Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

I want to create at unique map, if it has not already been done, that has multiple stars in one sector, and with each of these stars, several planets.

In other words, Each star would be its own solor system with several solor systems to one sector.

Look at my Map for a better idea.

The problem I am having is getting the Stars to show up instead of the planets in the sector view.

Any help would be appreciated.

What I want to do is make a real map, with 20 sectors, with up to 10 solor systems in each sector, and up too 12 planets in each solor system. So instead of a sector with up to 10 planets, the sector could have something on the order of 240 planets.

Then I was going to mod the Engines to slow them down to 1 move per turn to super fast engines at 4 moves per turn to hyperspace engines with 8 to 10 per turn.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

Maybe it's because of the name?

SE4 arranges Stellar bodies, Alphabetically, then to ships, alphabetically, then everything else in the same square, I believe.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

Three things

1) The image that appears on the system map is the Last object listed in the sector.

2) The names mostly determine the order they will appear in when a game is created. You can get the star to appear Last, and thus the star to appear, if you use, for example, and underscore character (as if underlined), like "_Coruscant Star_".

3) Unfortunately, both those are not true when a homeworld is generated - it automatically gets made the Last object in a sector, and thus gets displayed. So, the homeworlds are pretty much stuck as appearing as the symbol in their sector, AFAIK.

PvK

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

I tried doing this once with standard SE4 having the game randomly generate them with, I think 5 or 6 stars each system with 8 or 9 planets each. I got range check errors.

Maybe it works differently for the map editor or SE4 gold. Let me know how it turns out. I just lived with whatever it wanted to show on top.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

What if you assign homeworlds instead of letting the game generate them? Will they still be on top.

Also, what about storms. Can a homeworld be displayed on top of a storm?

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

Atrocities:
Your movement scheme ... won't that make combat extremely lopsided?

Which brings up an idea: I think it would be awesome if there were two separate classes of engines/movement, the first for strategic movement (hyperspace) and the second for combat movement (impulse). Would deepen the game immensely. Just a few "for instances": you could prevent fighters from having hyperspace engines (or make it costly in weight or research); you could prevent freighters and colonizers from having more than 1 impulse engine; you could let dreadnoughts have fast hyperspace but slow impulse; space stations could be allowed one combat movement but no strategic movement; etc., etc., etc. You'd have to decide if you wanted to research hyperspace to get strategic speed or impulse to get combat speed. You could make ships that were truly defensive ships by leaving out the hyperspace engines and stocking up on weapons instead. Minefield clearers might have no impulse engines and extra armor or minesweeping.

Has anyone suggested this before? It is NOT moddable at present, is it?

I'm going to post this in its own thread.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

dmm, that's entirely possible. Just use the Combat Movement ability.

Spoo, the specified homeworlds show up on top of everything else. I would expect this to include storms, unless the storm actually concealed the planet from view.

PvK

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

"dmm, that's entirely possible. Just use the Combat Movement ability"

IIRC combat movement does NOT stack.. and strategic move will always give you a certain amount of combat move.

Phoenix-D

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

Hmm, ok. Well you could make a mod where you didn't buy multiple engines, but you bought different sizes of engine, and the max number of engines per ship was always one.

Another idea, which I suggested many months ago when someone was wanting to mod this sort of thing, was that if you have say a "damage control" or "engineering department" component that isn't very big (fits easily on ships) and repaire one component per turn, then you can use emergengy movement components to achieve this - repairing them each turn for strategic movement. One snag with this, though, is that you still can't use such components if your ships are in a fleet in simultaneous movement mode. Sigh...

PvK

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

"Hmm, ok. Well you could make a mod where you didn't buy multiple engines, but you bought different sizes of engine, and the max number of engines per ship was always one."

In that situation the abilities might actually stack. different abilities. The only solution would be to make them all the same family, then put some items of a different family between each one. The strategic engines, perhaps.

Phoenix-D

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

My thought was for making this map was to change the rules of the game to better match RL space travel. Combat would remain the same with multiple movements. But, traveling from one solor system to the other would take several turns. I guess the best example of this would be Rebellion. If anyone is familar with that game, and believe I was, then you would understand what I am trying to do here.

Imagine a game map with 10 galaxies with each galaxy having 20 systems, and each system having up to 10 solor systems with each solor system having up to 12 planets. the core of the Galaxies would be connected to each other and each of the systems connected to the core.

Games would truly become epic, and the maps would look more RL in nature. The grid map would work well with this set up, and with each solor system being represented by a star, they too would look real. Hell you can even leave some systems has black holes, organic infestation, etc and still have excellent game play.

I just want a galaxy that would best use the 20 races with a good chance that they would not come into contact with each other for 200 + turns.

