Difference between revisions of "Customizing Stars!"

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==Remapping==
 
==Remapping==
 
==StarsEd==
 
==StarsEd==
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[[category:incomplete pages]]

Revision as of 20:17, 15 December 2006

The following methods deal with modifying or manipulating the Stars! game files. With the exception of StarsEd, they are usually used for creating unique starting conditions for gameplay. Defining rules to direct race creation or gameplay can result in significant differences to the style and feel of a game, and are not mutually exclusive with the methods described here. See Game styles#Variations & themes for games which have been modified in this manner.

The methods described here are not suitable for inexperienced hosts.

Pre-genning

Often used in conjuntion with remapping, pre-genning is forcing the generation of a large number of turns. The process often involves the host controlling the player races for a number of turns to create the desired starting conditions. A host race may be used to create ships for moving populations or minerals required by the start. There are a couple of issues that must be dealt with during the pre-gen process:

  1. If the start requires researching by any race(including host race) then any SS races will gain a tech advantage. Because of this SS races are sometimes banned from pre-genned games.
  2. If each races starting population and surface mineral amounts are to be preserved, the excess growth and mined minerals need to be removed. This is usually done by loading them onto host created(and transferred) ships and then deleting the ships. There is no way to preseve mineral concentrations.

Games which have used pre-genning include:

AFON start games

XDude's Afon start games have each player starting without HW's, approx 1 million colonists and lots of minerals loaded into 10 SFX, 40 Privateers, and 40 Large Freighters. Players also start with at least Prop & Con 8. SS races were not banned.

Jump starts

Jump start games do not usually involve any host controlling of races, but rather just the pre-genning of many turns - often 50 to 100 turns. Sometimes the first few turns may be played; if so, an oft recommended strategy is to select the Generalised research LTR and set research to Weapons tech.

Zero cost setup

A special case of pre-genning, this involves using StarEd to change the cost of the ships/components you need to use to zero, creating the ships/starbases etc and then continuing the game with a normal version of Stars!. The two major benefits of this is the lack of a need to generate multiple years to gain the tech(and resources) required and the ability to create ships with components from multiple PRTs.

HST file editing

Currently the only person able to effect HST file editing is Wumpus, however he is willing to do editing for others to make possible interesting game setups. At least two games have taken advantage of his offer:

Bidding for techs

During the setup stage of Bidding for techs (thread at HWF), players bid for the technology levels they wished to start with and once the bidding was completed the HST file was edited to give each player the tech level they had won.

Pirates

The game Pirates! (thread at HWF) required the Host player(Pirate Controller - PC) to take over the HW's of the 10 pirate players and be at max tech before the game proper began. Using HST editing this was achieved at 2400. In addition, editing allowed all 11 PC planets to start with full population, mines, factories and defences and a fully armed Deathstar with inf/inf gate and W13 drivers. It also allowed Random Events to remain enabled which would have been a game ruiner with pre-genning.

Remapping

StarsEd