Lothar of the Hill People

Very neat, Creaghorn! I'd like to build some of this into OFFbase's Duty Room. You'd be able to see other pilots' class, reputation as HPW just suggested, and some of this relationship info.

One last fix, just made it into the new version Bletchley. So I've just posted 0.6.0, the most significant update so far. Here's the change-log: As soon as the admins approve, go get it! If you guys could test it out and make sure there are no show-stopping bugs, I'll post an advert to the main forum.

So if you want to join a squadron with your pilot's brother or something, create a new pilot in the squad with the same last name. Be sure to run OFFbase as the new pilot as well to set their class, the current version will crash if you don't.

Hey OlPaint, see my responses below. Nope, no limits like that. Must be something in your pilot's dossier file that's freaking OFFbase out. Could you PM me the PilotXXDossier.txt file for him, where XX is the number of the pilot. Also, there should be a 'Rebol 3 Alpha' console window running with OFFbase, but minimized. If you could send me any text that appears in this window when OFFbase hangs that would help tremendously. You shouldn't have to use the task manager to kill it if it crashes, just close this console window. Basically all you do is go into OFF and create a new pilot in the squadron you want to transfer to, at a date sometime after your current squadron date. Then OFFbase will detect the available squadron. Select it in the list and submit the transfer request, and OFFbase will do all the work, putting your pilot on leave for the time between the squadrons. Then you'll have two player pilots in the new squadron, with separate wingmen and flights. If you don't want to play the new pilot in your squad, just delete him in OFF manager and he'll turn into an NPC pilot in your roster. People have had mixed success, but if you want to give it a try and let me know how it works for you I'd appreciate it.

Glad you found it, Widowmaker, let me know what you think. I'll post an advert to the main forum when I get version 0.6.0 out, which will feature NPC on NPC encounters. For now, I've just posted 0.5.9 with a number of updates for you guys to test: As soon as the admins approve it, go get it!

I'm over-educated, trying to finish a Ph.D. in economics. There already is a fairly large random element to it, so pilots may end up being more or less cooperative than they think. I can tell you from personal experience that self-awareness isn't all that great in social interactions, even trying to be nice you can still come across as a real bully for example. The type of encounter already influences the kind of strategy pilots want to play. For example, a priest will play more cooperative if he gets dragged along as someone's drinking buddy, relying on the friendliness of the other pilot not to tell everyone. Thus he's more open to losing prestige from a Heavy Drinker more likely to defect, pushing the Priest to getting really drunk or otherwise causing a scene: 'who are you to judge me? hic!" On the other hand, a Priest is more likely to defect and tear down the Heavy Drinker's prestige in an intervention, feeding his own moral superiority while the Drinker's feeling especially vulnerable. Yep, except they don't loose prestige immediately if they both defect, their friendships are hurt. And they don't gain prestige immediately if they both cooperate, just enhance their friendships. Zero-sum transfers of prestige only reflect differences in the actual strategies played. It's zero-sum in the immediate sense, players competing with the potential to take prestige from each other at that moment, but it's positive-sum over time as cooperating and building friendships increases the amount of prestige pilots earn every day from the outlook of others. In fact I just might get rid of the morale bonus mechanic and have morale just be a way to describe the overall amount of prestige pilots earn on average from friendships.

Yeah I'd like to refine the scheduler a bit to bring out the feel of daily life, thanks for the suggestions.

Hey, Bletchley, for some reason it won't let me PM you! Unrelated corruption's always a possibility given how flakey OFF can be and how much we fiddle with our own files. I'm not helping of course by adding a whole 'nother layer on top! And go get 0.5.8!

Just uploaded version 0.5.8, hopefully it'll be approved soon. I think I've figured it out. Well, here's the change-log: This is really cool. Essentially prestige grows daily through the strength and impact of your friendships as before, a positive-sum game. But now encounters are zero-sum games where you and your opponent strategize how and whether to try to steal prestige from each other or This is going to take a whole new strategy guide Bletchley, though some bits are still useful. Playing "risky" no longer gives you guaranteed prestige just a better chance of out-doing your competition, defecting to take their prestige. What used to be playing "safe" still makes you more cooperative in building friendship but now also more open to exploitation from others instead of having a fixed prestige cost. Mechanically, these choice modifiers run in the opposite direction, as do modifiers from tables 3 and 4, though I flipped some back like bully/coward relations to preserve these dynamics. Cooperating means rolling low and defecting means rolling high. If both parties cooperate, friendship grows on both sides. If both defect, they dislike each other more. If one cooperates and one defects, the high-roller gets some of the lower's prestige. So Natural Friends in particular and friends in general will on average roll lower against you, making it safer for you to cooperate but giving you an incentive to cheat and earn some quick prestige without hurting a deep friendship much--people really do take advantage of friends, some types more than others given the situation. But if you've keep bullying them, their rising anger begins to offset their natural and learned friendliness and they just may stand up to you and put you in your place. You'll be able to push some classes around more than others in different social situations, while others may take quite a bit of placating to befriend. A Gambler's more likely to get carried away in a game of chance, a Bully in rough horseplay, letting fun and their pride take friendship for granted. Non-player prestige doesn't yet have any gameplay implications, but at some point it'd be cool if bullying that flieger or sergeant relentlessly to fuel your own promotion meant they transfer out at the first opportunity. And npcs don't yet have encounters and relationships with each other. Ultimately, I'd like to make morale evolve from the aggregate of how friendly or hostile the actual pilot relationships are together. To make it easier, I finally report the other's type in the encounter window. Creaghorn, hopefully there's enough info now you don't have to take notes! Though I'd like to build in pictures of your squadmates, it's so much easier to remember relationships when you can put a face to them not just a bunch of long German names! I'll see if I can get something like that in the next update, even if it's having to open another window just to show the pic (can't get inline pictures to work). So go get it! And let me know how relationships feel now, it still may take some fine-tuning. But it should be a completely different game

I've been unable to reproduce this error, Bletchley. When I transfer into a squadron of a pilot with a different name, I'm able to fly either pilot without problems. This is one of the features of OFFbase, multiple player pilots in a squadron, so it automatically makes room on the roster for each other. If this happens again, can you send me your pilot dossier files for the affected pilots? In fact, I'd expect problems with two pilots having the same name. Anyone else have any luck, good or bad, transferring into a squad?

