Dynamic Faction Relations Customizer v2.2.2 addon

Dynamic Faction Relations Customizer [DFRC]

I was inspired by other addons which improved on the vanilla code, most notably the one by Vintar0 which merged the addons by Yastin and Favkis_Nexerade and tweaked the implementation of Tronex which is based on the original addon by DoctorX and av661194.

My Goal is to modify and extend the feature even further, adding MCM options for most of the key parameters to provide a fully customizable experience and add a few new interesting additions that I personally liked to see included.

In short: What this addon will do is enabling relation changes for all previously 'blacklisted' factions such as Renegade, Sin, UNISG and Monolith with other factions while applying a (user-)defined rule set to how these changes will apply. That way their relations may not change too fast or in a way which would completely go against the lore. So, for example, while it is now possible to improve relations with Monolith by killing their enemies it will not be just as fast as building up an existing relation with a neutral faction. That said, there’s nothing stopping you anymore of changing that on the fly via MCM.

I highly recommend using my other addon "Show All Faction Relations in PDA" so you can actually see all Relations between Factions in your PDA instead of it being limited to the major ones.

MCM and Modded Exe's are absolutely required for this addon!
Please make sure that the option 'Dynamic Faction Relations' is turned on:

Update Overview v2.2:

Recent Patches

2.2.2

CRITICAL BUGFIXES:

• Fixed nil index crash in mutant relations module.
• Fixed issues with enemy evaluation. See paragraph below.

Revised and Fixed Creature "Neutral" Feature:

• Clarification just in case: "Neutral" means that stalkers will not necessarily charge across the map to hunt down a pack of mutants and the mutants will just ignore them until they get too close. While there is always a slim chance that creatures will stay "neutral", their chance of turning hostile in close proximity with this setting is by default close to 100%. So this setting should be seen as emulation of stalkers and mutants more or less trying to avoid encounters while "Friendly" and "Allied" factions can get much closer to mutants while also having less risk of them turning hostile.
• NPCs Neutral/Allied to Player should now change to default behaviour and attack mutants when player is attacked unless they are allied with mutants.
• Important NPCs should be able to fight mutants in case they attack the player but they themselves will never be targeted by them.

Combat related Dynamic News and Relation Change Features:

• Added option "Trigger Chance on NPC hit" to General/Chance: If enabled just attacking NPCs can trigger dynamic news reports and relation changes as much as killing NPCs does. A fifth of the death_value is then used as base. Fun fact: That way the attacked NPC might be sending the SOS himself. I will probably have to check if some messages need to be revised but most should be fine.
• Added cooldown of 5-10 seconds to Dynamic News Messages regarding combat to reduce potential spamming from the same NPCs. May need some tweaking.
• Delayed Death Reports are now restricted to current map by default to reduce actor_update overhead and potential stutters. Full evaluation can be turned back on by changing the "delayed_death_reporting_local_only" in the ltx to 'false'.

Other tweaks and fixes:

• Fixed unlikely but possible issue which would occur if notoriety factor would evaluate to 0.

2.2.1:

• CRITICAL BUGFIX: Fixed issue of relations landing on -1000 or 1000 and then being stuck and not improving/decreasing respectively. Thanks to 'Kenesiak' for finding this bug!
• Rule Changes: Mercenaries are affected by all kills except zombified stalkers or mutants. If you are upgrading from a previous version you will need to apply that change manually for each faction pairing or just reset all "Rules" pages to default if you haven't applied any changes yourself.
• Added Option "Creatures ignore Important NPCs" to Creature Feature.
• Companions report on other companions by name also or not at all if it would be gossip.
• Disabled "Notoriety Factor" for Relation Changes triggered through Monster killed to balance relation change values by monster type.

2.2.0:

Refactored, fixed and added MCM options:

• Added option to disable the vanilla multiplier based on neutral/enemy faction count towards the victim faction when calculating Relation Changes. This multiplier, which I dubbed 'Notoriety Factor' was intruduced by Yastin's update to Dynamic Relations and is meant to scale the relation change value more fairly (see original creators comments below). Be aware though that relations will rise and fall veeeeery slowly without it. So if you chose to disable it you may want to increase the death value. As an Alternative to disabling it you can also just adjust the Multiplier Limiter as you see fit. It will only affect the overall calculation if the 'Notoriety Factor' is enabled.

  -- the more allies the victim had, the greater the relation gain between the factions hostile to the victim. Enemies of everyone (ex: Renegades) get very little relation gain
  -- the more enemies the victim had, the greater the relation penalty between factions allied to the victim

• Added option to modify the amount of Goodwill gained/lost on Kill based on Relation Change Value in %
• Added new submenu in "Rules" which lets you globally turn individual parts of the ruleset on and off, such as: Alliance/Ceasefire reset, Upper/Lower Relation Limit, Alliance/Enemy Restrictions etc.
• Added customizable values for 'Upper' and 'Lower' Relation Limits per faction pair and applied my own preset values for them loosely inspired by Favkis's "Fluid Relations" but still kept very lenient at the moment. - In their current default setting they should only apply if the default 'Never Enemy' or 'Never Allied' settings were changed or their application was disabled. However, since this change still may drastically affect existing saves with different configurations I did not enable the application of these values by default. This will also affect "Alliance Expire" and "Ceasefires" Reset and Variance values if their respective values would go beyond any of the new limits.
• Replaced "Never Allied" and "No Alliance Expire" as well as "Never Enemies" and "No Ceasefires" checkboxes with radio buttons "Alliances*" and "Ceasefires*" respectively as to remove mutually exclusive options. ( this will unfortunately require you to re-enter any changes you may have previously applied to those settings... )
• Got rid of some nasty typos and copy/paste errors introduced in the last version.

