Specifically, on vanilla faction stations and Corporate Command or Eternity Port stations that would also show up on the mainline (such as Curators or First Hunters, for example). This would go a long way toward preventing factions from showing up in regions where it doesn’t make sense for them to be — Corporate Hierarchy stations in the Frontier, for instance, or Sung stations in Starborn systems (which have no connections to the Ungoverned Territories) — just because they happen to be in the same level range.
There are probably a few factions who are more likely to be spread out enough that they could show up more or less anywhere, but in those cases it might be better to just let whoever is adding new topology to make a copy of the encounters in question, using the attributes for their systems instead of the “mainline” attribute. Not the prettiest solution, maybe, but it would probably work. (That’s something where optional libraries would also come in handy, just so if — to use an example that I have no plans, intentions, or even vague ideas of including — TBR had Omnithor encounters in it, they would only actually show up if someone playing a game with TBR also had CC, but that’s a subject for another ticket).
This might also require a bit of adjustment to topological attributes, since I don’t think any of the systems added in those expansions are labeled as “mainline” systems — which, yeah, I know, they technically aren’t. However, they’re close enough to the mainline that encounters that should show up on the mainline systems would also be likely to pop up on the Corporate Command or Eternity Port additions to topology.
Alternately, giving each system a list of attributes matching up to what sovereigns would likely have encounters there — Jiang’s Star could have Sung, Commonwealth, CorporateHierarchy, Dwarg, and Huari, for example — and adjusting the systemCriteria for the encounters would probably work as well. In the case of the Curators or First Hunters used in an example further up, tacking the necessary attributes onto a system with <TopologyProcessor> would handle letting them be properly placed into a game. (It would also give me an example of how to use <TopologyProcessor> like that, myself, which isn’t quite entirely beside the point… <.< >.> <.<; )
I'm going to defer this to 1.8 because the fix is a little complex and potentially destabilizing.
I like the suggestion of having attributes on a system to specify which sovereigns should be there. E.g., Commonwealth stations should only appear in systems with the commonwealthSpace attribute. As you suggest, we can then use <TopologyProcessor> entries to set attributes for new sovereigns.
For example, a new sovereign in TBR could use <TopologyProcessor> to add its attributes to the appropriate parts of the topology.
@george moromisato
....Isn't AP still waiting for that explanation on TopologyProcessor?
Yes. Yes I am.
On the other hand, I’m glad that you seem to prefer the second idea. It’ll be a more tedious fix, sure, but I think it will really wind up being the better fix in the long run.
You said we should comment on issues we really want/need fixed to bring them up to the top of the list. This is probably the biggest one for me, currently.
I’m having issues where TBR stations are being crowded out of TBR systems by vanilla (and occasionally TSB) stations. For example, I just had a game where the only Zyrran station was the capital in the starting system; all of the primary station slots in other Zyrran systems were being hogged by Commonwealth stations.
Also, yes, the second option to fix things is probably still the better one.
Will the second proposal allow:
1) a mod to insert stuff of a new faction into territory labeled for someone else?
ex: I make a faction that is a branch of the CW fleet, and want to insert them into any system that the CW fleet is labeled for
2) a mod to use the default behavior of the only default restriction being whatever the level rarity curve you enter into the station/encounter? This behavior should still be around for legacy mods & new modders (and probably log a warning or something), since otherwise a ton of stuff might break. Actual registered extensions (TBR, TSB, EP, CC) and the core game should all be required to avoid using this behavior however.
The second option would allow for mods to add factions to specific regions, yes. If I really wanted to, I would be able to make a splinter of the Ansari and drop them into Ansari space, or even into Domain space if I really felt like it.
The whole point of this is to restrict what encounters will pop up in which systems, including material from core and registered expansions. Exempting core/regdev material from this completely defeats that point. Yes, this sort of change may break a few older mods, but most older mods have already been broken by other changes by this point anyway. It doesn’t make sense for Sord or DPRD to show up in Zyrran systems (a regular occurrence, by the way) any more than it would for Legion to show up in the Frontier. This change is meant to keep encounters limited to systems where it makes sense for them to occur.
Implemented in 1.8 Beta 4. See: Encounter Guidelines