Factions determine if combatants are allies or enemies.

This isn’t limited to the relationship between the player and computer controlled combatants, this also applies to the relationship between computer controlled combatants. How factions stand to each other is based on their sympathy toward another faction.

Allied combatants wont fight each other – and only because factions are enemies of the player doesn’t mean they’re allies. In battles you can have a multitude of factions fight each other, where each has it’s own enemies and allies.

Factions

The factions are created in the ORK Framework editor in Combatants > Factions.

Each combatant in the game belongs to a faction – also the player group. The player’s faction is defined in Game > Game Settings. The factions of other combatants are defined by their components in the scene (e.g. Add Combatant component or Combatant Spawner component). Shops, items and item boxes can also belong to factions.

A faction defines information (name, description and icon) about the faction, how the faction’s sympathy toward another faction is changed upon events (killing a faction member, stealing/taking an item or money) and what faction benefits the faction supports.

Faction benefits

Faction benefits are created in Combatants > Faction Benefits.

A faction benefit defines more detailed information (name, description, icon) about how a faction stands to another – it’s bound to a certain sympathy range (e.g. 0 to 500). Based on the sympathy, a faction will have a certain faction benefit toward another faction.

The faction benefit also determines the buy/sell price modifiers used in shops that belong to a faction. This way you can change the prices in shops based upon how much sympathy the shop’s owner (i.e. faction) has toward the player – like dropping the prices after the player helped their faction and earned sympathy.

Faction sympathy

The sympathy between the factions at the start of a new game is defined in Combatants > Faction Sympathy.

A sympathy below 0 will make factions to enemies – therefore a sympathy above or equal to 0 will make them allies.

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The sympathy matrix is used to set the start sympathy between the factions. Only the editable fields are of interest, the others simply show the sympathy already defined in another field (e.g. Player toward Allies is the same sympathy as Allies toward Player). The start sympathy values can be changed in the game in two ways – either automatically or manually.

Automatic changes happen when a member of a faction is killed, or an item or money is taken/stolen from them. The value by which the sympathy changes is determined by the faction itself, and additionally by the combatant and item/money. This way you can change the sympathy based upon who is killed (e.g. a dog or a gang leader) or what is stolen (e.g. a can or a gemstone).

Manual changes are done using the event system. This way you have total freedom on when and how to change sympathies – like upon a certain progress in the story, or when finishing a quest.