Human start location "too good" in Small MOO maps?

I picked up Master of Orion again recently (I ran across Sirian's logs which reminded me how much fun it is) and have been playing Impossible Small games (I want a game that's nasty, brutish, and short).

What I noticed is that the starting locations in MOO seem generated in a way that is favorable to the player, and that this is particularly noticeable on small maps. In particular, it seems like the human player will never have a home world within 6 parsecs (scouting range) of a computer player. However, computers have no such luck, and can even start on adjacent stars. This is more of an advantage for the human player the smaller the map size.

For this reason, I've found that (particularly 5 opponent) small maps lead to a disproportionate number of starts where I can claim a decent amount of territory, even though the rest of the galaxy is incredibly crowded. So the game isn't as hard as it would seem because I usually get almost the same amount of territory as in a game with fewer players.

Does anyone know what the game's general method of choosing starting locations is? Is this a definite human advantage? For people who have more experience, will this advantage mostly dissipate if I go to 3 opponent small? If I want to play 5 opponents, is medium the place to do it?

Lastly, I downloaded the game from The Underdogs. Is there another version of the game out there or a patch that changes anything? In the few impossible games I've played so far, I've felt like the computer was pretty passive for the impossible difficulty setting. Of course, this could be because I've only been playing the Psilons when I'm playing on Impossible Small maps

Thanks for any help.

I usually find Small/3 or Small/4 maps to be more competitive than Small/5 maps. I would say your observations are probably accurate. While I have had maps where I've started within less than 6 of an opponent, they are exceedingly rare; I think it's only when the game doesn't generate enough yellow stars for a good spacing, or something. I've only had one or two such starts out of all my games of MOO.

I'm not sure what version the Underdogs has. AFAIK the latest patch is v1.3.

Zed-F said:

I usually find Small/3 or Small/4 maps to be more competitive than Small/5 maps. I would say your observations are probably accurate. While I have had maps where I've started within less than 6 of an opponent, they are exceedingly rare; I think it's only when the game doesn't generate enough yellow stars for a good spacing, or something. I've only had one or two such starts out of all my games of MOO.

I'm not sure what version the Underdogs has. AFAIK the latest patch is v1.3.

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I've got version 1.3- says it right there on the main menu The computer must seem passive because the Psilons are so ridiculously good. I think part of the problem is that the computer is very bad at dealing with planetary shields (and high shielding in general). I know some opponent must have Anti-Matter or Omega-V bombs in their tree, but those techs are almost never researched (or if they are, they're not put into use). So if you have Planetary Shields 5 and a decent early missile in your tree and can get them done quickly, the computer usually can't figure out how to attack you.

I tried Small/3 opponents and that was better, but (only using this game as a sample) I still started out with noticeably more enemy free stars around me than any of my opponents did. So I tried Medium/5 and the same thing happened! I must have had 10 planets within 6 parsecs of my initial location, and no enemies there. I don't know if got lucky in that there were two yellows in the 7-9 parsec range and neither one had an enemy, or if this too represents generally favorable seeding.

Only the Mrrshan got a comparable starting location (open corner on one side of them), but they were 4 parsecs from the Bulrathi the other direction! Of course, the game would be incredibly difficult on impossible if you started too close to an enemy, so maybe this is for the best.

Update: Even though the computer won't place anyone too close to you, corner starts can still be really hard. I just played a Small Imp 5 opponent game as the Klackons. I started in the bottom right corner with only one planet (pop 35 Desert) reachable without extended range. Still, the computer had the Humans start 4 parsecs from the Mrrshan and the Alkari start 4 parsecs from the Sakkra. If I had started within 6 parsecs of a computer player in addition to the corner start, there's no way I would have been able to win the game.