Published on February 12, 2008 By Fascion In Sins Modding
Is it possible to remove the randomized starting locations for players in custom maps?
Specifically, I am looking to avoid per-player symmetry on maps that will be designed for team vs team and/or solo vs team.

The only info I could find on this was a four month old thread from beta -- which suggested no, there is not.
Comments
on Feb 12, 2008
I think you'd need to create a map using galaxy forge. In that you can assign a home planet to a specific player. Im not sure if you can assign them based on teams, so at the most you'd have to have the order of joining the way the teams would be set up.
on Feb 12, 2008
Well, how do you assign it to a specific player?

I have them assigned to NewPlayer0, NewPlayer1, etc., but when I start a game, it throws me in one that it chooses randomly.

I thought I was NewPlayer0, but it will start me in NewPlayer0, NewPlayer1, NewPlayer2, etc., so I have to keep restarting to get the position I want to play from.
on Feb 12, 2008
Yea, I am making these in GF.
As Kittrell stated, even when setting up home planets, there seems to be randomization as to where you actually start off once the game gets going.

Now that you mention it, though... I seem to recall something about "team" in the players editing screen. Let me go tinker around with that for a bit.


///edit
After some quick testing, this seems to do the trick!
In addition to myself and an AI opponent starting off where expected not once... but three times, it also sets up teams for players automatically when creating a game.

...have I mentioned recently how amazing of a job these guys did on the UI and features for this game? Just thought I would again.

Thanks for the mind spark!


For anyone looking to figure this out as well:
EDIT > Players
Click a player name to edit
Set "Team Index" to 0-9
on Feb 12, 2008
Well, I tried changing the teams numbers, each one has it's own unique team number from 0-3 (4 teams, 4 players, FFA map). It still is randomizing the outcomes.
on Feb 12, 2008
Indeed.
After testing with larger scale, it would seem there is still a bit of randomness when it comes to actual placement, though teams will at least stick together. Additionally, it may actually switch up which teams go where, as long as teams are even.
on Feb 12, 2008
So, maybe if I take on an NPC ally ( :< ) and make a team of 2 in one star system, and the rest in other systems, it may place correctly.