Faction rank/Hostility/Crime faction/Affinity - Can someone explain how they interact?

[PJMail]

These seem to be all independant mechanisms in Fallout 4 for determining friend/foe and I am struggling to understand how they interacts.

 

These sort of Things:

- How deep does 'factions who are friends/enemies of factions (I am in) are my friend/enemy" go? This could go very deep or even make loops.

- What happens if things contradict (i.e I am in one faction that results in me be a friend to an NPC, yet I am in another faction that makes them an enemy) - what overrides what?

- What priority does 'crime faction' have? It seems I can be a god to an NPC but if I do something against their crime faction they immediately attack me.

- Along this line, what does Companion affinity actually mean. It seems to be unrelated to friend/foe decisions, and more about dialogue options.

- What is the benefit of being in the same faction as another NPC? Do they ignore my friendly fire? Do they not become hostile to me (if I attack a faction they are ally to). Or does it mean nothing unless that faction also a 'friend/ally' to itself (I see this in quite a few factions)?

- What triggers hostility (excluding faction based 'enemy' ranking)? It seems it is a 'connection' between 2 NPC's only (which then may trigger faction hostility), that is triggered by.... What?

 

I am trying find some logic behind why apparently friendly NPC's suddenly get into a fight.

[LarannKiar]

You should take a look at this. And this one too.

 

They will answer these questions:

 

1. AI Data: will the NPC help one of their friend or ally in combat? Or ignore it? Will this NPC attack anyone who's not their friend or ally? (Most likely that's why your NPC gets attacked. Some NPCs will attack anyone but their allies like Sentry Bots: AI Data on Very Agressive).

 

2. Factions: who are the NPC's buddies? Are they friends or allies, enemies?

 

 

Faction ranks are only useful at very specific conditions. And yes, companion affinity is totally different from factions.

[PJMail]

Sorry, but I can read the superficial Creation kit info too.

You need to look at my questions to realize this is more complex than you think.

[SKKmods]

I did some testing on this and the priority if each DIRECT actor:actor faction relatonship is assessed (they are not transative);

 

Crime (SetPlayerEnemy)

Hostile

Ally

Friend

Neutral (watch out for aggression >= 2 and AggroRadius)

 

Unless there is a specific transitive script active like the nasty CompanionCrimeFactionHostilityScript

 

Companion affinity has nothing to do with this, they can be max +1100 affinity and still go hostile on a friendly hit.

[PJMail]

By not transitive, do you mean the relationship between 2 actors is not evaluated further than the factions those actors are in?

I mean, Actor A in faction 1 & Actor B in faction 3 - only the direct relationship between faction 1 and 3 is important?

So if there is no relationship between faction 1 and 3, but both factions have a relationship with Faction 2, there is no transitive relationship between 1 & 3?

i.e the following is NOT true - "faction 1 is friendly with faction 2 who is enemy of faction 3 therefore faction 1 is enemy of faction 3"?

 

That would certainly make it very much easier to work out interactions.

 

What happens if A is in two factions (1 & 3), with B is in factions 2 & 4, with factions 1 & 2 friends but factions 3 & 4 enemies.

Does the game follow all combinations of the factions they are members of and choose the 'worse' according to your hierachy (i.e. in the above, A & B are therefore enemies)?

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

By not transitive, do you mean the relationship between 2 actors is not evaluated further than the factions those actors are in?

I mean, Actor A in faction 1 & Actor B in faction 3 - only the direct relationship between faction 1 and 3 is important?

So if there is no relationship between faction 1 and 3, but both factions have a relationship with Faction 2, there is no transitive relationship between 1 & 3?

i.e the following is NOT true - "faction 1 is friendly with faction 2 who is enemy of faction 3 therefore faction 1 is enemy of faction 3"?

 

That would certainly make it very much easier to work out interactions.

 

What happens if A is in two factions (1 & 3), with B is in factions 2 & 4, with factions 1 & 2 friends but factions 3 & 4 enemies.

Does the game follow all combinations of the factions they are members of and choose the 'worse' according to your hierachy (i.e. in the above, A & B are therefore enemies)?

 

I think I get what you are trying to say ...

You are basically asking if "the enemy of my friend is also my enemy" is true, right?

[SKKmods]

Faction relations apply Actor>Faction:Faction>Actor. No transative means that any indirect faction relations are ignored, only the direct list of actor A direct faction memberships and actor B direct faction memberships.

 

The exception is the crime faction which conditions Actor>Crimefaction:Player as in SetPlayerEnemy.

 

If any Faction that actor A is a member of is hostile to any faction actor B is a member of then the Actor:Actor relationship is hostile. Then trickle down the priority list to find the winning posture.

 

Observations based on fcuk all specific documentation and my own scripted faction tests. If you want to learn more look at CompanionCrimeFactionHostilityScript

[PJMail]

Great, it is non-transitive - so much simpler than I thought!

And yes YouDontKnowMyName, "the enemy of my friend is also my enemy" is one way of puting it, but I was more concerned that you could get "A likes B who likes C who likes D - but D doesn't like B" Is A an enemy or Friend of D?

 

Anyway SKK says that is not the way it works - thank goodness.

 

Now all I need to know is what constitutes a "friend" for "Friendly fire" ignoring... Faction Friendship, 'Teamate' status, in same faction, or something else entirely?

 

And yes SKK, I have looked at CompanionCrimeFactionHostilityScript a number of times and I roughly interpret it as meaning:

"If a companion is in battle with any NPC whose Crime faction is in the same 'shared Crime faction list' as their's, then their crime faction can become an enemy of the player too!"

 

I have no idea why this is a good thing (Enemy of my Enemies is my Enemy too - if that enemy is the player, because the player commited a crime).

Shouldn't your Companions just 'disapprove' of your crime (or lower their affinity) rather than become instantly hostile???

 

Attack a turret in a settlement and you will see this play out with Codsworth (if you have modded him in the Automatron Workbench - due to another obscure bug).

Edited January 4, 2021 by PJMail

[SKKmods]

Which is why I have several solutions to pacify or make hostile companions mortal. Kill them all with their dumb ass comments.

[PJMail]

I fixed the primary cause of that bug, but it is those obscure chain of events ending in hostility than I am trying to understand.

"Kill the all" is a good falback though... or no companions at all (fixes them getting in your way all the time - especially when shooting... Back to Friendly fire...)