Static Galaxies and Prescripted/Custom Empires

[Kordishal]

Greetings space travellers!

I have been building my EvE Online Galaxy pretty successfully. The systems appear where they should with proper names, hyperlane connections and planet placements.

I am still fiddling with how moons should spawn, how many habitable worlds per system etc.

But I have hit a roadblock because I can't seem to get pre-scripted and custom empires into the galaxy without it the galaxy generator adding additional system just for them at random locations.

My pre-scripted Amarr Empire always spawns at a random location in a second Amarr system. All the planets are the same.

The only way I can get stuff to appear in the right location is by hard-coding them into the initializer. The problem with that is, that the player can't play these empires as they do not show up in the selection screen.

Has anyone figured out how to do this? Either get pre-scripted/custom empires to spawn in a specific location or make hard-coded spawned empires playable by selecting them in the starting screen. The only way to do this I can think of right now is to have events to tag switch the player, but that is way too much of a hack...

And another minor thing: I managed to remove all the systems from the base game, except Sol. For some reason every map I make has a primitive sol system at a random location in it.... Can someone tell me how to get rid of that?

 

[Hertog Jan]

I have also experienced problems with duplicate systems being set up for prescripted empires. For AI empires most of the time a duplicate spawns on top of another system, changing only the system name and the name of the starting planet. It's somewhat annoying if you want to give species proper home systems to live on.

I am basically hitting the same roadblock as you do.

A question to developers: is there any way to mod in prescripted species on their own unique (non-duplicate) and complete systems, with all the planets and moons, etc. in the initializer properly initialized? Can this also be done on static maps?

 

[Axelius]

From what I understand and know from poking around among the game files we have access to the blueprints of system initialization, prescripted empire blueprints, but not access to how the game actually generates and distributes empires, apart from some defines.

As it stands a workaround I can think of is generating the minimum amount of empires (2, player and one ai) and have an on-start event go through every system and spawn each empire in its designated home system and then clean up the two game-spawned empires.

 

[Lucre]

I just came to the forum to post the exact same question, as I have run into the same roadblock. Surely there must be a way to fix this other than Axelius' suggestion, which is quite a complicated solution to what is essentially a simple problem.

 

[Lucre]

In answer to your other question, Kordishal, there is a mod to stop the appearance of the other Sol system called 'Only one Sol System'. It changes the game_start event file. Haven't looked at exactly what it does, but you may find your answer there.

 

[Axelius]

Without looking at the mod i can predict it won't. The game runs a hodden event at game start that checks if no one is playing as the UNS it spawns a sol system, however it doesn't check for custom empires with sol as a start. The mod likely disables, changes or undors that event

 

[Hertog Jan]

From what I understand and know from poking around among the game files we have access to the blueprints of system initialization, prescripted empire blueprints, but not access to how the game actually generates and distributes empires, apart from some defines.

As it stands a workaround I can think of is generating the minimum amount of empires (2, player and one ai) and have an on-start event go through every system and spawn each empire in its designated home system and then clean up the two game-spawned empires.

I have been trying this over the last few hours. I am using vanilla events in which countries and species are created as an inspiration to write an event spawning empires. Even though I have literally copies some vanilla code into my test events, I have so far been unable to spawn species into designated home systems, let alone spawning empires from them. If anyone could help me write such an event, I would very much appreciate it.

 

[Axelius]

Look at the Crisis events, they create empires and colonies in them.

 

[Hertog Jan]

Look at the Crisis events, they create empires and colonies in them.

Those are the events I am using as an inspiration. I must be overlooking something.

 

[Hertog Jan]

DONE! I forget to use the 'create colony' part. With its use, a colonised planet appears, with some surrounding territory.

 

[Axelius]

DONE! I forget to use the 'create colony' part. With its use, a colonised planet appears, with some surrounding territory.

The devil is in the details, no more so than when it comes to programming and scripting.

 

[Hertog Jan]

The devil is in the details, no more so than when it comes to programming and scripting.

Thank you for your help!

