Well call me the odd voice out but I believe the Federation needs to be defend itself. There is no way around that but at times bombing systems.
Manipulation is part of life and what happens. So what if a player does things the AI doesn't like and that means war is declared. That is how life works.
Real world events and countries do that all the time from all kinds of reasons. At the end of the day the AI makes its own choices based on coding granted but that is part of way you push other powers. They push back too in their ways. You can start arguing the AI manipulates you too. Yeah... "so" welcome to how it works.
It seems people want the Federation to not be able to defend itself. Only attack ships. But that is impossible. Look at history. Defensive only mindsets lose. As Worf said those would adopt a seize mentaily lose. The best defense is a strong offense. BOTF set the bar so high it basically made the Federation defendless. The computer (AI) never followed that anyway and would be very aggressive often as the Federation.
So basically the argument is allow all powers to fight back but cripple the Federation. Yeah there is a word for that unrealistic .
Sure the Federation should not go around declaring war but if war comes regardless of why the Federation should fight back.
INTRODUCING: Rebirth of the Federation
Moderators: thunderchero, Dafedz
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cleverwise
- Captain
- Posts: 669
- Joined: Sun Jul 28, 2013 3:09 pm
- Location: Thailand
Re: INTRODUCING: Rebirth of the Federation
It is your turn to get out and push the starship!
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justanick
- Lieutenant-Commander
- Posts: 105
- Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2023 1:30 pm
- Location: Germany
Re: INTRODUCING: Rebirth of the Federation
That sounds more like offense than defense. Success in fighting off enemy fleets does increase morale and that gives room for a limited offensive. In Vanilla and ECM that is easy enough for the human player.cleverwise wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2026 12:07 amWell call me the odd voice out but I believe the Federation needs to be defend itself. There is no way around that but at times bombing systems.
In either case, i have no strong opinion on how it should be. I am just not complete sold on the idea to give further advantages to being declared war on.
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Dafedz
- Lieutenant-Commander
- Posts: 163
- Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 2:00 am
Re: INTRODUCING: Rebirth of the Federation
Work is continuing on the extraordinarily complicated diplomacy system!
The basic core design is simple. Tuning it is not.
Every race holds a Sympathy value towards you. It's set at the start of the game. Every interaction you have with another race, be it a treaty proposal, gift, request/bribe et al checks that number against a series of situational thresholds, i.e for a Friendship approach or an Affiliation. The bulk of the work has been weighting how fast that sympathy number moves when offering a gift (either a stand alone gift or a treaty incentive) and what the race says, how it reacts, when it receives it. This is controlled on a logic tree. Tied into that are all the reactions/replies, starting with 1). tone bands for Gifts [pleased/satisfied/indifferent]. Example, you give the Breen exactly the gift they want, but they're Enraged with you. The sympathy boost isn't effected, it still rises the normal amount, but they don't sound happy about accepting the gift. They have no choice, no gift can be declined unlike a treaty, but their acceptance is a grudging one. And 2). the Treaty proposal reply lines themselves -- unique to every race, which serve mostly as flavour. The first iteration of this, when I began writing these all out, culminated in the range of 95 - 110 text entries (lines/paragraphs, approx 4,500 words) for every individual race for just Friendship Treaties alone. And there are 72 minor races. You do the math.
After doing that work for the first handful of races and hitting a fatigue wall, it became apparent that my goals were simply unachievable here. I had to scale back if I was to ever finish this game. I now have each race down to about 35 entries and 1,500 words for the Friendship treaties, where the bulk of the correspondence take place. Affiliation and membership refusals/acceptances will probably be much simpler, and involved races sharing entries, i.e., "Yes, we will be honored to join you." etc. These figures do not include Gifts, requests, or the numerous event statements/reactions, including war.
Problems with the logic tree
Some races were unreachable. The rigorous conditions of which some races were configured -- stubborn, adversarial races, especially when low sympathy such as Enraged or Hostile - made them incredibly difficult to befriend (for the Federation). The controls were just too tightly set. These have been relaxed. On top of that, I have made Credits more powerful as a gift/incentive. I had deliberately drifted from the BOTF credits mechanic to provide a more subtle and diversified diplomacy system. It slightly backfired. Now, Credits are a universal option again. Every race accepts them - some more enthusiastically than others, and the sympathy nudges from credits vary in strength. It was a sensible fallback, just in case the player had difficulties in 'finding' the sweet spot gift that would boost a race's sympathy towards you.
