Customizing Solar Systems

Parts of this page is no longer usuable as of A12.0

Basic infos, technical details and troubleshooting howtos for setting up a dedicated server can be found here Dedicated Server Setup

Adding Planets and Orbits

 * 1. Locate the sector.yaml : ..:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empyrion - Galactic Survival\Content\Sectors
 * 2. Open with an editor like Windows Editor or Notepad++ and you'll see all the playfields that are available in any default solar system.
 * 3. Each of the "playfield entries" consists of several basic elements: Planet, Orbit, Moon (Note: you can add more than three elements per entry!)
 * 4. Each element consists of the following parameters: coordinates of the element, name of the element, biome of the element.

This looks like this:



(A) The coordinates of your sector in the solar system: X,Y,Z (0,0,0 is the Sun, please do NOT use!) (B) The name of an orbit around a planet in this playfield. You can freely change the name to anything you like, but need to keep the " ". For an orbit, you need to add a biome type... (C) ...here! There are several biomes for orbits available (see list attached below) You can even create new biomes by using the playfield.yaml. (D) Same as B/C applies to planets. You can choose a name for a planet ... (E) .. and add a biome here. For planets, there are quite a few biomes available (see list below) and of course you can alter the biomes and/or create new ones! (F) You can also add a moon. Please note: There is only one moon biome available at the moment. (G) .. called "moon". (H) Each entry in this playfield needs to have XYZ coordinates. Setting all entries to 0/0/0 will center your planet in the center of the playfield and your orbit will be centered around your planet. You may experiment with these parameters - for example move a moon or even an asteroid field away from the planet in any direction!

NAMING CONVENTIONS and ELEMENT SEQUENCE to follow:
 * 1) FIRST: The Orbit is added FIRST. Always use the " " to encompass the name of the orbit element. This is also the name in the space-map where you can lock on to warp-jump!
 * 2) SECOND: The Planet is added 2nd. You do not need to use " ", even if your desired name contains spaces
 * 3) THIRD: Moon or another planet

RULES
 * You can use one, two or all three elements..
 * ..but if you add a planet, you NEED to add the Orbit element as well! (You may use "SpaceEmpty" as a biome if you do not want to have asteroids sitting there)
 * You CAN add two or more planets (Just keep adding more elements).
 * You can not use the SUN in any playfield other than the default SUN playfield.
 * You can use more than one orbit biome, but they all will center on 0/0/0 automatically (setting the coordinates different has no effect yet)

If you are done, save the playfield.yaml and start your server.

Available biomes
'''Important note about orbit biomes:
 * Do NOT use orbit biomes marked with a * alongside with a planet set to 0/0/0, because this will merge both elements into one place! Better: set planet(s) and moon(s) to a different location!'''
 * You CAN use more than one orbit biome in each playfield, BUT they also will merge on 0/0/0'''

Creating new biomes
Please note: do not alter/change the default biomes that are available in the default installation folders. Those may be overwritten when the game updates and your changes may get lost! If you want to customize biomes/playfiles, pay attention to Step 3 as described below!

Creating a new biome for a planet works a lot like altering the planet files as described in "2.Playfield customization". Technically, biomes ARE similar to playfield files!
 * 1) Locate the playfield/biome files: ...:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empyrion - Galactic Survival\Content\Playfields
 * 2) You'll see ALL the biomes and planets, that are used in the default solar system. The files that are called "biome" files, are all the files that do not have a PLANET name in their folder name. So "Ningues" is not a biome, but "Snow" is! (Please refer to the list of biomes in "Adding Planets and Orbits")
 * 3) In order to create a NEW biome, we suggest to copy one of the biome files that is close to your desired needs and RENAME it! (Do NOT change the default biome/playfields or better make a copy of the entire folder if you want to work a lot on the playfields/biomes)
 * 4) Open your renamed folder and you'll find a playfield.yaml
 * 5) Open the file via Windows Editor or Notepad++ .. and feel free to adjust any setting that is not marked as "# Please don't change" or "# No functionality yet"
 * 6) Save the file
 * 7) If you created a new planet entry in the sector.yaml before, you can now use the new biome folder name and place it in the elements biome slot as shown above (depending if you were creating a space or planetary biome!)

Tip: If you want to change colors, please refer to the color-tool guide, as detailed in "2. Playfields customization -> 2.1 Change sky color -> 5. & 6. "

A list of asteroid POIs can be found at Asteroids and other options at Settings

Playfield customiziation
There are a lot of settings available for each playfield - feel free to adjust any setting that is not marked as "# Please don't change" or "# No functionality yet".

We'll discuss two of the more complex ones, as they need some background infos.

Change playfield between PvE and PvP

 * 1) Stop your server
 * 2) Find sector.yaml: ..:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empyrion - Galactic Survival\Content\Sectors
 * 3) Open it and look for the planet entry. As explained above, the biome it the last parameter in each row.
 * 4) Go to ...:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empyrion - Galactic Survival\Content\Playfields
 * 5) Open the folder of the playfield you want to change -> Open the playfield.yaml with Notepad++, Editor or similar.
 * 6) Find the paragraph "# Playfield Characteristics"
 * 7) Change the parameter to PVP False (=PvE) or PVP True (= PvP)
 * 8) Save the file and restart your server!

Change Sky-Color
1. Quit your game / stop your server.

2. Find the playfield.yaml for a given playfield. For example Aestus: D:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empyrion - Galactic Survival\Content\Playfields\Aestus\playfield.yaml

Advice: always make a COPY of your original playfield.yaml and store it in a save place or rename it to playfield_orig.yaml and keep it in this folder!

4. Open the file with an editor like Notepad++,Windows Editor or similar

5. Find the entry "# Atmosphere and Sky" (around line 35) You'll notice an entry with three values, seperated by commas: SkyColor: "0.39,0.39,0.39"

6. Now we will use RBG color codes for calculating the values needed. 6a. Search for RGB Color Code tables via google or open a graphics tool 6b: Chose your color from a RGB Color table. For example: RGB for light green has three values => 78,255,0 6c: Divide each value by 255. In our example: value 1: 78:255 = 0.30 value 2: 255:255 = 1 value 3: 0:255 = 0

7. Change the values of the SkyColor entry in your playfield.yaml accordingly: before: SkyColor: "0.39,0.39,0.39" after: SkyColor: "0.30,1,0"

8. Save the playfield.yaml

9. Resume your game / start your server

Now you will see a nice, greenish sky on Aestus when loading up your savegame or joining the server.

Change Sea Level
Please note: We do not recommend changing the sea level in an ongoing session/active server with user-build structures already available, because they might get flooded or drained. We recommend using the biome-setting, when starting a new world or a new game

1. Find the playfield.yaml for a given playfield. For example Aestus: D:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empyrion - Galactic Survival\Content\Playfields\Aestus\playfield.yaml

Advice: always make a COPY of your original playfield.yaml and store it in a save place or rename it to playfield_orig.yaml and keep it in this folder!

2. Open the file with an editor like Notepad++,Windows Editor or similar

3. Find the entry "# Planet or Space" (around line 24) You'll notice an entry with one value and some more options given after the #: "Biome: lava       # lava = default lava level, lava2 = low lava level"

4. Change the value of the biome to the values that are available, eg. "lava2" to lower the lava sea level

5. Save the playfield.yaml

6. Start a new game / start a new multiplayer server world

Tutorial Video
Video tutorial (unofficial) updated upto game version Pre-Alpha 5.4.1