From what I can tell it simply uses the groups, with my (quite limited) testing I've only changed the Random/WeightedRandom groups, so I couldn't say for sure whether it draws upon an actual galaxy map. However... There is an interesting map in the Galaxy folder called FrontEnd, which is not in galaxy.manifest and thus is not a selectable map. The tip I got from here mentions "frontend" for the backdrop creation... I'm going to test this out, be back in a few.

Edit: Confirmed! The map called FrontEnd is the map that is called upon when generating the backdrop. An example using a blue sun and Ecumonopolis planets, created solely by editing FrontEnd.

Haha, sweet! More Karma for you and BadTune. Custom intro battles here we come.

I gotta ask, how exactly do you plan to get a custom battle working? As maps only let you place planets and not planet objects... Though I'd be happy to help with this as I'd love to see custom battles in as well.

Extreme awesome with tiger blood covered diamonds.  Great find Lavo. 

Now figure out if mines are squads or frigates or both or none.

Oh you have not messed with the galaxy forge/map files much have you? You can place almost anything on a map except starbases, and even that you can do if you are clever enough with your modding (though sadly you can't define their position). The hard part is actually to make sure the opposing fleets don't destroy each other, but I have several ideas of how to deal with that too. I'll be making a proof of concept mod in about two days (I'll be on the road all day tomorrow), but I assure its possible.

I've never gotten the GF to work, in terms of slapping objects onto a map. As for making the opposing fleets not destroy each other... That's easy. If you've ever played Sins Plus and seen their Ship Graveyards, it has an ability that makes all ships within it's gravity well invulnerable. All you would have to do is make a custom planet entity that had such an ability. Though this is 1 am rambling, so I'm sure there are easier ways to achieve your goal, though this would do the trick.

That actually won't work because ships that are invulnerable won't fire on each other. A better way is to either make an impossibly high repair or armor buff make the ships near indestructible, but still able to fire on each other. An even better way would be for the fleets to respawn themselves, and I've got an method to do that too via a fleet beacon.

Okay I've tried making a quick map to test it (with time I don't have  )but I'm getting minidumps. I'm guessing its because I'm not using a random map (is that what you did Lavo?) like FrontEnd was, but it would be nice if someone could confirm if that was the issue. Just make an empty map with no players in GalaxyForge and run it with the dev.exe. The error I got was i < size, so if you get that with no bells and whistles like mine had it must need to be a random map.

I can still make it work with a Random map, but its a bit more work and it won't be a checksum free solution (which is unfortunate because it would be nice to watch a fleet battle while waiting for a online match).

FrontEnd is, by default, a random map. Setting it to not be a random map is likely the issue you have, when I set it to a non-random map I get a minidump as well.

Well I have finally found time to seriously implement main menu battles, but I'm afraid like shielded fighters we have got so close yet remain so far. I was successfully able to spawn two spawn two opposing fleets by modding FrontEnd to spawn a new planet called Plasmastorm Battle, which is just the default Plasma storm but with a different default template. In that I created two groups, each with a fleet, with one given to "RandomMilitia" and the other to "Pirate".

While both fleets spawned, fired at each other and even destroyed on another, there was one problem that made the whole thing useless. All the ships refused to move. They would fire at ships that happened to spawn in their firing arch, but they wouldn't move to attack targets or even just reposition themselves to to fire an enemy sitting 90 degrees from them.

So another mod idea bytes the dust thanks to another Puzzling Sins hardcode. I suppose my efforts could still be used to set up duels between two large entities like starbases or Super Star Destroyers, provided they both have enough range to fire across the gravity well. But mostly its a dead end unless anyone else has any ideas of something I've overlooked.

So they continued firing if in range or just froze as they fired?

Have you played the escape from terra map? It opens with everyone's colonizer in the same gravity well trying to escape from an overrun earth. I haven't looked at the code for the map, but it might be worth looking at.

Question: Does anyone know what the normal maps alpha channel is supposed to represent?

I know from Major Stress that...

"The developers duplicate the Red channel and use it as the Alpha channel. If the normal map has no alpha then the model has weird effects in game. Just duplicate the Red channel and rename it to Alpha."

