OK, one with the knowledge of the Stars! file structure can workaround all of these limitations, but even with these knowledge you have to manually edit about 20 blocks in each player m file, then edit about 20 blocks for each player in hst file, then make changes in xy file as well. I was doing such setup for Wheel of life IV and believe me that a lot of manual work. I was trying some available scripting alternatives, but they hardly can do what you really need to do.

At a time when Wheel of Life V was being created I finally come up with a tool (StarsPlanetMover), which just takes planet ID, target planet X and Y coordinates (which are not limited by height or width, other then size of universe of cause) and... moves it with all its' content to the new location, then updates all references to that planet (like orbiting fleets, waypoints, in game events). The game was remapped successfully and as far as I know it was played without any issues up to the end. Now I think its' time to publish this tool, may be within a week (just need to make some minor polishing like command line validation etc.), since it will make setup of such games much much easier. And this may open a lot of possibility to setup remapped games.

Some technical details: yes, tool works thru encryption (no passwords required either players or host, but SAH games have no host password anyway), and updates xy, m, hst files. As to security concern as I've already mentioned, while decompilation of such a tool is possible, but a smart beginner level developer can get decryption code from this forum much much easier within a minute or so (I can't give you more details, but Ron know what I'm talking about).

This tool cannot move wormholes, but it can be dome pretty easily.
Do you think this would be useful?

XyliGUN wrote on Fri, 26 July 2013 18:25

This tool cannot move wormholes, but it can be dome pretty easily.
Do you think this would be useful?

For some kinds of scenarios,

• first you have to create a game using Stars! with required universe size, planets density and all other settings as usual
  
• then once you have xy, hst & m files (they all should be located in one folder) you can start moving planets
  
• open a turn as usual, select a planet you would like to move and note a planet ID as it shown below the map (like "ID #67")
  
• note a map coordinates you would like to move this planet to (like "X: 1052, Y: 1057") and ensure there is no another planet at the same location
  
• type StarsHostTool <YourPathGoesHere>\<YourGameNameGoesHere>.xy /move 67 1052 1057
  
• tool will then update your xy, hst & m files to move specified planet to the new location.
  

Would that mean you could effectively define fixed wormholes for the duration of a game?

nmid, why would you like to move wormholes? They are unstable beasts.
This tool cannot move wormholes, but it can be dome pretty easily.
Do you think this would be useful?

This tool was designed to be used in 2400, but should also work in any year.

XAPBob wrote on Tue, 30 July 2013 20:17

Would that mean you could effectively define fixed wormholes for the duration of a game?

Short answer is no.
Long answer is: I can add a pair of the wormholes with the required stability and I can move wormhole to any location. But as far as I aware of the game mechanics (please correct me if I'm wrong) it will not be there for the duration of the game. With some probability it can once become unstable and can change it's location.

OK, here is a promised tool.

How to:

• first you have to create a game using Stars! with required universe size, planets density and all other settings as usual
  
• then once you have xy, hst & m files (they all should be located in one folder) you can start moving planets
  
• open a turn as usual, select a planet you would like to move and note a planet ID as it shown below the map (like "ID #67")
  
• note a map coordinates you would like to move this planet to (like "X: 1052, Y: 1057") and ensure there is no another planet at the same location
  
• type StarsHostTool <YourPathGoesHere>\<YourGameNameGoesHere>.xy /move 67 1052 1057
  
• tool will then update your xy, hst & m files to move specified planet to the new location.
  

Remarks:
After the move planet name and all of its' content should be the same, but planet ID will be different.
So, if you like to move the same planet again you will need to obtain its' new ID.

This tool was designed to be used in 2400, but should also work in any year.
It was not extensively tested, so please consider backing up your files before move.

Please let me know of any issues you found.

Please add a switch that would output a simple parsable list of all planet names and IDs and their current coordinates in a game. I could use that to add Planet Move capability to Host Utility on Stars! AutoHost.

Well, this will make it much easier to set up a game,

Now if you can just add a switch to output each planet with it's value after being terraformed using Terraform +-11 for each player, like

Name P1 P2 etc....
LGM 2 100 -15
Excel 30 60

If we're going to make it easy, let's make it easy...

Are you talking about server side tool (i.e. to be able to export data of all of the planets and to be used by host), or client side (to be able to export only planets already penscanned by player)? Any hint on its' usage?
Btw, I was under impression that Stars can export the same data?

Ron wrote on Wed, 31 July 2013 18:08

Please add a switch that would output a simple parsable list of all planet names and IDs and their current coordinates in a game. I could use that to add Planet Move capability to Host Utility on Stars! AutoHost.

Hmmm. No problem I'll do, but do you think it would be useful for the game host to move planets after initial setup was done and game uploaded to the SAH?

ensure there is no another planet at the same location

Please add a switch that would output a simple parsable list of all planet names and IDs and their current coordinates in a game. I could use that to add Planet Move capability to Host Utility on Stars! AutoHost.

I'd like a way for hosts to use a web interface to upload .r files, set game conditions, and create the game directly on SAH. Then the ability for the game host to see the galaxy map and where homeworlds are, and move planets around would be nice.