Extra Interface Button

What does it do?

As I'm tinkering with Nova's interface, does anyone know what the most bottom left button does? I don't think I've ever recall seeing it anywhere on any spobs I ever visited.

Sure, that opens up the Planet Management interface. Once you've had the planet captured for a certain amount of days (depending on tech level), you can start modifying some of its traits, such as commodity pricing, items/ships sold at the outfitter and shipyard, the type of ships that will be scrambled to defend you when you're attacked in-system, and the government the planet the belongs too, though I'm not sure if that bug was fixed in the last update. If not, you'll find that there are certain workarounds in place, such as using the OnLand field of the associated spob resource and a Gxxx.

I've made planet management a key aspect of my pet plug, as the player commands a growing empire and has to make certain decisions about how each new planet should be formed. I think some other plugs have used the feature to simulate a player creating a pirate network, where captured planets could be 'corrupted' by having them start selling black-market outfits and ships.

Or maybe it is the button for the spaceport novelty shop? I really can't remember.

Planet management interface? That's news to me, so then, how would I go about enabling it?

This post has been edited by Coraxus : 27 October 2007 - 10:42 PM

I thought it was for the mysterious "Back Room", where all the dodgiest things take place.

How many days?

EDIT: I did a quick plug to make the stellar always dominated and made a mission to advance the date a few years on completion. After fifteen "years", I'm still not seeing anything. What's up?

This post has been edited by Cosmic_Nusiance : 27 October 2007 - 11:39 PM

You just got Sarged.

Er, what does 'Sarged' mean? :huh:

(for the record though, I'm pretty sure the button label for "Back Room" still exists in Nova's data ;))

Planet management is very real, and in fact, even more powerful than described.

However, the control interface for it isn't in-game; you'll need a program outside of the main EV Nova game to use it. "MissionComputer" is very nice, but there are alternatives; the Windows users didn't have the ability to exploit planet management until an app called "EVNEW" was released.

Hope this helps!

So, what does it ACTUALLY do? (since I think werhner is joking ) Or does it not do anything?

Well, if it doesn't do anything in-game related, then I shouldn't be too concern about it I suppose.

Its probably something that was meant to be implemented when EVN was being programmed, but it was dropped and mBurch didn't bother to remove it.

@mburch, on Oct 6 2001, 08:54 PM, said in Button Graphics:

Since this has been asked so many times, I'll give a straight answer to clear it up once and for all...

In an early version of EV, there was a Back Room button in the bar that would lead you to what was basically just a copy of the existing Mission Computer window but filled with more "unique" missions. It was exceptionally lame, hence the thing you see now in which people come up and "talk" to you in the bar via pop-up dialogs.

The Demand More button may have been intended to have something to do with tribute or giving fuel to AI ships - I really don't remember, and I don't think any code was ever written that had anything to do with it.

Once those buttons crept their way into the EV data files, they stayed because we either didn't notice or didn't remember to take them out. Interestingly, during most of the development of Override, those buttons were gone - but sometime prior to the release they snuck back in somehow! Since the buttons are handled differently in Nova, I would hope that the phantom buttons will now be well and truly gone.

DLOG resource 4005 will probably stay, however, since I know David Dunham just loves answering email about it.

mcb

------------------
"If it's not on fire, it's a software problem."

I don't know if the phantom spaceport button in EVN has anything to do with that; it may just be there as a layout element left over from designing the dialog, as an artifact of planning out the button spacing.

Whether or not the button does anything, though, I don't think there's a way to make it appear in-game. If anyone can prove me wrong, I'd be very interested to hear about it....

If you look through the files, you'll find that there were also options to haggle in the trade center, as well as buttons to bet more than 1000 with one click at the races.

Well, it's OBVIOUS what the button was for, right? It was the Blow Up The Planet Button!

push

KAPOOOOOOOOOIIIIII!

@cosmic_nusiance, on Oct 29 2007, 08:02 AM, said in Extra Interface Button:

as well as buttons to bet more than 1000 with one click at the races.

In EV/O the gambling game was a slot machine and you had two buttons - one to bet 1000 and one to bet 5000 (IIRC). You couldn't place custom bets. Since you can place custom bets in Nova it would be pointless to have a bunch of different buttons.

There are a number of unused buttons in the data. I seem to recall one for "Requisition Escort". This is probably what the button on the spaceport was going to be, once you had dominated the stellar.

This post has been edited by Guy : 28 October 2007 - 04:09 PM

Quote

Since you can place custom bets in Nova

What? How?

@shlimazel, on Oct 28 2007, 05:09 PM, said in Extra Interface Button:

What? How?

Alt-click. (Or Option-click if you're a Mac user.)

I suspect that user item was inserted when the dialogue box was being designed, and then never used because there wasn’t a button to go in it. I doubt it’s even a deactivated former feature as the Back Room was.

I also suggest that any further hoaxing be kept out of this forum — it’s not as if you can hope to top the Secret Cheat Dialog.

What about the SoL?

I believe there is also an extra typing field in the Create New Player window. Anyone know what that was supposed to be for? Also, if anyone can get the extra button on the planets to work I would be eternally grateful. If it is indeed an extra Mission Computer, it would be perfect for the Stargate: Nova project for reasons I am not allowed to tell you about.

Spoiler

It either has something to do with rapid transportation or an 80s movie starring Weird Al. I'm not quite sure.