I did not see this fix in the 1.1 beta.
Come on guys YOU NEED TO FIX THIS FAST TEAM GAMES BLOW

I'm pretty sure that all of those standard maps, like Twin Empires, can be modified so that players start with their teammates. I could probably do it in less than 5 minutes. However, they would then become custom Galaxy Forge-made maps which means people would have to lift a finger and download them.

Having decent and fair starting positions for everyone is one of the reasons why people should support good custom maps that were intended for online multiplayer competition, like 3v3 Asteroid Belt and 5v5 Red Crush (tooting my own horn here).

I am enlightened to see this thread of mine bumped... But entirely outraged that there is no mention of this feature anywhere in 1.10, when I had been anticipating it to be there.

What's the deal stardock?

I haven't touched my game since release, and have been one of the many people asking for this feature since I have played and intend to play primarily coop games on an epic scale with many star systems... yet I can't even play the game that way because every time I try to start one with a friend, I end up in a separate star system every single time(roughly 50 attempts). It's like I'm playing by myself in that scenario.

I can't bring myself to play this game, or ever play it, if this isn't addressed. And I am also disheartened that I cannot even resell my game.

After buying four Stardock games, those being the Galactic Civilization 2 series and Solar Empire... I won't be buying anymore Ironclad games. At least with GalCiv 2 nearly every significant requested feature is considered and usually implemented with great success. Can't say the same for such a critical feature that is really needed for SoaSE.

Very disheartening, and very frustrating.

It's not that bad Raziaar. There are other maps besides Twin Empires and getting stuck with a bad starting position occasionally is part of the game and part of the challenge. (I know, it does kinda suck.)

But it's not an occasion thing. If I try playing on a huge map with multiple star systems with my friend... Not once have I been able to even start with him in the same star system, let alone relatively close to his planets.

I just feel like it's a huge part of the game that's missing. And I'm sure it's not only coop people who feel it either, but also people who play team games and end up spawning in the middle of all their enemies.

That's what happened when I would play 3v3 games. One of my allies would spawn next to 2 of the enemies and the third enemy would spawn next to our other two guys... being crushed quickly and it quickly degenerating into a 2v2 as those two players were ganged on by the opposing two.

I would like this:

This allows designated start points, starting resources, civil/military starting tech level and maximum tech level researched, fleet (capital and capacity) start and maximum level that can be researched.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Resource Legend
Pretty straight forward, a multiple of whatever the map dictates. Default maps start pretty low, so you might want 4x the resources for all or if you have a custom map with a single player campaign feel, you can adjust the AI's to be poor or wealthy.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Civil/Military Tech Start and Max
The number dictates the tech researched from the beginning of the game and the maximum level that the player can research. Maybe you want everyone to start with tier 2 of civil and military researchable from the start, so you set the start level at 2 for all. If you want to exclude all tier 8, set the civil/military tech to 7, or wherever you want the AI. You of course wouldn't set start tech at 8 and max at 3, you'd deserve to crash the game.

Fleet Start and Max
You'd want to be careful with this, set the starting fleet research too high (4 or 5) and you might find your economy crippled -unless your custom map starts everyone or specific players with high levels of credits/crystal/metal and can mitigate the upkeep enough to build a fleet and assorted structures that AI's build.
If you want an extremely hard enemy, you might start their fleet research at 5 and max at 5 -no further research beyond 5. Maybe everyone starts with fleet reseach tier 1 and max of 8, good enough. Gives some variety for campaignesque map designers.


Another option to the Civil/Military Tech Start, possibly for the "GAME OPTIONS" area, is to make the "CIVIL/MILITARY" starting tech already researched so the player starts with -for example- all Tier 1 and Tier 2 civil and military tech researched. This could also work for "END GAME" matches where 2 players want to start with Tier 6 civil/military research completed so they can get right in and kick some ass without having to spend 2 hours researching, save the game and play the next day. Combined with options for initial fleet research and max fleet research, this can give people some fun options.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
****Between "GAME OPTIONS" and "START"****
Tech Disable Screen
This shows TEC/ADVENT/VASARI, whatever MOD races there are, and gives the option to disallow particular researchable items, maybe disallow all super cannons, disable advent repulsion, kodiak afterburner, LRM cluster, Vasari missile research that sticks your LRM boat in space for no apparent reason.
This gives some options as to what you want to allow and disallow for particular games and can give maps a greater feel. Maybe you want an "Early War Years" feel so you modify the civil/military max tech to level 3, then disable a couple of advanced technologies for that "early years feel"
Conversely, you can go for an "End Game" feel setting start tech level to something high and maxed at 8 with nothing disabled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Enjoy the ideas. I think this would vastly improve Single Player and boost the hell out of Multiplayer games

