You know, I'm looking around, and I'm seeing all these people making factions, and I say to myself, "Damn, would I ever like to do that someday."
So I'm asking now, in case I ever take the time to make one.
How much content does a faction need to get started? Or in another form, How much has to be in a first release for it to be considered a faction?

Assuming quality, 1 actor (if versatile) and 2 weapons could be, but 2 or more actors and 5 or more weapons i would generally accept as a faction. look at the darkstorm shinobi, they are the driving force of Darlos's faction, and lo and behold they do it well. 1 actor. the shogun where only released pretty recently, so Darkstorm only has 2 actors, but they seem quite fleshed out. you dont need much, you just need it to be of a high quality and mesh well.

tl;dr: 1, maybe 2 actors, and some weapons, and all of them go together.

Interesting. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks a lot.

Yeah the idea of a "faction" is really invented by most people that make mods. Personally I'd say you have a faction when you have enough things that your mod could be self-sufficient; you've got at least one actor, sprayer, digger, and at least a few basic gun archetypes down. Also, like Geti said, it needs to have a similar theme.

That's why I'm distancing my mod from an actual faction... I don't really want to limit myself by more than a very general theme, let alone the 5+ machine guns, 3+ pistols, grab bag of grenades, and so on that a proper faction seems to require.

Well, if I do get around to making one, I'll include the bar minimum of what my theme will allow - I've got one in mind, and it allows a decent amount of content. - and then I'll add more crap as I add more releases.

1 actor 2 devices, that's basically the bare-bones minimum. Anything less is a man and his gun.
Or a Xophox and his acid tendrils. But that would be cool enough it wouldn't need to be part of a faction. I don't know what a Xophox is either.

And from there, I suggest you expand, and keep making stuff for it. If you catch yourself making two things that have little functional difference, stop, drop the identical object, and roll on with making something else not so much like existing stuff.

One craft, 4 actors, 10 weapons, 2 bombs, a tool, and a shield would be a good ratio of content. And a good size; big enough to be worth keeping, but not so exhaustive that it gets boring. But if you've still got novelty behind your ideas, by no means stop or limit yourself to this ratio.

But that's all just my opinion. And the current definition of a faction is simply the average of the mods that have claimed to be factions. And is average really what you're even going for?
But a mod faction can be any group of content affiliated with a faction.
But anything without actors would only be a 'supply faction', because actors would be the required driving force of any active faction.
I guess technically you could use generic midas robots, but that would just be lame.

The craft would be hard, no? I mean, actors, weapons, bombs, tools and shields are usually pretty easy to sprite and code, but a craft... Yikes. That's going to be hard.

If you make a craft like the ones we've seen in vanilla content, yeah.
But surprise us. Give us something new. It doesn't necessarily have to have 1000 properly offset'd gibs. That has proven to be a fun feature, but if you can come up with something fun/unique that doesn't do that, by all means go for it.

And like I said, you don't need to strictly adhere to that ratio, I just loosely suggested it. If it's a chore and a bother that's of no interest to you to make crafts, maybe your faction only uses Midas Tradestar generic crafts. You don't have to be an independent faction, but that would give a certain "complete-ness" to it.


And back to the theme thing...
A theme for the faction content is suggested. For example, my unreleased Shadow Echelon faction has an over-the-top tactical (tacticool) theme and a satire/irony/oddity theme. They have a color scheme of black and dark blue, for gear and guns. Red glass, and silver metal components. Many of the devices are bizarre in function. Their brain is the robot unit. The actors are particularly weak to penetration wounds and resilient to impacts. The generic ones have a name theme based on how easily they're destroyed ending in the suffix -able. The specialized ones have names for their specialization, and the ending suffix fitting for "one who does" (tor/trix). They almost all have respirators. Except the Ignitrix incendiary unit, ironically. (She would assumably be a strangely proportioned man if she had one. And if she were a he, I couldn't make any 'hot' jokes) But I'm getting too far into that.

Examples. As I see them. "Our Guys" faction is cheesy and brightly colored. AAL has the Halloween colors thing going on. Crobos are techy-looking silvery heavy robots. Darkstorm, once called Darklone, is a bunch of clones decked out in black/blue heavy armor. Pelian army is green and grey/black with antennas. Bear federation has bears and silly tankish stuff. Kloveska has white plastic-y shell armor. The list goes on.

Basically, just find some things you like, colors, styles, and maybe features, and try to incorporate them into the faction where you can, without entirely messing up the individuality of the particular object. Or maybe sometimes break the themes to highlight the individuality of some objects. For example, the dropship-sized robot of SE will be called the Juggernaut. Maybe even make a sub-theme out of this break. For example, I left the SE Constructor red showing he's not planned as a general combat unit, and I will make any non-combat unoffensive tools red as well.

Sorry if I'm talking about SE too much, but it is a good example of how thoroughly you can implement themes into a faction.

tl;dr do a theme over your stuff, however you like.

Oh, and don't redo a theme. Particularly exact main colors, or extremely iconic features.
Pft, I'm one to talk, not the first black/blue man group. But it's low contrast dark greyish blue. And I like it too much to let go.

Two actors, three devices to me seems like enough to start up.

Make a gun and an actor, slap a nice faction name on it and you're on your way I'd say. There's plenty of time to add stuff after an initial release.

Anyway, err... there are no rules or anything. Just have a go at it.

If you want to make a faction, what you really need to start with is an idea of some sort. Some kind of theme or common thread. And I don't necessarily mean just a visual or aesthetic theme. Like, my faction has the whole "japanese" aesthetic going on, but the REAL theme (or at least whats supposed to be the real theme. I'm waiting for full Lua still...) is stealth and support functions.

Actually, what you probably need is a combination of the two: a cool aesthetic theme and a cool functional theme. After that, the actors and devices should flow naturally.

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF A FACTION.

that is correct odin quality is always the best plan(its the main reason im not really into some of the factions)

You know, I really would like to believe that. I really would.

Me too, but considering how well unitech has done for itself...