Pavonis Interactive Forums

In Dev Diary #13 "Habitats" it's mentioned that the ISS will be in the game at the start and will belong to the Academy. This made me curious: are starting assets different for each faction? Do the other factions start with something else to balance out that the Academy starts out controlling what I would guess is the only orbital habitat at game start?

Relatedly, do factions start out with any Control Points in any nations? If so, is it the same nations for each faction each time or is it randomized at game start?

On starting assets per faction, the main differences that come to mind are:

1) Starting Councilors. There's some randomness in their generation, but your first two will be guaranteed to have two key missions available to them.

2) Global public opinion seed. These will tend to favor Cooperate (the Academy) in nations with high education, while Servants, Humanity First and the Initiative will get bonuses in lower-education nations. Undecided is also dominant globally. This essentially models initial hopes and fears about the alien arrival.

So, no, other factions don't start out with something to balance the ISS; in fact, the Academy starts in a strong position. But they far and away have the hardest victory conditions in the game, and the advantages they start with are things that can be fairly easily lost.

Factions don't start out with any control points (although they can be configured to do so). This is to let you design your own strategy of where to build a base of power, rather than force it on you.

Thanks for the quick response! I was hoping you'd say that about control points, as it sounds like it gives the player more choice and also allows for a bit more replayability. Many of the screenshots I've seen here and on Steam seem to have the player as the Resistance and controlling the US or European countries, and I wondered if they started like that or if it was just something the player had done.

I have another question not related to the same topic, but it occurred to me earlier today while I was thinking. From reading the dev diaries it seems like something you'd have put thought into. I can see that launch complexes are modeled on the world, many in their existing positions, and I would guess that gaining access to major complexes such as Cape Canaveral would be a big help for a faction (not 100% sure how yet--they generate the Boost resource, or affect what size of payload you can launch into Earth orbit?). If I wanted to gain access to Baikonur Cosmodrome, would I want my faction to take over Kazakhstan or Russia? Does the game model ownership/control of these installations separately or do they just belong to wherever they are?

Launch facilities grant an income in the boost resource. Each control point in the USA gives you a fractional share of the nation's total boost.

For Baikonur, we have a Federation mechanic in which federated nations share boost (among other things). Russia is in federation with Kazakhstan (and a few other nations) and, as the largest member of the federation, gets a large share of Kazakhstan's boost. Kazakhstan retains some, and the other nations in the federation get some too. The same mechanic grants a share of France's boost (from South America) to members of the European Union federation -- how we fit the ESA into the game's mechanics.

Awesome, that's a really cool way of approaching it.