Dynamic Origins map testing

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xb5diw
from Sins Forums

If anyone is interested in giving some feedback, I have a map that I'm about to upload / release but could probably use a little playtesting.

The purpose of the map is to create a random Sins campaign that follows the storyline of the Sins universe.  It is intended for single player or for epic multiplayer games.  While the map is large (290 planets), there are many randomized planets  and many low value systems, so it isn't quite as big as it seems (maps usually have closer to 200 planets).  It is also very replayable with different planets and alternate routes around the map each time.

v0.93 Wormholes should now all be working

Dynamic Origins v0.93

 

Setting:

The Terran worlds are in disarray, but the 5 strongest have plans to start re-unifying the planets in their region.  Unknown to them, the Vasari have arrived in the cluster...they barely have a foothold in the outer edges of the Terran systems but their Evacuators are poised for rapid expansion.  Meanwhile, in their exile the Advent have splintered into two factions...once they resolve their differences, they can resume their quest to return to the Terran cluster.

How it works:

Players are randomly assigned to one of the race starting positions.  If you really wanted to play a different race, just restart.  There are 5 Terrans, 3 Vasari, and 2 Advent.  Each starting position is a little different and while some are more marginal, they generally have easier worlds to grab.  The first capital ship is NOT free...a decision must be made to stretch for a capital or immediately start expanding with low tech ships.  The exception to this are the Vasari...they only have a foothold on asteroids, but they have arrived in their powerful Evacuators...

 

I have done a significant amount of testing in both Sins and Distant Stars, and have come back to tweak race starts and parts of the map MANY times.  I know not all the starting positions are equal, but everyone has options available to them...ultimately the goal was to dynamically create the Sins universe for an epic campaign, BUT I think this map could actually make for some very interesting FFA situations in multiplayer where people can't just go into the map with pre-planned alliances...they would have to make decisions based on who is near them.

The map should work just fine with any mod that has TEC, Vasari, and Advent.  I have been using Distant Stars with no problems.  The plan was to make a map with a little RP value for the Sins universe, but once I am satisfied with this one, I'll make a version that doesn't force the starting race so it is friendly to all mods and player preferences.

 

Known Problem:

Sins does not appear to be using the correct racial player portraits for the race you are set to.  The upside of this is you can pick any portrait you want from any race, the downside is that other player portraits do not depict their race which can get kind of confusing unless you have seen what ships they are flying.  I have  been trying to fix this for a day and after scouring the mods section I am starting to think it is a bug because I'm pretty sure I have set the parameter correctly.  If anyone knows what I'm doing wrong, pls let me know... I have another thread where I ask about this:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/364928

 

 

 

 

 

modding
10,540 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Sounds good. (Tagging for later.)

 

:fox:

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

awsome... i have always wanted to make a campain map... with semi-real starsystems with low value systems... see if you managed to address some of the issues i was having... downloading now.

Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Well, i played your map for a while, and then loaded it up on galaxy forage.

 

It is an impressive map, and it is preety cool how you managed to fix the starting players (although... I ended up a vasari with a human photo... hehe. 

It is a very neutral heavy map... not a problem, but makes for intresting (and different!) game play.

I like how you increased the "scale" number... makes the game longer... but makes feel more like those planets are actually far away.

I had some wierd issues with your wormholes... i have no idea why... but it seemed that they did not work for me... i had a scout glued to the side of one saying "exploring" and i tried to jump a small fleet through a second... it might jsut be me... idk.

I kinda wonder why there are 5-3-2... are we supposed to have unlocked teams? it seemed... idk... odd... whatever. I guess cause 10 does not quite divide into 3 very nicely.

Ill have to play it some more... but i like it so far.

(how long did it take you to make this monster?)

(i would love to play this in multiplayer)

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

It is an impressive map, and it is preety cool how you managed to fix the starting players (although... I ended up a vasari with a human photo... hehe.

I have spent hours trying to figure out how to avoid this from the galaxy file, but as best I can tell the "PlayerTech" or "PlayerPhase" parameters are not being passed back from the "PictureGroup" variable....so maybe it is a limitation, though I'm still hopeful someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

It is a very neutral heavy map... not a problem, but makes for intresting (and different!) game play.

