Practicing against AI: set up questions

I have two questions on how to set up practice games against the AI:

1. Is it possible to play on the ranked maps? I can't find them in my list of systems.
2. Can I set the AI to spawn on a different planet from mine? Kind of ridiculous that they all spawn on my planet even in 4 player FFAs with 5 planets...

Thanks!

The ranked maps aren't in the list of built-in systems for some reason, but you can install the System Sharing mod to get them. Once installed, there will be a new tab in the system list that shows you all the Uber systems. If we get many more ranked maps I'll update the mod to put them in their own tab separate from the other default systems.

No I dont think you can change where they spawn.

Well make sure your planets have spawns enabled first, that is not on by default if you add more planets in the editor.

Obviously, the AI is smart and will not pick a planet totally random. It'll pick the planet that it thinks is the best. So do humans. So they are more likely to spawn on the same planet.

So basically, if you turn the metal down on a large 450 planet, and the metal up on a medium 350 sized planet, then spawn on the 450, you will usually find the AI didn't spawn there.

Thanks for the answers guys! I'll get that mod .

Kind of disappointing that there is no real way to set up a practice game for orbital play then...

To clarify: in the 5-planet system, the system had 4 spawn enabled planets, in pairs of 2 identical ones. One pair was clearly superior to the other pair, but still kind of strange that they all ended up on the same planet. But the probability of that happening is a lot larger if they were only picking from 2 planets rather than 4.

AI are nothing like humans, so probably better to just practice getting owned by humans and then watching the replays.

Actually the AI is really really good at mass micro, so you would be surprised.

There is no need to get owned if you don't like losing, because you can watch anyone's replay. Especially now that the top 3 players have a 'watch replay' button in the main menu.

The AI in PA is more advanced than you think. Probably the best AI in an RTS in years.

I've seen the AI refuse to attack an unguarded commander before, with a vanguard army. the AI has big issues with nuke conservation too, it will hold its nuke to finish a second or third launcher even if the enemy has no antinukes and even if that one nuke could win the game.

I realise that the AI doesn't exactly play like humans do (and most definitely normal/hard AI is just completely retarded), but it can be useful for practising specific scenarios, build order, hot keys, etc. It is still fairly early days for me in PA, because the linux build became usable only recently.