More bugs to exterminate. I'm very nearly done with the Faction story-line.

1. I can confirm crazyaznkid666's claims about how destroying the "Merchant Captain" ship makes the player's Faction status go down the toilet. The ship seems to side with the Faction, and often ends up turning on its own Earth Confederacy escorts.

2. After the mission Forced Vengeance III , the Ferric system shifts to DREC ownership. It might be more prudent to set the visibility bits for Port Phoenix not to appear anymore, then swap the systems after the completion Forced Vengeance IV. But thats just my opinion.

3. After the Ferric system is under DREC control, Ferric-7 becomes inhabited. This is highly unusual, because it was unlandable before, its landing dësc is only "Ferric-7", and it has no Bar dësc.

4. When P-8457 comes under DREC control, after the mission Market Shares , its sprite and landing graphic change from a dull-grey desolate landscape to a Mars-like set.

5. During the mission A Warning in Blood , if your Antonida escorts should, somehow, become angry with you, it is impossible to defend oneself, as the player's shots pass right through the auxiliary ships.

6. The Fake ID outfit, "Merchant Transponder", is not persistent as the description would suggest, nor can it only be used once, as it can be purchased multiple times.

7. Boarding parties abandon ship if the player's daily net income is that of expenses, even if the player has enough money to pay them out-of-pocket. This makes them incompatible with escorts, unless you've already conquered half the universe.

8. Some unlandable stellars, such as Aeon II and Onedin VII, appear to have lights on the dark side, which would indicate inhabitation. Obviously, being uninhabited, the representation of these stellars but those graphics is an oversight.

9. Once Antonida warships become availible, both the normal and upgraded variants of the ABD Carrier are on display for purchase.

This post has been edited by ~vIsitor~ : 20 December 2007 - 11:13 PM

@-visitor-, on Dec 20 2007, 11:10 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:

1. I can confirm crazyaznkid666's claims about how destroying the "Merchant Captain" ship makes the player's Faction status go down the toilet. The ship seems to side with the Faction, and often ends up turning on its own Earth Confederacy escorts.

I think I've isolated the problem here. The "Merchant Captain" ship was mistakenly set to be allied with the faction and enemies with Earth. This explains why it would attack the Earth ships. The reason for the Faction hating you so completely after destroying just that one ship is because the "renegade captain" govt resource has a kill penalty of 9999 (more than enough to make you the most hated person alive). And since the Faction was mistakenly set as an ally of this govt, your legal status tanks in Faction systems too. This has been corrected as well.

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2. After the mission Forced Vengeance III , the Ferric system shifts to DREC ownership. It might be more prudent to set the visibility bits for Port Phoenix not to appear anymore, then swap the systems after the completion Forced Vengeance IV. But thats just my opinion.

To the best of my knowledge, it is not possible to set visbits on a stellar within a system, only on the system itself. A workaround would be to do an "intermediate" Ferric system that is still controlled by the FMG, but which is missing Port Phoenix. I have implemented this change.

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3. After the Ferric system is under DREC control, Ferric-7 becomes inhabited. This is highly unusual, because it was unlandable before, its landing dësc is only "Ferric-7", and it has no Bar dësc.

Taken care of.

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4. When P-8457 comes under DREC control, after the mission Market Shares , its sprite and landing graphic change from a dull-grey desolate landscape to a Mars-like set.

Fixed.

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5. During the mission A Warning in Blood , if your Antonida escorts should, somehow, become angry with you, it is impossible to defend oneself, as the player's shots pass right through the auxiliary ships.

Fixed. Somehow, all the escort governments had the "cannot be hit by player weapons" flag set. I don't know how this happened, but I have taken care of the problem (as presumably this would turn up in other missions as well).

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6. The Fake ID outfit, "Merchant Transponder", is not persistent as the description would suggest, nor can it only be used once, as it can be purchased multiple times.

This is a holdover from the original plug-in. Under the EVC engine, it was not possible to limit number of times the player could purchase a clean legal record outfit. I've taken care of this by simply having a mission bit set when you purchase the fake IFF that prevents you from buying it again.

