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).

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.)

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.


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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.


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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.


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

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

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

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 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.

Oh. I did not know that.

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.

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

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 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.