Plug-in Creation For Dummies

As I've stated in someone else's topic before, is there a guide to creating plug-ins that isn't as complicated as the Nova Bible? I just have trouble comprehending it for some reason, so I need someone to go down to my level of programming and plug making skills (which is none) and scream in my face how to do it, becuase I want to learn how.

EDIT: While I'm thinking about it, I have a question for those who know Nova. What does this...

preparing main screen
setting up world
checking network stack
creating connection
couldn't create connection (error code -7108)
setting up main screen graphics
doing main screen

...mean? I'm trying to help someone who's game crashes. It is a segment from his debuglog.txt that cuased me to raise my eyebrows.

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-Drew
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(This message has been edited by fchsjv4 (edited 10-28-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by fchsjv4:
checking network stack
creating connection
couldn't create connection (error code -7108)

This could be Nova attempting to check network time servers, to verify your registration.

The rest seems to be about starting up the game, specifically the opening screen.

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Be funny if it was some kind of trojan someone made that hacks into Nova and uses it as its connection. 🙂

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Quote

Originally posted by mrxak:
**This could be Nova attempting to check network time servers, to verify your registration.

The rest seems to be about starting up the game, specifically the opening screen.

**

Is that how it works? I thoght you only had to reverify when you updated the game. Thats the only time I hava had to do it. Of course, I'm still using 1.0.2, probably something I should change.

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No, no, no, that's Nova looking for updates, boot it while you're on the web and see. Pike or someone told me that nova actually only checks during your registrataion or something (I dunno, I never had any problems with it) as they didn't want to go down the spyware path.

As for making plugins... you don't really need to read the bible, just get some practice editing the nova files yourself, you know the things, making ion cannons not use fuel, making a ship available for purchase that normally isn't, just little things to let you get the feel of the easier bits, and consult the bible for the wierd things, like hex cloaking flags.

Practice is the only way to success.

~A~

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Quote

Originally posted by cdrcoyote:
**Be funny if it was some kind of trojan someone made that hacks into Nova and uses it as its connection. 🙂

**

Not really... That would be messed up, though I don't imagine that anyone would download the game from anywhere except Ambrosia, and the few mirrors that it has put up, so that would be really hard to do.

~Dimpfinator

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Quote

Originally posted by Azdara:
No, no, no, that's Nova looking for updates, boot it while you're on the web and see. Pike or someone told me that nova actually only checks during your registrataion or something (I dunno, I never had any problems with it) as they didn't want to go down the spyware path.

I think the update check that Nova does is it basically sends the current version number in cleartext to Ambrosia, and then a message is returned telling whether or not it needs updating:

Nova: I have version 1.0.3.
ASW: You need updating.

Fear the intrusive spyware. 😉

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