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This thread is merely to see what special features people would like to see in a plugin. Pan Sola obviously started something when he asked if, in my plugin, borders would change ownership. In Nova the news networks said that various systems had changed hands but nothing actually happened. If anyone wants a special feature like that then just post it! I can't read minds (yet) so I don't know what the public want special in a plugin.
------------------ Hey! If I want cheesey pufes, I'll get cheesey pufes! -Eric Cartman Law Enforcer "Respect my Authorita!"
I would want that when a string mentions that the goverment changes for all planets, it would do too. In the Auroran string end when you have assasinated Krane, the text mentions that Fed systems have changed to Auroran ones, but the border color doesnt change to red for all Fed systems.
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Border movement was actually present in an early beta of EV Nova. However, as different spöbs had to be used to represent the same planet under different governments, it caused the following problem:
1. Player accepts mission to take something to Spacedock II, which, at the time of mission acceptance, is owned by the Federation. 2. During transit, a crön activates that turns Spacedock II into a similar-looking but different spöb that is owned by the Aurorans. 3. Player arrives in the Tichel system, but as far as Nova is concerned, the planet they are taking the delivery to doesn't exist at the moment.
It was much too much work to solve this major engine limitation, so they gave up on what would have been a vaguely impressive but deeply annoying feature.
To address General Cade Smart's point, to replace the whole of Fed space with Auroran systems (Don't forget that all the spöbs would have to be modified to remove references to a Federation government) would be a massive amount of work, particularly if you extrapolated that to all the other strings and governments. It would increase the amount of work involved in making systems and spöbs tenfold, as well as using probably 500-1000 extra s˙st and spöb resources that cannot be used for expansion through plugins.
In case my point isn't abundantly clear, both of these features are possible, but result in a truly massive amount of work and are not worth it.
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That, I believe is one of the main weaknesses of the engine. There should have been control bits to change a planet's or system's attributes, just like you can give the player a new ship. This would have made large plugin development (and probably the development of the main scenario) much easier. I realize though that any bit that would do this would have to take at least two arguments/parameters - the id of the spob/syst and the id to change the attribute to.
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(This message has been edited by AriosSw (edited 02-28-2003).)
I would like to see people 'abusing' the outfits more. Like having a missle launcher, and ammo for it. But in order to buy more that say 30 ammo(the amount in the launcher at any one time), you'd have to buy storage racks. Each rack would let you hold 30 more missles. If you think this is impossible, look at modType 27 first. If you still don't get it, email me and I'll try and whip up a demo plug.
And make more use of getting missions in places other than the bar. Is Barry the only one smart enough to do that?(yeah, ok, sigma and gli-tech do to, but they're minor strings).
And a more dynamic universe is allways good. I love the Wild Geese string because it branches so many times. If every main story line did this the game would be so awesome it'd be too awesome to play, the awesomeness would be so blindingly cool.
And don't rely entirely upon the random bit setter either, try and see if yo can abuse the mission resource to allow a player to 'fail' a mission by taking one groups cargo to a rival and switching sides, and the 'success' of that mission would just be doing what you were told initially. Being able to go traitor whenever you want basically.
In summary, all these things basically are just instances of 'having more choices'. So, yeah, more choices means more fun.
(edit) Whoah, just noticed how long my post was. I was just trying to get back on its initial topic, no highjack it to Morocco! ------------------ I like long walks, especially those taken by people who annoy me.
(This message has been edited by Ernimtir (edited 02-28-2003).)
Okay Macza. I see that it is too much work. Still, its sad that its not practically feasible. :frown: But what did you mean by "vaguely impressive"? Do you mean it would not useful even if it was made? I like the idea, practicality issues aside.
I think a neat effect would be to get the ships to cast shadows on other ships. Dunno how'd you do it, but it'd be cool.
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Multiplayer would be cool.
Quote
Originally posted by General Cade Smart: But what did you mean by "vaguely impressive"? Do you mean it would not useful even if it was made?
I think he's referring to the fact that the incredible amounts of work involved to make the effect work would be lost on most players; unless a player spent loads of time around the borders, they would never notice that it was occurring, and even if they did notice, it would be to the extent of "oh, hey, look at that" and wouldn't be really blown away by it.
A better way to handle this effect: make the border worlds their own sub-government (technically independent governments, but for all intents and purposes, either the Federation or the Aurorans), then make specific missions that run supplies to disputed territories. Make sure that they description says "The (Federation/Auroran) government needs these supplies to help repel enemy forces", that way if the government changes hands, it makes sense why you wouldn't be able to complete the mission (the government officials there who would take the cargo off your hands have either evacuated or been killed). When the government switches back, you could still complete the mission, as they'd be in need of those supplies just like they did before they left.
Damn, I wish I'd thought of this during the beta.