Actor Faction Dissatisfaction:

• Refactored code and simplified Approbation Evaluation while still maintaining the intended gameplay: if the player can accumulate a certain amount of goodwill within 12 hours, the Alert Level decreases, if more Goodwill is lost than gained, or the player simply does nothing within the probation period, it will increase.

'Creature Feature' Fixes and Enhancements:

• Rebalanced death value calculation for mutants.
• Settings for Zombified Stalkers are no longer needed and thus not included in the Creature Feature Tab as they are treated as regular faction within the "Rules" tab.
• A new option 'Neutral' was added to allow limited neutral behavior of monsters towards any other factions. This option is the default for all factions except Monolith. Added new module inspired by S.U.S. which will change monster vs. faction relations in a way that they are not evaluated plain as enemies by default anymore but will adhere to neutral/friendly/allied settings. All factions using the neutral/friendly/allied option are ignored by monsters unless they get too close to them. Each option will individually affect the distance at which a monster decides if it becomes hostile or stays neutral and every mutant type has its own chance to turn hostile. Both are further modified by stalker rank: Lower ranks have lesser experience with mutants and thus are more likely to accidentally provoke them. Mutants may remain neutral until attacked.
• Added a patch for offline combat simulations which should ensure creature friendly factions will not kill creatures "off-screen".
• Modified 'validate_assault_task' patch. Now friends and allies of mutants should not receive any "Cull Mutant" Tasks.

Minor tweaks and fixes:

• Companions now report the player by name when reporting a kill and wont say any "i just heard gunfire" gossip lines anymore because.. they are witnessing who is shooting. so it doesn’t make sense for them to say lines like „sounds bad, we need to get out of there“
• Reduced "Special" NPC death value bonus multiplier from 2 to 1.25 because it feels way to high when using mods that add a lot of non-default spawns (i.e. the Re:done Collection addons, which I absolutely recommend.)
• Added a cooldown time for gossip death reports coming from the same NPC.

Rule Changes:

• Mercenaries and Monolith now have Ceasefire option enabled and Mercenaries will be affected by killed Monoliths. Their default Upper and Lower Limits (if the respective global rules are enabled) are deliberately low to make them more of a wildcard faction as commentator fraer228 suggested.

Update Overview v2.1:

Recent Patches

2.1.1: Fixes missing NPC death news (e.g. SOS) that was due to some botched monkey patching, minor additions for good measure and fixes to things I overlooked:

• Fixed/added some code to re-enable all the SOS and witness messages in my Dynamic News Manager monkey patch. Tested fine on my build so I hope it should be fine again overall!
• Fixed "Private Channel Data Leak" not always working. Now you really can listen to all the chatter if you set the chance high!
• Added Multiplier for goodwill gained on tasks. Works with and without the recently added Task Goodwill features.
• Relation Gain Factor will default to 1.0 if affected faction == active faction. So no more reduction of Goodwill points earned when completing tasks for your own factions. Relation Loss Factor will still add the Victim Factor if enabled.
• Default values for Task Goodwill Conversion should properly load from the LTX now.
• Removed "Never Enemy" default rule setting from "Mercenary vs UNISG".
• Added force-enable checkbox for the "Dynamic Faction Relations" setting (enabled by default). Now you'll have to willfully turn it off but it ensures that the addon works out-of-the-box:

New Features

• DFRC now uses monkeypatches for all its modified dynamic_news_manager functions so it should is now finally be compatible with Dialogues Expanded. Edit: I'm positive it works because I'm using that one myself too: DIALOGUE EXPANDED V4.1
  
  
• Added proper "Relation Loss Factor":
  Based on the previously introduced idea of the Relation Gain Factor, this modifier will affect the amount of relation lost. Contrary to RGF, where the lower of the two faction RGF values is used, RLF uses the higher value. Having a good relation (>500 or higher) with affected faction will reduce the overall loss. This factor also increases based on the relation of the affected faction and the victim faction. It will make a big difference now if the victim was from a faction neutral to the affected one or a longlasting allied faction. - This is enabled by default but can be disabled in MCM.
  
  
• Dynamic Goodwill<>Faction Relation Change on Task Completion:
  When enabled it will deduct a fraction amount of goodwill, based on your current goodwill and your rank, that would be gained with another faction and applies it to the relation between your faction and the other one instead. By default 20% of goodwill gained are retained at minimum.
  An independent bonus amount can be applied for the faction relation change. Both can be modified in MCM. - If you don't care for the Gradual Conversion Part you can just set "Minimum GW retained" to 1.0 and select whichever amount of the Goodwill shall be used for Relation Changes instead in the second slider "Bonus %".

