i think it only alows five

Correct. You can check this yourself in the TA map editor, maximum planets per star is five.

you can add more by editing the map file but once you do the map editor will not open it or at least that was so before the final release of TA!!

Nasty

Well if you look closely at the Map Editor, you may find it is certainly possible to crowd up a number of planets so that they 'seem' to be from the same system with ONE star being central to them.
There is one limit though; you'd need to add nearby outside *resized to smallest) stars (sometimes, i wished for a BLACKENED texture set for these too, hint-hint, i love the default purple, do you? btw) so to speak to support the extra planets above the maximum of 5 which the central (resized to biggest) SUN has under its gravity region.

The only obstacle is that planets must be within 3 tiles of the star. Asteroids have more range at 12 tiles. Etc.

So, indirectly... 12 colonies are entirely possible.

Something like this...



Note the time it took me, less than 45 minutes!

That includes...

- Randomize all in a Map editing session. Putting in a custom system & its neighboring two "fake blues". (Which were Purple on the original file, some glitch from Twilight possibly!) All within parameters enforced by the engine; example.... Same sector for any system & its planets, 5 maximum, etc.

- Give a few systems to temporary races while not forgetting Florin to Custom Race.

- Firing up Twilight, making a few scouts to light up the fog.

- Snapping the shot, uploading to ImageShack.

The only remaining work to allow for this kinda stuff would be to change the "intruding Blue Stars" textures by creating a fake temporary blackened texture for the default file (found in the DL folder), integrating it into a MOD location, activate it & starting a game with your new map.

12 Colonies of men -- at your fingertips.

As I said it can be done manually it just takes a very long time



as you can see the planets are more the 3 tiles from the sun.

this is a custom map to test mods it also has the dread lords in it that if you let come to power are very hard to beat!!!

I need to tweak it a little more but it is done for the most part

Nasty

the custom map above work in DA but not TA now GOFIG i`ll have to look to see way it stop working n TA.



you mean like this ???



http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4125/nosun01pd5.jpg

no if I could just remember how the H#ll I manges this !!!

Nasty

well here one for you,..in the middle of correcting my errors in post 7,... it post and I can`t edit it !!

wow i did not you now you can do that.

very cool guys. Thanks.

Yep, the Ashen star (in your TA snapshot) is possibly built off a black texture.
Still is a selectable tile, but who cares... the illusion does exactly what it's meant for.

Which is also certainly why i wish for only two changes from SD in both the Map & Techno Editors; true and effective backwards compatibility with DarkAvatar features & options.

Only then could we speak about enhancing the Mapping tool itself with things such as; Abundant_Rare sliders, relational link to any external CustomPlanets.xml files and even, spreadsheet editing of all there is on a given map.
Discussions may even get to some tricky resizing stuff like a 10x10 or 15x15 sectors maps type.
Heck, i'd somehow (without adding to much stress on the IDE, btw) prefer a tilting map creation interface similar to the usual shortcuts 1 to 5 - even.

The list is loooong.

Love the blackened texture. It would make it possible to have rogue planet.

well my point is if you want it bad enough and have the time to trial and error it,... you can have a map any way you want it!!!

But it is allot of work!!!

here is a transparent water map of earth





Nasty

I like it .