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7. Boarding parties abandon ship if the player's daily net income is that of expenses, even if the player has enough money to pay them out-of-pocket. This makes them incompatible with escorts, unless you've already conquered half the universe.

Wait, I'm a little confused here. The marines jump ship if you have an income that equals what you have to pay them? Even if you have, say, 5 million credits? That by itself is weird. What does it have to do with escorts though? I like having to pay marines a daily salary. It would be a shame if I had to take that out. Can you elaborate on the problem a bit more?

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8. Some unlandable stellars, such as Aeon II and Onedin VII, appear to have lights on the dark side, which would indicate inhabitation. Obviously, being uninhabited, the representation of these stellars but those graphics is an oversight.

I doubt I will change this one for the final release. It's not really worth it to go through and photoshop these sprites just to better fit a few uninhabited planets. I'll think about it though.

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9. Once Antonida warships become availible, both the normal and upgraded variants of the ABD Carrier are on display for purchase.

Fixed.

As always, many thanks for all your work. I was wondering if you could give me your thoughts on the defense pods. In the original plug-in, you couldn't buy them as fighters. But, I thought they were so unique in Heart of Darkness that it would be a shame not to have them in RoP also. Do you feel that they make the game unbalanced?

@macdevil, on Dec 22 2007, 04:20 AM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:

Wait, I'm a little confused here. The marines jump ship if you have an income that equals what you have to pay them? Even if you have, say, 5 million credits? That by itself is weird. What does it have to do with escorts though? I like having to pay marines a daily salary. It would be a shame if I had to take that out. Can you elaborate on the problem a bit more?

I mean that if the player's income is zero or less, the marines abandon ship. If you conquer a few planets to counter-act this, they stay on-board, but if you, say, hire an escort and you start to hemorrhage money, even if you have 5 million on-hand they'll abandon you without a word. I'm not certain what is causing this, and I agree that losing the daily fee would be a terrible shame.

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As always, many thanks for all your work.

Its my pleasure. Plus, I get the added bonus of exploiting all sorts of loopholes before they're fixed

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I was wondering if you could give me your thoughts on the defense pods. In the original plug-in, you couldn't buy them as fighters. But, I thought they were so unique in Heart of Darkness that it would be a shame not to have them in RoP also. Do you feel that they make the game unbalanced?

Eh, they aren't too bad. Sure, they'll eat the local patrols alive, but their lack of mobility means that a lot of things escape, and they're not strong enough to withstand the fury of a planetary defense fleet. My only suggestion would be to axe the EMP cannons they have; after all, they already have a no-drain particle beam.

Speaking of super-powerful things you can't have, well, you know those stations you fight during the mission strings? Well, you can capture them if you abort the associated mission. It might, perhaps, be better if you set them to have 0 crew, so they can't be captured. Flying around in Port Phoenix is fun, alright, but it gets a bit boring being in an nearly invincible battle-station, and its terribly confusing when you try to orient yourself :laugh:

@-visitor-, on Dec 22 2007, 01:24 AM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:

I mean that if the player's income is zero or less, the marines abandon ship. If you conquer a few planets to counter-act this, they stay on-board, but if you, say, hire an escort and you start to hemorrhage money, even if you have 5 million on-hand they'll abandon you without a word. I'm not certain what is causing this, and I agree that losing the daily fee would be a terrible shame.

Really? That's weird because it doesn't behave that way at all on my computer. I just did some testing. I bought the basic marine outfit (the one available at most starports). I had zero income and they stayed on my ship just fine (charging me the usual 5,000 credits per day). I then tried hiring an escort. The marines still stayed on until I sold them or captured a ship. Is this maybe occurring with one of the other types of marines? I know it seems silly to even ask this, but what type of computer are you using? Also, what version of EVN and which of the EVC ports are you using?

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Eh, they aren't too bad. Sure, they'll eat the local patrols alive, but their lack of mobility means that a lot of things escape, and they're not strong enough to withstand the fury of a planetary defense fleet. My only suggestion would be to axe the EMP cannons they have; after all, they already have a no-drain particle beam.