• Fixed bug with "Reset Goodwill when factions become hostile". Also I have added a feature which allows the player to retain some or all of the goodwill. The minimum and maximum amount of Goodwill in % that is retained when the players factions becomes hostile with another (if that feature is enabled) can be adjusted in MCM from 0 to 100% in the 'Randomizer' settings. Also the reset is now only happening if the player has any positive goodwill with that faction at all.

Fixes/Minor Changes

• Companions will not mistakenly report you as killer just because you were near an unreported victim.
• Fixed crashes in "is_faction_unaffected", "is_faction_pair_unaffected" or "faction_cares" when non-player faction is used as parameter (a.k.a. "Arena Crash Fix") * Added patch which will make sure arena_enemy is set up as enemy to everyone else so there should be no more reputation loss or anything.
• Fixed some issues with some settings not loading properly and some overall code refactoring.

Update Overview v2.0:

Recent Patches

2.0.6: Fixed error in calculation causing extremely low relation gain. Added dynamic relation gain when gaining/losing goodwill in events such as fulfilled or failed tasks. Actor Faction Dissatisfaction is now reset to 0 when changing factions and is not carried over to the next by mistake. Changed default goodwill gain chance on relation change to 2% instead of 5%. Changed slider in MCM to allow 0.01 increments.

2.0.5: Reinstated "Important NPCs" list due to there being a lot of special NPC spawns which are not caught by my replacement function thus leading to way exaggerated relation changes. - Added distinction for Important and Special NPCs for the chance calculation and the change value calculation (special NPCs have a 25% higher chance to trigger a change and their base death_value is doubled).

Not a change but an important observation: If you kill someone while disguised then the kill counts against/for the faction you disguise as! I may add an MCM option in a later update to disable self-reporting as the disguise faction.

2.0.4: Temporarily disabled some code which is part of a work-in-progress feature. It was reported to cause crashes so I will do more testing and possibly rework it when I'm continuing to work on that part.

2.0.3: Fixed a bug in Zone Activity causing relation change values to become too high. Moved WTF patches to optional install folder and changed load behaviour of patches to avoid issues.

2.0.2: Added another WTF patch. Should be working fine now. Fixed load order issue which accidentally disabled Randomizer feature. Fixed creature feature relation value reset combined with start-variance when enabled mid-game. Fixed encoding issue in rus 'st_dynamic_news_expanded.xml'. Applied catch condition for empty task_cache in patched 'xr_conditions.validate_assault_task' which hopefully eliminates rare crash.

2.0.1: Re-Reworked Observer/Witness finding processes almost from scratch for active and delayed death reporting to minimize potential stutter. Added MCM switch to turn off delayed death reporting if needed. Fixed some minor errors. Reduced regular 'Actor Faction Dissatisfaction' probation time between stages to 11 hours after last friendly fire.

New Features

• Added a faction-to-faction "Relation Gain Factor" modifier to the "Rules" faction submenus. This allows for fine-tuning the potential relationship gain for specific faction pairs. My preset for example further decreases gain between Loners and Military, Loners and Bandits, Duty and Freedom and many more while increasing some others like Duty and Military, Mercenaries and UNISG etc.
  Note: The maximum RGF, including the modifier, is internally capped to 1.5 and the absolute minimum RGF is 0.1 - This feature will be expanded upon in later updates with another dynamic component to it but that will still needs more testing.

• "Observer/Witness based Chance Calculation" Mode - With this enabled kills will only affect relations if they are observed and reported by anyone instead of changes being applied completely random throughout. In short: if you see a message coming in from another stalker reporting someone attacking them, then faction relations have likely changed accordingly. And if you are the only witness, well... dead men tell no tales. The killer itself might report a kill only if it benefits him (that includes the player character). Private factions almost always report their kills with their group and their allies - depending on their rank and the victim rank - however, they *usually* don't share that information with the public (see next option). In any case it then lastly also depends on the observers rank and reputation if their report is affecting relations. Functionally this setting will sometimes drastically reduce the amount of relation changes happening while adding some immersion.

• "Chance for Private Faction Death Reports to 'leak'" - Private Factions such as the Military, UNISG, Sin and Monolith will usually not report deaths in the public channels, thus some relations may not change if an observer and/or killer is a member of those factions. Unless of course their channel is compromised... This setting practically overrides the 'Base Chance for Factions to ignore Kills' for those observed/commited by private factions. If you do not care for private factions to withhold death reports from other factions you can set this to 100%.

• "Delayed Death Reporting" (automatically enabled with "Observer based Chance Calculation") - NPC deaths, which were not reported due to them being stealth kills or otherwise not observed, may be reported later if there is evidence to suggest a specific killer. This can then lead to belated relation changes and - in some scenarios - this may lead to other factions being held accountable for someone else's kill by accident. The dynamic news manager has been expanded to show these new messages if "death reporting" is enabled for Dynamic News.

