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OpenTS Manual

RandomMap

Added in 0.2.0

Builds the scenario's map with the random map generator instead of reading it from the file.

Specification
Applies to
scenarios
File
map file
Section
[Basic]
Value
boolean
When omitted
no

With RandomMap=yes in a scenario file’s [Basic] section, the random map generator builds the map. The generator takes its settings from the file’s [RandomMap] section, which uses the same keys as a map seed file. A setting the section leaves out takes its default, and a value outside a setting’s allowed range is moved to the nearest limit. Some settings also change with whether the Firestorm expansion is enabled; missing and out-of-range settings lists them.

map file
[Basic]
Name=Random desert
RandomMap=yes
FreeRadar=yes


[RandomMap]
Width=2
Height=2
NumPlayers=2
Biome=3         ; desert


[MCV]           ; a rules section, applied to this match
Speed=5

The file’s other sections are still read. Rules sections such as [MCV] above change the rules for the match, and [Basic] settings such as FreeRadar work as on an ordinary map.

The generator places the start points and replaces these values, whatever the file gives for them:

  • Theater, Size, LocalSize, Level and Fill in [Map];
  • Ambient, Red, Green, Blue, Ground and Level in [Lighting];
  • Player in [Basic], which it sets to the first house type (GDI in the shipped rules), and that house’s TechLevel, which it sets to 0.

The map is built from the match’s seed, not from the [RandomMap] section’s Seed. In a game against other machines, every machine takes the seed from its launch file, so all of them build the same map. In a skirmish or a campaign mission, a nonzero launch-file Seed builds the same map at every launch, and 0 draws a new seed each time. Without a launch file, the seed and so the map change from one match to the next.

A .SED seed file needs no RandomMap key. It is always generated, from its own Seed, so it builds the same map every time.

See also — Seed, NumPlayers, FreeRadar

History

  1. Added0.2.0In development

    Build a random map when a map file asks for one