Situation: I'm texturing several models for a new race in Sins and noticed some weird lighting when the normal map was not in place.

Action: I decided to play around with the normal map texture to see what would happen.

Result: I did indeed get weird effects in the game mainly around lighting with the team color.

Image 1: Red channel copied to Alpha (Good image)

Image 2: No normal map texture specified in mesh

Image 3: Alpha channel present in normal map but all white.

Image 4: Alpha channel present in normal map but all black.

Image 5: Alpha channel present in normal map but all dark gray.

The stray bright ones are weird.  Was each panel made from a uniform color box in your editor without any effects added or was each panel created separately (the individual green boxes I mean)?

It's a shared texture with the boxes sharing the same area in the uv-map.

I'm not much of a model texturer but I do graphics for a living (oh, the irony).

When the graphics programs convert/save/compress file types, they all have artifacts and formats.  It may be the color squares you see aren't saving uniformly--meaning they have distortion--or are a graphic type that renders as un-uniform/distorted when seen in  alpha.  Basically, you are then seeing the inconsistencies in one prgram view that another might not have.

The other thing from the "on-off" boxes may be that the alpha layer isn't being applied to the entire portion of the image you  want specified.  I haven't looked yet but if you have to tell it where to look on the sheet, the alpha layer may not be in the right place or is a shape that doesn't cover where you think it does.

Is it Gimp or something else?  I bet Thoumsin may be able to explain it.

On a side note, I read your post about the Terra map and gave it a peek and I have a little more elaborate map pretty similar to it I did way back (It was my alternative to modding--using unique maps).

  It's a 1v8 map--"Vasari vs. All Others".  it has a lot of tricks and twists in it and I'll tune it up and post it today sometime.  I think it's fun and the Vasari has to raid commerce (and not lose his ships in the process) in order to gain some start income.

I'm really just curious if anyone knows why...

To recap the above: I'm only changing the bump maps alpha channel in each picture. All other parts of the texture are not changing (color, data, etc). It's just odd how the bump map's alpha affects the model in game. I have no problem being a lemming and copying the red channel to the alpha in the normal map, but was just curious if anyone had an explanation similar to the channels in the other files...

FYI, I use AMD Compressonator to make the compressed DDS files. Gimp/DDS plugin add too many artifacts in my opinion.

No they continued firing, I even saw a handful of ships blow up eventually. They just refused to move from whatever position they spawned in.

I don't really see how that will help with setting up battles in the main menu map, but doesn't every player need to start with a home planet under their control?

You do have to have a planet to start but it can be a dead asteroid.  The trick is to make it where the asteroid doesn't have a long lifespan but long enough for you to resettle.

I'll have a map up demonstrating this concept later tonight.  It's a workaround, you have to have a planet to win/not lose.

Yeah, thats how I figured it was done, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Well, there is a secret way but it's...secret.

Galaxy Forge once again garbled a finished map at the last second---grrr!  So I'll pick up from the half finished saved copy and send it up tomorrow.

Basic question...abilities can be set to have a percent chance of success, correct?

Your 50% right   You can't put a chance of success directly on the overall ability but you can modify the buffs to give a chance of success. (I know same thing, just being cute).

For example:

You can use a Buff's instantActionTriggerType of OnChance.

Or, you can use a Buff's instantActionTriggerType of OnWeaponFired.

Both have a chance to apply value that can be used (See link to wiki).

http://code.google.com/p/soaseplugin/wiki/instantActionTriggerType

Thanks Zombie, "On the Buff" is fine.

I just wanted an effect that the longer you stayed near it, the greater the chance it could affect you.  So  my plan is to have the event trigger and then when it expires have it re-trigger until the target is out of range.

I'd like it to be keyed to a star's gravity well so that when you loiter near a star there's a chance ventually the gravity will pull you in or solar flares will zap you.

Ok--I know you can put a research prerequisite on a ship's weapons meaning they are only usable after research is done.  I want to apply the same concept to planet bombing (siege) but the structure is different.

Can you add the research constraint to bombing and if so, how/where? 

As an example, I'd like to modify the tech siege frigate.

I would probably say no. The work around is just to convert the bombing into an ability take does the same thing but has a research requirement.