The Orion Nebula

Has any thoughts been put towards changing the algorithm which generates the star systems?

IMO there are too many unuseable star systems containing just gas giants, singletons or even worse are completely empty. Is it possible to reduce the generation of these?

INver

Yea ...

but I would spend more attention to a balanced map. Sometimes one Player gets much more better systems than other guys get. If all r gettin crap its ok imho.

The better the galaxy, the better r prodraces. I would like if there is a good random in creating the galaxy, so u cant say prodrace is always better choice than techrace.

unuseable star systems containing just gas giants

Gas giants are good! They are outpost planets. You build them as fuelling stations in the early stages of the game for expansion.

Gas giants are good! They are outpost planets. You build them as fuelling stations in the early stages of the game for expansion.

If u play a 1on1 nonwh game, and someone need to OP first, while the other can land his Cship without an OP, then u can be sure that the one who needed to OP is near lost (if playerskills near same). The only way would be a fast blitzattack.

but I would spend more attention to a balanced map. Sometimes one Player gets much more better systems than other guys get. If all r gettin crap its ok imho.

I agree very strongly. Applying a quasi-mirror to the map using home systems, where stars closest to home system B, C, and D are the same as the corresponding stars closest to home system A has always seemed like an equitable first pass...the algorithm is fairly simple (the only input needed would be the number of systems closest to homeworlds to make equal), and the only real pitfall I can think of would be in those cases where a player is stuck in a quadrant with long distances between stars while their opponent(s) have a whole bunch of stars clustered close. However in such a case the game will probably be skewed even without any map equalizing.

After that, perhaps a next step would be an attempt to "balance" the map per race attributes, though I do confess that my personal opinion is that I don't like the idea, mainly because it is much easier said than done. However since it would likely be a switch it could at least be played around with...there would be no shortage of testers, that's for sure!

-Gusset