 

[Lucre]

@Hertog Jan, glad you got it working. Did this solve the problem of how to make the player empire spawn at a specific system, or did it only spawn AI empires at specific systems?

 

[Kordishal]

In answer to your other question, Kordishal, there is a mod to stop the appearance of the other Sol system called 'Only one Sol System'. It changes the game_start event file. Haven't looked at exactly what it does, but you may find your answer there.

Yeah thanks figured out how to do that!

 

[Hertog Jan]

@Hertog Jan, glad you got it working. Did this solve the problem of how to make the player empire spawn at a specific system, or did it only spawn AI empires at specific systems?

It only works for AI empires. There seems to be no way to spawn a new homeworld and destroy your original 'fake' homeworld by event. You can't simply create a new homeworld and destroy the old one.

 

[poopchute]

Could you use something like:
is_triggered_only = yes
trigger = { is_ai = yes }
# do creation scripts

So, try to create the systems with the prescripted_countries and prescripted_species_system.txt so human systems get made. If it is an AI, use the trigger above to wipe out the star system and recreate it?

 

[Kordishal]

Could you use something like:
is_triggered_only = yes
trigger = { is_ai = yes }
# do creation scripts

So, try to create the systems with the prescripted_countries and prescripted_species_system.txt so human systems get made. If it is an AI, use the trigger above to wipe out the star system and recreate it?

That works to some extend. The problem is, that you can't define where the player will spawn. His system initializer will simply overwrite a random system. For the AI this works, but is pretty clunky....

What we need is be able to say what system is overwritten by the initializer of the AI empires/player empire.

 

[Lucre]

Either we're overlooking something, or this is a major oversight by the designer, which would make all kinds of mods impossible to implement. Hopefully there'll either be some clarification from the developer or a fix soon.

 

[G33kh4n]

That works to some extend. The problem is, that you can't define where the player will spawn. His system initializer will simply overwrite a random system. For the AI this works, but is pretty clunky....

What we need is be able to say what system is overwritten by the initializer of the AI empires/player empire.

So, we're currently at the point where we can set spawns for AI nations, but it's impossible for Human controlled Empires?

Btw, would you be willing to post the code you used for creating set spawns for your AI nations?

 

[Kordishal]

So, we're currently at the point where we can set spawns for AI nations, but it's impossible for Human controlled Empires?

Btw, would you be willing to post the code you used for creating set spawns for your AI nations?

Yeah... this block is in an event. And there are a lot more possibilities. Look up special system initializers and crisis events.

    immediate = {  
        every_planet = {
            limit = {
                    has_planet_flag = "new_caldari_prime_planet"
             }
          
            create_species = {
                name = "Caldari"
                class = MAM
                portrait = "human"
                homeworld = THIS
                traits = {
                    trait = trait_communal
                    trait = trait_thrifty
                    trait = trait_sedentary
                }
            }
            create_country = {
                name = "Caldari State"
                name_list = "CAL1"
                species = last_created_species
                government = plutocratic_oligarchy
                ethos = {
                    ethic = ethic_materialist
                    ethic = ethic_militarist
                    ethic = ethic_collectivist
                }
                flag = {
                    icon= {
                    category = "eveonline"
                    file = "flag_caldaristate_1.dds"
                    }
                    background= {
                        category = "backgrounds"
                        file = "00_solid.dds"
                    }
                    colors={
                        "blue"
                        "null"
                        "null"
                        "null"
                    }
                }
            }      
            create_colony = {
                owner = last_created_country
                species = owner_main_species
                ethos = owner
            }
            create_pop = {
                species = owner_main_species
                ethos = owner
            }
            create_pop = {
                species = owner_main_species
                ethos = owner
            }
            create_pop = {
                species = owner_main_species
                ethos = owner
            }
            create_pop = {
                species = owner_main_species
                ethos = owner
            }create_pop = {
                species = owner_main_species
                ethos = owner
            }
            create_pop = {
                species = owner_main_species
                ethos = owner
            }
            random_tile = {
                limit = {
                    has_building = "building_colony_shelter"
                }
                set_building = "building_capital_1"
            }
        }