Add a pseudo-random start option

Add an optional starting location available to add to a scenario that starts the player on a random playfield from a list of pre-defined playfields within the scenario.
These playfields would of course need to be in the sectors.yaml, but it would give a pseudo-random starting option available to players which is something that's been a commonly requested feature.

A true random start would probably be a lot harder to add to the game, but a pseudo-random one that uses already defined playfields would still be pretty cool.

 

I'm new to the game (just bought it about 2 weeks ago), but wouldn't it in principle be possible to have a conditioned random start?

What I mean by that is it could filter star systems that only have all of the necessary resources for inter-star system travel (iron, pentaxid, etc.) and further filter the starting planets that only have the required resources to build a minimally space-capable SV (iron, carbon, etc.), and within that set choose a random planet and star system that meet those conditions?

 

Star systems aren't actually generated until a player visits them, so this would likely not be possible to do in the game without a substantial amount of work.

I did add a random start to RE2 but it involves starting players in a teleport hub and giving them a randomly assigned teleporter key that then takes them to one of the random starters. It works but it's a bit awkward to setup and use.

 

Oh, I see.

But then wouldn't that make a random start easier to create? As long as the starting system and planet have at least the bare minimum resources for enabling inter-system travel, wouldn't that be enough to then create the starting system/planet while respecting those constraints, and then place the player in a random position in the galaxy?

Or maybe there's more to it than just mere resource availability?

 

Well that would probably be a lot more work for the devs. I'd imagine a random starting location chosen from a list of pre-defined starting locations would be a lot easier to program and thus more likely to be added.
Ideally though you're right and they'd add a proper random starting mechanic to the game but I don't have any hope of that.