They actually have a lower-damage version of the particle beam that can't be bought by the player. It should still drain fuel though. I did give the defesepods an inherent fuel regeneration. Perhaps I set that too high. The cannons you are seeing are shockwave cannons. This is how they were in the original plug-in.

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Speaking of super-powerful things you can't have, well, you know those stations you fight during the mission strings? Well, you can capture them if you abort the associated mission. It might, perhaps, be better if you set them to have 0 crew, so they can't be captured. Flying around in Port Phoenix is fun, alright, but it gets a bit boring being in an nearly invincible battle-station, and its terribly confusing when you try to orient yourself :laugh:

Haha hadn't thought of that. Taken care of.

Sorry for my long absence. I am nearly done correcting all the bugs that have been reported. Does anybody have anything else to add to this list? I would like to get the final version of the plug-in out before school gets really busy again.

I'm curious, are you reuploading the plug each time your fix things? I ask because when I originally downloaded it some tiem ago I never got around to playing it and accidentally trashed it (doh), and just recently (read: a week ago) re-downloaded it, and sicne re-downloading it I'm not seeing any of the before-mentioned bugs, it seems to play fine.

Either way, the game seems to work flawlessly as is, and I really like it. Pass my congrats on to Tim for a fantastic game, and on to yourself for a fantastic port. I'm excited to see this finally go from beta to actual version

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry I've been away for so long. A few weeks ago an accident while uninstalling a program left several folders on my hard drive, including the one with all my EV Nova files, completely erased. As you can imagine, this has proven to be a huge setback, since the final version of ROP was nearly complete. I have begun the long and tedious process of correcting all the bugs that have been discovered for a second time. Since there is about a month of things to fix, I don't know for sure how long it will take me to get the final version finished. I'll keep you all posted. In the meantime, if you find any new bugs, post them here so I can take care of it.

Mac, use AppZapper for uninstalling the programs.

Hey MacDevil!

I tried your port, but for some reason I can't get the game to play faster than 1 fps. I have no trouble with Nova, Arpia or Arpia2.
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Correction: Nothing will play faster than 1 fps.

Thanks again!

~Tim~ =^.^=

This post has been edited by CaptAceHarddrive : 16 May 2008 - 11:38 PM

@captaceharddrive, on May 14 2008, 05:32 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:

Hey MacDevil!

I tried your port, but for some reason I can't get the game to play faster than 1 fps. I have no trouble with Nova, Arpia or Arpia2.
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Correction: Nothing will play faster than 1 fps.
Thanks again!

~Tim~ =^.^=

So you were or were not able to run the after all?

Also, this is your absolute last chance to report any bugs. I am completing my final test of the Faction storyline. Once that is complete, the plugin will be posted to the addons page. Since there hasn't been much chatter here recently, I am going to assume the major bugs have already been found.

What about the OTHER Port? How is that coming?

@kauthor, on Jun 4 2008, 02:56 AM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:

What about the OTHER Port? How is that coming?

Do you mean Heart of Darkness? Let me get Realm of Prey out the door and then we'll see.

Got it. Thanks. IM me when you can. I am free for the summer.

OH MY GOD, THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

I've been seriously hurting for Tim E. Isles' Empire Series and Realm of Prey for a long time, since the only OS 9-capable Mac I have died.

Have all of the bugs for the anti-Faction storyline been fixed?

I'm also unbelievably happy that you're porting over Heart of Darkness, though I'd be more partial to Brotherhood of the Kestrel. I was seriously considering trying out a conversion myself and was looking forward to Port Authority being released - pity it never saw the light of day...

@rampancy, on Jun 5 2008, 04:52 AM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:

OH MY GOD, THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

I've been seriously hurting for Tim E. Isles' Empire Series and Realm of Prey for a long time, since the only OS 9-capable Mac I have died.

Have all of the bugs for the anti-Faction storyline been fixed?

I'm also unbelievably happy that you're porting over Heart of Darkness, though I'd be more partial to Brotherhood of the Kestrel. I was seriously considering trying out a conversion myself and was looking forward to Port Authority being released - pity it never saw the light of day...

