The Faction Nexus

Visit The Website Discord Logo

Join The Discord Roblox Logo

Play Starscape

Roadmap

In Progress:

Pre-Render Variable Content

Before switching to a backend server, the website had to load in user generated content into template pages right after the user loads the page. There is a visible delay before that content is loaded, during which, the user can see placeholder content. Additionally, the content sometimes wouldn't load until you refreshed the page, and bots and crawlers don't load the content at all. This was not good for search engine optimization.

With a backend server now in place, this content can be loaded into a template before the page is served to the user. Additionally, the backend server allows for cleaner, more SEO-friendly URLs that don't rely on hacky 404 pages or weird URL structures.

Furthermore, this allows to load content like navbar & footer, as well as appearance settings before the page is served to the user.

URLs like /article?id=some-id will be moving to URLs like /article/some-id, and dynamic metadata, like article previews, will now be loaded into link embeds for each unique article, publisher profile, faction page, etc.

Priority:

Admin Panel

With the new account system in, place, the website needs an admin panel to make doing cool admin stuff easier and more accessible to admins. This admin panel will be strictly available only to admin accounts. This panel will be used for things like managing other accounts, approving new faction uploads, moderating news articles, providing account support, granting or revoking special user permissions, dealing with suspicious or malicious activity, and so on.

The admin panel must look cool because admin stuff = cool. When an admin opens the admin panel, the design of the admin panel alone should make the user feel powerful.

Priority:

Constellia Subdomain

TFN has partnered with Constellia, another Roblox space game similar to Starscape, in order to list Constellia faction data on the website, separate from Starscape factions. While AlteFore, Constellia's main developer, makes Constellia factions send updates to my API, I'll be building that API that sends those updates to TFN's database. This allows TFN to receive faction updates in real time. After that, I'll build a web page to view these factions the same way you can on the main website, reusing most of the existing code for this.
If the current plan works out, I may attempt to pursue a partnership with Starscape to accomplish the same thing with Starscape factions. (However, the chances of this happening are slim at best.)

Priority:

Make the News Page Fully Functional

News articles need to be able to be clicked on to bring up a full page for the article, just like with factions. Users need to be able to publish these articles, and users should be able to apply to become a news publisher. Users also need to be able to report or share articles.
These things cannot be done without account login, integrated forms and possibly a backend server.
Some of these features have been completed. Some others are on hold. There are also some features I have planned that are not mentioned here.

Priority:

On Hold:

Create Discord Bot

A public Discord bot should be available for users to upload/edit faction data, become a news publisher, upload/edit news articles, search the database, subscribe to certain news tags or publishers to receive them in their server, and more. Proper precations will be taken to ensure users cannot edit content from other users, create troll factions/articles, etc.
Until integrated forms are completed, this will become the primary method of adding/editing factions and articles on The Faction Nexus.
This bot may or may not become open source, however, as of July, 2025, it is not open source.

Reason for being on hold:
I'm trying to work on too many things at once. I'll resume development on Nexobot once I've finished 2 or 3 other features.

Priority:

Next Priority:

Integrated Forms

All forms, including faction upload forms, will be fully integrated in the website and will no longer rely on Google Forms to function. Users will have to be logged in to submit most forms. Users will be able to upload their faction data to the website, and then that faction will be associated with their account. Only that user will be able to edit data on that faction. In the case of impersonation or account issues, users will be able to submit a form to address these issues, regardless of whether they are logged in or not.

Priority:

Improved Faction Search

No more searching purely by keywords. Google can understand queries like "Show me nearby Chinese restaurants." Why can't The Faction Nexus understand "What are the largest Lycentian factions?"

Essentially, I'll ditch the current 'search by keywords' method and use an existing library or API to search closer to how Google Search works. (but without the AI)

Priority:

Faction Relation Chart

Create an auto-generated faction relations chart/web for all factions who provided their faction relations. There will be filters, so you can filter out the smaller and/or inactive factions, or even only show small factions.

