Re: Orbital Colonies
 

so as long as we are willing to ignore asteroid colonies from the progenitors floating about, we dont have a problem.

now how do we work those space colonies and LG points?

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

No, we do have a problem. I just ran some quick tests. When you add a planetsize smaller than tiny, there is a wierd side effect. In the system types file that regulates randomly generated systems almost all planets are the size of "any", meaning a random selection. However, in some cases the planet size is specified as "huge", and then some moons are placed in the same sector. (Apparently Malfador didn't grow up om the same planet as the rest of us and thinks moons only orbit Huge planets. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Anyway, if you add a planetsize smaller than tiny, then any where you specify "huge" as the planet size you get a null planet. That is, something is there, but it's unusable, and has no image. Very strange. If you change the entries in the system types file to "Large", or "any", you get planets there.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

GEO! I think you may have discovered the problem behind my horrible experience in trying to add micro moons back in February!

Does this sound like the same problem as back then?
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=004712#000010

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Yep yep. I ran into the same problem Last year working on Admirals system mod. Didn't figure out why till just now. Well, still not really sure why, but at least I know what is happening.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

thats not so bad. we can solve that a few ways:

find and replace on "huge" with "large"

create a duplicate "huge" planet type, resulting in a possible error, or double the number of huge planets out there

create a planet size larger than huge, so that planets specified as huge will be the next size up (maybe).

this does beg the question though: are planets that are specified as "tiny" (like moons) now being represented by the smaller sized asteroid things? do we need to change this to 'small?'

and what does this do to planet selection at game creation? do poor and great starts still give you the same planet types?

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

I don't know what results you get by removing some/all of the standard sizes. I do know you have to go through the SystemTypes.txt file and remove any references to the old types. You also have to go to DefaultColonyTypes.txt (I think that's the name} for each AI that has one and remove planet type entries for those sizes.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Gee... This is a lot more complicated than I thought it would / could be... I think I am going to stick to resource stations with cargo space...

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Ok, great news!

First, another discovery. Adding a planet size smaller than tiny does cause the moons that are specified as tiny to come out as small as you guessed it might Puke.

But adding the new planet size has no effect on the player planets. An "average" start results in a medium planet, and a "Good" start results in a large planet. The same as the stock files.

I modified the systemtypes file and every where it called for Huge I changed it to Large, and every where it called for Tiny I changed it to the new smaller than tiny planet size. The results were better than I expected.

The planets that are specified as Large come out as Huge, like they are supposed to be anyway, and the planets(moons) specified as micro come out as tiny, like they are supposed to. So we end up with the new planet size and everything else exactly as it should be. And no need to add any new Huge planet sizes as you suggested Puke. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

The game does add a few of the new planets in a random map, Typically one or two for a small map, and 4 to 5 for a large map. I don't think that is all too bad. Even if a player got lucky and had one in their home system it's not like it would be a tremendous advantage or anything. Actually it could be a slight disadvantage because it would take the place of a larger more usefull planet.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

cool! thanks Geo!

now for the LaGrange points. what if we made them as a starfield shaped planet type, that you could colonize? and if the game placed more of them, no big deal: more naturally occuring stable gravitational points. maybe they could be gas giant types - gas colonies are described as being orbital anyhow.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

The LG points can't be planet types. If they were you could just colonize them. If they are stars you can use "build constructed planet" on them and if they are asteroids you could use "create planet" on them. Either way we need an extra planet type to be the space colony.

The problem with the first one is that some systems could end up with an LG point at the center instead of a star.

The problem with the second one is that the map generator will place planets (not constructed planets) just like normal stellar objects. And you can build a space colony on asteroids too.