Basic GalaxyNG Design Parameters.
name: The name of the galaxng Game
size: The size is only approximately right. The Gamesmaster will want to experiment with different sizes to get a galaxy that looks right. It should not be too crowded nor too sparse. The size should be a multiple of ten.
race_spacing: The engine will make sure that distance between the primary homeworlds are at least this number of light years apart.
core_sizes: The default initial sizes of the homeworlds for each race. The first one is the primary homeworld. Usually the player is permitted to select the size of the planets that they wish to a predefined total size.
empty_planets: Number of empty planets to be seeded per player for colonising
empty_radius: Maximum distance from the primary homeworld to place the empty planets. The engine allocates a number of empty planets, size 200 - 1,000 for the race to colonise. The two parameters define how many there are per race and within what radius. A number between 4 and 10 and a radius of race_spacing/2.0 is a good guess.
stuff_planets: It is possible to add a number of 'stuff' planets. These are useless planets, all of size 200 or less, that are use to fill up the empty space between the home worlds. They make it possible for a players to approach (attack) other players by different routes. The parameter specifies how many there are per race.
InitialTechLevels: Initial tech levels: In order : Drive Weapons Shields Cargo. They can't be lower than 1.
FullBombing: Bombed planets are completely bombed and all population, industry, capital, colonists, and materials are gone. Normally the population and industry is reduced to 25% of its original value.
Peace: Pax Galactica: You can enforce global peace just by putting in the number of turns you want to disallow players to declare war on each other. For example, Peace 20 means players cannot declare war until turn 20. (Note that players can load cargo at other players planets. If you do not wish to allow this you must make it a house rule. It cannot be prevented by the GalaxyNG server program.)
KeepProduction: If keepproduction is set, the production points spent on the previous product are preserved, otherwise all points are lost. This affects changing production.
DontDropDead: Don't remove idle races from a game. Normally if players do not send in orders for a couple of turns their race self destructs.
sphericalgalaxy: The galaxy can be (roughly) mapped on a sphere This way, the gap between x (or y) coordinates of two planets is computed with border lines crossing and reappearing on the other side.
GamesMasterNG Additional Parameters.
The parameters below are not announced to the players as they are for the games master to use to add a little spice to the game.
Design Type: Special options to make a custom type of galaxy.
- Leave Alone: Do not change the Design that has currently been generated. This can be used to lock in the design that has been created that may have manual alterations by editing the template file directly.
On Circle: Locate Primary Planets on a circle.
On Circle+mid: Locate Primate planets on a circle by put the last player in the middle of the circle (not a nice place to be though)
GalaxyNG Random: Let GalaxyNG create the galaxy. This will remove all design data from the template.
Generate randomly: Let GamesMasterNG generate the galaxy similar to what GalaxyNG does.
Orbit Distance: The distance from the centre point to orbit the player's planets
Seed Type: Options to have GamesMasterNG Seed special planets at special locations.
- No Seeding: There is not seeding used in the design.
Seed Home World: Create a special empty home world. This planet is classified at the primary home world and is in addition to the "empty_planets" defined in the standard GalaxyNG parameters.
Seed Centre of Circle: Applicable to the "On Circle" design type. This option will generate an empty planet at the middle of the circle.
Seed Midpoint: Applicable to "Circle" design types. This option places a planet half way between player positions.
Manual Design Changes.
The simplest way to make changes to a design is to first "Apply the design" by editing the template after all players have registered and before the "Create Game" is automatically run. By applying the design all the players and planets are written to the template file and can be manually edited. There are two sections to define the galaxy that have been modified in the windows version of GalaxyNG: Players and Planets.
Player Planets
The players are defined in the tempate as follows, The parameters include the player's e-mail address and their initial planets. When the X and Y location are omitted they are generated by GalaxyNG. Leaving out the homeworld definitions will allow GalaxyNG to generate them based upon the basic parameters.
- start_player
email player@xxxxxx.xxx
homeworld size X Y
homeworld size X Y
. . .
end_player
Empty and Stuff Planets.
GamesMasterNG lists the location, size and resources for every planet in the game when it generates the design. These can be edited by the Games Master before the game is "Created".
- Start_Planets
X Y Size Resources
X Y Size Resources
X Y Size Resources
. . .
End_Planets
Changes after Creation.
A program called MapEditor can be used to modify the GalaxyNG data file for a game. Planets can be moved and have their sizes and resources changed. It is best to make these changes before turn zero is sent out as it is not ordinarily a good idea to alter things after a game has started.
