What is the Selection Screen?

The selection screen is a feature hidden within the game's code. It was presumably used by the developers for testing space colony. It allows you to select which colonists will be available for your mission.



It cannot be accessed by default, and this guide will tell you how to enable it for your missions.


Points? What's that?

Each colonist costs a certain amount of points. The amount is related to how useful they are as a character (mostly). Unfortunately, the amount of points each character costs is fixed by the game, and cannot be changed.

Here is a list of how many points each colonist is worth:

You will need:

1. The Template Map. Get it here:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1765757448


2. The default amount of points included in the template is 20. If you wish to customise the amount of points, you will need a Hexeditor.
HexEdit or FlexHex are good examples. These are free to download. If you do not care about the amount of points, then you can skip these.

IMPORTANT: If you want to modify the amount of points you start with, then do not change the template campaign in any way! You will need to modify the Hex values of the file, and if you make any changes to the template, then all the Hex values will change.


1. Decide how many points you want your selection screen to have. You must do this step first, as you won't be able to edit the amount of points after you've made changes to the mission. The default is 20.



2. Locate the Template. The downloaded template should be located under
:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\297920\1765757448.

The template's file name is "TemplatePoints"

Make a copy of the template campaign. Rename the copy to whatever you want your mission to be called.

You must then place the copy in your campaigns folder under:
\Users\(NAME)\Documents\Space Colony
This step is necessary so that you can edit it in Space Colony.



3. Open up the copy in a Hex editor. This will allow you to change the number of points. If you do not wish to change the number of points, or don't want to use a hex editor, skip to step 4.

In the hex editor, the mission should look something like this:


See that yellow box? Those numbers are important. Find the same numbers (08 00 40 f1) using your hexeditor's locate function. These bytes determine the number of points available in the mission.

Currently, it's set to (08 00 40 f1), which equals 20 points.
Replace these bytes with any of the bytes below to get the corresponding amount of points:


Once you've done that, save your changes and exit the hex editor.



4. Open up the campaign in Space Colony.

Click 'Add Map', then select the map of your choosing.





5. Click on the new map which has appeared at the top of the screen.

Hit 'Import Last Setting'. This will copy the new map to be identical to the other map, selection screen and all!





6. Go back to the previous screen and delete the planet "Zonoth", as this is no longer needed.





7. Save your mission. Now, your mission will have the selection screen enabled! Just remember to correctly set the amount of money and training programmes, as in the template they're set to 10,000 and 500 respectively.

This method is the easiest way to enable the selection screen, but it has some limitations:

1. You cannot change the amount of points once you've made changes to the campaign file. This is because the file is zipped in some way, and even very small changes will cause the Hex values of the entire document to completely change.

2. Once a map has the Selection Screen enabled, it cannot be disabled. Be careful of this when you are using the "Import Last Setting" function, as this will cause the current mission to become identical to the preceding mission.

3. All training programmes are unlocked. One weird quirk of the selection screen is that once it has been enabled, all training programme availabilities cannot be changed. I've made the template with all training programmes unlocked to cover all bases, but this is frustrating if you want to have a mission with certain programmes blocked out.

4. Multi-stage missions don't remember your selection, and you'll have to select again. This also means that all personnel will take a shuttle to the planet again, even if they were already present in the first mission. For this reason, multi-stage missions which take place on a single planet don't really work. For best results, have multiple planets in your campaign.

Remember, if your mission includes a selection screen, you must have all entertainment facilities enabled, as certain colonists can only get entertained by specific facilities. (e.g, Vasillios with the observatory, Greg with Jacuzzi/Luxury Bar, etc).