quote:
They want to be able to arbitrarily create and add ships, place them where they want, arbitrarily place facilities on each planet, etc. This is the only way to create a 'scenario'. Playing the game in the hopes that it will randomly fall into the state that you want is hopeless. Unfortunately, I think he's got too much to do with the game itself to worry about a savegame editor for quite a while yet.
I have to disagree with you there.
Use the Map Editor to create the universe you want. Easy enough.
Now, for ships/planets/races/stuff, you can use SE4.
1) Start a game with all the races you wish to have in it. Add one extra race with all of the racial tech trees available. Set all players to human control.
2) Build and send out colonizers to the planets you want in the scenario. Build the facilities and units you want. Research the techs to want each race to have, then allow your research to idle. Build the ships you want for each race, and use the extra race to add in "super ships", of any legal design, and gift them to the races you want to have them.
3) When all is ready, have the extra race scrap everything it owns and abandon its homeworld. The extra race will be destroyed, leaving only the races you want and the super ships they gained as gifts.
4) Play one more turn to clear the message logs, and have the races send each other Messages to explain the scanario's goals.
5) End turn then Save the game.
You now have a scenario!