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| HST Utilities and Services |
Fri, 14 October 2005 19:33  |
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Alright, I've written (or am writing) a small little utility that can edit the HST files... Since I've been asked not to release it I'm offering my services to hosts who want to add some spice or just convience to their games.
Here's what my utility does so far: (Note edits ONLY HST files, required for using HST + XY, M is nice if you don't mind but not nessessary. And a complete 100% Px map of the galaxy if you want to edit all the uninhabited planets.)
1) Automatically Edits any number of uninhabited/never inhabited planets MC and Hab settings to a predefined value. (Full map or ID# to ID# segments.)
2) Manually edit HW's and other inhabited planets. Changing unterraformed HW's and colonies habs to match new settings. As well as MC settings.
3) Manually editing planet's and giving them a random mine/fact/defense/population/surface ore bonus. This feature's chaotic as the values I edit are not understood by me. So it's trial and error.. (Not my best feature but still a feature)
4) Race Mutation: The ability to transform any legal race into any other legal race, with the present exception of name and logo changes.
5) I can change the starting ship designs of race too but I'd have to create the game if I were to do that, as it's a hacked exec that I'd be using.
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Uses for race mutation: (Impartial examples of what's possible, not what's practicable or ethical, etc...)
1) Exchange player HW's by mutating one race into the other. (Does not effect starting tech, ships or planetary settings.) Note: this would work in conjunction with the manual HW editing feature, so I can alter the habs of HW A to match HW B, while I swap Race A with Race B. Result, a near perfect transposision of races at the cost of having to trade player #'s.
2) Mutate replacement player races to suit the new player's tastes. Could result in more player replacements... (They can even shift their PRT's too if they'd like. Full racial change, minus names and logos.)
3) Get slightly more RW points by enabling low starting pop after game start. And disabling the +75% tech check box in the tech settings. (Maybe players would want that? Host/Game dependant.)
4) Incase you REALLY wanted to.. I can use this to trade player #'s. Though Passwords would remain the same. So players would have to deal with that if they really wanted to deal with this as a game feature. Could be interesting. Trade races at year X or whatever, players keep their original race but now find themsleves governing a new empire!
5) Mediated by a 3rd party and some predefined host rules, players could have the option to adapt their races either once at a preset year, or every X years. Possible rules could be no more than +/- 5% growth change. Or no more than +/- 2 in factory efficentcy, etc... The game auto checks if the races are legal so mutating into a new, but legal race is manditory and beyond my control. Attempting to make an illegal race even by 1 point will cause the game to hit you with some handicap that's usually around 500 freed up RW points. Not my fault that's just how it is.
6) Building PRT spesific ships and then changing PRT's to build other PRT spesific ships is also possible. Works for hosts who need a lot of PRT spesific ships. I'm sure that some hosts will find this handy as it elimiates the need for 5 host races or whatever...
7) Fertility to Infertility. A game (would work great on a huge map) Where races expand and grow as much as they can until a predefined point where all races are stripped of their growth rates (down to 2-5% growth) and allowing players to max out on their economic settings and LRT's and MAYBE if hosts want to, even change their PRTS... Go Tri-Immune, and what not. After the infertility stage population becomes the gold of the universe as it'll hardly grow back. That or some variation there of.
<Yes, this article's very nearly done.>
8 ) Mid game joining. Yeah I know but if you have a few extra races lyi
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[Updated on: Fri, 14 October 2005 19:37]
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Sat, 15 October 2005 00:02  |
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Sounds interesting but why on earth have you been asked not to release it? Since it edits the .hst file it wouldn't have any impact on Autohost games after they are created. Besides, it would be a useful utility for hosts doing custom setups.
Ptolemy
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Mon, 17 October 2005 01:30 |
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Technically, I wouldn't mind at all releasing my tools... Well.. My tool the other one's a bit on the manual (must know what he's doing) side until I get around to working on it.
PricklyPea:
-1) I want to get a copy of all your utilities (I'm somewhat of a Stars utitlity collector/emporium)
-2) I'm litterally laughing out loud here.... My UI might be more advanced... But the utterly absurd irony of it all, is that my only programming skills are thoughrally relegated to just writing some reasonably complex batch files. Though, yes I can edit all I've said I can.. I'm still working on the Race editior. I know enough to be able to accurately edit everything I've said, I'm just writing the UI to just do the work for me...
-3) I'd love to see what you've got, cause all I'm saying is I'm both amused and flattered that my batch files are more advanced than your more than likely C++ or similarly encoded editing tools. Either way... I thank you for the complement. 
AlterEgo: Cool! I was afraid I was going to get flamed for this... Anyway, anyone wants me to release anything. Talk to Ron. I made a promise to him that I wouldn't release my tools... So you convince him to forgive my promise and I'll release it.
