Re: RealisticMap v1 released!

[maxpublic]

Magnus:

 

Just so you know I was inspired by your map to give a shot at both increasing the galaxy size and putting the planets where they're actually supposed to be (using two 'official' maps that agreed on locations).  So far I have 78 planets and the game seems to work fine (probably slower on slower systems, but on mine it chugs right along).  I don't know how many planets you can actually have, but my final map should be somewhere between 90 and 100 planets.

 

Max

[tychosabbat]

Personally, i find it more challenging when the rebels cannot see any of the Empires planets to begin with. It means you need to get out there exploring to find such a planet so that you can start stealing technology. It gives the AI more time to do its thing and makes for a more challenging game in the long run.

 

Tycho

[kingdark]

yhea your right but the fact is you dont need to see all the enemy planets only a couple of them because if you start at the lowest tech level you cant level up since you need to steal technology and since you dont know wher the empire planets are... well its obvious

[magnus57]

max:  That's Great!  I think I saw somewhere that the limit is 80.  Let me know how that works out!  How do you increase the map size, btw?

 

king: you can see them in version 1.2, I promise!

[kingdark]

Thats Great also i got a 'fix" you might want to use.

I changed your map data to the first scenario (alderaan demise) so the campaign map is unchanged i realy suggest you tranfser your map to that scenario

[maxpublic]

Well, the limit definitely isn't 80.  I've put 88 on the map and am doing the last 2 right now, for a total of 90.

 

And I misspoke; I didn't actually increase the size of the map itself (that'd be sweet) but the amount of the galaxy covered by keeping relative distances but squashing actual distances.  So the map is (mostly) accurate, at least in terms of positioning.  If we could actually expand the map then I'd make it several times wider than it is now since the SW universe seems to have two long arms of planets extending galactic east and west.

 

I also had to scale down the planets to 1.0.  Even so there's a heck of a lot of overlap and I don't know how this will interfere with moving fleets/armies; hopefully everything is just far enough apart that it'll all work out.

 

BTW, I don't know if you noticed but the stock galactic map that comes with Empire at War isn't even remotely close to the 'official' maps.  They just seemed to slap down planets wherever they felt like putting them.

 

Max

[Stellar_Magic]

The map size automatically adjusts to the values for the planets you use.  You can easily increase the map size just by having planets further out.  This will cause a bug where planet icons will appear outside of the original icon map, to correct this you'll have to edit a value in Game Constants, I don't remember which one though.

[magnus57]

ahh..I see...thanks Stel and Max

 

Max: Yeah...I had to reduce all planets to 1.5 and I still have some annoying things that happen when selecting units...that's really awesome you got 90 planets in!  I'd definitely like to see your map and compare  

 

Stel:  I kept looking for that value but couldn't find it...the reason my boundaries are where they are is simply because the planets outside the box bother me

[Zer_Teron]

The factor to increase galaxy size is to increase the Scale Factor of the top item in the Planets.xml(before you get to the planets)

[magnus57]

Zer:  Thanks!  I'll try that out

[kingdark]

how about some extra screenies?

[maxpublic]

Well now, that bums me out.  All that work to get the planets sorta-kinda right within the standard galaxy, and it turns out you actually can increase the size of the galaxy itself.  Time to go back and reposition all 90 of those suckers....

 

But seriously, thanks for pointing that out, Zer Teron .  It solves the problem I was having with planet rings overlapping and interfering with one another.  It also means I have *a lot* more room if it turns out that my computer can handle a late game with 90 planets.  Guess I'll be finding that out pretty soon.

 

Addendum:  I reset the scale of the map to 2.0 and just doubled all the location numbers for my planets (so that with respect to the galactic center they'd remain in the same position).  It worked beautifully, although I think you'll have to change maxfleettraveldistance in gameconstants.xml to 150 or else some planets would be eternally out of range.

 

The only real problem was the minimap.  I couldn't find any reference whatsoever to it in gameconstants, and the map of the galaxy is no longer contained in the little box but bleeds over onto the rest of the gui.  This really doesn't concern me that much - I'd much, much rather have the larger map and live with the minimap problem - but even so if anyone knows how to 'compress' the minimap that'd be great.

 

Max

Edited March 29, 2006 by maxpublic

[kingdark]

you have my absolute confidence and loyalti

[magnus57]

yeah..the minimap has always bugged me..but oh well...I wouldn't recommend changing the maximumfleetmovementdistance as increasing it causes a bug with stealth units (crashes)...something about the stealth icon screws it up...either try to connect the ones you can't get to with trade routes, or do like I'm doing and disregard heroes altogether...it won't work without doing one of those.

 

speaking of...here is a final release...I realize that others are far more competent at this sort of thing, and I just wanted to share something that I was working on for my own personal enjoyment...

 

changes:

Attack anywhere at any time - no limit to the distance your fleet can travel

No Heroes - that's right, you have to slug it out with the normal units

Start at tech 5 - no other option due to no heroes

No more building crappy units - only capital ships and fighters, with the exception of the Alliance Assault Frigate

Venator buildable as a capital carrier ship

Death Star is NOT buildable

No more annoying artillery units

All changes based upon the template of Adonnay's Open Conflict mod

 

Note: This mod is only recommended for use with the Galactic Conflict Scenario

[kingdark]

hey where can you find the thread where you can downoad the map with around 80 planets? i like to try if my pc can handle it

[kingdark]

oh yhea before i forget i do want to make ALL units how do i enable them? please tell me so i can do that

thx

[maxpublic]

hey where can you find the thread where you can downoad the map with around 80 planets? i like to try if my pc can handle it

 

I don't want to hijack this threat, but the answer is "you can't".  It's part of my own personal mod, a mod which changes just about every bloody thing that can be changed.  It's far more likely that magnus will post an expanded version of his own map before I'll be finished with my mod.  You'd have a greater chance of getting an expanded map by pestering him about it than me...and my map wouldn't be of much value to you anyway, since I've changed all the credits/pop values/slices/production/etc. etc. etc.  Magnus' map is playable RIGHT NOW, without any further modifications, so that's the one you want.  And it looks a hell of a lot better than the one that came with the game.

 

I only posted about the map here to a) tell magnus 'good job', because he inspired me to revamp the map to be more accurate with respect to 'official' SW lore, and b) to tell him that you can indeed go far beyond 43 planets, and so long as your system is fairly decent the game is still playable (he mentioned that he was thinking of trying it, I already had, and wanted him to know that it could be done without bringing the computer to its knees).  In fact, I know that 90 planets work, and that it looks pretty good even on a normal-sized map although quite a few planet rings partially overlap.

 

But it looks *much* better on a 2.0 scale map, even with the minimap problem.  I figure I could fit a couple hundred planets in on that one, although I bet even my computer would up and die sometime after the mid-game if I tried.  Either that or *I* would up and die of old age waiting for the damn thing to process.

 

Max