It is neutral heavy...a little less so in Distant Stars since the Gas Giants become colonizable.  Generally the poorer the planet quality of your starting position, the more neutrals you have available.  The Vasari need this to survive because they start out on asteroids.  One of the TEC players with the best starting areas has almost none, barring randomization.

I had some wierd issues with your wormholes... i have no idea why... but it seemed that they did not work for me... i had a scout glued to the side of one saying "exploring" and i tried to jump a small fleet through a second... it might jsut be me... idk.

Sure enough, wormholes are not working!!  I have played several games for a couple hours, at which point I tweaked starting positions and started a new game, so I hadn't gotten around to checking out a wormhole.  I have no clue why they wouldn't work!  They seem to be set up properly.  If anyone has an idea what I did wrong in the galaxy file, please let me know.

I kinda wonder why there are 5-3-2... are we supposed to have unlocked teams? it seemed... idk... odd... whatever. I guess cause 10 does not quite divide into 3 very nicely.

Ill have to play it some more... but i like it so far.

(how long did it take you to make this monster?)

(i would love to play this in multiplayer)

 

Yeah, I arbitrarily set the number of races for an RP element of the TEC core empires being attacked from the outside edges of the map.....I have been playing it unlocked teams, and I think it would go over pretty well as a Multiplayer FFA.  Considering the 10 different start locations combined with the map permutations, you could play this map many times and keep getting a new experience.

I probably spent something like 10 hours working on the map and an equal amount of time playtesting it so I could go back and tweak and re-balance different parts...sometimes I would just put 8 AI's on my team and let it run a bit to see how the AI's were coping with their start location.

Good catch on the wormholes!  I keep restarting games and had not gotten around to testing them.  I was about at the point to test them last night, but I ended up saving it and passing out.  I will try and look at some other maps that have working wormholes and figure out what is wrong with mine.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

OK...so I did find a wormhole that had two routes, and I fixed that.  I also went through the galaxy file and visually verified each wormhole had the correct star and planet data (painful, btw)...and surprisingly, they were all correct.  So I fired up another test game and sent scouts everywhere...some of the wormholes work, some don't have the right target, some don't work at all.... and I think I know the problem. 

There are a lot of random planets that may not appear on any given map, I think it is throwing off the total planet count for each star...I noticed some wormholes are dumping people into the gravwell next to their target wormhole, so this is my best guess.  If anyone can verify this, that would be great......which leads me to my next step....

I think I can fix this, but it is going to involve a lot of manual editing of the galaxy file to move the wormholes up into the first planet slots for each star (so their count position won't shift) and rebuild the interstarConnection data manually (cries).

sigh...this better work!!

EDIT:

As I sat down to do this, I realized it would throw off all of the phaselane connection data for each star......trying to figure out a work around....not going to redo all the connection info by hand.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

I've done some more testing of interStarConnection behavior with a test map and it supports my hypothesis that the interStarConnection index is thrown off by random planets.  I've tried a few work arounds to fix my map, but they pretty much all scramble the connection indexes.

Believe it or not, I've pretty much spent my entire waking day trying to identify, then fix the problem with this map.  I still have an idea or two how to fix it, but it is going to be pretty tedious....if it turns out to be too much, I'll just remove the wormholes.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

I fixed the wormhole issue on the map.  Figuring out why the wormholes were broken and fixing them took me longer than designing the map in the first place.  I've put a link up for v0.93 of the map.  If you feel like testing it, please use this version. 

I have launched a few games to make sure everything looked right, but haven't had a chance to extensively playtest it, so hopefully I didn't break anything while reworking all the planet data so the interStarConnections list always builds properly.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

So I see a several people have downloaded the map.....just a little reminder to give me some feedback if you see a problem.

I have made a couple small tweaks to it since, including untwisting the Advent starting system a bit.  I'm about ready to release the final, just want to give anyone looking at it time to play a game and give some feedback.  Thanks