androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

map editor

i got a chance to play with the map editor over the last couple of days

so the good news is i havent run into any bugs so far although my playing around with it has been fairly basic.

the bad news is it needs a ton of work mainly missing features and options

ok so first we need to get some basic editor tools in here

cut
paste
copy
move
delete *

these should all be 1 button keybinds

i need to be able to select and press 1 button to delete things its extremely annoying to have to select it with the mouse then move over to delete and then back to yes for confirm.
if you place 20 objects and then realize their in the wrong spot your screwed.

2) being able to select multiple objects at a time.

this goes with the whole cut, copy paste thing of number 1 id like to be able to design a custom starting area and then just copy and paste the whole thing to different areas of the map

3) planetary editor

a) planetary preview - preview the planets ( while i understand that many of them have somewhat random layouts there are also some that are specific) if i want a planet that looks like a certain way and cant remember if its iridia or iconia id like to be able to load one up and see what it looks like

tooltips - there are a lot of planet traits and bonus's having a basic tooltip to tell what they do would go a long way to helping me choose the right ones

c) colonization events - you should be able to define what colonization events will occur on certain planets

d) colours - being able to define the colours that a planet uses would be usefull

4) anamolies

need to be able to define if they are or are not guarded by pirates.

also would be nice if i could somehow set a level of guarding from light to masochistic

5) nebula's

need to be able to select a size and shape for nebulas

eithar by having predifined nebulas i can select right down to a 1 tile nebula to build custom shapes or by being able to click-drag/shift click and then press nebula fill to make custom designs

6) units

we need to have the ability to place starting units even if its limitied to only the base starting units (surveyers probes colonizers and constructors)

7) define who starts where

right now we have 4 options for worlds

none
random human
random AI
random Human or AI

if i want to build a map that has the terrains starting on this planet and the drengin over there and the yor here and player one there. the only person i can actually place where i want is player 1 as long as there is no player 2

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

as a quick note a work around for custom nebulas you can place relics down as a mold and then fill them in with nebulas and delete the relics after

this does not actually work the nebula does not appear in the location however when loading a game it fills in any locations it would have appeared in otherwise

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alphaprior

Join Date 02/2006

I started making my own immense map and it's lots of work because of the missing elements mentioned above.

It's really tiresome having to select tiny stars and then move cursor to delete system and confirm! If you click by mistake anywhere else you miss it and you have to click the star again!

I want to press delete button, and if I press shift I can select multiple objects instead one.

Undo/Redo Action

Ability to customize planets colours, terrain size etc, given from a set and selecting the one I like.
The same for nebulas they have to be different colours and not only yellow/green, ability to choose a shape and rotation.

And most important. A scenario editor included in map editor so I can assign planets to their owners, Altaria to Altarians, Earth to humans and so on!

Furthermore some scenario stuff like map difficulty, mega events, players, minor races etc.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

i got a chance to play with the map editor over the last couple of days

so the good news is i havent run into any bugs so far although my playing around with it has been fairly basic.

the bad news is it needs a ton of work mainly missing features and options

1)

ok so first we need to get some basic editor tools in here

cut
paste
copy
move
delete *

these should all be 1 button keybinds

i need to be able to select and press 1 button to delete things its extremely annoying to have to select it with the mouse then move over to delete and then back to yes for confirm.
if you place 20 objects and then realize their in the wrong spot your screwed.

2) being able to select multiple objects at a time.

this goes with the whole cut, copy paste thing of number 1 id like to be able to design a custom starting area and then just copy and paste the whole thing to different areas of the map

3) planetary editor

a) planetary preview - preview the planets ( while i understand that many of them have somewhat random layouts there are also some that are specific) if i want a planet that looks like a certain way and cant remember if its iridia or iconia id like to be able to load one up and see what it looks like

tooltips - there are a lot of planet traits and bonus's having a basic tooltip to tell what they do would go a long way to helping me choose the right ones

c) colonization events - you should be able to define what colonization events will occur on certain planets

d) colours - being able to define the colours that a planet uses would be usefull

4) anamolies

need to be able to define if they are or are not guarded by pirates.

also would be nice if i could somehow set a level of guarding from light to masochistic

5) nebula's

need to be able to select a size and shape for nebulas

eithar by having predifined nebulas i can select right down to a 1 tile nebula to build custom shapes or by being able to click-drag/shift click and then press nebula fill to make custom designs

6) units

we need to have the ability to place starting units even if its limitied to only the base starting units (surveyers probes colonizers and constructors)

7) define who starts where

right now we have 4 options for worlds

none
random human
random AI
random Human or AI

if i want to build a map that has the terrains starting on this planet and the drengin over there and the yor here and player one there. the only person i can actually place where i want is player 1 as long as there is no player 2

Agree, wholeheartedly with all of the above.

