Features List for EV4

Unfortunately, nested R() operators don't work. People have tried it, and it does screwy things to Nova.

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I believe an ionization bar should be added to the status display on the right side of the screen so that you can tell exactly how ionized your ship is.

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(quote)Originally posted by Terek E`Ban:
**- Let the R operator choose between more than only one of two ways. Example: R(b0001 b0002 b0003 b0004 b0005 b0006)

- If iTunes is active show a small menu in the top middle of the screen so you are able to control iTunes while playing. (That would be so cool

(quote)Originally posted by Aprosenf:
**Unfortunately, nested R() operators don't work. People have tried it, and it does screwy things to Nova.

****(/quote)

Well I know I posted (albeit a long while ago) a method to "nest" random strings, which involved missions etc... Basically randomly start an invisible mission, with onAccept randomly start other missions, or use a random setting... r(sm1 sm2) > m1 - r(b1 b2) & m2- r(b3 b4) or something... I go into more detail elsewhere. Beh. Search for it if you are really interested.

(quote)Originally posted by Katana:
**I believe an ionization bar should be added to the status display on the right side of the screen so that you can tell exactly how ionized your ship is.

**(/quote)

Pretty good idea, but not exactly necessary if the Ionization correctly scaled the color... If the player is 100% ionized, their ship should be 100% colored. If they are 50% ionized, the ship should be 50% colored, etc. As the ship loses ionization, it should gradually de-saturate. I believe this system is implemented somewhat, though it could certainly be fine tuned...

~ SpacePirate

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Did someone mention about having to access mission bbs in the player info box while in playing mode? I hope that would be something to look at. This would add one more conditioning trigger for missions to become available or not.

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(This message has been edited by Coraxus (edited 01-20-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**Pretty good idea, but not exactly necessary if the Ionization correctly scaled the color... If the player is 100% ionized, their ship should be 100% colored. If they are 50% ionized, the ship should be 50% colored, etc. As the ship loses ionization, it should gradually de-saturate. I believe this system is implemented somewhat, though it could certainly be fine tuned...

~ SpacePirate

**

Give a ship a beam weapon that won't fire while ionized, and check out where the ion tolerance is. You can still be pretty ionized even while the ship remains unhued. The hue is quite inaccurate for telling the amount of ionization, which is why I requested a separate indicator.

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A time-travel mission would be fun! 😉

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Thinking back to to interface issues that were ever-so-slightly annoying when I first started playing this series....

  • Move the active missions list ("I" key) to a tab/pane of the ship status dialog ("P" key). This would be one less key for a newb to memorize. The ship status dialog already has 4 panes -- what's one more?

  • Give the galactic map ("M") a button in the ship status dialog.

  • Give the ship status dialog (and maybe the active missions and/or the map) a button in the planet-side landing screen.

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(This message has been edited by Dr. Trowel (edited 01-21-2004).)

On galactic map, color code each and every names of spobs the same way it is on radar, for more accurate information.

Names in yellow indicate neutral
Names in blue indicate uninhabitable
Names in grey indicate unstable to land
Names in orange indicate forbidden
Names in red indicate hostility, and finally
Names in green indicated dominated.

Also I think the status of "Usuper" should have its own color, like maybe light purple I guess, but no biggie.

For more addition to plundering info (incase no one mentioned this), make plundering behave more like a menu that you would likely encounter on planets and stations. This will give more options to choose more than one items of each kind to plunder from. (i.e you decide you want to steal x number of rockets and x number of hunter missiles) this of course is based on whatever the plundered ship is able to carrying.

In the plundering ammo window, there should be a support to give a percentage on how often certain outfits would be available for players to salvage, much like the same way that outfits are available in outfitting shops in EVN.

Plundering cargo will also have its menu screen as well, you can choose to steal x amount of food and x amount of equipments, What kind and how much items this ship can carry depends upon its capacity, and govt settings.

Whenever you buy things like ships, outf, weapons, etc, from planets and stations, the buy button will dissapear because you no longer have the capability to do so. It would be easier if you make a dimmer which will dim the graphics on certain pictures that quickly indicate its no longer available to players. Same goes for plundering information as well, graphic pics will dim out cause the player either does not have the weapons to support it, or does not have enough space for it.

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(This message has been edited by Coraxus (edited 01-21-2004).)

