How to govt classes work?

So far, I've simply used govt IDs directly in the enemy/ally fields, and mostly ignored classes. However, I'd like some details on how govt classes are supposed to work; the Nova bible sadly under-documents these. For instance, what are valid class values?

I think any positive interger is valid, though I've used lower numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) When you assign a government it's class(es), it has no immediate effect. However, when you put values in the ally/enemy fields, then it becomes useful. For example, you can have three different groups of pirates and set them all to class 10. You can then use this value to make any group that always attacks pirates enemies with class 10, which would make them enemies with all three govts.

Hope that helps.

Classes gave me a headache too, until I found this handy-dandy class guide.

Sorry that the link re-directs to the guides page, but I can never remember how to link directly to a file on this site.

Edit: I don't know if you're using this for Firefly or for stock Nova tinkering, but if it's the latter, I've found that it's helpful to further organize Nova's government classifications. For example, I gave every Fed affiliate an additional, identical, same for the Aurorans, Polairs, etc. It just makes assigning allies and enemies much easier.

This post has been edited by Archon : 07 January 2008 - 07:52 PM

An important thing to keep in mind when dealing with classes is that a government is not automatically allied to its classmates. So if, for example, you want to have a class for all corporations in your plug-in - as I do - you can assign one without them being allies to one another. Or, you can make some corporations be allies to all other corporations, while others are not. This confused me initially, so I thought I'd point it out.

@joshtigerheart, on Jan 7 2008, 06:51 PM, said in How to govt classes work?:

I think any positive interger is valid, though I've used lower numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.)

Okay, so numbers under 128 are valid. That makes sense; there would be ambiguity if you created a class 128, because there's also a govt 128. I was wondering about that.

@lindley, on Jan 9 2008, 11:58 AM, said in How to govt classes work?:

Okay, so numbers under 128 are valid.

Correct. The minimum of 128 is part of the Macintosh Resource Manager, not EV Nova itself; since a government class isn’t a resource, that limitation doesn’t apply.