Feature request: conditional hails

bene-dictator commented 1 year ago

Problem Description

It would be useful for people who like editing and making hails (me...) to have hails that only happen when some conditions are met. Currently using events repeatedly is not feasible because it would bloat up the save file.

I see uses in:

ships commenting on recent events (the events of the civil war, the Geminus and Martini bombings, Hai Revealed events)
ships talking about their outfits (boasting about their weapons or outfits, telling the player to get a scram drive because they have one)
ships changing their speech based on location (pirate ships would say that they just came from a raid on a nearby planet, not a planet halfway across human space; more variety in speech and seeing regional colloquialisms)
ships commenting on other hails (the bad pun hail could have other ships say stuff in response; saying it's bad, or they liked it; responding to distress hails)
ships commenting on what's happening in the system (pirate attack commenting, complaining about their slow thrusters)

While a lot of people would ignore hails, I think these would go some way into having NPC ships that appear to respond and participate in what's going on instead of telling a joke as they're bombarded by a Pirate Leviathan.

Desired Solution

For example:

The hail would only be sent if the origin ship had atomic engines.

phrase "engine boast"
"phrase settings"
or
  has "outfit: A120 Atomic Thruster"
  has "outfit: A125 Atomic Steering"
  has "outfit: A250 Atomic Thruster"
  has "outfit: A255 Atomic Steering"
  has "outfit: A370 Atomic Thruster"
  has "outfit: A375 Atomic Steering"
  has "outfit: A520 Atomic Thruster"
  has "outfit: A525 Atomic Steering"
  has "outfit: A860 Atomic Thruster"
  has "outfit: A865 Atomic Steering"
word
  "I just "
  "I "
word
  "bought "
  "purchased "
  "outfitted my ship with "
  "installed "
word
  "these "
word
  "snazzy "
  "lightning-quick "
  "hot "
  "amazing new "
word
  "atomic engines"
word
  ". Look how fast my ship goes now"
  " from the Deep"
  " from Deep Sky"
  " on Valhalla"
  ""
word
  "!"
  "."

This hail would be sent if the origin ship is an Osprey, and one variant will only display if the ship the player has is not an Osprey.

phrase "osprey boast"
"phrase settings"
    has " ship: Osprey"
word
  "I'm loving this "
  "I'm piloting a "
word
  "newly-made "
  "mint-condition "
  "snappy little "
  " "
word
  "Osprey"
  "Tarazed Osprey"
word
  " I just got on Wayfarer"
  " that just rolled off the production line"
  " that I managed to buy second-hand"
  ". It's my new favourite ship"
  ". It handles like a shuttlecraft"
  ""
word
  ", and I bet you wish you had one!"
  "phrase settings"
        not "flagship ship: Osprey"
  "!"
  "."

This hail would only display after the war begins, but before the event "initial deployment 2", which is a couple weeks into the war. It does not display if you are in the Paradise Worlds.

phrase "shock over bombings"
"phrase settings"
  has "event: war begins"
  not "event: initial deployment 2"
  not "attribute: paradise"
word
  "Did you "
  "Where were you when you "
word
  "hear about "
  "see "
word
  "the news about "
  "the newscasts about "
word
  "the bombings"
  "the tragedy"
  "the attacks"
  "what happened"
word
  " on Martini and Geminus"
  " in the Paradise Worlds"
word
  "?" 25
  "? The Republic isn't safe anymore." 25
  "? I thought those days were behind us." 25
  "? I'm convinced the Free Worlds were behind the attacks." 25
  "? Never mind the Free Worlds, it was those Syndicate crooks behind the attacks."
replace
  "when you hear" "when you heard"
  "when you see" "when you saw"

Alternative Approaches

The problem is that what I suggest above would not fit the current syntax well and would go better with a refactor of the hail system or something like that. Another problem is that configuring hails are already very annoying because a government can only have one set of them at a time for friendly, hostile etc.

Right now it is too late for me to think of better syntax for this so I'll leave it as it is for now, just to give you all an idea of what I was thinking.

Additional Context

No response

Hurleveur commented 1 year ago

We can already do this (sort of) using hail replacements that have conditions. That said its very finicky, so what we could do is have a to display optional node for phrases, simply making it so that they're not taken if the conditions are not met.

reticent-rem commented 3 weeks ago

Mentioned this in discord last week but figured I should also post here for posterity. Another use case for conditional hails/news would be to direct players to available missions in an in-universe way, so the player gets nudges towards available missions that stop appearing once those missions are done.

endless-sky / endless-sky