[Shadowstar]

I tried to place additional systems in single grid spaces and the editor didn't like it. I think it either did some strange stuff or it crashed (I noticed it likes to crash if you try something too strange).

As for start points, I've tested the Earth start point in several game starts and it seems to work just fine. It doesn't make the moon the homeworld, it uses Earth as it should. I've tried using other races and it converts Earth's atmosphere to that race's atmosphere as I expected. Most of the start points are in empty space (systems that normally have no planets or those that have the starting points as the outermost planet) though a few are on specific planets.

Because I used a numerical planet naming scheme (in order to get proper notation of planet moons and submoons as well as proper notation of binary systems), I had some trouble with the game improperly naming empty-space starting points (for instance, a homeworld in the 2nd orbit would be named as the first planet in a system when there was already one). I'd end up with things like "Tau Ceti 1" for one planet and then another one nearby "Tau Ceti I". I considered using the roman numeral convention that the game uses but it just became too weird when I ended up with things like "Epsilon Eridani IVa" and such. People would be thinking "IVa??"... Whereas "Epsilon Eridani 4a" makes more sense and is proper notation. You can imagine how binary systems would appear: "Sirius BIIIa" is confusing, but "Sirius B3a" makes a bit more sense.

As for incorrect starting planets, I'm not too sure how to go about solving that, aside from making every homeworld in the game an empty-space starting point in the outermost planet of its system (for proper notation), which is horribly unrealistic. I suppose I could put specific starting points for each race in the map, but then you'd have to use a specific order of races and there would be much less variety.

I've noticed, however, that sometimes it gets the atmospheres wrong for starting points on planets. Strange thing is, sometimes it works just fine and it converts whatever the starting planet is into that race's homeworld type, but sometimes it doesnt. If anyone knows more about why it does this and the conditions surrounding it, maybe I can fix the map so that it works properly for all races.

So far, I haven't noticed the game using any moons at starting points as homeworlds. As far as I've tested it, it uses the largest planet at the starting point (which is never a moon). I tried to make all the starting-point planets medium sized, which works for every planet type and is fair. The starting points in empty space are up to the game to generate.

[ May 30, 2002, 06:31: Message edited by: Shadowstar ]