• "Zone Activity" news trigger Relation Changes - Now some dynamic news which report other squads clashing (or helping each other out) can have a (small) impact on Faction Relations. This feature is tied to 'Deadly News' being enabled but unlike the Observer/Witness feature itself this little addon can/will be disabled if "Zone Activity" News are disabled in the Main Settings. For this feature I imported some dynamic news text specific to Zone Activities from indyora's addon Moddb.com to expand the pool of available scenarios. Compatibility Note: If you are using this addon please make sure it is loaded *before* DFRC. At the moment this will unfortunately overwrite some of its smaller features but the expanded text it provides will work nonetheless. I plan to make DFRC fully compatible to it in the future.

• "Actor Faction Dissatisfaction"/"Going Rogue" penalty system - Requires goodwill changes to be enabled. Accumulating a body count of friendlies within a small amount of time or killing important NPCs of a friendly faction all while getting caught will put the player at risk of being kicked out by his community! As a small detail: In Dynamic News NPCs will also point out that it is a rogue faction member that attacked them now. - This feature is disabled by default but highly recommended for players seeking a bit of a more realistic response from their faction to friendly fire.

Changes to Rules and Default Settings

• General Settings in MCM have been split into sub-menus so you may need to re-do some configuration changes there if you are upgrading from v1.2.
• Settings overriding the original 'dynamic_faction_relations.ltx' have been renamed to 'Manage xy setting via DFRC' and they have been enabled by default so users can change them in MCM right away.
• The additional Relation Gain Factor modifier reduction based on enemy relation values can now be disabled via MCM.
• 'Notoriety Factor' renamed to 'Base Value Multiplier' as it is in fact regulating the relation value calculation as a whole, not just the friend/enemy factor.
• Goodwill "Loss on Friendly Fire" is now enabled by default, however the chance for negative goodwill changes has been reduced to 25% instead of 50%.
• Relation Rules:
  • Sin and Monolith may now become enemies and alliances between them can expire.
  • Both will now also be positively affected ("care") when Freedom or Army members die. Note: These settings will not automatically apply to your settings if you are updating from DFRC v1.2.

Fixes/Minor Changes

• Refactored a lot of code for ease of use and to minimize errors and potential crashes.
• Changed the way "Minimum Chance for factions to ignore kills" value is implemented and it is now only affecting the Base Chance in conjunction with "Victim Rank Modification". This way the latter will scale properly now and will not directly affect the final resulting effective chance anymore.
• Creature Feature:
  • "Friendly" setting now only applies to lower rank monsters such as rats, cats, dogs and boars. Killing a snork, bloodsucker or deadlier will be handled as normal. Mutant Death Value is now also increased/decreased internally based on their Type in addition to the death value modifier setting. Changing the 'allied' setting should now work on existing saves as well.
  • Added an experimental fix to disable 'Mutant Kill Tasks' for Mutant friendly factions. Needs verification and testing. Added more descriptive notes to MCM settings.

Compatibility Changes

• DFRC now has all necessary modified functions and (monkey-)patches for game_relations.script included in its main module and thus does not rely on the original game file anymore. There may be interference though if another addon modifies the same functions in similar fashion so please let me know if you notice any feature not working or if your game crashes referring to game_relations.script as culprit.
• The main module will now load faction names directly from game_relations.ltx to allow for full compatibility with addons which add/change factions. However: such addons must be loaded *prior to* DFRC and a patched "dynamic_faction_relations_customizer.ltx" as well as a patched "dynamic_faction_relations_customizer_mcm.xml" have to be loaded *after* DFRC to make them work properly. I included enough safeguards (i hope) so it would not crash necessarily but you will find missing faction name text within the MCM menu and faction to faction setting presets will not be loaded. I will add patched files to my addon as optional install in the future for addons I am aware of.
• For 'Deadly News' and 'Zone Activity Relation Changes' it was necessary to include a modified version of 'dynamic_news_manager.script' and I included code to make it natively work with the DLTX version of 'LTTZ DC'. If you find another addon which also uses a modified version of this file just let me know and I will make a patch for it!

Main Features Overview

Utilizing Yastin's approach of One-Way-Pairings and taking notes from Vintar's implementation I have created a comprehensive rule-set considering all factions and how they would be reacting to each others demise according to their lore and history among each other. I also removed the previous blacklisting of certain factions (Monolith, Sin, UNISG, Renegade, Zombied) so their relations will actually change over time.

Examples:

• Monolith does not care for the deaths of most other factions with the exception being Sin, as they feel they connect well with them and Loners, Freedom and the Military because they feel those groups are constantly trying to breach their territory. So anyone eliminating those groups is slightly interesting to them and anyone attacking Sin will anger them.
• Attacking Monolith on the other hand may improve your stance with most 'friendly' factions such as Loners, Freedom, etc. while Bandits, Renegade, ISG etc. won't care.
• The army does, sort of, protect the ecologists so attacking them will lower relations with both. This however, does not apply the other way around as ecologists will mostly try to stay out of turf wars and not care for ither faction deaths.
• and many more!

Fully implemented LTX Settings Override

As of 2.0 effectively all of the dynamic_faction_relations.ltx file settings are overridden by my addon. In the Section 'Rules' (previously named 'FR Limits' you will now find switches to 'blacklist' factions from relation changes, blacklist specific 'faction pairs' as well as options to set 'One-Way'-Pairings.