Bump for great justice, even single player with AI team mates doesn't work on random maps because of this, it's such a key feature and as a software engineer I'm stumped as to what the issue must be? Give me the source code, i'll do it!

I find the devs lack of interest in this issue worrying and disappointing.

Twin empires should be fixed for 4v4 and 2v2v2v2

yeah, opened it up in GF and noticed the odd "player8" start point at the pirate base.

bump

stardock...

do you read us...

do you read us...

respond... are you there?

As I've mentioned before, the solution to this problem is very simple--start supporting competition-quality custom maps where everyone gets an equal starting position and where the maps are fair for both sides. If everyone would just download the same maps (like P5yy's 24 pack mappack and my latest release, Gateway to Paradise) then games could be hosted on them.

We don't need Stardock to hold our hands and address this for us; we can take matters into our own hands and solve this ourselves. (However, it would be nice if they would enable auto-downloading for custom maps.)

I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to have expected the developers to implement something as essential as an algorithm that allows people to start relatively near each other rather than completely at random which usually results in them being way in another star system.

I still do not think that people should be able to pick individual start locations. Team starting positions perhaps (which for FFA is the same), but not individual positions. This will stop placing team mates in pre-defined start positions and thereby stopping team build orders for certain maps.

The way player_index works , is that players are randomised within each index.

So if players 1-4 were in team_index 1. They will be randomised in all available team_index 1 positions even if you specified player 1 to be here , and player 2 to be there.

so nothing to worry about in this regard.

Oh. I did not know that.

I would love this to be implemented and really hope a Stardockian can confirm.

If you could have One star system vs another the wars would be epic. Not the little spats we get now, or worse the stranded player quitting early leading to more quitting.

Bump for great fixed spawn justice!

Almost all RTS games have an option for fixed or random spawn points. Please Devs, include this option into your game.

I dont understand what all the fuss is about in here really. Just join a game set up for ffa at the start with unlocked teams. For example in an 8 player map with 2 stars, ask in chat who is in the same star as you and ally with them. Its the best option we have until this is "fixed".

Interesting Idea. Now I just need to convince the 3 AI on my side to join my team so I can do battle with my buddies and their AI on the other side =p.

I'm sure what you suggested works well in online player vs player games. However, I feel there is a large player-base out there that wishes to just join a game with his buddies plus 5 to 6 unfair AI and go at it for 8+ hours. So for the best solution we have come up with is to just keep restarting the map until we all get good starting positions next to each other, this can usually take a few minutes but eventually we all get decent starting positions and it all works out. Now all we have to do is survive the unending carrier spam of the AI =p

1) Single star maps. We want 4 v 4 with teams starting together ,as an option too.

2) When one of these players disconnects for whatever reason , the AI doesnt follow "house rules" to stay allied. He might want to start allying with the other team.

3) Wont work on LAN , Humans vs AI , Clan v Clan or if a group of friends want to play together. Only random position occurs.

5) People online are dumb. Wont understand what to do. Ive seen it, when trying to setup Aerolian Sector , and one guy in our system wouldnt agree to ally with everyone and decided to silently rush one player then when he got pushed back , he quit.

I lol*ed reading this, valid enough point as people do have a tendancy to mess like that although i havent come across it in sins yet.

I do wonder why the official silent on this. Perhaps there is a technical reason why this is difficult. Perhaps they don't care/agree. it would be interesting to know. After all we know that they are reading this.

I agree. A post on something would be nice. The interest is there anyway. Or at least more than once I've asked the universe why don't we have better team options and control.

good idea, but badley flawed, sure if there are multiple stare but a single star can become very croweded even 100+ planets fills up fast, and if say 3 allies are next to each other, one cannot grow as easily as he might have been able to otherwise. So good idea, wouldnt want to do it with more than 2 ppl though.