making a race start at a uncolonized planet

First of all, you can only make races start from different planets in the map file, so you can never get this to work in a random map. Second, if you don't give a player a colonized planet, they get an automatic game over. What you can do though is give the player an otherwise useless dead asteroid right next to the uncolonizeable planet and then spawn ships in the uncolonizeable planet.

Could you go in more detail, I have mostly only touched abilities and ships, but as long as it is a "planet" type with no population.

I have found a solution to the technical problem I had before, but having the spawn their mothership/star base at a planet with inhabitants would kind of go against their ideal/agenda.

gruntmaster the best answer for sins is a dead asteriod as they have no pop, but are coloniable, and when a homeworld have a max loyalty of 25%

harpo

Sure, in a non team match at least, if you don't have one planet under your control, you automatically lose. Now this planet can be anything from a fully developed Terran to a dead asteroid that has no population or economic benefit, it doesn't matter. You have to have one, so you can't just spawn ships in an uncolonizable gravity well and start a match.

What I meant was, could you describe how to implement it and not just the results of it.

gruntmaster the steps for galaxy forge are

1 open galaxyforge, set up the map with locations for each of the players, and set to randomise start positions false

2 on the wanted starting location which should be a dead asteriod, set to home planet for player,then doubleclick into the templates to spawn the wanted starting ships.

3 repeat 2 for each player that can NOT build docks/pop/logistics, for players that can build logistics etc choose planet types to suit.

also i have created asimple map to test and demonstrate this point for another user which can be downloaded from here

harpo

That was me Harpo and it works fine if implemented as given.  I have been tweaking it constantly while playtesting it and it still functions.  Many of the forum examples are dated or inciomplete with no clarification of needed changes--get Harpo's map...it's an essential.

I guess that means that it will be for the first player (no mather which race) from your answer and my little past experience of galaxyforge. This means that if you choose to play as any of the other races, then it will give them a disadvantage. Seems like I have to edit their ideals instead of all of the maps :/

gruntmaster if you use a template for the starts, you CAN have similar spawns depending upon the race of the player and not fixed spawns, and read the template of the map I posted a link to and you will see what can be done as in one race gettin a particular cap, and another race getting several frigates with the third race getting different frigates, and if you want you can EVEN spawn most structures(only exception is starbases and envoy cruisers with the standard galaxyforge)

harpo

Hmm, okay, that does something with the balancing, while not the ideal solution it does seem acceptable. Thx for the help guys, I will let you know if there is more.

It's essentially a "work around"...the game doesn't allow a lot of things--especially without modding.  I am working on a map now trying to balance out the disparate starting conditions  but it requires a lot of thought as to world type and placement, jump paths, pirate/militia positions, relative income/tech progression, etc.--basically a boat-load of playtesting required.