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

im bumping this with hope that there might be some dev feedback?

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wpkelley41

Join Date 09/2012

+11

Folks, your mistaken. We have total control over starting positions. All you have to do is keep track of the order you place worlds, and then match it in the game creation menu. If you want a specific race on a specific world, just make certain they match up. The first one you designate should be the human player, your home world. After that, just make sure the next planet you place, and designate "random AI," is the first race you select as opponent. Keep track, match and go. I created an Immense map with 50 factions. Every one is on the proper home world. Hope this helps.

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Quoting wpkelley41,

reply 5

Actually only kind of. If you try and edit a map you created earlier it can get kind of wonky. Also, happens if you make some changes via mods. It would be a lot simpler if they would just make it so you could give ownership.

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

Quoting wpkelley41,

reply 5

while this solution may work its really annoying you need to keep a notepad of who needs to go into what slot that you can access anytime you want to play that map and then you need to share that with anyone you want to play on your map im surprised this was figured out but it should be much simpler.

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Omg all that is missing, a lot of that was in galciv2 and even then building a map was a long process so I wouldn't dream of doing it now. I hope they fix this fast.

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wpkelley41

Join Date 09/2012

+11

I agree with both of you. Your right, the GalCiv2 map editor let you assign races to the planet on a drop-down screen. That would be much more efficient. I was merely trying to point out a solution, if you didn't know it was possible.

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Quoting wpkelley41,

reply 9

Sorry, wpkelley41. I totally did not mean to downplay your discovery. It was a great find and a big help so far. Also, not sure if I ever thanked you in your original thread, so thank you.

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wpkelley41

Join Date 09/2012

+11

No problem ronnie. Your very welcome and thanks for caring enough to worry about it.

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Have the devs commented anywhere about future plans for improving the editor?

I don't think I'm an especially lazy person but I really feel like it would be far too laborious to use it much in its current state.

I've made maps for some other games over the years and have had a lot of fun doing it, for the most part. Trying to grapple with this feels like work.

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wpkelley41

Join Date 09/2012

+11

I made an Immense map for 50 factions, 2-6 planets each. Took 2 weeks.

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Sounds great. I look forward to checking out your map.

I don't have anything too ambitious in mind at this stage. All I want to do for starters is quickly set up some small to medium sized maps with 2-4 players, assigning some ships and planets to each player. Some pre-composed skirmishes, basically.

While I'm glad to see that there is a way at least to have a planet go to a specific race, I can't help but think there ought to be a much more intuitive way of doing this implemented, as it sounds like there is in the GalCivII editor (which now I may have to investigate for the first time).

So far with GalCivIII it doesn't look like there is a way to assign ships without (maybe) modding, scripting, cheats, etc, unless I've missed something and I am told otherwise.

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Does the start position set up works also with more than 1 Human? Because I made a map and when i go and create a new game in SP, i get placed where I should. If i load the same map to play with a friend and some AI in MP, we both get placed in weird places and the starting system are wrong (we both chose sol as starting and we get a single size 8 planet)

Know anything about this?

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I wish I could be of help, Walhallawalhalla, but it sounds like you and I are having similar problems...

Is anyone working on an editor and map-making guide?

In all honesty, I find the editor to be among the most limited and/or non-intuitive tools I've ever tried to use.

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Yeah, the editor tool is quite horrible, but what can we say, it was for free... oh wait...

Unfortunately I do not tihnk that a guide will help, I think the tool is just missing out on features and it´s super bugged..

Whatever, I guess I will just wait another 3-6 months for them to fix at least a part of the problems

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Any plans to improve or update the map editor? I think this a great feature of the game, but if it was expanded/polished as suggested, would allow players to create and share extremely interesting/intricate maps.

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