Birth of the Federation

Whats the largest system population people have had - i have been playing this game years and have had many glaxies and the highest has been 545 untill yesterday when i started a new one and there was a 600 - i couldnt believe it -

Well if we are talking mods I have seen into the 700's for sure. I think I had an 800, but still for sure in 700's.

You need to specify if you mean vanilla or with mods, and if with mods, what mods are being used.
The largest I've seen in vanilla was 410, fortunately while I was playing Klingons since they need 200 population for a trade route.

Just ur normal everday trek version

In vanilla BOTF, the largest system I've seen supported a population of 575. Second-biggest was 515.


In Ultimate Mod 5, the biggest system I've seen thus far is 1085, which was the Xindi system. Their system is always big since it has a Gaia-class ("super"-Earth) planet. The Tellarite system is usually huge as well, generally 800-950 in my experience.

Once I was stunned and very giddy to find an 800 population system in vanilla. To make it even better, it was home to the Benzenites with their spectacular industry boosting unique structure.... And then some computer issue or something happened and had to start a new game.

I've seen 625 population in Vanilla. (On Benzar! But I couldn't build an an epic industry upgrade which cost >65535, and I didn't feel like scrapping/rebuilding lots of industry just to make it happen.)

There seems to be a few 400+ on every large galaxy map, while 500+ is much rarer and I've only seen a handful of 600+ appear after many games.

I consider any system 280+ worth taking (maybe only 260+ on systems with JOP planets and good food/energy bonuses). I don't find systems worth colonizing if I can't put a flat 20+ population units into Industry/Intel/Research, too much added micromanagement for too little gain on small systems. I don't even go for minors if their home systems are too junky, unless they give me useful empire-wide bonuses.

(But then again, on small maps I'll take everything I can, more for those powered Intel/Research structures than for the actual population output.)

One of my little peeves with this game is the way it scales 1-9/10-19/20-29/etc on the Planet screen ... I would find things much less distracting if they were all same scale (and if I could easily discern how many points are allocated on huge populations with tiny thin low-resolution slivers). For that matter, it would be easier for me if planets were categorized (Homeworld, Native, Member, Subjugated) so that managing build priorities on systems of the "same kind" would be easier.

I suppose random systems in the unmodded game could *theoretically* have 7 large Terran worlds at 140 population each = 980 population?

Could you attach a copy of the game file that holds the system data for your "vanilla"? (I forgot which one it is, but UE should tell you, it's just that BoTF is on my old computer and it is turned off at the moment.) I'd like to try playing with the larger system sizes. Particularly when playing Klingons that need 200 pop for a trade route. Seeing more than 400 is rare for me.

"Vanilla" from thunderchero's All in One Installer. It's version "1.0.3" ... wasn't able to read my ancient savegames (which were from a BotF version I installed off disc then patched up to 1.02E). But it otherwise seems to work exactly like the original did, with built-in "NoCD" patch, I even have to Alt-Tab minimize/maximize the same way at launch to make it run when it appears to hang on the intro video (the other mods I've tried have apparently fixed this issue).

The few (1 or 2 or maybe 3) systems with 400+ tend to be spread across the entire galaxy ... more often than not they're distant objectives and the game is almost over (or at least the outcome is obvious) by the time you can even reach them. I've noticed that Vanilla has a strange map generation seed ... sometimes a lot of big (250-350+) systems everywhere for everyone, other times a galaxy filled with tiny useless sparse spinning garbage. I think one of the Mudd cheats let's you see the entire map in SP by pressing F11 or F12 or something, I can't remember since I only do MP now.

Korth wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 9:07 pm "Vanilla" from thunderchero's All in One Installer. It's version "1.0.3" ... wasn't able to read my ancient savegames

if you install at 800 x 600 and uncheck all options those games should still load

Korth wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 9:07 pm I've noticed that Vanilla has a strange map generation seed ...

correct, command line has a cool option to reload same galaxy from starting seed you can use dxwnd to add arguments like this
note; this will only work on like resolutions.

Wow ...

Is there any way to extract the map seed used in a savegame file?

Can the same map seed be used replay a map from a different empire's perspective?

yes you can extract the starting seed from saved game file.

open saved game with UE
extract the gameInfo file
at 0x25c it is long (8 bytes)

yes you can change race, and tech levels and still keep same galaxy generation.
other setting I have not tested.
difficulty I would expect to be ok
but minors not ok or be ignored ?
random ?
victory conditions ?

Vendetta, always. Not at all perfect but better than being robbed the satisfaction of the kill from Domination.

you may have not understood me correctly.
I have not tested if you could change victory conditions when re-using starting seed.
I have not tested if you could change randoms on or off when re-using starting seed
I have not tested if you could change how many minors when re-using starting seed
I have not tested if you could change difficulty levels when re-using starting seed

Ah. I seldom change those conditions anyhow, unless hosting a multiplayer game. My experiments restarting different empires on same map with same settings have been successful.

Is the maximum *theoretical* system size in unmodded Vanilla = 980 population? I've never seen anything larger than 625 (or maybe 640?) firsthand, and even that is extremely rare.