interesting idea, I like slow things too & started to mod some
but some things seems difficult to do without having to resort to fixed maps
for example I don't know how to remove starting ships without having to use a custom map which screws the random thingy ...
don't know how to remove the starting starport too

Me too. I am especially tired of meeting other races in a few turns. I would like to reduce the range of ships at the beginning of the game. I think anothe option ingame like Slow beginning would be great.

- No starting ships
Seems to be hardcoded, couldnt find anything where this is defined at. However, with the gc2builder you can make an own map, without giving the various civs ships. A work-around, remove the ships completely from the gc2ships.xml will cause the game to crash. So no ideas yet.

- No starting technology (which can already be done with custom race but make it default)
Open the data\raceconfig.xml and just remove all techs from the various races.

- No starport on first planet
Seems to be hardcoded too. Couldnt find anything about this. But actualy, the one colony ship is not a big deal. One extra colony from the beginning is quite realistic. In the data\gc2types.xml you can define the cost and tech requirement for colony/construction pods. But be very cautious, any mistake and your game will just crash.

- No abiltiy to build starport until a certain technology requirement
Open the data\planetimprovements.xml, the first paragraph is the starport, put in < S_TechRequirement > InsertTechHere < /S_TechRequirement > (without the spaces around <>)

- Starport build cost 4x or 5x than it currently is (it's too easy/quick to build them right now IMO)
See above, just change the COST value

- Logistics begin at 0 (must research to get some)
Open the data\raceconfig.xml scroll through the variuos civs and replace the < LOGISTICS > 6 < /LOGISTICS > by whatever number you wish (note, some civs start with more or less then a 6, 6 is the terran value)

- Perhaps each type of ship (colony, scout, constructor) has separate research requirement - the first one scout.
This can be done through the data\gc2types.xml just edit the colony and construction pods < Tech_Requirement > tags

- Stellar Cartography (ability to see all planets on mini-map) moved to waaay down the tech tree (towards the end of the game). This forces you to have to explore the stars for planets.
This is not a big deal, is it? You cant see the class of the planets anyway, and it is like 90% of all stars have at least one planet.
But if you wish. Open the data\techtree.xml, look for stellar cartography and add the tech requirement tag (see answer 4) there, with the tech you wish. But dont forget to update the first sensor tech, as it is using stellar cartography to research, replace the value by xeno research or something low.

- No intital ability to see all the stars either - this ability would also require some research maybe even half-way down
Actualy in the year 2225 it would be absurd not to see stars. We can determine star location even in our dark age, so whats the problem?

PS Im working on a mod that have the most of the mentioned options (actualy all except the ones that dont work), in addition with some new techs, planetary improvements and such. But I gues I will need some sort of a beta tester, as Im a czech and never had english in the school. So I reealy need someone who checks the descriptive text for grammar and spelling errors and maybe even improve the overall descriptions, as Im not very creative in that sector.

wow, definitely some intriguing stuff....slow start could be fun I totally agree with the being able to see stars. It would just be awhile before you could get to them, since your techs are prehistoric lol.

Hm. Good idea with the ranges, I gues I will work that in

is there no other chance to contact you (icq, irc, regular email) ? to do it through wiki is quite fiddly/awkward...

WOW! Thx for the postive feedback guys, and particularly the ones who are helping on such a mod.

Ok, the only thing is appears to have ignored is me changing the "customized race" - setting logistics to 0. It also appears to have ignored me removing starting techs. But...I removed research points from the main city structures and WOW! That works! Now you have to build a research lab before ANY research starts. I also changed custom planets to have a class 1, a class 2, and a class 3 instead of useless class zeros and that worked too! I also moved Stellar cartography until after "sensor3" but I don't know if that worked or not.

Question: if I load saved games, will that then pick up the new xmls or are they saved with the old configuration?

the initial starport and the two ships are "hardcoded", you cant remome them from custom- new games, you have to make your own scenario/map in order to start without.

You can modify the starting ships, its just a bit annoying how to do it.

Basically it uses the Colony Ship and Sensor Ship from GC2Ships.xml. If you change the data in there you can cahnge it so that you start with two scouts for example (just copy the information under "Scout" to both the Colony and Sensor Ships.). You still get the same names (Flagship), and you can't remove them entirely, but of course you can change them to whatever you want.

Of course, this messes up the core ships for these two, but come on, nobody uses the core ships (not even AI), do they?


You can even remove Core ships from appearing on the ship builder by giving everyone the tech requirement "ImpossibleTech" (see the "Starbase" entry in GC2Ships.xml for inspiration).

Sweet. The game is MUCH more interesting without starting survey ships. I researched it first and currently have 3 survey vessels (built on cargo hulls) zipping around trying to nab all the anomolies before the computer decides to catch up. I never build survey ships in the normal game... this has added a whole new exploration phase.

The colonization part was interesting too without that fancy ship you can't even build exploring everything for you. The computer focused on little scout ships to find the good planets, but I think working on the survey vessels has paid off. I think I'll play like this from now on. It should really be the default.

Well if the AI isn't building ships with survey modules, it's probably because it's assuming it has one from the start, but also this proves my point. If you start with one, there's no point in building any. This is the problem with the current set up. The AI never builds them, the player never builds them, and all the anamolies are gone by the time you can actually build the ship. Oh, on top of the fact that you start with a ship you can't build. It makes no sense.