[Mod Question] Is it possible to make a faction without a starting world?

Hey guys. I posted a while back offering my Mass Effect race mods, incomplete shipsets and other assets as mods for someone to finish, but the thread got taken down so quickly you'd think I was posting someone's bank details.

I've instead decided to finish them myself to the best of my ability, in a way that includes shipyards and all that detail yet misses races that say, Sorentoft's brilliant existing mod can add in.

Getting to the point, I want the Quarians to be floating free, like a nomad race, but instead of having a class-1 dead world to tie them, I'd like to ask if it's possible to just have no starting system. (Or you know, an empty or simply invisible one). It does sound far-fetched because that's just how the gameplay goes, but I don't see why a faction starting with no influence would cause TOO many problems. I've tried myself but I don't know how to format the xml in a way that works well enough.

Simply put, can a modded race be made without any planets in the starting system? Thanks in advance.

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I guess there is a conceptional problem with your idea. However it sounds interesting enough to think about.

Currently I managed to mod-in extreme world as starting planet. (Link)

In first tries, there was simply no production as it lacked production tiles, but my shipyard was operational from population number. Coming back to your idea, it seems you do need a hook for your shipyard, which in fact seems to necessarily has to be a planet. So far I couldn't see any other option, but I'm interested if there might be a way.

You may adopt and upgrade the idea of a dead world or...maybe a 'wormhole' from which your race may have originally came from. You will need a colony central, but you don't need any production tiles. Ok, the wormhole idea isn't much more then a planet with very different looks, but it may suit your planings enough to think about. Even an invisible planet is possible, while it still needs a colony center on it to link your shipyard to. Otherwise you won't be able to produce any ship.

If you convert your faction into a modded one, you may be able to back them with any ship you want. Just give them some station builders so you could equip your very first colony with a shipyard.

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Franco fx

Join Date 04/2003

+59

If you can have pirates without a home world you should be able to do something similar with the Quarians but with the ability to colonize I suppose. If you don't want them to colonize, it would just be cloning the pirates and making them more sociable.

I don't have a clue how to do it or if it can be done at present but if they expand on the pirates and make them interactive in the future it might become easier to do.

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Hmm... after some testing with my custom race you just lose when removing all planets in a starting system, even if you edit <RequiresHomeworld>true</RequiresHomeworld> to false in the faction file. Seems the creation of the starting ships is tied to the homeworld somehow? So an easy solution is probably not going to work. Maybe if you create some triggers or events, but that is fairly advanced stuff.

I suggest you go with Skukkuk's suggestion of a useless planet or something. Seems to be the easiest way to get what you want.

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Would it be possible to mod the planet picture into something else? For example, you could replace it with a starbase-style space construction. Technically it would be a planet removing your problems with the empty start but its look would give the impression that you have an entirely space based civ in an empty star system.

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Don't see why not. But you would need to edit and implement the art stuff yourself. (PlanetArtDefs.xml)

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Thanks for the replies everyone!

I'm going to use a system of dead worlds for now, and slowly try more and more changes until I find the point that makes the faction unplayable, and set the line there. It is a mod faction BTW, not a faction file with separate content added as mods. So that sort of throws the 'only possible if you are using xml files' concerns away.

I'm not that concerned with owning a shipyard, I've already given the race a fleet of ships so if they had no planet to start with they could at least have enough options so they aren't guaranteed to lose the game.

I'm going to try Petri's idea first. Not only will this reveal the answer of if it works, but it might actually be an easy and awesome alternative to figuring out how to have no system at all. Starbase-looking useless home planet...

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