUND: {Hong Kong, Proprieter, Struan's Asian Trading Company}
^AGENDA: {Research, unlock the secrets of the human psyche}
^

#DATALINKS2
^+3 PROBE: {access to classified military technology}
^-2 GROWTH: {addicts care little for raising families}
^+2 POLICE: {Extractors make highly effective thought police}
^Bonus to energy production from fungal squares {native life has proven sensitive to psychological stimulus}
^Extra DRONE for every 3 citizens {nerve-stapling is a common method of social control}
^Bonus to COMMERCE {faction brokers access to CIP's pharmaceutical supplies}
^Bonus to PSI combat {Extraction can be applied as a weapon of war}

#FACTIONTRUCE
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"By day, you make war, but by night, you dream of peace, $NAME1."

"Fine. Just see that you stay out of my head."
"What? And leave you to traipse through my thoughts unhindered? I think not, $NAME3."

#FACTIONTREATY
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know that there are known unknowns;
that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
And finally, there are the unknown knowns; things we used to know but no longer remember. I can help with that, if you agree to sign a
Treaty of Friendship.”

"Total recall? Works for me."
"You have the look of an addict, and are no more convincing."

#ALIENFACTIONTRUCE
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"War: pointless. End: imperative."

"$NAME3: harmless. Truce: agreed."
"$NAME3: liar. Truce: rejected."

#ALIENFACTIONTREATY
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"Dreamers: peaceful. Treaty of Friendship: desirable."

"Allies: useful. Treaty: agreed."
"$NAME3: unpredictable. Treaty: not advisable."

[Trenacker]

Due to scripting constraints, I had to identify Cobb as the faction leader. (In choosing between the two, I went with the one who had the more interesting profile picture.)

Cobb is one of at least two charter-holders, private individuals permitted to outfit expeditions-within-an-expendition as part of the Chiron Interstellar Probe. Each one agreed to place their resources at the disposal of the greater expedition for two years' duration in return for transportation to Chiron. The other charterholder identified thus far is Oscar van de Graaf.

Van de Graaf's New Two Thousand come complete with their own veteran military unit. It's possible that Cobb would have one, too -- mercenaries, paid for by Struan's. The problem is that I didn't want to give everyone special units.

So! Criticism, please!