I'd like to make decisions more strategic and outcomes more intuitive. It's really about finding a good way to exploit the trade-off between long-term prestige earning from building relationships and short-term prestige earned at the expense of others. I'll have something to play with soon.

I was thinking along the same lines, HPW. Need to get the encounter system settled first, I'm still not happy with how it works in the latest version.

Hey Kaische, the duty room isn't functional yet, but it's where you'll be able to see a list of your fellow pilots. To fly your campaign missions, go to the Airfield. It was working for me with different named pilots, but maybe I broke something. I'll take another look. The new pilot with a different name should just be another pilot on your roster, if you delete it in OFF it should continue as an NPC in your squad.

Version 0.5.7 has just been posted, a major update as far as social encounters. New asymmetrical two-way relational system: your pilot remembers how well others behaved and performed in encounters, given their personalities. Feelings need not be mutual. For example, a Gambler may come out of a gambling encounter liking a Cash-Strapped pilot more, while the loser grows bitter. The Bully will learn who his favorite targets are, as the bullied nurse their hatred, except for sycophants who might come to enjoy it or cowards who learn to placate it. Playing it safe or risky has a bigger effect, as your performance in the encounter is graded independently. Also: pilots with no kills or claims will no longer argue over kills, while pilots of equal rank will no longer engage in rank-pulling or brownnosing. Numerous fixes including a crash bug with the non-player Hometown Comrade and Natural Enemy/Friend classes. Gonna need your feedback on this guys, how do the encounters feel now? Hopefully it'll be approved soon so you can go get it! At least now the previous version will remain there in the meantime.

Thanks so much Bletchley these are really useful tips. One way to easily summarize playing "safely" or "risky" is that it can offset the feelings of the other party. Playing it "very safe" overcomes someone's hatred of you, while playing it "very risky" no longer gives you the advantage of their friendship. I'm putting the finishing touches on a new version that heavily enriches the range of interpersonal consequences from encounters. Essentially feelings need not be mutual. Ultimately I'd like to make encounters a bit more game theoretic--with different incentives for different personalities and ranks to cooperate by playing "safely" or defect by playing "risky". This is going to take some balancing, so thanks you guys for testing this and giving feedback.

Haven't yet had a test pilot in a similar situation, Bletchley, but this would be a high-priority feature. What does it say for your status instead of "In Service"? Is it "Captured"? If I know the flag I can start building it in. Any other mission consequences are things I definitely want to have OFFbase respond to but I can't do a ton of testing myself, so keep letting me know! Those are the kind of stories I wanted to hear creating OFFbase. Very glad the transfer process went smoothly, and thanks for the feedback.

Hey Creaghorn, when you update just unzip the new version on top of your existing install, replacing existing files. You can keep your existing pilots and squadrons folders so they don't change their personalities! Network mapping would be a lot of work, especially with some of the relationship changes I've been working on. But if I do implement something along these lines it could be as who's sitting together at the mess. Possible, but complex. Something that would incentivize leave for sure, especially as I've been thinking about having to pay prestige to take leave.

Version 0.5.6 has been posted which fixes a couple of killer bugs as well as introduces a user-scalable prestige system. Go get it!

Version 0.5.6 has been posted which fixes a couple of killer bugs as well as introduces a user-scalable prestige system.

Not sure how comfortable I'd be changing player pilot's personalities randomly, HPW, as Creaghorn makes a good point about choice. Maybe allow a choice of evolution along different paths at critical junctures? "Your friend is dead, do you go to the chapel to pray, to the mess for a drink, to your quarters to hide from the world, or to the hangar to clean your plane's guns?" Thanks! But I doubt I'll be able to keep up this pace of updates. Have real work to do! So getting feedback from you guys helps me put my effort in the right place.

One of the benefits of the OFFice suite is OFFbase could ultimately talk to OFFset to examine workshop and CFS3config settings, judge the difficulty, and scale automatically. That'd be quite a bit of work, so the next version will feature a simple user-adjustable rewards scale. First version will scale prestige from both missions and squadmate goodwill equally, not sure if there's a need to treat these separately at this point. Feedback from testing will be useful, I'm sure.

There's a new version now, 0.5.5, that fixes a crash that mostly affects bombers. If it's not showing up at Combat Ace yet you can download it here.

Glad you finally got it, Wodin. There's a new version now, 0.5.5, that fixes a crash that mostly affects bombers. If it's not showing up at Combat Ace yet you can download it here.

Not sure Creaghorn, though I might have introduced a bug when I reworked the scheduler for 0.5.4. Does this happen every time? Is there any text in the minimized console window? Copy and paste it to a PM and I'll take a look.

Making the threshold randomized would be a slight pain, easier to just fix it at 150 or something. Now that I think about it, some procedural noise might be the best way to handle it. How 'bout people with longer names have a higher threshold, blame it on the paper pushers.