Originally posted by General Cade Smart: I like the idea, practicality issues aside.
I don't think you'll find a single person that will argue that, but as one of the testers that dealt with this, I assure you that it was a MAJOR pain.
Edit: Un-muddled something I said.
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(This message has been edited by EVula (edited 02-28-2003).)
Originally posted by EVula: A better way to handle this effect: make the border worlds their own sub-government (technically independent governments, but for all intents and purposes, either the Federation or the Aurorans), then make specific missions that run supplies to disputed territories. Make sure that they description says "The (Federation/Auroran) government needs these supplies to help repel enemy forces", that way if the government changes hands, it makes sense why you wouldn't be able to complete the mission (the government officials there who would take the cargo off your hands have either evacuated or been killed). When the government switches back, you could still complete the mission, as they'd be in need of those supplies just like they did before they left.
In point of fact, this is exactly how I've handled the Klingon-Federation border worlds (and, to a certain extent, the Romulan Neutral Zone) in Starfleet Adventures.
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Originally posted by General Cade Smart: **I would want that when a string mentions that the goverment changes for all planets, it would do too. In the Auroran string end when you have assasinated Krane, the text mentions that Fed systems have changed to Auroran ones, but the border color doesnt change to red for all Fed systems.
**
Hmmm as EVula and Mazca said, difficult. But I'll give it a go. Hopefully I won't run out of spob ID's.
Originally posted by Ernimiter: **I would like to see people 'abusing' the outfits more. Like having a missle launcher, and ammo for it. But in order to buy more that say 30 ammo(the amount in the launcher at any one time), you'd have to buy storage racks. Each rack would let you hold 30 more missles. If you think this is impossible, look at modType 27 first. If you still don't get it, email me and I'll try and whip up a demo plug.
And don't rely entirely upon the random bit setter either, try and see if yo can abuse the mission resource to allow a player to 'fail' a mission by taking one groups cargo to a rival and switching sides, and the 'success' of that mission would just be doing what you were told initially. Being able to go traitor whenever you want basically. **
To the missile launchers I say 'already done!' That feature (if you can call it that) was an idea I put in straight away for the good of relative realism. Making uses other than the bar? Hmmm, I have about 6 missions a side from either the shipyard or the outfitters but I think people are just used to using the bar. I have got into the habbit of as soon as I land checking the bar and I thnik others would have too. Finally branching missions, well I don't know how much I can branch it for the Major threads but the Police and Pirate threads branch quite a lot. It will (hopefully) be able to do the Pirates or Police 4or5 times with different results. I don't think you can make it possible to take the cargo to the enemy and betray them. You could try I suppose using an invisible mission that tells you to take it to the enemy. But I don't know if you can force a mission to abort when another one is succesful.
Originally posted by Mantaray : **I think a neat effect would be to get the ships to cast shadows on other ships. Dunno how'd you do it, but it'd be cool. **
i think that would be in the graphics resources, I don't do graphics so I'd wait till I get a ship artist before you get an answer to that.
And EVula, that is a very good idea. I think I'll try that, I'll let you guys know how I get on handling these requests.
(Edited by mrxak to correct the speeling of EVula ;))
(This message has been edited by mrxak (edited 02-28-2003).)
Originally posted by UncleTwitchy: In point of fact, this is exactly how I've handled the Klingon-Federation border worlds (and, to a certain extent, the Romulan Neutral Zone) in Starfleet Adventures.
Nifty.
Originally posted by Starbridge42: Evula
"EVula"
Originally posted by Starbridge42: Hopefully I won't run out of spob ID's.
That's why I suggested that it only be an issue with border worlds; if you tried having this effect on EVERY system, you would certainly run out, but if you limit it to a handful of disputed territories, you don't run into that risk quite as easily.
Originally posted by Starbridge42: Hmmm, I have about 6 missions a side from either the shipyard or the outfitters but I think people are just used to using the bar.
Actually, I think that having major missions start from anywhere other than the bar is a mistake (with the exception of things that make sense as starting from somewhere else; Barry and the Feds come to mind). Think about it: bars are a place where two people can meet, in public, to discuss the general details about a mission without getting too specific, which is what someone would do if they were fishing for a captain to do something for them. It's also a natural place for space-weary officers to go, as they've spent lots of time on their ships, and are probably looking for a break from it. Not many people would head to the Shipyard or Outfitters for a break from their regular routine.
A simple question related to what EVula said, and quite off-topic. In building the solar system, I have almost the inverse problem that you mentioned- I have the same planet show up in (up to) 16 systems, just not at the same time. Will missions set to go to a random spob work with this set up? Haven't had time to test that bit out thouroghly. Sometimes I see things in the debuglog saying "unable to find non-transient target spob" for missions, but I always thought that only happenned when the planet ceased to exist, not just moved. Is Nova smart enough to deal with this?