Oh! Just so everyone knows, it's vitally important (as in I can't presently change it at all) that I must know what the values are translated to ingame, or else I can't change them and make them what I want them to become. (Ergo, to mass edit planets I need a complete Px file to tell me. Or to manually edit, the user must know the current values, or else he can't change them accurately. This of course means, even if I were stupid enough to mess with passwords, I'd have to know it to change it or I'd mess it up completely.) And because of that, much of the Stars! Security stuff is completely secured, still!
Anyway... Sure I'd love the added interest in my tools. I'm not bothered by it. Anyone wants, I might try looking into ingame ship/starbase design editing. Or finishing my wormhole manipulation research (if someone will just give me an XY file description that explains all about the coordinates system and everything, so I don't have to do that myself.) I'll give you guys the chance to try out a theoretically new type of worm hole. One way wormholes which can be placed by a host... No promises however... I've moved but never visited my manually shifted my wormholes, so I don't know what might happen with them. All I know is that the wormholes are stored such as to require two entry objects to point to eachother, inorder to form a 2 way wormhole. Ergo... Perhaps I can also make wormhole rings? Or other more complex shapes, which may or may not be persistant. I'm not sure, but I think it might be possible.
[Updated on: Mon, 17 October 2005 01:39]
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Mon, 17 October 2005 03:54 |
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| Alter Ego |
 | Officer Cadet 4th Year |
Messages: 283
Registered: November 2002
Location: Germany | |
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| Captain Maim wrote on Mon, 17 October 2005 07:30 |
AlterEgo: Cool! I was afraid I was going to get flamed for this... Anyway, anyone wants me to release anything. Talk to Ron. I made a promise to him that I wouldn't release my tools... So you convince him to forgive my promise and I'll release it.
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As I don't know exactly how your tools work, I can't judge how big a risk of cheating they create. But if Ron would prefer not to see them released, he will have his reasons. I (as most of us here, I suppose), have a lot of trust in him in that regard. And there have been examples of cheating hosts, even here at SAH, so it's better to be safe than sorry.
But I don't think you'll get flamed for the offering. It does open a vast array of new possibilities. You'd just have to see if you can manage all the requests you might get in the future. There will certainly be one from me. 'Real soon now!'
Regards
AE
War does not determine who is right. Just who is left.
Bertrand Russell
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Tue, 18 October 2005 16:00 |
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| Alter Ego |
| Officer Cadet 4th Year |
Messages: 283
Registered: November 2002
Location: Germany | |
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| Captain Maim wrote on Mon, 17 October 2005 22:36 |
Well... In that case I'm going to:
1) Need to finish up my editor's Race editing fuctions, ASAP.
2) If I get too swamped... I might end up recruiting a honorable and trustworthy person to share the mantle with me or something... (And the best way to find said person is by nomination and referals. What do other people have to say about you. Cause you could say anything you wanted to about yourself.)
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I don't think that would really ba a problem. Try any of the moderators here at SAH, or the regular contributors, and you have an honourable and trustworthy person...
| Quote: |
Anyway, I wrote these tools not to cheat but to create new and exciting game possibilities...
SNIP
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Nobody supposed that was your intention, but...
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My understanding is that Ron was afraid that I'd reveal or had valuble insights into the Stars encryption scheme. Which is true to a certain extent... Mainly my expectation is that what Ron's more affraid of, is that my research will give a less scrupulous person enough information to carry my work into less savory directions. And possibly even to decode the encryption itself. Which was a direction of research which Ron asked me to promise him that I would not take my work in. And so I haven't, even though I've wanted to sometimes. (More than anything, just to see if I could do it. Am I really that smart? I'd ask myself..  Sometimes I just like doing stuff purely on the grounds of "I'm doing a skill test." )
Anyway that's Ron's reasons as I understand them.
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... that seems to have hit the nail on the head. I think these are probably the reasons Ron has. And I think he is right about that. Sad to say, but we have had such unsavoury cases...
Regards
AE
[Mod edit: fixed quote]
[Updated on: Wed, 19 October 2005 03:34] by Moderator
War does not determine who is right. Just who is left.
Bertrand Russell
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Tue, 18 October 2005 17:50 |
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Right then... Anyone up for discussing new and exciting game concepts?
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Mon, 24 October 2005 23:25 |
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| Captain Maim wrote on Wed, 19 October 2005 07:50 |
Right then... Anyone up for discussing new and exciting game concepts?
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OK, you asked for it...
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8 ) Mid game joining. Yeah I know but if you have a few extra races lying around, as long as you've got a supply of extra population for the new races they can get altered to be able to handle the universe in whatever state it's currently in. (Probably a silly idea but I said I'm just listing all the possibilities I can think of.)
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Nonononono, not silly at all, this is a very interesting one:
How about a persistent Stars! universe?
2400 -> 16 players join
2410 -> Highest rank race is declared first winner. All colonies of that race are removed and a new race is introduced at the old race's HW.