Priority:

Todo:

Add More "Sort By" Options For Searching

I never actually added all the search filters that I originally intended to. The current sorting orders are:

Search Relevance
Name (A-Z)
Size (Largest-Smallest)
Age (New-Old)

We still need to add the following orders:

Name (Z-A) (Maybe)
Size (Smallest-Largest)
Age (Old-New)
Random

And the following were also originally planned, and maybe could still be added—though some would require adjustments to the site to be made.

Activity (Dead faction, active faction, etc.)
Relevancy (How often they've been mentioned in Nexus News articles recently)
Recruition Policy (Invite only, minimum requirements, everyone welcome, etc.)

Priority:

Starscape Ads

Users can pay credits (or maybe it'll be free—undecided) to post ads for their faction or an event. Users can disable being shown these ads while logged in in their account settings.

Priority:

FAQ Section

Even though there actually are no frequently asked questions, there are questions I anticipate may be asked somewhat often. For example, "Why is T-S-E always at the top of search results by default" (because they're the largest faction in the database and search relevance sorts by size when multiple results are equally relevant) or "how do I upload faction data" (go to the forms tab and click "upload faction data.")

Priority:

Faction Groups

Allow uploading data for faction groups (i.e. Coffee Shop or The Consortium). This would work very similarly to uploading faction data.

Priority:

Live:

Improved Account System (Email & Password)

While the previous system does not put your Discord account at any risk, it is vulnerable to people spoofing who they are logged in to on our website. While this currently cannot be abused (as the only thing this does is tell the account dropdown menu to say the fake user's name instead of the real one), it needs to be fixed before certain features are introduced which would create opportunities to abuse this. Additionally, this new improved account system would allow settings to sync across any device you're logged in on rather than just one.

Get Error Pages Working

When this item was added to the roadmap, there were several different custom error pages designed, but only the 404 page was actually getting used.

Switch to Backend Server

Switch from static pages to using a framework like Express or React to dynamically host and load pages. In essence, this allows quicker dynamic loading of pages like news articles and allows search engines and bots to properly read the content of these pages (rather than seeing "loading headline... loading author... loading content..."). Additionally, this allows for easier and quicker development of such pages.

Remodel Home page

Add widgets like "Faction of The Day" or "Latest News" to the home page, so it's more than just a second about page.

Markdown Formatting Support in User-Generated Content

Users who upload data like news articles and factions should be able to use markdown formatting in certain fields, like the faction description.

Hyperlink support in user-generated content

Links should be automatically detected (for example, when they contain "https://" or "http://"), and turned into clickable links in faction info pages, news articles, etc.

Create Themes

Themes will be possible to select from user settings of logged-in users once logging in via Discord is functional. We will also need to implement a way to apply the theme. I haven't worked that part out yet.
Current themes are:
Default, Lycentian, Kavani, Foralkan, Ancient, and Ethereal.
The Ethereal theme still requires some polishing.

Account Settings

Add account settings once accounts are implemented. Account settings will include font, theme, disabling Starscape ads, and more.

Get Discord Login Working

Scrap the email & password idea and just have users log in securely via Discord. To do this, we thought we needed a backend server, which is what held back progress on this. However, we were able to get it working without a backend server. Having Discord login should finally enable us to make progress on many more planned features.

Link Here From the Main Website

Add a link to this page on the main website. This will be done once this roadmap page is complete.

Put TSA's Faction Politics Charts in the Diplomacy Page Until Our Own Auto-Updating Chart is Ready

TSA's faction politics chart does not cover the same group of factions that The Faction Nexus does. However, these charts will still fit in as a temporary placeholder for the auto-updating chart with filters and so on.

Add Priority Meter to These Widgets

A small meter at the bottom of roadmap item widgets that indicates the current priority and importance of that item. It still needs some small touch-ups, but it's pretty much done.
Example priority meter below:

Here's another example with a priority of 3 instead of 5:

Shelved:

Nothing

Nothing has been shelved yet. This item is only here to show that this section exists.