Compatibility with existing modified 'dynamic_faction_relations.ltx' configuration files:
The original LTX will be loaded but mostly ignored by my addon as it comes with its own configuration file. If you however want to utilize an existing configuration file based on the addon by Vintar0 or the original from Yastin instead, you can just untick the appropriate "Manage" settings in General>Main section in DFRC's MCM options:

Adjustable Chances for Relation Change

The function governing the relation change calculation has been completely refactored. Now, instead of the game just flipping a coin twice it will take other factors into account to determine if a change should be considered or happening and allows both positive and negative changes for the same casualty (this was an either-or chance before). The "base chance for a faction to ignore kills" is now changeable through MCM and by default set to 75% which should approximate the original frequency of occurrences. Additionally you can let the game take the victims rank into account, which will increase the chances of factions to react by decreasing the "chance to ignore". You may want to increase the ignore chance up to 100% if you play with the victim rank option though to balance it out. There is also chance limiter you can set for this chance to calibrate your experience.

"Deadly News": If the new feature "Observer/Witness based chance modifications" is enabled, chances for relations to change will depend on who (if anyone) witnessed or reported the death of another stalker or monster. If there are no witnesses the killer itself might report the kill if it benefits him. Private factions always report their kills with their group and their allies, however, they usually don't share that information with the public. In any case it then lastly also depends on the observers rank and reputation if their report is affecting relations. Functionally this setting will sometimes drastically reduce the amount of relation changes happening while increasing immersion: Since it is tied with the Dynamic News Manager you can be sure that whenever you read someone reporting a kill then relations were certainly affected!

Yet another addition is the possibility to enable Goodwill changes along with Relation Changes. Here you have the option to enable only negative changes on friendly fire or to enable positive ones as well. The change value is internally split 50/50 for most situation to not have relations escalate too quickly. This feature is set to "Loss on 'Friendly Fire' only" by default, but you can disable it any time you want.

"Actor Faction Dissatisfaction": Disabled by default. If this and goodwill change chances are enabled then your faction will have a strong reaction to losing goodwill due to friendly fire or other means. If you get into negative goodwill values or accumulate a loss of 100 or more later in game your faction will put you on 'probation'. If you regain enough goodwill within 11 hours your status with the community becomes normal again. If however you lose more goodwill your status will go to the next warning stage. A warning is shown for each of the 5 stages in which you still would be able to redeem yourself. If you fail and get to stage 6... well you will be kicked out of your community and will be declared a 'Renegade'.

Adjustable Relation Change Calculation

The base calculation has been build on top of the improved calculation from Yastin's Addon in Vintar's merge. Here is an description excerpt from Yastin's Addon which probably describes it best:

"Lower relation change values in general. Relation change value changes depending on the victim faction's own relations.
Factions with many enemies are worth less of a bonus. Monolith are everyone's problem, after all, you have to kill many to make a dent and gain some real recognition.Factions with few enemies are worth less of a hit to their buddies. The more friends you have, the less your individual troops' deaths effect each, after all"

So the way the game handles changes in relations now boils down to this: If a faction 'cares' about the demise of someone (or 'something' - I will get to that later) it will raise or lower their relation with the faction responsible for the victims death based on several factors:

If the victim was an enemy to them as well:
positive relation change value = death_value * rank_factor * reputation_factor * num_friends_and_neutrals * pop_not_factor * relation_gain_factor

If the victim was neutral or allied to them:
negative relation change value = death_value * rank_factor * reputation_factor * num_enemies * pop_not_factor * relation_loss_factor

• The base 'death_value' used for Relation Changes can be modified within MCM. The higher you set it the faster relations will change.* The rank_factor has been toned down a bit as it was producing way to exaggerated numbers at times. I see no point in relation changes of 300+ within your first hour of arriving in the zone.* The reputation_factor was kept the way it was. High and Low Reputation repectively will have a minor impact on the calculation.
  
  
• Base Value Multiplier: The original implementation introduced a death value multiplier based on how many friends and neutral connections a faction has (when evaluating positive changes to other factions) or on how many enemies they have (for negative changes). This number makes a huge impact on the outcome so this factor will allow you to calibrate the impact of the calculation. I settled on a lower number here for my default setting but if you prefer fast paced progression you can increase it in MCM.
  
  
• Relationship Gain Factor/Relationship Loss Factor: This is built around the idea that, since it is now possible to gain points with ANY faction, it should be limited by their individual 'trust' to other factions and on how low their relation to the attacker is. So you will experience only a miniscule positive impact with enemy factions when attacking common enemies, whereas relations with neutral/friendly factions will increase faster when common enemies are attacked. You will find the settings for each factions Relation Gain Factor and a Modifier for each pairing in the MCM section 'Rules'.
  
  The "additional RGF reduction for Enemy Relations" will further reduce any relation gain between factions at war by their current relationship value as follows:
  
  RGF = RGF * (((relation_value + 1000)/4000) +1)
  
  For Relation Loss this factor becomes rather straight-forward. A simply multiplier is applied which is increased if the victim was a 'Buddy' or 'Allied' faction to the observing faction.