Hmm...expounding upon that menu idea: plunder working like outfits. This is how this would work:

Instead of getting the little menu, you get a screen that looks like the outfits purchase screen. From there, you can plunder both normal outfits and hardcoded things like fuel, cargoes, etc. For example, you board the ship. A two-choice menu opens up: capture ship/plunder ship. You click 'plunder ship'. The screen opens up, and you see the outfits, cargo, and other things available eto plunder; from here you can choose to plunder until you decide to disengage, try to capture the ship, or the ship self-destructs. One could also set a particular flag to define outfits that would only appear in this plunder dialog.

It would also be cool to have the option of 'impressing' the other ship's crew; forcing them to abandon their wreck and work for you (marine outfit, perhaps?).

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Quote

Originally posted by UE_Research & Development:
It would also be cool to have the option of 'impressing' the other ship's crew; forcing them to abandon their wreck and work for you (marine outfit, perhaps?).

That's easy to do with the current engine.

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Quote

Originally posted by UE_Research & Development:
**Hmm...expounding upon that menu idea: plunder working like outfits. This is how this would work:

Instead of getting the little menu, you get a screen that looks like the outfits purchase screen. From there, you can plunder both normal outfits and hardcoded things like fuel, cargoes, etc. For example, you board the ship. A two-choice menu opens up: capture ship/plunder ship. You click 'plunder ship'. The screen opens up, and you see the outfits, cargo, and other things available eto plunder; from here you can choose to plunder until you decide to disengage, try to capture the ship, or the ship self-destructs. One could also set a particular flag to define outfits that would only appear in this plunder dialog.

It would also be cool to have the option of 'impressing' the other ship's crew; forcing them to abandon their wreck and work for you (marine outfit, perhaps?).

**

Well that's basically kind of what I said. A plundering window box behaving like a normal outfit window box and a commodity box, plus more.

As for impressing other crew member, I was thinking about it too, but I wonder if it would get more complicated in calculations, I don't know, sounds cool anyways.

More addition if was not mentioned yet, more accurate specs when buying a ship. This includes how much capacity the ship has left when it is already stocked with original weapons and outfits, not just the value of attributes it has if it was gutted out.

The price for a ship must also be changed. How? In changing the field in the ship resource, it should focus only on the price on the ship itself, excluding any outfits or weapons it may come in stock. (ie in the ship resource field, you edit a shuttle to cost 10,000, which already comes with 1 blaze cannon in stock. Upon visiting the shipyard however, you find that it costs 11,500 because of the blaze cannon).

But why stop there? Why not have a sub window from the shipyards to display a shipyard workshop, you can customize the ship as you see fit, even as far as transfering any outfits or weapons you have onboard your original ship. As you customize your ship, you can also see the price of the ship you are customizing read differently with each change. Finally if you like what you see, then you can buy it, if not, the customize ship will revert to its original default.

This idea is advantageous if you are in a spob whos outfit shop do not have the items you have available. (ie, trading a UE destroyer for a Voinian cruiser on Borb Station).

I also think that places that sells outfits, weapon, and ships should have a limited number of items. So basically with additional features to the shipyard dialog, it's like a dealership and stuff.
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Nosumus Fortiolis Quad Volimus
I'm the only guy in the universe that can make horses cry.
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(This message has been edited by Coraxus (edited 01-21-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by Coraxus:
**The price for a ship must also be changed. How? In changing the field in the ship resource, it should focus only on the price on the ship itself, excluding any outfits or weapons it may come in stock. (ie in the ship resource field, you edit a shuttle to cost 10,000, which already comes with 1 blaze cannon in stock. Upon visiting the shipyard however, you find that it costs 11,500 because of the blaze cannon).

But why stop there? Why not have a sub window from the shipyards to display a shipyard workshop, you can customize the ship as you see fit, even as far as transfering any outfits or weapons you have onboard your original ship. As you customize your ship, you can also see the price of the ship you are customizing read differently with each change. Finally if you like what you see, then you can buy it, if not, the customize ship will revert to its original default.

This idea is advantageous if you are in a spob whos outfit shop do not have the items you have available. (ie, trading a UE destroyer for a Voinian cruiser on Borb Station).

I also think that places that sells outfits, weapon, and ships should have a limited number of items. So basically with additional features to the shipyard dialog, it's like a dealership and stuff.**

1 In that case, you should be careful not to make the ship worth more on sell than on buy (since the price on sell includes whatever outfits are currently with the ship), but other than that I agree.

