SMAC Fac Pack

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, if Sven wants to finish up himself, for many reasons it should be him doing that work.  The authors both have intention to complete, and it's all theirs to make that call.

Draz, let's pick something else for Tuesday after -and I'm not married to that particular day, either, just to weekly where it's doable- and pray Sven's up to staring on fairly fast completion in about a week.


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More Bases files where that comes from for promoting on short notice - I been doling those out slow for ten years; I got WAY ahead on that.

[MysticWind]

I would be helped by an elevator pitch for this set - don't worry about it being good, just describe what's special/different/appealing about these factions.  Middlin' shortish paragraph ideal.  I'll make sure it's good before I promote w/ it...

I’d say something along the lines of:

“Provides a unique set of ideologically diverse factions expanding the possibilities of Alpha Centauri, all-new tech quotes from seven new fully-realized faction leaders, and a cohesive story about this alternate Unity mission.”

Totally subject to editing, just spitballing here.

[Buster's Uncle]

Oooh, that's really helpful.  Really good quick preface to N's stuff, maybe.

[nweismuller]

I would be helped by an elevator pitch for this set - don't worry about it being good, just describe what's special/different/appealing about these factions.  Middlin' shortish paragraph ideal.  I'll make sure it's good before I promote w/ it...

I’d say something along the lines of:

“Provides a unique set of ideologically diverse factions expanding the possibilities of Alpha Centauri, all-new tech quotes from seven new fully-realized faction leaders, and a cohesive story about this alternate Unity mission.”

Totally subject to editing, just spitballing here.

That's an amazing review, and deeply flattering to me.  Thank you very much.

[nweismuller]

Minor update, sounds like part of why Friendly Sven dropped off of work is because he thought he had email updates for thread responses set, so didn't notice the responses to the thread I was making, and then came with the proposed promo, heh, and so he felt as if there was a lack of interest.  That said he's planning to finish things up when he can.

[Buster's Uncle]

He was by in the middle of the night. 

[Friendly Sven]

Hey all, I'm back from my hiatus. Thank you all for your patience.

First, Let's go over my work.
Not entirely shown: I've done a lot of little refinements here and there to bring my flat logo arts closer to vanilla logos and cleaned up some leader faces.
Attachment 1: Preserver bases are done and I'm quite happy with the results. they aren't too big and you almost can't tell I kit-bashed the university/peacekeepers
Attachment 2: I'm very conflicted on the unicorp logo. I feel like they might be tasteless enough to use raw text, but it feels cheap. Of all the elements up there, which do you like? I'm actually partial to the wrench; it was the university logo in development versions of SMAC, so it'd be fun to reuse, somehow. I'm open to new leader pics as well. B is okay but I'm trying to find one looking INTO the camera. I've also recolored the bases to match the faction color while still being somewhat different to the free drones. I'm considering adding further distinction by adding little hab domes around the industrial plant.
Attachment 3: du Lac has approved the necessary requisitions of paint in order to color her facilities blue. I'm also considering replacing the lazy logo with a Unity Mission patch I stole borrowed from The Unity Project (SMAC mod for Beyond Earth, link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=366626684 ) I think it would make sense for du Lac to use such a symbol for legitimacy.
Attachment 4: I originally indicated the defense level of tribal bases with fungal towers and scaled unit sprites; it was neat, but visually confusing. They now use a mix of human and progenitor defenses; symbolizing their unique relationship with Planet. The perimeter defenses need a touch up but you get the idea.
Attachment 4.5: I forgot about this, but there's actually two versions of catholic bases. one is just... browner than the other; which do you prefer? I've considered using blending the two to create the impression that parts are dirtier than others but it would take more than a few minutes to do.
Attachment 5: I tried the purple player color. it looks alright but it makes the logo flat. is the lilac acceptable for the texture? I've also tried a radically different approach for their bases, still very rough of course. What do you think of the cyber-industrial theme and color scheme? The old bases felt a little too passive for them.

