Factions

[dPB]

I was wondering if someone could tell me which factions are joinable and the conditions to join them? I joined the guardians once by accident but other then that I can never seem to able to join anyone else?

[draconuszero]

Check the wiki or the strategy guide on the yahoo groups.  The strat guide is a bit outdated, but the prerequisite info is more or less correct.

[Anticheese]

Quoting: dPB

I joined the guardians once by accident but other then that I can never seem to able to join anyone else?

Yeah, faction membership is pretty much a for-life thing as far as I know

Anyhow, a brief list of factions:

Governmental factions:

The Guardians
The Solar Navy
The Federation Defence Force

Corporations:

Biocorp
RegEx corp
Kettel Industries

Misc:

Hwang-Sa Monks
Thiefs Guildd

This is for Gearhead 1 only, GH2 even in its early stages has many different factions.

[dPB]

Thanks for the help.

So i'm guessing no joining multiple factions like Hwang-Sa and Solar Navy?

[Anticheese]

Good guess, Its like pledging your life to eternal truth..And having a part time job on a battleship

[dPB]

Just out of curiousity, how will factions function in GH2? Will it be the same as GH1?

[Anticheese]

Pretty much the same, Except now factions now have Mecha exclusive to their faction (I.E in GH1 you can just rock up to the general store and pick up a Luna II, in GH2 the only way to get an L2 is to either be a part of Aegis Overlord or to kill the pilot of an L2), Each faction will have influence in different parts of the game and currently characters can start off as a member of one faction (Most often the Knights or similar)

If I've missed anything, Please say so.

[Joseph Hewitt]

The factions will work mostly the same in GH2 as they did in GH1, but with a few exceptions. First, it will be possible to select a faction during character creation. Selecting certain jobs (such as Arena Pilot or Guardian) will automatically also set the character's faction.

The different factions each use different mecha and equipment.

It will still be possible to start without a faction and join a faction later in the game.

The PC's faction will play a larger role in the core story than in GH1.

[Anticheese]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

The PC's faction will play a larger role in the core story than in GH1.

Would you care to elaborate on this? I'm sure that everyone here knows that Factions at the moment are just ways to get unique equipment and extra missions, But with GH2 having about 12 different plot "flavours" I'd be interested to see how factions can be factored into that, Especially if I join the theives guild and have my characters ultimate desire set to World Peace or Enlightenment.

P.S - Will we be able to play as Aegis Overlord Luna? I'd like to see a "Darkside" campaign

[dPB]

World Peace under Aegis Overlord Luna rule...

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Selecting certain jobs (such as Arena Pilot or Guardian) will automatically also set the character's faction.

So if I chose Arena Pilot at the start and am set to the Arena Faction or whatever, does this mean i can't join say the Solar Navy later on? Even though the Arena Faction and the Solar Navy are quite different? How about faction alliances (i.e perhaps getting special missions from other factions that you wouldn't get if you weren't part of that faction/alliance)?

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Anticheese

Would you care to elaborate on this? I'm sure that everyone here knows that Factions at the moment are just ways to get unique equipment and extra missions, But with GH2 having about 12 different plot "flavours" I'd be interested to see how factions can be factored into that

This is going to require a bit of background info. Each of the core story events has a context which describes the situation in which it can occur. This context is analogous to the XRan Descriptors in GH1.

There are two kinds of tags that can be in the context: those which must be present in the story context for this event to happen, and those which don't have to be present but increase the likelihood of this event happening if they are. The PC's goals frequently involve these optional tags, so your goal will slant the story in a certain direction even though there may not be any components written solely for that goal.

The faction works in much the same way. In addition to the exact identity of the faction, the story context also contains the type of the faction. So there may be events tied to military factions, corporate factions, and so on.

Certain events will be scripted for each of the factions, detailing that faction's "metastory".

Quoting: Anticheese

P.S - Will we be able to play as Aegis Overlord Luna? I'd like to see a "Darkside" campaign

Yes, you will be able to play Aegis Overlord.

Quoting: dPB

So if I chose Arena Pilot at the start and am set to the Arena Faction or whatever, does this mean i can't join say the Solar Navy later on?

Correct, unless you manage to get thrown out of the Pro Duelist Association or quit somehow.

Quoting: dPB

How about faction alliances

Certain factions are allied, and this may affect the missions available to the PC, yes.

[SharkD]

How often will vendors refresh their inventory? It happens a little too quickly in GH1, IMO.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: SharkD

How often will vendors refresh their inventory? It happens a little too quickly in GH1, IMO.

They will refresh once every 24 hours, just like in GH1, unless you're playing on Linux in which case they apparently refresh every time.

[draconuszero]

SharkD, if i remember correctly it used to be that the refresh rate for stores was every time to you talked to a storekeeper, but Joseph changed it to 24 hours. I'm fine with 24 hrs as generally you can beat the game in 20-30 days roughly.  The main reason to go beyond that is if you want to go for the overkill and improve your stats to above 15-20 for everything or to get argoseyer and the hidden joinable characters/mecha.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: draconuszero

SharkD, if i remember correctly it used to be that the refresh rate for stores was every time to you talked to a storekeeper, but Joseph changed it to 24 hours.

Originally it reset every time you visited the store, then I changed things so that it only updated once every 24 hours, then there was a bug in the FreePascal compiler's random() algorithm that prevented the store status from being saved, then they fixed it so now it's back to a 24 hour refresh. Except, apparently, on certain platforms.