Faction Relation Rules

You will find the switches to disable relation changes with - and between - specific factions here if you want specific relations to be fixed.

With opening up the Dynamic Relations to every faction some limits had to be set to still provide a 'lore-friendly' experience. I'm talking Limits like Freedom and Duty should never become Allies, or Monolith should never come to a ceasefire agreement with anyone except maybe Sin. The default settings are mostly an interpretation/conversion of what Favkis_Nexerade had implemented in the 'Fluid Relations' addon:

"Addon for dynamic relationships that removes some limitations, like stalkers and freedom/duty can't become friends.Now all factions can change their relations with each other, but there are limits that make sense.
On example: stalkers may change their relations from bad to excellent with duty, freedom and clear sky, but can never be hostile to them.
Freedom and duty may declare a cease fire, but that will be very temporary, because their relations can't go higher than bad.
Army may declare cease fire with many factions, but will never be friendly to anyone but scientists."

With my set of MCM options you can of course flip the script entirely on its head if you choose. It's up to you.

The following switches can be set for every combination of factions:

Alliances*:

• Never Expire:
  Relation will not reset when reaching the upper limit of 5000 (or whatever the upper limit is set to)
• Can Expire:
  Relation will be reset to 0 (or whichever value is set in "Randomizer") when surpassing the upper limit.
• Never Allied:
  Relation will never rise any higher than 999

Ceasefires*:

• Never Called:
  Relation will not reset when reaching the limit of -5000 (or whatever the lower limit is set to)
• Allowed:
  Relation will be reset to 0 (or whichever value is set in "Randomizer") when the lower limit is reached.
• Never Enemies:
  Relation will never drop any lower than -999

Note that these settings will apply to existing save as well, so you may see a bunch of alliances expiring or ceasefires being declared if your save game was set to be fully dynamic without restrictions.

Faction Relations Start and Reset Value Randomizer

If you, like me, were getting tired of the game showing such clean-cut starting relations of 0 and -2000 for neutral and enemy factions respectively then you will probably like this feature.

In the MCM options in 'Randomizer' you can enable and set a 'Variance' Value for Start Relation Values and also customize how relations will be reset when they reach their highest (5000) or lowest (-5000) limit respectively.

The Start Relation Variance will only be applied to new games but the Reset Values will apply to existing saves as well.

As of version 1.2 the max selectable value for 'Start Relation Variance' to be as high a 2500 if anyone chooses to. Default remains 300. Just be aware that a variance over 2000 or even just over 1000 will drastically change starting relations ;) - To accommodate that, without necessarily having to click through all the rules, you can just disable the "Never Enemies" and "Never Allied" rules overall here to go for true mayhem...

Known 'Issue' regarding the Start Relation Randomizer: Some same Faction relations are also potentially changed after the function has executed, meaning that it may result in seemingly hostile Stalker vs Stalker Relations for example. Apparently though the game corrects that after saving and reloading because it reverted back to 300 in my testing later.

Examples:

• A Start Relation Variance of 300 will generate a random number between -300 and 300 and add this to the game default of 0 (or -2000 respectively).
  
  
• An Allience Expired Reset Value of 300 with a Variance of 300 will produce a new Relation Value between 0 and 600 when the relation hits the limit of 5000.
  
  
• The highest Ceasefire Reset Value of -500 with a Variance of 500 will produce a new Relation Value between -1000 and 0 when the relation hits the limit of -5000, thus potentially either bringing the relation back up to 0 or just right to the edge of war again.

Creature Feature

This is an extension to the existing Relation Change System which, if enabled, allows Relations between Factions to change based on their relation to Mutants. This section allows for extended gameplay features like making creatures behave more neutral towards factions which are friendly or allied with them. Note that "Neutral" only provides a very slim chance that mutants will not attack members of that faction, but friendly and allied should notice more significant gameplay changes.

You can adjust the factor for the death_value and choose which faction is 'Friendly' to (some) Mutants meaning you lose sympathies with that faction if you kill the ones they are 'Friendly' with. If a faction is allied with Mutants then higher ranking members of that faction may even be able to befriend them.

Example Scenarios when using default settings:

• Mutants will generally not be hunted or killed by Sin or Freedom and Players of those factions should not be given any 'Cull Mutant' tasks.
  
  
• Sin and Freedom will be angry about Mutant Deaths while Ecologists and most other friendly factions approve of them.

Why are Sin allied with Mutants in my setting? Well mostly to make them have another 'cause' perhaps and on the 'why mutants ignore them' topic: we might just assume Sin members somehow posses the ability to make mutants tranquil and thus not treat them as a threat.

Edit 22-SEP-2023: Well whatdoyouknow... I've been informed that this (at least for Sin) was already a thing back in earlier days in another mod called "Legend Returns" for CoC. Also also: I found a mod which focuses solely on Sin and even adds a new guide for them. It may need some patches and I might even provide them myself when I get to it but for now: if you are not running any of the conflicting mods, this should round up your experience as Sin Player nicely: SIN UPGRADE SOFTWARE [1.1.1]

Customization Options for Mod-Pack Creators

• The new configuration file "dynamic_faction_relations_customizer.ltx" allows for customization of default DFRC settings as found in its MCM menu (as well as some internal parameters) and contains options to disable modification through MCM, thus 'locking' them to the rule-set provided by the LTX.

