EV NOVA: "Sample Plugin" ?

How do I get a plugin that has ALL EVN default resources?

So its been eons since I last made anything for EV. Heck I only recently realized there was an EVN and its almost a decade old.

Im using OS X 10.4

Well, I decided I wanna make a few weapons for my personal use and such. I used to edit for EVO but its been ages, if I recall correctly there was a file called "Sample Plugin" or something included with EVO that when opened in an editor, had ALL of EVO's default resources right there ready to be modified. By this I mean, ALL the systems, their respective stats, all the ships an their stats, all the sprite resources and explosion resources and their images and everything that EVO used was all there.

Maybe this WASNT in the Sample Plugin but rather directly opening EVO. I really cant remember since this was like 10 years ago. My point is, I was able to access a file that had ALL of EVO's default resources in it, so that I could modify what I wanted, and see what other things used as their sprite resources and explosions and stuff.

So im using MissionComputer 4.0.4 or whatever the last version is, and its a cool editor, seems to do most everything id ever need. ONE HUGE PROBLEM. I cannot find ANYWHERE that has all the DEFAULT EVN resources and such that I can open in MissionComputer and modify.

I tried opening the EVN application in the editor but it said "this is a folder cant open it". I tried opening 3rd party plugins I downloaded, yet they ONLY contain the modifications they made verse the default EVN, they do not contain any of the default resources, and those are what im trying to find so I can modify them.

I launched classic and opened ResEdit and tried to open the EVN app, but it opened like a folder with all these .ICNS file types and stuff and I couldnt get it to open those as it said they had no resource forks.

SO. where the heck do I find a file I can open in my EVN OS X editor, that gives me ALL the DEFAULT RESOURCES/STATS for all the ships/missions/sprites/explosions/weapons/systems/governments/characters/fleets/etc/etc/etc that EVN uses so I can copy/edit/modify those that I want???

Can someone please help. I read the EV bible but that didint answer this at all, nor did the MissionComputer nor NovaTools readme documents nor googling helped me find any info on this either. This seems totally different than editing EVO stuff, as I remember with EVO I could open something (was either the app or the sample-plugin) and it showed me all the default resources/values/stats for EVO so I could pick and choose what I wanted to modify then copy/paste it into a new plugin (so as to keep the plugins file size down by only including the modified content rather than all the unchanged default content).

Again I ask: Where/how do I access EVN's DEFAULT resources for EVERYTHING the game uses so I can modify away the already existent things that makeup EVN?

Im using OS X 10.4 and have found MissionComputer 4.0.4 to be the best/easiest of the editors ive found for EVN in the ambrosiaSW utility add-ons section. Its very straightforward and with the bible in hand id have no problem doing what I need to do, IF IT WASNT for the fact I cannot for the life of me find the default resources for EVN that I absolutley need in order to modify pre-existing things.

Alls I can figure out is how to create NEW things, but for example; I want to use existing EVN sprite images for some of my NEW things (but cant find where those sprite images are and what their default resource ID's are for EVN), and I also want to modify existing things like system stats, special characters, etc.

Any help much appreciated. Im sure this is a basic issue, but ive seriously exhuasted all my efforts to find these default values and simply cannot.

It would really just be easiest to use the Nova data files. If you have EVN 1.1.0, then they are located inside the EVN app bundle. Just right click on EVN.app and select 'show package contents'. They should be there. If you want to modify the resources, just copy the data files and edit them to your heart's content.

Also, welcome to the boards, HappyCloud! Enjoy your stay, there's lot's to see here!

This post has been edited by Jalisurr : 06 July 2009 - 04:51 PM

Hey thanks for that bud. Didint know you could open the app up into its various components like that.

It is kinda annoying how all the resources are broken down into a dozen+ .ndat files though, too bad theyre not just all in one, but I can probably quickly make said file by copy/pasting all the resources into one single file for editing purposes.

Love all the extra features/effects there are in EVN engine verse the EVO engine though, can do way more neat stuff.

Until Nova 1.1.0, the files were all in a folder called "Nova Files" that were in the same folder as the application. They would be in one single file but because of something having to do with the way resource forks (or something else along those lines, I can't remember off the top of my head) are handled, a single file can't exceed a certain size. I know that the Nova files didn't used to be .ndat files, they were saved some other way, and I can think of a whole bunch of other stuff that I can't actually remember the details of that has to do with why there are so many separate files. EVO was just small enough that it could all fit into a few of those. EVC was the only one that only had one data file though, if I remember correctly... ?

This post has been edited by Crusader Alpha : 06 July 2009 - 11:06 PM

The only thing that I know of is that if you get too big a file of that type, it is very prone to corruption. There might be something else too.

QUOTE (HappyCloud @ Jul 6 2009, 10:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is kinda annoying how all the resources are broken down into a dozen+ .ndat files though, too bad theyre not just all in one . . .

Yes, that would definitely be more convenient. The problem is that the file format was designed in 1984, when large file sizes were impossible anyway, so it has many severe limits on what can be contained in a single file. The limits aren't all obvious, and it can be difficult to measure how close you are to hitting one; both EV Override and EV Nova lost resources this way during their development, as have most large plug-ins. The only safe solution is to err on the side of having many files.

There were also some editors, in the days of the first two games, which would read the contents of all of the game's data files, and make them appear in every plug-in you opened, so it was easy to modify them without digging through the data files each time. This was very convenient, but made it hard to tell which resources really were in the plug-in, and also made the read/write procedures much more complicated, which I suspect is one of the reasons that such editors were always rather unstable. At any rate, these are the reasons where I've chosen to forgo that route in MissionComputer and instead only show the resources that really are in the open file.

The next update to MissionComputer, incidentally, will restore easy access to the data files through the Open Special menu, which was broken by the EV Nova 1.1 update's changes to the file format.