All other tech could be modded to benefit this idea. Too bad Aaron did not set the map editor up with a few automated features such as REPEAT, COPY, or mass create according to X parameters.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

You know what kind of map would be interesting and a challenge to make? A top-down 2D map representation of 3D space.

It would make exploration a bit more fun, plus put on emphasis on key systems that may connect between two planes.

I don't personally have lots of time to make such a monster, but if someone ever wanted to make a map like this from scratch, I wouldn't mind seeing the results.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"Hmm, ok. Well you could make a mod where you didn't buy multiple engines, but you bought different sizes of engine, and the max number of engines per ship was always one."

In that situation the abilities might actually stack. different abilities. The only solution would be to make them all the same family, then put some items of a different family between each one. The strategic engines, perhaps.
<hr></blockquote>

I guess I wasn't clear. They might stack with different name (I wouldn't expect them to), but that'd never happen. I meant that all ship sizes would only be able to mount one long-range engine component. Max engines := 1. You'd just probably want to put a larger engine on a larger ship, if you want to include pseudo-Newtonian movement. If you don't want pNm, then it's just Long-Range Engine I standard movement := 2, Combat Movement := -1, etc, or whatever.

PvK

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

That would work for strategic, but I don't think afterburners, etc count as engines.

EDIT: just tested it. They don't.

Large fighter in Proportions. Max 6 engines. Added 7 small quantums, error. Added 7 Afterburners, no error. Added so many afterburners the fighter was too big, still no engine error.

Phoenix-D

[ 27 April 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]</p>

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> You know what kind of map would be interesting and a challenge to make? A top-down 2D map representation of 3D space. <hr></blockquote>I can see a potential problem: stellar manipulation tech. Warp point creation uses the 2D distance between systems to decide how far away you can link from.

I tend to think of the current 2D display to be a flat projection anyway, especially on maps that have warp lines crossing each other.

[ 28 April 2002: Message edited by: capnq ]</p>

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
That would work for strategic, but I don't think afterburners, etc count as engines.

EDIT: just tested it. They don't.

Large fighter in Proportions. Max 6 engines. Added 7 small quantums, error. Added 7 Afterburners, no error. Added so many afterburners the fighter was too big, still no engine error.
<hr></blockquote>

Ok, but adding extra afterburners also has no effect, so all you're doing is creating redundant components.

However (and maybe this is what you meant) the problem could be, depending on how they add, is that even with different named engines, all Combat Movement components might just use the highest value, in which case the -1 combat move to offset the +2 standard movement might vanish when a +X combat move component was added.

Seems like it's about time to test that out, rather than wondering, though. I'm trying to get Proportions 2.2 released at present - anyone feel like testing these stat/tactical engine ideas?

PvK

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
You know what kind of map would be interesting and a challenge to make? A top-down 2D map representation of 3D space.<hr></blockquote>
Actually, somebody already did that. I forget who it was though. He took a large grid map, and connected the systems on the right edge to those on the left, so that the new warp lines were covered by the pre-existing ones between adjacent systems. He did the same for top to bottom.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

But it still isn't really 3D, however that would open up some new things, like never being on an edge.

[ 29 April 2002: Message edited by: Skulky ]</p>

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

Anyone play the space conquest game Imperium of circa 1991 (I had it on Atari ST)? It had a 3D map... ouch, I had a terrible time gaining any sense of how the systems were oriented. About the time I managed to get a few scouts to look at neighboring systems, I was bulldozed and conquered by massive AI armadas. The game didn't really seem finished and balanced, but it had some neat aspects to it, such as characters that could be assigned to ship and planet leadership, with different skills and degrees of loyalty, to whom you could reward with pay, medals, promotions, and/or the rare drug that would prolong lifespans (if you could spare any).

PvK

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

I haven't read this entire thread, but I do remember a very cool 2D/3D map from another game I use to play before I found SE. It was called "Ascendency" and you could rotate the map around and get a feel for the galaxy that way. It was pretty cool and the game was very addictive.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

Another old game with a rotating 3D map is Star Control.

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> I haven't read this entire thread, but I do remember a very cool 2D/3D map from another game I use to play before I found SE. It was called "Ascendency" and you could rotate the map around and get a feel for the galaxy that way. It was pretty cool and the game was very addictive. <hr></blockquote>

Yeah... that game had a great map even the fleet battles were in 3d

Re: Multi Star Real Map, NEED HELP
 

modern Version with combat that is 3d is "homeworld" im sure you've all at least heard of it if not played it, great gameplay. Not that it could be incorporated into SE4 without changing the focus of the game majorly but stillitis a nice thought