Installation

Use the Mod Manager of your choice. If you did a manual install please make sure you remove all files from previous versions of DFRC.

Changelog

Version 2.2.2: CRITICAL BUGFIX:Fixed nil index crash in mutant relations module. Revised and Fixed Creature "Neutral" Feature: NPCs Neutral/Allied to Player should now change to default behaviour and attack mutants when player is attacked unless they are allied with mutants. Important NPCs should be able to fight mutants in case they attack the player but they themselves will never be targeted by them. Combat related Dynamic News and Relation Change Features: Added option "Trigger Chance on NPC hit". Added cooldown of 5-10 seconsds to Dynamic News Messages regarding combat. Delayed Death Reports are now restricted to current map by default. Other tweaks and fixes: Fixed unlikely but possible issue which would occur if notoriety factor would evaluate to 0.

Version 2.2.1: CRITICAL BUGFIX: Fixed issue of relations landing on -1000 or 1000 and then being stuck and not improving/decreasing respectively. Thanks to 'Kenesiak' for finding this bug! - Rule Changes: Mercenaries are affected by all kills except zombified stalkers or mutants. If you are upgrading from a previous version you will need to apply that change manually for each faction pairing or just reset all "Rules" pages to default if you haven't applied any changes yourself. - Added Option "Creatures ignore Important NPCs" to Creature Feature. - Companions report on other companions by name also or not at all if it would be gossip. - Disabled "Notoriety Factor" for Relation Changes triggered through Monster killed to balance relation change values by monster type.

Version 2.2
Refactored, fixed and added MCM options: Added option to disable the vanilla multiplier based on neutral/enemy faction count towards the victim faction when calculating Relation Changes. - Added option to modify the amount of Goodwill gained/lost on Kill based on Relation Change Value in % - Added new submenu in "Rules" which lets you globally turn individual parts of the ruleset on and off, such as: Alliance/Ceasefire reset, Upper/Lower Relation Limit, Alliance/Enemy Restrictions etc. - Added customizable values for 'Upper' and 'Lower' Relation Limits per faction pair. Not enabled by default. - Got rid of some nasty typos and copy/paste errors introduced in the last version. Actor Faction Dissatisfaction: Refactored code and simplified Approbation Evaluation while still maintaining the intended gameplay: if the player can accumulate a certain amount of goodwill within 12 hours, the Alert Level decreases, if more Goodwill is lost than gained, or the player simply does nothing within the probation period, it will increase. 'Creature Feature' Fixes and Enhancements: Rebalanced death value calculation for mutants. - Settings for Zombified Stalkers are no longer needed there. - A new option 'Neutral' was added to allow limited neutral behavior of monsters towards any other factions. Mutants may remain neutral until attacked. - Added a patch for offline combat simulations which should ensure creature friendly factions will not kill creatures "off-screen". - Modified 'validate_assault_task' patch. Now friends and allies of mutants should not receive any "Cull Mutant" Tasks. Minor tweaks and fixes: Companions now report the player by name when reporting a kill but wont say any "i just heard gunfire" gossip lines anymore. Reduced "Special" NPC death value bonus multiplier from 2 to 1.25 because it feels way to high when using mods that add a lot of non-default spawns (i.e. the Re:done Collection addons, which I absolutely recommend.) - Added a cooldown time for displays of gossip death reports coming from the same NPC. - Rule Changes: Mercenaries and Monolith now have Ceasefire option enabled and Mercenaries will be affected by killed Monoliths.

Version 2.1.1 * Fixed/added some code to re-enable all the SOS and witness messages in my Dynamic News Manager Monkeypatch. * Fixed "Private Channel Data Leak" not always working. Now you really can listen to all the chatter if you set the chance high! * Added force-enable checkbox for the "Dynamic Faction Relations" setting (enabled by default). Now you'll have to willfully turn it off but it ensures that the addon works out-of-the-box. * Added Multiplier for goodwill gained on tasks. Works with and without the recently added Task Goodwill features. * Relation Gain Factor will default to 1.0 if affected faction == active faction. So no more reduction of Goodwill points earned when completing tasks for your own factions. Relation Loss Factor will still add the Victim Factor if enabled. * Default values for Task Goodwill Conversion should properly load from the ltx now. * Removed "Never Enemy" default rule setting from "Mercenary vs UNISG".

version 2.1: DFRC now uses monkeypatches for all its modified dynamic_news_manager functions;
Added proper "Relation Loss Factor". This is enabled by default but can be disabled in MCM.;
Added "Dynamic Relation Change on Task Completion" options; The minimum and maximum amount of Goodwill in % that is retained when the players factions becomes hostile with another (if that feature is enabled) can now be adjusted from 0 to 100% in the 'Randomizer' settings. Also the reset is now only happening if the player has any positive goodwill with that faction at all.; Companions will not mistakenly report you as killer just because you were near an unreported victim.; Fixed crashes in "is_faction_unaffected", "is_faction_pair_unaffected" or "faction_cares" when non-player faction is used as parameter (a.k.a. "Arena Crash Fix"); Added patch which will make sure arena_enemy is set up as enemy to everyone else so there should be no more reputation loss or anything.