2420 -> as 2410...
Ideas to add ongoing play balance:
a) Make all worlds have a minimum concentration trait like homeworlds. Can this be set to uder 30? I think 10 would be a good level.
b) Quick start for new races:
i) maxxed out HW (pop and fac/min/def)
ii) improved mining settings (maybe +10 eff) -> diplomatic tool
c) Weaken elder races over time (at each 10 year cycle)
i) Reduce PGR by 2% (can you go negative?)
ii) Reduce mining efficiency by 2 levels -> coincides with (b ii)
iii) Remote miners would have to be banned or else the elder races would not become dependent on the youthfull races.
d) 'Protection' rule for incoming players? 10-20 safe years?
e) World regeneration?
i) randomise concentrations on worlds colonised by new races? (time limited) (this would be a lot of work I think, hence the eff suggestions earlier)
ii) give MT ability "Genesis Device" to all races? Note that (c ii) suggestion becomes essential here otherwise new races lose their only real diplomatic tool.
Is this the sort of thing you were after Captain?
[edit: added (c iii)]
[Updated on: Mon, 24 October 2005 23:34] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Mon, 24 October 2005 23:33 |
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Regarding (c ii) I think remote miners would have to be banned, otherwise the elder races will not become dependent on the youth races for minerals.
[edit: ignore this post, I've added the content as (c iii) above]
[Updated on: Mon, 24 October 2005 23:36] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Fri, 28 October 2005 04:30 |
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| Dogthinkers wrote on Mon, 24 October 2005 23:25 |
| Captain Maim wrote on Wed, 19 October 2005 07:50 |
Right then... Anyone up for discussing new and exciting game concepts?
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OK, you asked for it...
| Quote: |
8 ) Mid game joining. Yeah I know but if you have a few extra races lying around, as long as you've got a supply of extra population for the new races they can get altered to be able to handle the universe in whatever state it's currently in. (Probably a silly idea but I said I'm just listing all the possibilities I can think of.)
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Nonononono, not silly at all, this is a very interesting one:
How about a persistent Stars! universe?
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Actually, I think it might be cool to take ended games and revive the races.. Course, I'm lacking in some areas needed for that. Such as it would be useful if no race was completely killed off.. SOme pop must survive so I can transform them into another race and so a 2nd game could begin again on the ruins of the last game. Which could be pretty cool. Pre terraformed planets, ruins... Plus the old players could have a story that would actually be HISTORY. I could transform the old races into new races and relocated them to other worlds. Which may or may not be their HW... Course I could do some work and I'm sure I can terraform each race's HW into a perfect HW for them. If I figure out how to make new HW's then I can make those. Else they can just go seeking and hunting out the old races HW's.
Maybe older players could write up legends and such and tell the new races about the wars and battles and junk.. That'd be pretty cool too. (All I'd really need there is the HST and XY files, also the player passwords so I can shift and sort all the races around.)
| Dogthinkers wrote on Mon, 24 October 2005 23:25 |
2400 -> 16 players join
2410 -> Highest rank race is declared first winner. All colonies of that race are removed and a new race is introduced at the old race's HW.
2420 -> as 2410...
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That's not a lot of time... Hmmm... I hope those races have similar habs or they'll be spending most of their time reterraforming things. I'd actually probably need that to happen, cause I can't (for some reason) accurately edit the habs of terraformed planets yet.
| Dogthinkers wrote on Mon, 24 October 2005 23:25 |
Ideas to add ongoing play balance:
a) Make all worlds have a minimum concentration trait like homeworlds. Can this be set to uder 30? I think 10 would be a good level.
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No. I've looked into the HW tags, I've gotten planets to register breifly as HW's but for some reason I can't seem to make it work out. I don't know why. I suppose I could put some more effort into research.. But I'm almost totally 100% positive that it's either IS a HW, or IS NOT a Homeworld. I can't do 10% it's 30 or nothing. And right now, it's nothing. I've not yet mastered the art of artifical HW making, if I could I'd be miles ahead however. Maybe I'll look into that again.
| Dogthinkers wrote on Mon, 24 October 2005 23:25 |
b) Quick start for new races:
i) maxxed out HW (pop and fac/min/def)
ii) improved mining settings (maybe +10 eff) -> diplomatic tool
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i) Hmm... Tricky... I'm quite certain I remember saying that my abilities to edit pop/mines/facts/def/surface minerals is quite chaotic and very hit and miss.. What I know I didn't say is that I typically end up with like several extra million people when I try and shoot for max pop. Like one game I started with 4 million on one world and 2 million on another (IT race). It's really quite flaky that way at the present moment.
ii) altering the mining settings, I can do that. So long as the end resulting race is still legal (has positive of 0 RW points.) If then, I'd really need to have 1) HST file 2) XY file 3) previous race description file (non stars format) 4) new race distription file (non stars format.)
| Dogthinkers wrote on Mon, 24 October 2005 23:25 |
c) Weaken elder races over time (at each 10 year cycle)
i) Reduce PGR by 2% (can you go negative?)
ii) Reduce mining efficiency by 2 lev |
...