Negative gifts
I won't say much more on this but it is possible that sending a particular gift to particular race may have a negative effect. Rather than always nudging in a positive direction, some gifts could result in a -1 Sympathy drop. It's not a common outcome, or a harsh penalty, but with the way the logic tree is designed the potential exists. An example: you offer Weapons Research to a Pacifist race, like the Mizarians. They will not be impressed with this gift!
Empire Treaties
Still under development, but the first iteration is in - see screenshot
Trying to get a Non-Aggression Treaty with the Klingons and failing.
Sending a Friendship proposal to the Axanar
Here you see the flavour of the individual race replies I'm writing
Minor race Friendship treaty
An Affiliation approach
bribing the Corvallens away from the Klingons (or trying to)
The basic core design is simple. Tuning it is not.
Every race holds a Sympathy value towards you. It's set at the start of the game. Every interaction you have with another race, be it a treaty proposal, gift, request/bribe et al checks that number against a series of situational thresholds, i.e for a Friendship approach or an Affiliation. The bulk of the work has been weighting how fast that sympathy number moves when offering a gift (either a stand alone gift or a treaty incentive) and what the race says, how it reacts, when it receives it. This is controlled on a logic tree. Tied into that are all the reactions/replies, starting with 1). tone bands for Gifts [pleased/satisfied/indifferent]. Example, you give the Breen exactly the gift they want, but they're Enraged with you. The sympathy boost isn't effected, it still rises the normal amount, but they don't sound happy about accepting the gift. They have no choice, no gift can be declined unlike a treaty, but their acceptance is a grudging one. And 2). the Treaty proposal reply lines themselves -- unique to every race, which serve mostly as flavour. The first iteration of this, when I began writing these all out, culminated in the range of 95 - 110 text entries (lines/paragraphs, approx 4,500 words) for every individual race for just Friendship Treaties alone. And there are 72 minor races. You do the math.
After doing that work for the first handful of races and hitting a fatigue wall, it became apparent that my goals were simply unachievable here. I had to scale back if I was to ever finish this game. I now have each race down to about 35 entries and 1,500 words for the Friendship treaties, where the bulk of the correspondence take place. Affiliation and membership refusals/acceptances will probably be much simpler, and involved races sharing entries, i.e., "Yes, we will be honored to join you." etc. These figures do not include Gifts, requests, or the numerous event statements/reactions, including war.
Problems with the logic tree
Some races were unreachable. The rigorous conditions of which some races were configured -- stubborn, adversarial races, especially when low sympathy such as Enraged or Hostile - made them incredibly difficult to befriend (for the Federation). The controls were just too tightly set. These have been relaxed. On top of that, I have made Credits more powerful as a gift/incentive. I had deliberately drifted from the BOTF credits mechanic to provide a more subtle and diversified diplomacy system. It slightly backfired. Now, Credits are a universal option again. Every race accepts them - some more enthusiastically than others, and the sympathy nudges from credits vary in strength. It was a sensible fallback, just in case the player had difficulties in 'finding' the sweet spot gift that would boost a race's sympathy towards you.
Negative gifts
I won't say much more on this but it is possible that sending a particular gift to particular race may have a negative effect. Rather than always nudging in a positive direction, some gifts could result in a -1 Sympathy drop. It's not a common outcome, or a harsh penalty, but with the way the logic tree is designed the potential exists. An example: you offer Weapons Research to a Pacifist race, like the Mizarians. They will not be impressed with this gift!
Empire Treaties
Still under development, but the first iteration is in - see screenshot
Trying to get a Non-Aggression Treaty with the Klingons and failing.
Sending a Friendship proposal to the Axanar
Here you see the flavour of the individual race replies I'm writing
Minor race Friendship treaty
An Affiliation approach
bribing the Corvallens away from the Klingons (or trying to)