Custom map gives unfair start

Neptune's Pride Bugs
1

–TLDR: Don’t place home stars too close together on your custom map.

I have noticed that when setting up custom maps if you place home stars too close together AND start each player off with more than one star the map will kill off some players and give the remaining one many stars, before the game even begins. This happens whether you use a random spread or symmetrical spread, because they are too close together.

The following are 24 player maps that give 6 stars to each player at the beginning. I accidentally bunched them too close together. I was going for this:

Instead I got this:
Game: Neptune's Pride

And again:
Game2: Neptune's Pride

The third time I tried playing as one of the missing players. The game starts me off on another player’s star with only one ship. I assume that once the game stars I would claim the star, but haven’t tested this.
Game3: Neptune's Pride

If you start them with only one star you get this:
Game4: Neptune's Pride

2

But this would be great for a monkey in the middle scenario game. :wink:

3

Hey @cptcrackers this is a cool map design.

I actually just “improved” some of the code around claiming starting starts when I implemented the mirrored galaxies a few months ago.

If you would like to have a look at the actual Python functions used to generate the starfield you should feel free to email me.

One day I would love to support a much better custom map tool where you can specify every star in the galaxy and who it belongs to. I don’t remember why I didn’t to this in the first pace, just rushing I guess.