Slitherine

There are a few factions that are listed as 'noEditor', which means they are not available in the editor of course.
You can easily fix this by editing the factions.txt, but they should be available by default.

[IJN]
[REDUSA]
[USARMY]
[RAF]

After allowing several factions of the same type in a single scenario, we've moved away from these duplicates. They will not be coming back because it was a clumsy system.

At some point I might look into assigning different emblems/flags to (duplicate) factions though, for easier distinction.

But any changes to the factions will not break old (custom) scenarios, I hope...

And those extra emblems are very useful.

If the factions are already present in a scenario they will of course remain available. And as you said, you can (temporarily) make them available just to "hack" them into the scenario.

I see how custom scenarios get broken now. Not that this should ever be a consideration in a decision made for a better official game, of course.

I used [USARMY] as an AI ally in my scenario Oahu Invasion because I had a bunch of U.S. units that I did not want to bore the player with needing to manage (they are there mostly for window dressing and/or human sacrifice while the player gathers and readies his core units). So those 'noEditor' factions may have been clumsy, but they were handy for a situation like that.

So, rhetorical question: Do I now redesign Oahu Invasion to get rid of [USARMY]? That's a question for me to ponder because, although I know you said 'noEditor' factions would still work for now in old scenarios, in a future version they are likely to be left out altogether and . . . scenario broken, big time.

Just thinking out loud.

I often use these factions in my custom scenarios and campaigns, I find them very useful.
After every game update I go into the factions file and remove all noEditor entries.

So I share the same worries.

I remember one earlier game update broke custom campaigns because there were some format changes in the campaign data.cmp file at some point.
The devs must of course develop the game in whatever direction they want. But some advance helpful info in the Scenario forum would be much appreciated.

in a future version they are likely to be left out altogether and . . . scenario broken, big time.

That would break a lot of old "official" scenarios as well. I don't see why we'd want that