Renaming and claiming

[Rolepgeek (OP)]

How does one go about renaming planets or system bodies and systems? Or claiming them so NPRs know they're under your control?

[metalax]

Open up the "system view" window, select the body you want to rename and hit the rename body button at the bottom.

While you can set who controls a system from the galactic map screen, this is only an indicator to you and has no effect on NPR actions. IIRC NPR's consider any system they have a presence in theirs.

[Thundercraft]

IIRC NPR's consider any system they have a presence in theirs.

Does this include any sort of NPR presence, even a fleet of ships? If so, that seems... unreasonable. In most 4x games a system isn't considered part of one's territory unless one has a colony or at least an outpost or starbase there.

Also, is there any way for the player to stake a claim on a system? If we have a colony or outpost in the system - while no NPR is present - will a peaceful NPR tend to avoid colonizing the system without declaring war first? Or will they settle your systems as if you did not exist?

[sloanjh]

AFAIK, NPR don't pay any attention to you when deciding what to do (other than flying fleets of ships to your world to check you out).  This isn't nefariousness on their part - they just aren't that bright   In particular (as was said), marking a system as yours (or any other empire's) on the galaxy map doesn't affect gameplay at all - it's just a visual decoration.

On "have a presence", I believe metalax was referring to the diplomacy rules.  If an NPR detects one of your ships in a system where it has a colony and you don't have the appropriate treaty level with it, then it gets upset with you (diplomacy points decrease).  If that happens enough, they'll eventually start shooting at you.  Note that the points on the diplomacy screen represent how your population feels about the aliens, NOT how the aliens feel about you.

John

[Thundercraft]

NPR don't pay any attention to you when deciding what to do (other than flying fleets of ships to your world to check you out).  This isn't nefariousness on their part - they just aren't that bright   In particular (as was said), marking a system as yours (or any other empire's) on the galaxy map doesn't affect gameplay at all - it's just a visual decoration.

It doesn't really surprise me that marking a system as yours on the map doesn't affect NPR's. It'd be too easy abuse the system to prevent an NPR from laying their own claim.

If the NPR's completely ignore the player, that's not really a matter of them being dumb. That's a design oversight. It should not be difficult at all to change the program so that an NPR isn't allowed to colonize a system the player already owns a colony and/or outpost in - without first having a state of war, at least. A simple program flag (a binary yes or no) for each system might suffice.

If an NPR detects one of your ships in a system where it has a colony and you don't have the appropriate treaty level with it, then it gets upset with you (diplomacy points decrease).  If that happens enough, they'll eventually start shooting at you.  Note that the points on the diplomacy screen represent how your population feels about the aliens, NOT how the aliens feel about you.

That seems quite unfair. So, if I understand correctly, having any of your ships travel their systems - even just passing through to other systems or doing a cursory examination of the system - is enough to start upsetting them - possibly to the point of having them declare war on you. 

Even more disturbing, this suggests that they could decide to colonize a planet in one of your colony systems (perhaps even your home system) and then get pissed at you for all the ships traversing your own system? 

That's just poor design, IMO... 

[Erik L]

That seems quite unfair. So, if I understand correctly, having any of your ships travel their systems - even just passing through to other systems or doing a cursory examination of the system - is enough to start upsetting them - possibly to the point of having them declare war on you. 

Even more disturbing, this suggests that they could decide to colonize a planet in one of your colony systems (perhaps even your home system) and then get pissed at you for all the ships traversing your own system? 

That's just poor design, IMO... 

The key word in John's post was "detects". If the NPR cannot detect your ship, it doesn't get miffed.

As for the second part, I really don't recall any situations where they've colonized a planet in a system I had colonies in. That may be luck of the draw though. That situation certainly pisses me off in other 4X games, and there is usually no recourse other than war.

[sloanjh]

The key word in John's post was "detects". If the NPR cannot detect your ship, it doesn't get miffed.

And it has to be detection with active sensors, not just passives (the technobabble is that passives don't give sufficient information to ID the offending race - the game balance principle is that to further draw a distinction between actives and passives).

John

[Rolepgeek (OP)]

Another question. On a space master start, how do I look at generated star systems?

And is there a way to generate them without generating Sol?

[Erik L]

Another question. On a space master start, how do I look at generated star systems?

And is there a way to generate them without generating Sol?

Yes.

Set your race to SM Race, then go to the F9 screen and start generating.