Now, Depending on how quickly we'd like to get this done, there's a number of finer details that could be covered.
-Small report buttons should be tinted blue to be consistent with vanilla.
-I still need to do the the fac2 and 3 files, though their occurrence is rare (just defeat/ monument). In my infinite wisdom I didn't make the faction logos at this high resolution, so It'd take a while to recreate/upscale them.
-Ever notice those little slideshows in the bottom left when conducting diplomacy? They're driven by <faction>.FLC files and I'm wondering if I could slap together some for these factions. they're so low res I'd probably just reuse source material that was rejected. Wouldn't be too hard with the right know-how.
-And one last note, the music. I don't know how you've mangled the original factions for this mod but I do know that music tracks are consistent, but not entirely appropriate, imo. Perhaps we could rearrange this?
First of all: There are 5 "themes" of music in SMAC, I don't know of any official names, so:
industrial theme- Morgan and Yang
ecological theme - Deidre and Lal
scientific theme - Zak
militarist theme - Santiago
religious theme - Miriam
Here's the current distribution of these themes by faction, followed by what I think would be more appropriate for that faction.
Catholics- religious
preservers - industrial - prefer ecological
Unicorp - ecological - prefer industrial
tribal - scientific - prefer ecological
cartel - industrial
loyalists - militarist - prefer scientific
anarchy - ecological - prefer militarist
(The guitar riffs of the militaristic/spartan theme are too unruly for the loyalists)
Assuming I'm not the only one who cares, does anyone know how this could be done?

Alright, I think that's everything. From here on out, I'll check in more often, let's say weekly, unless stated otherwise.
Off to bed...

[nweismuller]

Least satisfying things first: I have no idea how the game selects music for a faction, regrettably.  If I knew I might be able to do something about it.  Does anybody have insight?

So, yes, I'm liking the Preserver bases, well-done.

For Unicorp, I'll admit my working mental image of their logo was basically 'NUI'- 'New Unity Industries' on a plate (yeah, raw text is tasteless, but you're right, Unicorp is like that), but I'll confess that the wrench certainly could fit quite well.  Let's avoid making them look too cheap, shall we?  I don't have immediate suggestions for leader portrait, but I'll keep an eye out.

The blue Spartan bases for Mission Loyalists work well in my mind; I'm satisfied.  Using the Unity mission patch actually is a great idea; go ahead and use that.

I can accept Tribal bases; the Tribals are definitely on the weirder end of what bases would look like, and I can buy this appearance involving opportunistic shelter for a settlement in local terrain.

I think I like the second/warmer/browner look for Catholic bases.  Just a personal preference.

Lilac for the texture for the Anarchists looks fine to me, and the cyber-industrial setup I can definitely buy.  Good work there.

Go ahead, take your time, and do what's needed to handle the fine details with report buttons, fac2 and fac3, and the like.  This project has waited how many years?  A little time to let you polish your work more would hardly hurt.

Anyhow, as promised, this means I'll start going through TECHLONGS and making sure the type and level for the techs mentioned is accurate.

... OK, I've yet to edit TECHLONGS, but I've just reviewed alpha.txt and noted down the category and level of all technologies with FacPack prereqs and weightings.  Notably, these technologies have changed category, and probably should get color edits: Frictionless Surfaces is now a Conquer tech, Unified Field Theory is now a Discover tech, Graviton Theory is now a Conquer tech, Applied Gravitonics is now a Conquer tech, Intellectual Integrity is now a Discover tech, Synthetic Fossil Fuels is now a Conquer tech, Photon/Wave Mechanics is now a Build tech, Biomachinery is now an Explore tech, Eudaimonia is now a Build tech, Secrets of Alpha Centauri is now an Explore tech, and Sentient Econometrics is now a Build tech.  The new technologies Plasma Dynamics (Conquer) and Life Extension (Build) should probably get their own images.  I could probably rename Plasma Dynamics to Plasma Mechanics without any real lore issues, and thereby allow the gear iconography used for 'machine/mechanics/engine/engineering' in Alpha Centauri visual language, if that makes the work of figuring an icon easier- would that be useful to you?  But, before anything else... lunch.

