Map Designer Tutorial needed -- how to make your own random maps.

from Sins Forums


Is anyone else having difficulty using the Map Designer to make random maps?  I've experimented some with the different paramters and can't find much rhyme or reason to it.  I've read the manual and it still isn't helping much.

The sliders go from Red on the left to Green on the right.  Intuitively it would seem that taking the slider to the right (Green) means more and that taking it to the left means less.  Is that correct?


Less <------------->  High

Is that right?

When you preview a map, is the length of the phase lanes (or how long it takes to travel between gravity wells) something you would see visually in a preview?

What do the "Planet Groups" do for you and if you eliminate them does that mean that you'll have a map with X-number of independent branches around a single star (for a single star map) when you have X-number of players regardless of the Phase Lane Chance?


3,614 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Planet groups let you control which settings apply to which bunches of planets.

E. G. the left most controls work on a per-star system, the middle set of controls work on a "per group" system, and the right most just control whats in the group, IIRC. (Been a while since I poked in it).

Phase Length actually controls, from what I can tell, the maximum possible length a lane can have in terms of planet connections. Phase Lane chance effects how many can occur. Orbital Radius effects how long it takes to go through a phase lane -- be warned! sliding this around is not recommended as you can literally create a map that takes hours to jump from one grav well to the next.

I'm fairly sure min/max distance from star is self explanatory, and so is militia strength, right?
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

The problem is that when testing the variables with controls, I couldn't seem to make planters that were bunched or far away; I couldn't find much rhyme or reason to it.

About phase lanes and connections, does the allowed length of phase lanes affect the number of connections? What exactly is the relationship?
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I guess what I'd like to see in a random map generator is an ability to simply do this:

Pick number of planets.
Pick number of players.
Pick number of stars.
Pick types of planets.
Pick diameter of star system(s).

Instead I still find the current generator to be rather cryptic.