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Thu, 03 November 2005 03:48 |
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Maybe if you wanted a true wrap around universe. But a limited one can probably be made by either A) using a neutral race and having a rim of planets around the boarder. But then it's really any boarder to any boarder. Or B) A short term, super tricky thing of moving wormholes around. Course, since I can't chose how many there are.. (Actually I think that it has the same mumber no matter what, it's just that on smaller maps the wormholes are located off the edges of the maps.)
I personally think A is your best option. I'd use up a lot of planets however.
OH! There is a 3rd option, but it would require a HST editing utility that could actually decrypt the files, check and read ship locations and then move them if they were at certain locations.
Hmmm... Okay Option D... Using an accurate Fx file, and some research into the nature of fleet positions in Stars... It might be possible to manipulate it so that I could teleport a fleet somewhere. In this case, wrap them around the map. Course I'd need to be given accurate Fx maps for all players.. I'm not sure though how I'd train my program to parse out data from multiple files... But if someone wants me to.. I can at least look into it. For them... But first I want to finish my work on the race editor...
(Haven't worked on it lately, had a computer crash, I've recovered my files but still. That was like yesterday. or something...)
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Sat, 14 January 2006 03:54 |
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Update: I'm doing just fine... I'm going to resume work on my editor... There was a multi-month crisis that I am virtually done with. I'm going to get started on the editor again...
I'm going to deposite a batch file here that'll allow players/hosts or whom ever to create race definition files that my program will read. (However I'm probably going to have to tear the code out of primary program before I post the batch file.)
Current state: The editor's going to allow the user to define 2 files, these include:
Definintions to:
-A binary Tag indicating if the race is a "Before" or "After" race file (probably not super important but it's thusly written in there.)
-Race number
-PRT
-All LRT's
-Habitations (including: Left extremes, right extremes, centers, and immunities. The centers can be auto calculated so I can\could remove that function in the public release.)
-all economy settings (plus check box)
-all tech settings (plus check box)
(Note: The entire race must be filled out
Presently unavailble yet alterable racial aspects.
-Logo alterations (This one I don't yet understand how or where the logo information is stored in the blocks.)
-Plural and Singular names (This one is here because I'm not capable of adding or subtracting name lengths. Also I'm not currently in the mood for creating a way to write in names, however I think that I did make up one once, and might have left the code unused in my core editing program.)
Sufficit to say, changing the names (with what I have availible at the moment) means that character length remains identical... So if the names are: "The Squeeky Boo Boo" "The Squeeky Boo Boos"
The replacing name must take precisely as many letters and spaces . Such as "Thy Squirly Blobby!" and "Thy Squirly Blobbies". Which if I'm not mistaken takes up exactly the same number of characters/letters+spaces as the previous names did.
I'm going to be getting back to work on my editor very very soon, as I've been informed by Micha that there is some intrest in my work. (Note incase I've forgotten to write this down.) I'm only making this editor (which is an all in one stars HST modifier.)
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Thu, 13 July 2006 02:52 |
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| miklem wrote on Thu, 13 July 2006 15:43 |
I like the idea of trading PRT - I'm still in!
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Miklem's post was about an entirely different concept (pregame bidding for PRTs,) but reminded me of this thread... So here's another game idea - the ability to trade *PRT* with any other race, by mutual agreement, mid game. It would add an extra layer to race design and to strategic/tactical options later in the game... IS would love to swap with JOAT in mid game... WM might enjoy swapping with SS to insta-cloak all those DNs... Extreme growth HE might be a fun PRT to trade around - explosive growth, then trade it off for a higher capacity race (just be careful not to be the one left with it at the end...)
If the tool is finished, and easy to use, it's tempting to host a game where unlimited solo PRT changes are permitted (just PRT, nothing else...) Imagine the fun... Need a speed boost to catch that scout? Switch to WM for a year... Under attack? Swap to SD and wait to hear the screams as your once passive minefields start detonating... Need pop? Double your grwoth by using HE for a few years... Got a lot of pop to move? Schedule in a couple of years of IT... That nearby planet bugging you? Switch to PP and build a MD13...
Side note: if you are AR and morph into a normal race, do you die or do you become planet dwelling? How about the other way around? Are factories preserved? Could be fun swapping for a year or two to build death stars 
[Updated on: Thu, 13 July 2006 02:58] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: HST Utilities and Services |
Thu, 13 July 2006 04:11 |
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This is great! New activity!
I just want you to know, my work is largely based on interest. So the more interest, the more I'll work to finish it.
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