Noob question...Clarify Quality Requirements?

I’ve read the part of the reference docs about Quality Requirements in Storylets, and I just want to clarify the Min / Diff / Max uses. I feel silly for asking, but while the examples have a value in the diff box, all they talk about is the effect having values in min & max does, I can’t seem to find what effect the diff value is having.

Is 'Diff’ setting the difference between Min and Max, so values between will be ignored? Or is it a Difficulty multiplier? Or am I totally missing the point?

What I want to achieve is this: I have an Alignment status quality, with 3 levels (1 - Good 2 - Bad 3 - Neutral). What I want to happen is one branch to be visible only if the player has a value of 1 OR 3.

If I put;

Quality Required- Alignment: Min [ 1 ] Diff [ 2 ] Max [ 3 ] (Not visible if requirement failed)

Does that equate to the branch only showing if the player has an Alignment value at 1 OR 3, but invisible if 2?

(I have a second branch which is 2 OR 3, which is easy enough: Min 2 Max 3.)

I realise I could just add some extra branches that cover just 1, just 2, and duplicate them all for just 3, but that’s a messy way that will add up to a lot of work (as well as confusion & margin for error/bugs) in the long run.
edited by Bunters on 8/25/2014

Diff is to do with difficulty, but if I say more I will only screw it up, so I’ll wait till someone comes along who might not get it wrong. :-S

Ooh. Actually I MAY be able to help here. In a negative way.
There’s definitely no ‘OR’ option for cards. Branches have an OR option via coding but only between two things. See here: http://community.failbettergames.com/topic7780-an-or-option-on-card-requirements.aspx

I don’t think what you want can be done on one branch. For me the easiest thing to do would be to have a separate quality for each alignment type. Since you only have 3 types, it wouldn’t make a stupid number of branches. I think that’s what you’ve dismissed as messy, but with the duplication of branch option I’ve found it pretty fast.

Alternatively: couldn’t you change the ordering of your alignment? Might be odd, but if 2 was neutral, you could have what you want just with the min-max settings. (min 1 max 2) would be open to good and neutral (min 2 max 3) would be open to neutral and bad.
edited by babelfishwars on 8/25/2014

Diff sets the difficulty for a card. Putting a number in the Diff column turns the card into a challenge, and whether or not the player succeeds at that challenge depends on their quality as compared to the card difficulty.

OR requirements are not supported, and to do what you want you will need to create two cards or branches, one with an Alignment with min/max both at 1, and one with an Alignment with min/max both at 3. Cloning cards/branches is useful for this.

Thank you!

It’s a shame ‘OR’ isn’t supported, I’ll just have to stay vigilant with keeping my cloning straight in my head…

(It also occurred to me that I just need to swap the levels in my Alignment Quality around so Neutral is 2, allowing for Min 1 Max 2 [ Good or Neutral ] and Min 2 Max 3 [ Neutral or Bad ] D’oh.