Primarily, I wanted to start a SP Survival game without the story line, Robinson, ADA(?) (the computer voice AI thingy) and without the near-by damaged hoverbike, damaged Dart and Heidelburg POI. Secondarily, I'd also like a start without the crash site zone (various small & large wreckage, abundant food and near-by mineral nodes, etc.). I want a more random crash area even if it means more early walking and exploring for essential early supplies/resources. So far I've only found one option that meets those conditions in the vanilla game menu: Start Game>Single Player>Scenario>Default Akua-Omicron>Akua This is perfect except there are no similar options for Arid, Swamp and Snow planets. Akua is a temperate planet. If Omicron is chosen you get an arid world but you also get the crash site, hoverbike, damaged Dart and near-by Heidelberg POI. I don't know if this is an error or not (doesn't seem very "default" anymore) because if I wanted the story items I could just do the Single Player survival (Start Game>Single Player>Survival and choose the arid planet). Unfortunately I'm getting bored with having only the Temperate planet. I wish the same conditions existed for Omicron and choices added for Swamp and Snow. My other option are the workshop scenarios but mousing over the descriptions indicates that either many are out of date or are major reworks of the default game (Reforged Galaxy/Eden). I'll try those eventually but I'd still prefer as vanilla a game as possible at this juncture. My question to the EGS vets then is: without delving into the brand new world (for me) of scripting scenarios is there an easy way to set up what I want ie. Arid, Snow and Swamp SP survival starts but without the ADA, Robinson, story, crash site biome, hoverbike, Dart SV and Heidelberg present?
The more default starts scheme is left to the players/moders to provide more of those in various scenarios, as you also found out yourself. If you want to edit files and make what you want yourself you have to "do your homework". That said you need to learn how the files of are set and by trial and error alterations and test, find what suits your needs. There are some tutorial videos you can find. Example of altered start is @LiftPizzas SV_Start (for V1.4) is a nice start. Also @OldTimersGaming Escape From Purgatory | Reforged Galaxy V3.17 provides altered way of start. Try to study these. Also you can contact the moders and ask for guidance, I believe they will give you some help.
I'll look into a couple of those, thanks. Maybe in the future the devs will add more options in the menu for when choosing the difficulty options, similar to choosing whether to have Mass/Vol, CPU, enemy difficulty, drone presence, etc., just add options for including/or not the crash site zone, story, ADA, Robinson (which can be declined in-game anyway), and the damaged HV/SV and Heidelberg POI. That way the player could also have one or two while declining others. An awkward solution I used in my last Snow start was to simply ignore the Heidelberg & Dart (although I did wimp out by grabbing the Hoverbike). Of course, the crash site zone was still there as well as a drone-free copper node. My next game I'll just keep walking east (the Heidelberg, etc. always seems to be west of where the escape capsule comes down at least in the games I've started so far).
See it this way : you only want a few elements from the whole pack, and surely other players want different combinations of these elements. Each "game start" (scenario + config + sectors + playfields) has a few hundred customizable/ switchable elements that players can add/ remove/ tweak to their leisure, provided they know how to do that. This means that the "options" page of the game would need to be an editor, more or less, which can access all of the different files involved in regular "player side modding". If Eleon was able to do that, then they would use it to make the game and adjust balance and scenarios, instead of having to work in files (and code) like players have to do now. The actual, closest "way" or "tool" to get what you are asking for here is the Empyrion Playfield Designer, but this will not change scenarios, only playfields. For scenario elements, there's a risk of breaking a whole scenario by just removing some parts, but it can be edited with the PDA Web Editor in a somewhat "visual" context, so quests/ tasks are presented in blocks and can be removed/ added, and the program will do all the dirty work for you.
You can check the subforums, they have some tutorials and more stuff. Maybe you will find what you are looking for Custom Playfields & Systems and The Hangar Bay also do not hesitate to ask for anything. I would love to see your work when done.
