My custom Faction- The Crimson Comrades

[JarlWolf]

EDIT: Never mind, I still need help with loading in the graphics and uploading.
EDIT: Making progress, I'll be able to implement non buggy graphics with it soon.

Edit: I just have to put in the voice blurb and then this is complete entirely.


Lately I've been working on my pet project and personal faction, the Crimson Comrades. I do realize that yes, the Drones are  a similar faction, I found they were more of industrialist egalitarians then real Communists/Socialists. So I decided to put in a hardcore Socialist/Communist revolutionary faction, one full of grizzled revolutionaries and Proletariat, men and woman hardened both through society and war following the actual ideal closely.





Note, as for Social ideal it was between that or planned. I figured Eudaimonic would make more sense, as the ultimate goal of Socialism/Communism is to create a Utopian society of cooperation, community and equality and the general well being and welfare of all.



The speech reads,

"Life is an eternal struggle for survival, but the chains of slavery are not eternal. We will not bend our knee's to any who wishes to be our king and master, and we will stand as equals and fight the final battle! To Arms!" - Vazheli Vatzev in the first battle against the Usurpers.

The back story I thought of for this faction follows along this: Vazheli Vatzev (who may or may not be a eerie likeness of someone) was a man from the Russian Commonwealth, the same as  . He wasn't militant communist originally, nor was he even one of the top Unity officers. Vazheli was the head janitor of the entire ship rather and he was one of the first to awaken from stasis, as he had to maintain the faculties of the ship. He did see who murdered Captain Garland (he was not the murderer though) and for the sake of not spoiling a certain book I won't say who did. Before the majority of the ship was in chaos he managed to gather some people and get equipment for an escape pod, namely formers and the blueprints for terraforming technology. He knew it was do or die and while he felt guilty about the others he had to do what he had to do. Taking whomever wished to join him he stated that anyone on his pod would be an equal, and many were enticed to join him.

When they landed on Planet, they started their communities with little hassle thanks to their terraforming technology. Unfortunately when the two warring Alien factions crashed onto planet, the Usurper Juda Marr and his faction landed relatively close to Vazheli's faction. Vazheli's faction, contrary to most of the other factions at Planet during the first few years were not extreme idealists. They were Socialist, indeed, but they were not too far into any particular ideal other then that their society was kept relatively focused on equity and simply survival. The Usurpers changed all of that. The Usurpers immediately enslaved the local populaces, forcing them to work and became their new overlords. People who cooperated with the Usurper's found themselves well rewarded, and many became merchants under the employ of the Usurper's, to deal with other human factions as to ease relations with them.

 Vazheli, very embittered by both the Usurpers and collaborators, grew very angry and had managed to go underground. He gathered a strong following amongst his fellow colonists and the spark of Communism was lit. In the face of ever present danger of slavery they embraced the ideal to rally their people, and with a new found zeal and coordinated, highly motivated guerrilla attacks and warfare, they managed to oust the Usurpers and their parasitical allies and free themselves. The faction was devoted to the revolutionary ideals of Communism, to liberate the people of Planet and continue the war on Tyranny.

Now, note: This faction isn't utopian or "the good guys" either, I wanted to keep the feel of Alpha Centauri and how well it portrays factions. On the other hand they are a ruthless, often barbaric group that has been known to brutally murder their enemies in very violent and grisly means. They are a gritty revolutionary faction that would be the type to put the heads of their former progenitor overlords on pikes. Now, they don't hate the progenitors as a whole: They've dealt with the caretakers before and probably had some disillusioned progenitors join their ranks (though it is rare.)

[JarlWolf]

Here is the faction files itself for download. I put them all in a folder, all you have to do is export them to the main directory where your TerranX/ other faction files is located. Use FaceEdit to load the faction by typing in CRIMSON COMRADES and pick the FCL file. Then save it as such, and then a screen will pop up asking if you want to load it. Click yes and load it in your game. I may come up with a better version with voice files but this has everything important in working order:

Fully complete graphic set, with leaderheads, faction logo's and other things.

Gameplay tests were done, and the results I can say that the faction is not overpowered. I will say that its unique and that its a very versatile faction. If you want greater detail and to get spoilers as to how they are I can message you about the results of the testing.

And while not currently implemented, this faction WILL have a voice blurb as well. Probably in a future update.

Enjoy the faction, report any problems/issues.

You will need some form of file opener, like Jzip or 7Zip to open it. I can upload the faction files separately but this way its all in one thing for you to unload.

There is instructions in the file folder if you need to backup your graphics, in case they don't load for the faction.
Instructions for that provided both in Russian and English.

[Kilkakon]

Do you want me to give you some help with anything?

[JarlWolf]

Yes: If you can teach me how to add the voice blurb, I'd greatly appreciate it. If you want, I can add in an easter egg in your honour...who knows.

Like when you select the faction in the faction selection menu, you get a faction's quote. I have an audio file for use, just I don't know how to hook it up so it plays when the faction is selected.

[Kilkakon]

Voices should go into the voices subdirectory. The game will automatically play the blurb if it is the same filename as the faction.

In theory, this should be "crimson comrades.mp3". I'm not sure if the game likes the space or not, but worth trying either way.

[JarlWolf]

Tried it, and it doesn't really work. Named it proper and everything.

What does happen is when I select my faction there is this sort of faint, reoccurring sound that sounds like scratching and white noise. And nothing resembling the sound file itself. I tested the sound file itself in other applications, it works fine.

[Kilkakon]

Did you include a copy of the sound in the zip? I can have a go at it tonight if you like. I'm at work myself.

[JarlWolf]

Not in the current version, I an reupload and sneak it in though.

Edit: Both the old upload on this thread and this upload on this post contain the new version.

[Kilkakon]

Alright--well a seperate attachment here still works.

[JarlWolf]

Let me know how it goes. The voice clip might be a bit cheesy, and I wanted a bit more of a lengthy speech, but you can only put so much into the blurbs before you run out of space.

[Kilkakon]

I would maintain that the graphics could use a little going over, but otherwise here is your updated faction.

The problem with the sound is that it was stereo and 44010Hz. It needs to be Mono and 22050Hz.

I've also made a few minor tweaks to your text file, mainly things like removing the Hive adjective (changed it to Crimson) and a grammar mistake or two. Hope that's okay.

I changed the internal filename to crimson as well, just as a precaution (normal factions are just one word internally).

Hope that helps

[JarlWolf]

The graphics you gave me is bugged, but the voice file works well. If you can do a fix up of the graphics, it'd be appreciated. It's annoying having to reload graphics through GIMP each time, so if there is a way to get that out of the picture (pardon the pun) it would save many people a lot of time and energy.

As for the changes to the text and such, I liked the changes. The only thing I changed is the blurb as it's a quote, and it's quoting what I said so it has to match.

Edit: I managed to get a fixed copy working, I just need to tinker with it. The sound when selected with this makes this faction much more epic, you hear the voice speak and then... URRRAAAA!!!!!!!!

[Kilkakon]

Are you on a Mac or something? The graphics worked right out of the box for me.

Either way, it seems to be all good now, so yay. Enjoy it Jarl~

[JarlWolf]

Are you on a Mac or something? The graphics worked right out of the box for me.

Either way, it seems to be all good now, so yay. Enjoy it Jarl~

Windows 7 Computer, but I managed to get it all working. I can upload everything in a new file if you guys want.

[Kilkakon]

Strange, as I didn't touch the pcx files at all. Oh well. Yeah probably a good idea to do that.