2 Ships are mass-produced always the same and having it modified would make it cost more, in real life. Moreover, it's not only blazes which are not available on Borb station, but the equipment and the technicians to install them on a ship. Therefore, it makes sense that you have to go back to human planets to buy them (and neutrons are far superior than blazes :p)

3 Makes sense.

I had an idea related to the 1 of what I wanted to see in EVs and thought of posting it here, but I realised it was possible with the engine and you'll have it nevertheless: have most of the outfits and weapons that come with a ship be "built-in" modified versions of the ones you can buy in the outfitting.

These versions couldn't be bought (but could be sold) by simply having the max field in the oütf be 0, would cost less and weight less than the normal version. They would represent the weapons built-in within a ship. Think of the X-Wing, for instance. Do you think for a second that you can save from disinstalling its lasers as much space as you would need in another ship (not made to have 4 lasers) to install them? Obviously not: the X-Wing is built around this sheer firepower and therefore you could get rid of some or all lasers should you want it, but you could not install in place of them as much since the X-Wing isn't made for that, and it would be to much overhead to reinstall the old lasers as they were before you sold them. Whereas when you buy lasers for a, say, cargo ship, they come in form of a kit that allows, with some technicians involved, to install and adapt the laser, and the power lines needed, to your ship, therefore taking more space (and money) than the lasers in a X-Wing. However, it wouldn't be the case of some outfits in a cheap ship, that you buy from another captain, namely the ones he installed himself: these would be normal.

Also, to give the player the impression it's kind of a miracle you can install outfits on a ship (we are pretty used to have the possibility to change everything in a ship in EV, whereas we dream in X-Wing to just have missiles instead of proton torpedoes for our X-Wing), make some outfits incompatible with some ships, but actually this is also possible with the engine (contribute/require), and already done in the standard scenario, but to a lesser degree.

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Well, if compatability is an issue, people might kill me if I suggested a compatible attribute, this means if you own a Voinian ship, a blaze cannon or turret will not be available for you to buy regardless if you have the capacity to hold one, but hunter missiles might be, after all it was based on the rocket launcher.

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I'm the only guy in the universe that can make horses cry.
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Quote

Originally posted by Coraxus:
**Well, if compatability is an issue, people might kill me if I suggested a compatible attribute, this means if you own a Voinian ship, a blaze cannon or turret will not be available for you to buy regardless if you have the capacity to hold one, but hunter missiles might be, after all it was based on the rocket launcher.

**

This can be done with ease with the current Nova engine. No workarounds, no crazy stuff. Just contribute and require. Heck, its DONE in the stock scenario for vellos ships.
I think that the extent of this should be limited (lets not completely prevent people from using alien weapons) but if one race is far more advanced in terms of energy technology ot whatever, their weapons shouldnt work on a ship with a standard reactor.
-Az

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How about some changes in the linking of things?

Instead of having set ID places for each type of resource (i.e. bars are 10,000+, ships are 13,000+, outfits are 3000+), everything in EV4 should be handlinked. That way, things are much more flexible. It's very confusing to have to change your RID into Index ID's, then add the prefix number onto them to get them to work correctly. Others may not have this problem, but I find it clumbsy.

Instead of Nova being "smart enough" to recognize that ships of XXX all have the same shäns, you could simply enter the same number of the shän, making it much simpler to do everything. Also, it would eliminate the large number of fields wasted between 4000ish to 10000ish which are taken up by mission dëscs. Giving everything more flexible linking, such as this, would make it more difficult to locate resources, keep them coherent for editing and to keep everything in order, but I think in the end, it would turn out better, as two of the same resource ID's would not neccesarily collide. In example, if Light Blaster coincides with Super Cannon, then Super Cannon would move, not Super Cannon and every resource linked to it.

This feature, would however, neccesitate the need for a flexible copying system. In this, an editing program would have to be smart enough to update the links from one RID to the next in each field so that you don't end up with overlapping things, in example, your Light Blaster and your Super Cannon are seperate, but your Super Cannon reads the Light Blaster description. This would mean that the engine would have to be able to edit the game files itself on the fly, but it would make for an easier scripting experience.

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Unless this was mentioned, I think anamoly should have it's own classification in spob resources. I've seen plugins where things like blackholes and suns end up being labelled as planets.

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Quote

Originally posted by Zzap212:
**How about some changes in the linking of things?

