Solar system set-up options

[Eustreptospondy]

So this has been requested quite often, but with the development of the next patch/DLC combo, I thought I might as well bring this up again:

Could we have advanced options in setting up our starting solar system? In particular I would like to see the options to:

• set the star class
• add moons
• set the planet as a moon
• add rings
• set the amount of celestial bodies within your solar system
• and possibly to set the number of tiles on your homeworld, with the options to also randomise it

That being said, I am not asking for the removal of the random generator, just this alternative option. Also moddable hard-caps could be used to prevent users from exploiting this by given themselves a 25 tile planet with 20+ celestial bodies.

 

[Brent15]

I would like this as a DLC and it would help build some background on the custom races we make.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

I would like this as a DLC and it would help build some background on the custom races we make.

I've been thinking about this, and it would work great under the moniker of "story pack" like they used for Leviathans.So instead of randomly getting one of the early game story things (like the dying planet, cultists, etc.) you could choose an origin story to give extra flavor for the early game (maybe with branches that move into mid or even late game). So like one may involve being a lost colony (kind of like the Commonwealth of Man one already in the game), or it could let you start with two species already on the planet, maybe even a pre-FTL one, or of course a random option to surprise yourself. There's so much they could do with it.

 

[lilsaihah]

Something I've been thinking would be nice would be a restructured empire-generation system that is more like the Picks system from the Masters of Orions game, which has more options; stuff like "Large Homeworld" costing picks points but giving you a bigger planet. Could do a whole bunch of stuff with it.

 

[Eustreptospondy]

Also if we go with story pack idea (which I am in favour of), then I'd also like to be able to set the approximate location of the colony or at the very least how far away from the centre of the Galaxy the starting planet is located (i.e. outer rim, inner rim, outer core or inner core (if there were stars there)).

 

[henzington]

It has been mentioned that by one of dev team that they would like a balanced start at the least but no firm commitment on if it would be coming anytime soon

 

[Jabby]

I like the idea of lost colonies. Like u were part of a precursor empire which is now a fallen empire and u lost communications when the empire collapsed due to the rotten foundations of xeno inclusion

 

[Eustreptospondy]

It has been mentioned that by one of dev team that they would like a balanced start at the least but no firm commitment on if it would be coming anytime soon

Well I am not sure if balanced start would refer to the requested changes to the set-up, however for the sake of balancing, I have proposed moddable hard caps on what you can do with your starting solar system.

 

[henzington]

The issue for me isn't hard caps but rather a resource floor. I have had a home system with 5 energy, 8 minerals, and 8 research or one with only 2 energy.

 

[Eustreptospondy]

Right, so I suppose instead of setting the number of celestial bodies, one can choose how "easy" the system is (how easy it makes the early game). So, say from very easy with a lot of planetoids with plenty resources (possibly even another colonizeable planet) to very hard, with barely any other planetoid, let alone resources on it. I'd be tempted the then leave the exact tweaking and balancing up to the devs.

 

[Crenickator]

Something similar to the CK2 Ruler Creator.

You have a budget and adding habitable planets and resources and such taxes the budget. Balanced properly, no one start is less even than another. And some things, like resourceless gas giants, asteroids, and frozen moons are pure fluff. No reason not to have more if just for looks.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

Forgive if this is a light necro (1 month) but I'd love to see something like this post 1.5 - especially now terraforming candidates are a thing. Would need balancing though (ie if I have two habitable planets in my system, then I can't have asteroids and must have fewer planets. Etc)