Faction specific custom units

[ete]

How hard would it be to make custom buildable units available to factions as a faction bonus? Either included in the faction text file, or just specifying in the alphax file that a faction must be called a certain name for it to be buildable by them (like: Unity Gunship,          Foil,     Gun,          Scout,     -1, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 00000000000000000000000000, spartans). If this is practical it opens up quite a few neat possibilities for custom factions, for example a faction could have their main bonus as being able to build probe needlejets after a certain tech, being able to build an alternate Supply Crawler cheaper, or having their an alternate former available from the start with Clean Reactor. Especially handy considering you can put loads of abilities on custom units.

[Sigma]

This would be amazing but I can't fathom it being possible without some in depth .exe manipulation, since there is really nothing in alphax that refers to specific factions in that manner.

[Geo]

The only (ramshackle) way I know to do this is making one of the techs off-limits in the tech tree, and give this isolated tech to the faction at the start of the game, with the custom unit linked to it.
Of course, once the faction trades this tech away...

[ete]

I was mostly targeting this question at Yitzi, but that is an interesting workaround Geo. Could work in situations like scenarios with AI set to not ever make peace with anyone and given the HSA at the start, but not great for general use.

[Geo]

I know, it's ramshackle. 

[Green1]

If I recall from my days of lurking, Chuft on WPC had his Lazytown mod. One of the factions was the Cthulu Cult which had special units.

The way he did it (if I recall) was he had those special units tied to tech which was somehow not learnable through the regular tech tree. But the Cthulu cult started with the techs. The only way other players could build those units was to tade or steal that tech.

[Yitzi]

To make them fully buildable, and only by that faction?  I think that would require serious .exe modding, though the method Green1 mentioned would be a fair imitation (just that the tech can be traded/stolen.)  However, if you go that route, be warned: I believe the game completely ignores any tech with a prerequisite of Disable (which is how you make it not-learnable), unless its first prerequisite is None and the second is Disable.

[ete]

hm, okay. Adding a check similar to the existing "does faction have <preq tech>" which actually asks "is current faction called <factiontext>", using code copied from the Cult's hardcoded late start for that "is faction called x" check is not practical? Is it the adding a new optional field to the default units area which would be problematic?

[Sigma]

I didn't know the Planet Cult had a programmed late start (then again I've never played as the Cult before).

[Buster's Uncle]

Yeah, Cha pops up in 2106, I think.  Story wise, he needs time to get conceived, born on Planet, and grow old enough to lead a faction at a ridiculously young age.

[Sigma]

I suppose that makes sense since their leader has to be born post Planetfall.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ninja'd on my edit.

[Yitzi]

hm, okay. Adding a check similar to the existing "does faction have <preq tech>" which actually asks "is current faction called <factiontext>", using code copied from the Cult's hardcoded late start for that "is faction called x" check is not practical? Is it the adding a new optional field to the default units area which would be problematic?

Adding a new field would be the most problematic part, as the field size of units is fixed.

What would be more plausible would be adding a new faction ability type equal to "can build X unit".  It won't be available in faction editor, but the .txt could be made to include it.

[Sigma]

That would be pretty amazing; however I get how you'd grant access to the unit for a faction but how would you bar access to everyone else?

[Geo]

I didn't know the Planet Cult had a programmed late start (then again I've never played as the Cult before).

Yeah, Cha pops up in 2106, I think.  Story wise, he needs time to get conceived, born on Planet, and grow old enough to lead a faction at a ridiculously young age.

As far as I could figure out, he starts at the same random year the Progenitors  land. Somewhere from 2104 until 2107.
To me this particular faction is interesting because they don't show (at least) the human planetfall flic (the landing pod descending on Chiron).