Now we’ve all played Unturned 3.0 with it’s static and cookie cutter NPC system. You have felt the emptiness with it too, right? Well, we all have. So here is to an idea of a fully fledged faction system suggestion!
Basic:
You may be asking, what are you trying to do? Well… Simple. I’m trying to suggest a whole system for factions and literally everything in it.
Now you may be asking, Isn’t that a lot? I say, WOW YOU ASK SO MUCH QUESTIONS! and also, yes! So please try to forgive me if I make a mistake here and there with things such as grammar. This will be constantly be updated as long as I live… And as long as this is not locked.
Now, off we go!
Part 1: NPC’S & Reputation
Nelson (from what I know) has already gone on the record as saying that he’d make an effort in Unturned II to improve NPC’s and potentially add NPC Bandits and such. So, why not do it for factions!
Though commander units may be static or stay near a certain area, there could be faction troopers that roam regions or bases and can attack or defend the player. This may actually be possible by making faction NPC’s passive to the player by a variable such as Fac1REPPlayer= with a negative rep being hostile and a + rep being friendly.
We may even be able to do this to NPC’s with something like FAC1REPBandit=. Allowing for the player to encounter faction based or bandit based combat, adding a dynamic that is often only seen in Triple A spaces.
And Nelson, for the love of god, if you make vehicle AI, make them exit the car when they spot you in a certain radius, do not, PLEASE, DO NOT MAKE THEM JUST ATTACK IN CAR. They’d just shoot eachother’s backs and then run the player over in a insta kill. So do not fuck that up if you make it by not making them exit.
It wouldn’t even be that hard (besides making sure their hostilities and passive stats ain’t done while the guy doing it is drunk.) Just do the reps and spawns, add that uniform code of paint with some different stats and BAM.
This reputation could be visualized to the player via a bar that increases and is shown to increase to the player when they do something like complete a mission or kill an enemy faction patrol (see Far Cry 5 as a potential example).
Spawns could be done as packs of units patrolling the inner area with increased patrols or better geared units spawning closer to the center of a faction’s territory (see part:3).
Reputation could also have rates like
- Side Missions: 10
- Main Missions: 20
- Killed Patrols: 5
etc.
PART 2: Territory
Territory should play a role with factions to help find out which places they should spawn in and make sense of them in general.
Territory owned by factions should be displayed with a color or a colored border on the map with a label of the territory (or which faction owns it in the colored border).
Territory should merely start off as their bases. But as you do missions for a faction (a main set) or increase your reputation to certain milestones (see part:1) territory should increase.
There could also be timed missions that could affect the territory owned by factions (to make it seem more dynamic. Like the enemy faction is also increasing. These would only be unlocked as the player progresses, providing a better reason rather than Unturned 3’s uniforms to join and fight for a faction when it comes to stuff to do.
As territory increases, more patrols will be spawned in those places. Perhaps having uncontrolled military bases or outposts that can be captured and can be used for story missions with more compact concentrations of soldiers.
And for players that say that (this is impossible and too expensive), though it will be hard and will take a while, it’s definitely worth it and far from impossible. Hell, games that are over a DECADE OLD MANAGED TO ACCOMPLISH THINGS LIKE THIS (see games like Stalker, Call of Priblyat).
PART 3: Faction Levels
Faction levels are a system used to regulate the strength of enemies or allies in a faction.
I.E A level 20 Aegis soldier has 200% (triple) the health of a lvl 1 Aegis Soldier
Certain faction levels may start spawning different troops (like direct assassination patrols, armored vehicle patrols, berserkers etc).
This also applies for friendly units. Lets say reputation to level is +20 for friendly factions.
At level 15, you get bodyguard soldiers or soldiers that spawn if you are in combat for more than 1 minute (an enemy unit is doing it’s combat animation i.e approaching you and shooting/stabbing you for 1 minute).
Faction levels reach up to 20 and may be increased via 2 factors:
-
Distance to Center (Center or the main HQ of the Faction’s Property)
-
Reputation
Distance to center would be how far away the AI is from the central base/area of a faction. The closer to the center, the higher the level. This would prevent things like players farming the circle region around a factions central base over and over as they would have to face against stronger and tougher foes or even different variants
Reputation (see part 1) could make enemy or ally units more powerful. Lets say we are talking about an enemy faction. The rate of reputation to level is -20 faction rep. A player has -100 faction rep. Now lets say this faction is AEGIS. Now AEGIS will now start spawning abduction patrols that spawn anywhere in the border region or even the opposing factions region which will deploy in jeeps and hunt the player with light infantry shock units. This could make for intense, balanced, constantly challenging and dynamic gameplay that will always keep a player on their toes until they reach above the cap and get accustomed to the enemy in the end game, which allows the player to truly feel like they fought hard and won that end game if they play factions.
