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How have you saved time on plug-ins?
As any self-respecting developer knows, nova came with a truckload of kick-ass new features - now, while these features help us create a better, more interesting, more fun universe, some also include something possibly even more important: they allow you to save time. So, what is this topic? It's a place to ratle off how EVN's new features have helped YOU save time. I'm hoping that this topic will end up with at least 10 ideas for those of us who have 20 minutes free everyday and want to make the most of it to get your plug-in out the door. Note something: this topic is NOT intended to be brand-new ideas, so if something is listed here that is blatant/well-known, it doesn't mean it's not valid. The purpose of this topic is to be a compilation, not a new-idea pool. I'll start us off:
{} in planet descs: If you're making an Auroran add-on and want the Tekel to become first house, you're going to want to change the Aurora description - but if first house trade-offs were common, you'd probably want to change only one or two words. You could make an entire new system with a new planet and a new description - or, you could test for the ncb in a {} statement. So, instead of making a whole new system with a new planet and new desc that appeared on b99 but only changed "Heraan" to "Tekel", you could just replace the word "Tekel" with {b99 "Tekel" "Heraan"} and save yourself the hassle of making a new system.
Ah, I have a stock Mechanisto document as stationary that has a basic collection of shaders and other stuff lined out.. I think that counts...
It is already set up for 36 frames by 3 for banks.
This post has been edited by rmx256 : 26 December 2004 - 08:06 PM
There's an excel page ( i can't find it right now) on the addons page that everything written down except for the bits.It's really helpful. I think this counts.
Yeah, that counts. It doesn't have to be new feature in Nova if it saves time on development. But no "crons because they let you do intervals" - it has to save time, and if isn't self-explanatory, you should explain it (like my first post). Here's one that isn't a feature in Nova, but helps make Nova development go smoother and quicker:
The number of editors. With EVONE's really good system/galaxy editors, MC's good graphical editors, and NT's all-around goodness (especially in the shan editor), Nova plug-in development will be a hell of a lot easier. Windows users aren't applicable since we don't have anything to compare it to in their case.
My "time-saving" (and probably project-saving) method was to simply open EVN Firefly to contributions from anyone who was interested in helping. All the input had to be channeled through me, of course, and I had to edit some of it to get a consistent "voice", but it did speed things up enormously.
That's a good idea for TCs that are based on stuff that already has a cannon, I guess.
Thought about that a long time ago when a Robotech TC was proposed, though there isn't enough there to do a TC from.