I would like to make the option where one team gets to pick any on one side of the planet and the other team gets to pick from the other side. It would be so cool to play north vs south on a metal planet! That way you can play near your team mates and not get taken out when 3 players from all sides come at you. Is there a way to make a server mod do this?
You cannot do this, and no mod can do this yet. The spawn points are decided by the server based upon the number and location of metal, and other players, this makes the spawn as balanced as possible. Such a mod could be used to cheat. Also the spawn points are created again for each game, because of the dependency on the number of players. You cannot yet have a pre-determined spawn point in the system file.* *To my knowledge
Don't get me wrong, you seem like a nice guy, but I don't like your answer. Why can't a server mod do this in the future? Why do you think that it would be used to cheat and how? You don't explain. With teamwork and the option to pick anywhere on their side of the map as I mentioned it should be possible for a player to do no resources and just build armies while their team does resources etc.. Have you ever seen Spring RTS? Each team gets to pick their starting spot on one side of the map. Each player can see the spot picked by their own allies. This allows for better teamwork in some cases. Currently in PA team matches often players are isolated from their team mates which is not really fair. Have you not seen that happen? How does it work?: See beginning of this Spring RTS demo:
Just because you don't like his answer, doesn't mean it isn't true. Spawn points are placed based on a number of factors, like size of the planet, number of people, whether it's ffa, army, or alliance. Planetary Annihilation is completely procedurally generated. Currently our server mods are extremely limited. So currently there simply isn't a way to choose spawn points. Eventually we'll probably be able to do this, but who knows when or how.
I agree that there isn't a way to cheat by picking your spot. The only thing I can think of is picking a spot with a lot of metal. However, nothing stops the other tan from doing that.
I think the fact that they are procedurally generated is a good point. It often isn't fair. But with players being able to pick where to land should help even things out. (I just hope it becomes an option, because I would really like it.)
More symmetrical than that. Metal spots, spawn points, everything. So you can have 1v1s that are perfectly fair as far as metal and spawns go. It'll be great for tournaments.
Yeah, it would kind of be a necesity to have custom maps and custom spawns. My logic, savegames will allow for this, as you can use a mod where unit shots paint brush onto the world, and then set teams up with a starting commander and delete everything else, then "save" that game at that point so you can start off with the planet and start point. Just my guess though.
How exactly are spawns decided with multiple planets? I played a bots match (2v2v2) on a 1k diameter planet and if I'm not mistaken, when I went to the other planet I saw what looked like a commander spawn. I forgot to look for metal deposits though/I don't remember if there were any >.< Because games are so long and I haven't played enough since coming to this question, I'm unsure. Maybe next time I'll prove this by lowering their economy or whatever it is to .1 or whatever.