Creating an entirely new side

[jtgibson 18]

I'm trying to make a faction-based game where there are a large number of different, competing interests in a single game environment. The player is the head of one such competing interest. These factions would have different allegiances to one another and to the player, and allegiances should be able to change during the player's political choices, or even as an immediate result of the player's hostile actions.

I'm running into a wall here where it's looking as though I'm limited to a selection of three sides -- BLUFOR, OPFOR, and GUERRILLA. Is there any way to provide additional sides instead of the side = 1 for west, side = 0 for east, etc.?

We'll tackle the AI problems when we come to them... I'm more concerned about the engine's ability to handle it. My methods are all failing, but if there's something I'm missing I'd love to hear it.

[.kju 3245]

no. you can only used the sides available

east, west, civ, res, renegade

[jtgibson 18]

Civilian is right out, since there would of course be civilians and empty vehicles in the game. Enemy/renegade might be usable in a pinch, bumping it up to four, but the default setRating stuff would have to go in favour of adjusting faction relations instead.

The enemy side does have the advantage that I can go ahead and assign the default "always hostile" faction to it, and everyone will shoot them on sight and they could shoot everyone else on sight. However, that means there are only two other factions, not including the player's faction. That limits me only to the biggest two.

I wonder how hard-coded the sides are. I think I'll go ahead and make a feature request.

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/3577

Edited August 12, 2009 by jtgibson

[Big Dawg KS 6]

I wonder how hard-coded the sides are.

Very.

Also with the enemy/renegade side, they are enemies to EVERY side, including itself. So even if two units are on that side they will be hostile to eachother. So unless you have a one man faction I wouldn't advise using it.

[jtgibson 18]

Hm. Does setFriendly not work on sideEnemy? As long as you managed to keep anyone from joining that side spontaneously (easier said than done, I guess, with the geniuses in online multiplayer ;-)), it could be adjusted so that it was its own friend and everything else would just behave as normal.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Dunno. Never tried it.