****Posted in "Is Starting Position ever going to be addressed"**** but due to size of this post and images, I made it an entirely new post.
I would like this:
This allows designated start points, starting resources, civil/military starting tech level and maximum tech level researched, fleet (capital and capacity) start and maximum level that can be researched.
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Resource Legend
Pretty straight forward, a multiple of whatever the map dictates. Default maps start pretty low, so you might want 4x the resources for all or if you have a custom map with a single player campaign feel, you can adjust the AI's to be poor or wealthy.
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Civil/Military Tech Start and Max
The number dictates the tech researched from the beginning of the game and the maximum level that the player can research. Maybe you want everyone to start with tier 2 of civil and military researchable from the start, so you set the start level at 2 for all. If you want to exclude all tier 8, set the civil/military tech to 7, or wherever you want the AI. You of course wouldn't set start tech at 8 and max at 3, you'd deserve to crash the game.
Fleet Start and Max
You'd want to be careful with this, set the starting fleet research too high (4 or 5) and you might find your economy crippled -unless your custom map starts everyone or specific players with high levels of credits/crystal/metal and can mitigate the upkeep enough to build a fleet and assorted structures that AI's build.
If you want an extremely hard enemy, you might start their fleet research at 5 and max at 5 -no further research beyond 5. Maybe everyone starts with fleet reseach tier 1 and max of 8, good enough. Gives some variety for campaignesque map designers.
Another option to the Civil/Military Tech Start, possibly for the "GAME OPTIONS" area, is to make the "CIVIL/MILITARY" starting tech already researched so the player starts with -for example- all Tier 1 and Tier 2 civil and military tech researched. This could also work for "END GAME" matches where 2 players want to start with Tier 6 civil/military research completed so they can get right in and kick some ass without having to spend 2 hours researching, save the game and play the next day. Combined with options for initial fleet research and max fleet research, this can give people some fun options.
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****Between "GAME OPTIONS" and "START"****
Tech Disable Screen
This shows TEC/ADVENT/VASARI, whatever MOD races there are, and gives the option to disallow particular researchable items, maybe disallow all super cannons, disable advent repulsion, kodiak afterburner, LRM cluster, Vasari missile research that sticks your LRM boat in space for no apparent reason.
This gives some options as to what you want to allow and disallow for particular games and can give maps a greater feel. Maybe you want an "Early War Years" feel so you modify the civil/military max tech to level 3, then disable a couple of advanced technologies for that "early years feel"
Conversely, you can go for an "End Game" feel setting start tech level to something high and maxed at 8 with nothing disabled.
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Enjoy the ideas. I think this would vastly improve Single Player and boost the hell out of Multiplayer games. Didn't want this getting buried in another thread, so made an entirely new one.
Feedback welcome. Post up some editted screenies of what options you think SINS needs.
PS. A displayed Mini-map with player start position options would rock, lets the host/players set where their teams start.