version 2.0.6 Fixed error in calculation causing extremely low relation gain. Added dynamic relation gain when gaining/losing goodwill in events such as fulfilled or failed tasks, so now your actions are affecting faction relations more than before. Actor Faction Dissatisfaction is now reset to 0 when changing factions and is not carried over to the next by mistake. Changed default goodwill gain chance on relation change to 2% instead of 5%. Changed slider in MCM to allow 0.01 increments.

version 2.0.5: Reinstated "Important NPCs" list due to there being a lot of special NPC spawns which are not caught by my replacement function thus leading to way exaggerated relation changes. - Added distinction for Important and Special NPCs for the chance calculation and the change value calculation (special NPCs have a 25% higher chance to trigger a change and their base death_value is doubled).

version 2.0.4: Temporarily disabled some code which is part of a work-in-progress feature. It was reported to cause crashes so I will do more testing and possibly rework it when I'm continuing to work on that part.

version 2.0.3: Fixed a bug in Zone Activity causing relation change values to become too high. Moved WTF patches to optional install folder and changed load behaviour of patches to avoid issues.

version 2.0.2: Added another WTF patch. Should be working fine now. Fixed load order issue which accidentally disabled Randomizer feature. Fixed creature feature relation value reset combined with start-variance when enabled mid-game. Fixed encoding issue in rus 'st_dynamic_news_expanded.xml'. Applied catch condition for empty task_cache in patched 'xr_conditions.validate_assault_task' which hopefully eliminates rare crash.

version 2.0.1: Re-Reworked Observer/Witness finding processes almost from scratch for active and delayed death reporting to minimize potential stutter. Added MCM switch to turn off delayed death reporting if needed. Fixed some minor errors. Reduced regular 'Actor Faction Dissatisfaction' probation time between stages to 11 hours after last friendly fire.

version 2.0: Deadly News Update. Added "Observer based Relation Change Chance Calculation" (say that 3 times fast...) or you could call it "Dead men tell no tales" mode. This feature is complemented by the "Delayed Death Reporting" feature which may lead to you being caught anyway if anyone in the area suspects you. Also added a delightfully subtle penalty system for friendly fire which, if enabled, will urge the player to make amends for killed friendlies by earning back goodwill within time lest he wants to be kicked out of the faction. Also added a crash fix for WTF. Oh and I added back in some Zone Activity Text from the Dialogues Expanded Addon and made these news items actually have an impact on faction relations.

version 1.2: 'Zombies and Goodwill' update: Added settings across the mod to include Zombified Stalkers faction. Refactored Relation Change Calculation function and added adjustable chances for triggering a change as well as chances for Goodwill Gain/Loss (if enabled). Relation changes with the victim faction have an increased chance now, so has Friendly Fire, if enabled. Starting Relations Randomization can lead to extreme outcomes now if players choose to use a high variance. All dynamic faction relation settings from the LTX can now be overridden and changed within the MCM module (now renamed to 'DFRC').

version 1.1.1: Fixed a crash where game tries to read 'reputation' but finds 'nil'

version 1.1: Fixed some text errors. Добавлен русский перевод для MCM через Google Translator.

version 1.0: Initial Release featuring 'Adjustable Relation Change Calculation Options', 'Faction Relation Limiter', 'Faction Relation Start and Reset Value Randomizer' and 'Creature Feature'.

Planned Updates

Minor:

• Make squad members, who *did not* see you attacking another member, NOT go hostile immediately.
• Extend variety for Actor Faction Dissatisfaction messages and make them more specific to factions in tone.
• Improving and extending New Game Randomizer if anyone cares for it...

Major:

• Interface with "Show All Faction Relations" to make the Relations Tab show statistics on how relations have changed within a certain period of time ("no change", "stable", "deteriorating", "improving")
• Create a Presets field which allows for a whole set of rules and settings to be changed at once. Would be useful to select different new game scenarios, such as having the relation start values and rules be set up and behave similar to "Legend Returns" etc.
• Adding more options to customize the relation change value calculation. Such as disabling or tweaking the vanilla "victim and killer rank and reputation" factor. Limiting the amount of changes per NPC death and more...

Feedback and feature ideas are welcome and will be properly credited!

Changed Files

There should be no conflicts with files anymore.

Credits and Special Thanks

DoctorX and av661194 for the original DRX Dynamic Faction Relations.

Tronex for the enhanced port TRX: DYNAMIC RELATIONS (1.1) as it is included in the current vanilla Anomaly.

Yastin for Yastin's Dynamic Relations Fix and Favkis_Nexerade for Fluid Relations

Vintar0, who merged and improved upon Yastin's and Favkis_Nexerade's addons:
YASTIN + FAVKIS FLUID DYNAMIC RELATIONS 1.0.5

hexef, who had a list of important NPCs ready in their plugin "TOUGH IMPORTANT NPCS AND COMPANIONS [1.5.1]" - Hope hexef didn't mind me using it.

And Special Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback, improvement ideas and bug reports!

-- dEmergence