Forcing large systems?

[PTTG (OP)]

I've been wanting to play a game set entirely within a large, highly populous star system. Particularly, one with several jovian planets with moons, a couple asteroid belts, and several earthlike or teraformable worlds. Ideally, this would be a four-star system.

Unfortunately, simply generating new systems until something appropriate pops up would take a very long time indeed- I've tried hundreds of random systems only to find three or four quaternary stars, and generally these systems only have a debris field and an uninhabitable planet.

Is there a way to edit the probability of various star/planet types in the database? Failing that, is there an easy way to simply dictate the contents of a system, including the generation of a few hundred asteroids?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Binaries like that arn't too uncommon. Though more than one asteroid belt is unlikely and you would need to do a lot of SM atmosphere-editing. 

I think quaternary/trinary is the hard part there....

ps - Are you generating off Real Space or not?

[PTTG (OP)]

I could do it either way. In fact, I'd probably stay entirely in the one system, so anything works.

looking at the database, there is a set of "real star" data. Perhaps I could set all real stars to be quaternary, assuming the generator is smart enough to pick up on that.

EDIT: I opened it up again, it is a bit unclear. I'll have to play with it I guess, but it looks like at very least I can force specific star types to be present, and give them specific orbital distances!

Still, I'd rather not hack the database. Is there a better way to go about this?

[Steve Walmsley]

Unfortunately, you can't specify exactly what you want as the system generation is just too complex. I still get surprised by some of the systems it produces. Lack of control is the penalty for so much variety.

Steve

[PTTG (OP)]

I've been able to set a few known stars to be quaternary GV2 stars. This is working pretty well for what I want- after all, having some randomness is fine. However, the actual orbital characteristics vary. Can you tell me how it interprets "component 2/3/4 orbital distance" and "component 3/4 orbit type"? Thanks!

[Steve Walmsley]

I've been able to set a few known stars to be quaternary GV2 stars. This is working pretty well for what I want- after all, having some randomness is fine. However, the actual orbital characteristics vary. Can you tell me how it interprets "component 2/3/4 orbital distance" and "component 3/4 orbit type"? Thanks!

If you look at the design view of the table, the comments section explains what the numbers mean.

C2Orbit, etc: Orbital distance in AU
C3OrbitType: 1 = Closer to A than B, 2 = Closer to B than A, 3 = Orbits further from A than B does
C4OrbitType: 1 = Orbiting A, 2 = Orbiting B, 3 = Orbiting C that is outermost Star, Orbiting A as outermost Star

Steve

[PTTG (OP)]

Thanks!