As far as I know, the plugin should be bug-free when released. All the reported bugs from the Earth storyline have been fixed, as have a few small ones that were present in the original plugin.

My Heart of Darkness port is already in beta. Search this forum and you should find the topic with the beta file. I am still not 100% sure I am going to have time to finish that project. It was actually my first attempt and I made many mistakes that I learned from for my Realm of Prey port. I don't feel that the HoD port is quite as true to the original plugin. But, the beta is fully playable (make sure you download the small fix plugin posted in the same topic, which corrects a fatal mission bug).

As for porting other plugins in the series, it is certainly doable, though I don't think I will ever have enough time to do another conversion myself. While Port Authority is long dead, there is a program called Space Port, which does the job quite nicely (again search the forums). You will have to go through and correct some fields yourself. But you will get a plugin that is almost playable right off the bat. You can then add things like ship variants and the like yourself. Just make sure that you replace your data files (put them in a safe place!) with those from the EV Classic for Nova port before trying to use a converted EV plugin. Otherwise, you will get conflicting resource values that will cause all kinds of weird errors. I would suggest experimenting with this if you want to convert Brotherhood of the Kestrel.

This post has been edited by MacDevil : 05 June 2008 - 08:12 AM

MacDevil,

Thank you very much for your efforts once again. I do have some questions, one of which I voiced in the EVN forum.

1. Well into The Faction storyline, there was a very odd bug I encountered back in the original version where, after dominating Port Paladin, I didn't get the mission to continue on with the rest of the storyline. I asked Tim about it, and apparently I was the first and only one who encountered it. Has anyone else reported this bug to you, and did you fix it?

2. I somehow find the game runs a lot...well, slower than I remember. Then again, my memory is notoriously rusty. Did you make any changes to the how fast the game runs?

This post has been edited by rampancy : 08 June 2008 - 12:58 AM

Porting plugs at "100%" speed makes them feel rather slow on Nova and change is required to make it feel more normal. The EV/O ports are at 150%. (Note I don't know what speed MacDevil has ported at)

This post has been edited by Guy : 07 June 2008 - 07:46 PM

@rampancy, on Jun 7 2008, 08:04 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:

MacDevil,

Thank you very much for your efforts once again. I do have some questions, one of which I voiced in the EVN forum.

1. Well into The Faction storyline, there was a very odd bug I encountered back in the original version where, after dominating Port Paladin, I didn't get the mission to continue on with the rest of the storyline. I asked Tim about it, and apparently I was the first and only one who encountered it. Has anyone else reported this bug to you, and did you fix it?

I seem to remember someone having this problem a while back. I have never encountered it in either the original or the converted versions, and nobody who has beta tested the conversion has reported it to me either. So, to the best of my knowledge, that bug is not present in the conversion (though I didn't do anything to fix it either). If you encounter it, let me know and I'll try to fix it.

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2. I somehow find the game runs a lot...well, slower than I remember. Then again, my memory is notoriously rusty. Did you make any changes to the how fast the game runs?

Yes, it is a bit slower than the original for the reasons that Guy mentioned. I didn't know I needed to set the conversion speed to 150% until I was very near to the end of making the plugin. At that point, I decided I did not want to throw away months of work and start again. I usually play with the caps lock on so everything is x2 and it feels about normal.

@macdevil, on Jun 8 2008, 11:39 AM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:

Yes, it is a bit slower than the original for the reasons that Guy mentioned. I didn't know I needed to set the conversion speed to 150% until I was very near to the end of making the plugin. At that point, I decided I did not want to throw away months of work and start again. I usually play with the caps lock on so everything is x2 and it feels about normal.

No need to throw everything away.... Run the plug through ConText, multiply (and/or divide and round) the relevant columns using Excel or something similar, then convert back to a plug using ResStore. Probably best to get a full list of the relevant transformations from Guy or orca before starting, but the whole process should go pretty fast. Spreadsheets are seldom fun , but they're plenty efficient.

Well, there's also balancing to take into account, but that doesn't seem like it should be that much work.