Instead of having set ID places for each type of resource (i.e. bars are 10,000+, ships are 13,000+, outfits are 3000+), everything in EV4 should be handlinked. That way, things are much more flexible. It's very confusing to have to change your RID into Index ID's, then add the prefix number onto them to get them to work correctly. Others may not have this problem, but I find it clumbsy.

Instead of Nova being "smart enough" to recognize that ships of XXX all have the same shäns, you could simply enter the same number of the shän, making it much simpler to do everything. Also, it would eliminate the large number of fields wasted between 4000ish to 10000ish which are taken up by mission dëscs. Giving everything more flexible linking, such as this, would make it more difficult to locate resources, keep them coherent for editing and to keep everything in order, but I think in the end, it would turn out better, as two of the same resource ID's would not neccesarily collide. In example, if Light Blaster coincides with Super Cannon, then Super Cannon would move, not Super Cannon and every resource linked to it.

This feature, would however, neccesitate the need for a flexible copying system. In this, an editing program would have to be smart enough to update the links from one RID to the next in each field so that you don't end up with overlapping things, in example, your Light Blaster and your Super Cannon are seperate, but your Super Cannon reads the Light Blaster description. This would mean that the engine would have to be able to edit the game files itself on the fly, but it would make for an easier scripting experience.

**

Please no.
This would be bad.
-Az

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Quote

Originally posted by Zzap212:
**How about some changes in the linking of things?

Instead of having set ID places for each type of resource (i.e. bars are 10,000+, ships are 13,000+, outfits are 3000+), everything in EV4 should be handlinked. That way, things are much more flexible. It's very confusing to have to change your RID into Index ID's, then add the prefix number onto them to get them to work correctly. Others may not have this problem, but I find it clumbsy.

Instead of Nova being "smart enough" to recognize that ships of XXX all have the same shns, you could simply enter the same number of the shn, making it much simpler to do everything. Also, it would eliminate the large number of fields wasted between 4000ish to 10000ish which are taken up by mission dscs. Giving everything more flexible linking, such as this, would make it more difficult to locate resources, keep them coherent for editing and to keep everything in order, but I think in the end, it would turn out better, as two of the same resource ID's would not neccesarily collide. In example, if Light Blaster coincides with Super Cannon, then Super Cannon would move, not Super Cannon and every resource linked to it.

This feature, would however, neccesitate the need for a flexible copying system. In this, an editing program would have to be smart enough to update the links from one RID to the next in each field so that you don't end up with overlapping things, in example, your Light Blaster and your Super Cannon are seperate, but your Super Cannon reads the Light Blaster description. This would mean that the engine would have to be able to edit the game files itself on the fly, but it would make for an easier scripting experience.**

NOOOOO. That would be AWFUL. It would be too confusing. WAY too confusing. In the short run, it's annoying. In the long run, it's horrible. What if someone accidentally sets a ship's shipyard pic to the menu screen background? What if someone sets a landing pic to refer to the rollover masks?

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Well... It does have its good points... It would be much easier to be able to link shans to ships, instead of having to re-write/duplicate the shan for every variant, and things such as that. However, the rest of it should be done in the editor, and not in the game. It would be too much work to do by hand, not to mention the fact that everyone will end up doing things their own way, rendering every plugin incompatible with everyone else's. This way, there is at least a set standard.

You should look for an editor that links the resources. For instance, in SpaceShip, I set it up so that you could paste the ship's target and hail images pictures in the editor. SpaceShip would renumber the image automatically. Click, paste, done.

~ SpacePirate

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EV4:
Pseudo Coding:
A new element / resource "code" this could be evaulated under a NCB with the operand something like Cxxx. In the code resource it would hold commands of what to do when active. Ie:

sub give_money {
     If playername$ == "Yandiyen" AND playermoney$ <= 50000 then
          modify playermoney$ == +100000000
     End If
}

This is just something I made up randomly, but it could work like this. The plugin marker would have the option for the "code" to be contsantly evulated or run under a NCB. You could declair functions and subfucntions. You could even code in new functions. Along with this there could be global variables that would allow a person to keep track of visted sytems, outfits, ect.

onFire:
The ability to evalute a bit string when ever a weapon fired.

System / Government music:
Just at the title says, music for specific systems or systems of a specific government
type.

(I hope the Pseudo Coding made sence)

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Yandiyen Eye
"Destiny is at hand. Infinity shall be broken and we shall run unchallenged." - Mryd Fleet Command at the Battle of the Five

(Edit: Spelling and Grammar)

(This message has been edited by yandiyen (edited 01-25-2004).)