Oh, and a little more on topic- the missile rack idea- I'm stealing it for our plug. That's a great idea for a realistic setting like ours.
------------------ ~Charlie
That 'non-transient' message means that Nova cannot find a system NOT conditioned with an NCB for a particular government. If there are no unconditional appearing systems for a particular government (i.e. the mission has a destination of, for example, 10004) then Nova will not offer the mission.
------------------
Originally posted by EVula: **Actually, I think that having major missions start from anywhere other than the bar is a mistake (with the exception of things that make sense as starting from somewhere else; Barry and the Feds come to mind). Think about it: bars are a place where two people can meet, in public, to discuss the general details about a mission without getting too specific, which is what someone would do if they were fishing for a captain to do something for them. It's also a natural place for space-weary officers to go, as they've spent lots of time on their ships, and are probably looking for a break from it. Not many people would head to the Shipyard or Outfitters for a break from their regular routine.
I didn't mean that they start in the shipyards of outfitters, without giving too much away, it's just that certain missions... necesitate...going to those places
And sorry about the Evula, I've made the mistake of confusing you and Ewan before too so don't worry to much about it.
What I think would be cool is to include planets like in Martin Turners 'The Frozen Heart' plug for ev where you would press number 1 on the keypad and you could land at Earth but also press number 2 and land, still on the same planet but a different part of the planet. (this probably has allready been included in some nova plug ins but I havent found one yet.) Also another Idea is that you could have a space station that moved from system to system, not like a ship, you would not actually see it moving, but it could go and orbit round a different planet in another system. You could write it into a story saying it was a sort of aid station (i.e owned by the Red Cross) and it moved to different planets when they needed help etc. Just a few ideas there, I have no idea how easy/difficult they would be to implement or if any of you actually like them, but hey there just Ideas.
TheRedeemer
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(This message has been edited by TheRedeemer (edited 03-01-2003).)
Originally posted by EVula: **Actually, I think that having major missions start from anywhere other than the bar is a mistake (with the exception of things that make sense as starting from somewhere else; Barry and the Feds come to mind). **
Some Polaris Wraith missions appear when you land. Just noting; I really agree that mission should start from Bars.
Originally posted by TheRedeemer: **What I think would be cool is to include planets like in Martin Turners 'The Frozen Heart' plug for ev:redface: where you would press number 1 on the keypad and you could land at Earth but also press number 2 and land, still on the same planet but a different part of the planet. (this probably has allready been included in some nova plug ins but I havent found one yet.) **
Your first suggestion is a cool idea that I agree is not used enough. It's absurdly easy to implement for a plugin designer, with the only problem being that it is sometimes less-than-obvious to the player how to land on the other port. This was used to good effect in Reign of the UE (EVO) at one point where you had to land at a secret base on a prison planet.
One method I tried using in The Resurgence that works similarly, but with less confusion, is having one planet that you appear to land on but is in fact uninhabitable, with two or three invisible 'planets' within it's graphic acting as several ports on one planet. With this technique you can have landing points that appear in a noticeably different place on the planet's surface.
Heh, funny, I was JUST reading the EVN bible when I stumbled onto this.
Sorry, I don't have much time left so I haven't read any of the posts. Apologies if I repeat something already said:
--I think one of the main things is more ships, or at least more AuxShips. Being able to turn AuxShips into normal ones may be too much too ask, but just imagine the possibilities of having more than one special target fleet.
--Um... maybe a couple more behavior types for dudes? Wimpy, Brave, warship and interceptor are all there is. Maybe something along the lines of 'bully', like a behaviour that will ONLY attack wimpy traders, or something. I have a suspicion that this has already been implemeted, but I haven't read the entire bible yet so I'm not sure.
Can't think of much else, but don't you worry, I'll be critizising and attacking the game's structure until ATMOS has a breakdown, that's for sure (won't we all).
--gav
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Originally posted by pistgavin: ** --Um... maybe a couple more behavior types for dudes? Wimpy, Brave, warship and interceptor are all there is. Maybe something along the lines of 'bully', like a behaviour that will ONLY attack wimpy traders, or something. I have a suspicion that this has already been implemeted, but I haven't read the entire bible yet so I'm not sure. **
I dont beleive that you can edit the behavior types. Correct me if im wrong.
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Originally posted by General Cade Smart: Some Polaris Wraith missions appear when you land. Just noting; I really agree that mission should start from Bars.
Missions starting as soon as you land make sense, depending on the missions. If the mission is a continuation of a mission string it makes perfect sense for it to start as soon as you step off your ship (for example, if your contact is waiting for you), but for the first missions in strings, the bar is a natural place (except, like I said, for certain instances; the GliTech missions make sense as starting in the Outfitter area).