weird starting planet - PQ 19

No one interested in PQ19 starting planets? Weird!

Dont' know what exactly you're doing to the .raceconfigxml file so I don't what to tell you there.  If you're not playing Metaverse games, you can simply edit the CustomPlanets.xml file to set up your home solar system however you want.  Better not to mangle the original file though.  Copy the file to a mods directory, point to the directory in the game options, and enable mods.  If you are playing Metaverse, I wouldn't go further than setting my homestar to Thalis in the .raceconfigxml file.  If you do that, don't play with the Thalans enabled or the game will have two homestars with the same internal name.  It's not designed to do that and may be the cause of the wierd behavior you're seeing.

Precursor mines and libraries rarely show up on a home planet, but it depends on how many habitable planets you're playing with.  There's typically only one each of those 800% bonus tiles in the whole of the game.  The 300% tiles are much easier to score using Ctrl-N.  You should see a few of those in 40 starts, but it's possible to not see any.

It is an MV game, so I just changed the homestar, with the Thalans absent. Just some weirdness while using CTRL+N multiple times. I haven't been able to reproduce it, which is good.

I am playing with abundant stars, planets and habitable planets, so maybe that's the reason why it is so difficult to get the precursor tiles. Anyway, 19 PQ planet makes up for it

Yea, Ctrl-N goes wonky sometimes.  It doesn't happen often, but I've had it lock up the game before.  Other times I've seen it to set intelligence on one or more of the races to "fool".  I would probably just chalk it up to that and forget about it if it's not happening all the time.

No, don't sya THAT! It's an MV game on a small map, so it will already be very low scoring, but if it has been downgraded to Fool, then it will be worthless. Though I have been assured that this bug has been fixed in TA

Yea, that's likely it has.  I haven't seen it for a while and I don't always keep up on that sort of thing.  In any case, I've only seen it happen once or twice myself.

Well, it was just a quirk. No CTRL+N bug, after all. I just submitted the game and it went through fine. I am an Ensign now, Leutenant!

Nice starting planet, BTW

Aruno, did you use the instructions in the Kzinti-forum at the Core for the ARC?

I used them at one time, too; and got the same results -  judging from what you wrote "Thalia II II, Thalia II III and so on" I think the ARC didn´t work, because the description at the Core gives the wrong filepath.

Jack once told me that any ARC in ToA will trip a flag - however, the only thing you can do is (and I think you have done so) is to change the name of your homestar in-game - which will then give you a second planet - but it´s not the Thalian original system with which you play then. (The homestar name was different, correct?)

Yes, I used those instructions as also the link a post in this forum the link to which was given there. I think you are mistaken - Jack probably told you that ARC didn't work with DL. It works fine with TA.

The ARC worked perfectly, except I got a 19PQ home planet and 10PQ second planet instead of the usual 10 and 15PQ. I think I had the Thalian home system. I submitted the game without any problems.

Also, in my new game, I modified the Drengin to have the Super Breeder super ability and the Thalian home system - working fine for me. But in a funny twist, I forgot to change the humans' home system back to Sol, which means that they have Thalian home system too!

Yes, correct, but how do you explain the different names of your planets? In the Thalian system planets are named "Thala", "Thalia II", "Thalia III" etc and homestar "Thalis". There´s no "Thalia II II" or "Thalia II III"; as well as the PQ is fix, it doesn´t change... (anyway, it did change to the better to you, so nevermind....)

After following those instructions I had the same results - changing the homestar-tag in the .raceconfig-file @ the MyGames-folder to "Thalia II" will give you a system where planets are named "Thalia II II", "Thalia II III" etc, but observe the homestar is not "Thalis" but "Thalia II".

And later, the in-game changing of the homeworld-field to a world that does already exist in an original system will do the trick of giving you this extra planet - but that´s a thing that can be done in DL it´s not ARC.

Well, later on I´ve been told that ARC happens with the raceconfig.xml in the applications installation-folder, and NOT in the MyGames folder, but I didn´t pursue this anymore because my game did trip a flag (it´s been a ZYW submitted too early...)

But anyway I'm  curious how you managed to get this PQ 19? On what raceconfig did you work actually?

I don't think the ARC works with the application folder. I changed the Terran Alliance RACECONFIG XML file in the "My Games\GC2TwilightArnor\Metaverse\" folder. I made only the following changes:

-Changed homestar to Thalis (not Thalia II)

-Changed home planet name to Thalia II.

This usually gives me the home star named Thalis, home planet Thalia II and another habitable planet Thala. But somehow, in that paticular game, after some CTRL+N the game got confused and gave me home star Thalia II and planets Thalia II, Thalia II II and so on. And the home planet was 19PQ, with the other being 10PQ. I have not been able to repeat this, which is just as well