[Friendly Sven]

Least satisfying things first: I have no idea how the game selects music for a faction, regrettably.  If I knew I might be able to do something about it.  Does anybody have insight?

I had a hunch it had do with how you had replaced the original factions, and it seems I was right.
The order of factions in alpha.txt is used to determine which factions get which music. So you just need to rearrange the factions to get the desired music themes. I confirmed this by lining up my observed music themes for the Fac-Pack factions with vanilla/modded #FACTION section of alpha.txt (see attached). For example, the Catholics had the right music because they were in the same position as the Believers.

Here's an arrangement of factions that gives the desired music for each faction:
#FACTIONS
TRIBALS,  TRIBALS
UNICORP,  UNICORP
LOYALIST, LOYALIST
CARTEL,   CARTEL
ANARCHY,  ANARCHY
CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC
PRESERVE, PRESERVE

The only catch is that other faction-specific things may also rely on faction order.
I immediately noticed that Player colors were one of them, but I'm confident that re-arranging the colors in the .pcx file to match will fix that.

[nweismuller]

The other major faction-specific thing we might want to account for is the baked-in hostility between Spartans and Peacekeepers, between Believers and University, and between Morganites and Gaians.  If this works similarly based on faction order, this means one 'ecological' music faction will be hostile to each of one militarist and one industrialist music faction, and the scientific music faction will be hostile to the religious music faction.

Notably, the primary rival for the Anarchists should probably be either the Catholics or the Loyalists.  Hmmm.  You have thoughts on the best compromises between music tracks and logical rivalries?

[Friendly Sven]

Well, if the faction order is indeed what drives the aggression between natural enemies, that should take precedence over music. I can see most themes working for multiple factions.

What do you think are the 3 core conflicts of the Fac Pack Factions?
Anarchist vs. Loyalist (Frankly I think this is mandatory. It's the "main story" and the faction's goals are perfect opposites)
Unicorp vs. Cartel (Seems like one you had in mind)
Preserver vs. Tribal (Hadn't considered it until now but it actually sounds cool. Earth v. Chiron)
Tribal vs. Unicorp (Analogous to Gaian v. Morgan)
Catholic vs. Preserver (Analogous to Miriam v. Zak, but seems weak)

and since 1 faction is left out, which faction shares the... neutrality... of the hive? That faction would have the industrial music.

The first three conflicts are my personal favorites, making the Catholics my "leftover" faction. That said, terran.exe might be using faction order for ai behavior in general. We wouldn't want the Catholics behaving like Yang.

[nweismuller]

AI behavior, as far as I can tell, is set by the Explore/Discover/Build/Conquer priorities set, the agenda/aversions, the aggression, and the in-built rivalries.  All of these but in-built rivalries happen based on stuff I have access to in modding.  That said- Anarchist/Catholic, Unicorp/Tribals, and Cartel/Loyalists actually could work without any of the rivalry pairs being *too* weak conceptually.  Preserver/Tribal and Preserver/Catholic really don't knock my socks off as rivals.

Anybody else have any thoughts here?

Edit: Oh, wait, looks like there may be one more rival pair- last line on this page:

https://archive.org/details/Sid_Meiers_Alpha_Centauri_Prima_Official_eGuide/page/n14/mode/1up?view=theater

[DrazharLn]

I don't think faction rivalries are based on the faction number. For a definite answer you would have to run some experiments or ask Scient or Induktio.

[nweismuller]

Any updates, Friendly Sven?

[Friendly Sven]

Nothing worth showing off so far, unfortunately. I believe I've found a way to upscale the logos quite painlessly (in short: make SVG from low-res graphics, use SVG to make high-res graphics), but I haven't had the time to sit down and actually learn how to do it.

I also tried a number of kit-bash variations with the anarchist bases, but it just didn't look right. I think I'll try again with something similar to what I showed previously with the standard consciousness props in the foreground. It should be distinct enough.

Did you figure out if faction rivalries are based on faction order?