PART 4: Combat
NPC units have the chance to spawn in bundles, also known as patrols. depending on certain distances they will do something in a certain way Let’s say the command hq is 300 meters away and the border is 20 meter away, they will approach and patrol the border.
This would allow for both enemy and ally patrols to spawn near the border, creating a sense of actual war as you go and see enemy units duking it out in the border.
Specialized patrols are patrols fitting a linear objective. Like command post patrols guard and patrol the base in a linear pattern. Hunter patrols spawn near and stalk/hunt the player.
Zombies may have something cool to do- INFECT NPC’S. NPC’S could have a seperate factor just like we do for our radiation in 3.0. But instead of just dying to the virus, the AI loses everything but it’s clothes and becomes a zombie! It would have a much lower radiation health though, like 4 or 5 hits from a zombie (just an example) would turn them to a zombie. This could even tie in to levels (see Part:3) with certain levels spawning hazmat soldiers with an increased resistance to zombie attacks!
PART 5: Faction Assets (PART OF UPDATE: 10 OF THIS POST)
Faction assets would be purchasable assets that help the player throughout the game and are usually exclusive to that faction. They would only be purchasable by EXP (This could finally make EXP useful in Unturned’s Endgame, especially in singleplayer) and only to people with certain reputation milestones like +100 rep (see part 1) for certain assets. I.E if you had (this is an example not a set in stone number) +100 rep in the Coalition, you could buy vehicles like the Coalition Jeep. If you had +500 rep in the Coalition, you could buy Coalition Squads which would be 3 or 4 Coalition NPC’s that’d shoot any hostile force that is non-coalition.
This would allow you to feel like you’re gaining more- and could allow for some cool builds as you set up squads of Coalition troops in your massive crib.
PART 6: Ranks (PART OF UPDATE: 10 OF THIS POST)
Ranks would be well- ranks. Just like in regular Unturned. Except instead of just gaining uniforms, ranks should gain you more. Imagine if- when you reached the top rank- NPC guards would salute to you. Or you could gain access to a store with discounted assets. Or even (if you reach the top rank) be able to own 1 outpost on the map! As in like, the game would unlock a series of assets allowing you to use your EXP to rank up your allied faction level when near that outpost and recruit stronger units to that outpost or even ones that could move up.
Like NPC soldiers that you can buy at once that cap at 25 or potentially more at once (you could maybe change it as a variable when starting a singleplayer or multiplayer server that you could buy any variant of (imagine 25 biohazard soldiers or 25 juggarnauts with the Coalition banner marching at Moscow!)
The cap for the soldiers could be changed just like the chances of mega or frost zombies spawning in Unturned 3.0 (in the advanced part of creating a custom singleplayer or online server). Allowing the cap to be customized or a untickable/tickable setting like “Outpost Ownership” could prevent abuse, breaking servers and may stop FPS/lag issues while also still enabling players to play the game and experience this aspect of it!
The way to move them up would be simple- the groups tab. The game would make all of the NPC’s enter 1 group. You (and only you) can remove them from the group and invite them to new ones. You can then use Unturned 3.0’s right click to point in map system to make a squad move to several points (multiple groups would be allowed as NPC-1 NPC-2 NPC-3 and targetting for each group would be 1 simultanious click for NPC-1, 2 simultanious clicks for NPC-2 and then 3 for NPC-3.) To remove an NPC from a group, just simply kick them- click something like “create NPC group” (Which would only let you and NPC’s join) and then click something like “assignment mode”, then punch the AI ally you want in your squad and bam.
PART 7: Workshop (PART OF UPDATE 11 OF THIS POST)
Adding this faction system allows for extremely dynamic and interesting NPC creations and may even allow for benefit universally. RP servers could have things like Mafia NPC’s that will attack Police who shoot people with Mafia Perms.
Military RP servers could have NPC’s from both militaries fighting for their factions.
The code for factions may be adjustable like the current custom NPC’s, allowing for the creation of uniforms, gear, applying guns and applying vehicles.
Imagine NPC’s in military RP fighting eachother in blackhawks! Or constant pressure being applied to factions by having NPC Bandit’s spawning in a city!
The possibilities could be ENDLESS. With cmd prompt toggles to disable things like reputation barriers or territory capturing missions etc.
Post is subject to change, thank you for processing my idea through that great thinkerthunker big lickin’ junker (wat) brain of yours!
