A hitlist you can influence

Greetings.

As of late, I've spent much of my developmental energies on porting, and have decided, after completing a port of a small plugin that it's not likely any of you have ever heard of, to port Clavius & Beyond, though which version (3.2s or 3.3) I'm not sure.

This process is vastly streamlined, with modern SpacePort, and should only take a week or two, barring technical problems or laziness, to complete, as far as technical details.

The future, though, I'm not so certain about. I think I'm going to port a few more plugins, before I seriously consider working on a project of my own, but which one immediately after Clavius is unknown.

The most likely candidates are New Horizons, RoP, or a member of the Empire series (most likely E2), but I'm willing to take suggestions.

So if you want a particular plugin to dominate my attention after I'm sure Clavius is ported, let me know, and I'll look into the possibility.

Thanks.

CaptJosh has been working on and off on Clavius for ages now. You could hook up with him and see where he's at.

(edit) Oh, and SpacePort b5 isn't up to scratch with EV plugs yet. I think the main issue is weapon guidance but there may be other important stuff too.

This post has been edited by Guy : 30 October 2007 - 05:00 PM

His is for rEVisited, though, and is more of a re-imagining -- I'm looking into straight, solid ports, like your standard EV port is.

Guidance seemed pretty reliable when I was porting the current plugin; what's wrong with it?

Ah, true.

Well it doesn't take into account the way guidance actually worked in EV, as efforts have been focused on EVO. Here's how things should be converted:
Guidance type 1: 10°/s, Confused by sensor interference
Guidance type 2: 40°/s, Decoyed by asteroids, 100% susceptible to type 1 jamming
Missile Jammer: 50% type 1 jamming.

(edit) Multiply turn rates by the 1.5x speed factor. Also note that jamming works way differently between all 3 games so the jamming there is simply what I considered a 'reasonable' setup.

(edit2) There's also a different damage calculation for EV. I'm not sure if this calculation is present in SpacePort b5 but here's what it's supposed to be:
EnergyDmg = max(MassDmg, EnergyDmg+MassDmg/4)
MassDmg = max(EnergyDmg, MassDmg+EnergyDmg/4)

This post has been edited by Guy : 31 October 2007 - 03:57 AM

The damage calc does seem to be present -- good thing, it'd be a real pain to go back and change all of that.

Thanks for the tips on guidance; I've adjusted them and turning speeds to match your EV port. Good thing that info was around on time.

I find it mildly ironic that SpacePort's configured to port EVO plugins, when EV plugins are the most numerous and well-liked, on average.

@consul-bob, on Oct 30 2007, 06:02 PM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

His is for rEVisited, though, and is more of a re-imagining -- I'm looking into straight, solid ports, like your standard EV port is.

Actually, didn't CaptJosh do a straight port before continuing on to do Clavius rEVisited? Is this it? I do think you should drop him a PM or email. It might save either or both of you some work.

I did take a look earlier, but it has a not-inconsequential number of flaws, just looking in the editor:

1. No rlé8/rléD files
2. No speed alterations whatsoever, to anything
3. No read-mes or documentation of any kind (very significant)
4. Improperly configured missiles
5. Includes redone graphics not present in Clavius 3.33 (Light Freighter, Confed/Rebel Cruisers, Kestrel, for a few examples)

It's generally outdated, and a better version, more true to the original and consistent with Guy's EV port, wouldn't be a bad thing, in my opinion.

As for CaptJosh's port, there doesn't seem to be any record of him attempting to create a non-rEVisited version.

Now, it is mentioned that Guy himself made a Spaceported version for Josh's use; however, this was months ago, before the speeds in Guy's ports were altered, and so if it was more complete, it would still be outdated (moreover, there's no evidence that he ever gave it to anyone but Josh).

What conversion changes did you make in that version, Guy?

This post has been edited by Consul Bob : 31 October 2007 - 03:46 PM

I support remaking Clavius & Beyond. I'd also be interested in Oreste and Final Battle, though I seem to remember the latter having a bug or two that required hacking the plugin. Or maybe it was just a ludicrously hard mission...there was definitely something like disarming some freighters that were set to "flee" and had puny armor and you were under attack and if you destroyed any freighters or let any of them escape then you failed the mission.

@consul-bob, on Nov 1 2007, 03:16 AM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

The damage calc does seem to be present -- good thing, it'd be a real pain to go back and change all of that.

Check weapons where there's a large difference between mass and energy damage. This is where the max check will have an effect. For small differences, the calculations are the same as for EVO so you won't see anything wrong.

@consul-bob, on Nov 1 2007, 03:16 AM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

I find it mildly ironic that SpacePort's configured to port EVO plugins, when EV plugins are the most numerous and well-liked, on average.

Well this is because I did the EVO port first - I liked EVO better and the official EVO port was terrible (EV wasn't so bad). Originally started work on that ages ago and orca updated SpacePort as I went. My EV port is very recent, so the correct EV-specific calculations haven't made their way into SpacePort yet.

@consul-bob, on Nov 1 2007, 09:39 AM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

I did take a look earlier, but it has a not-inconsequential number of flaws, just looking in the editor.
It's generally outdated.

Yeah, I'm aware of this port (it's not by CaptJosh) and haven't really looked at it but am not surprised at the issues with it.

@consul-bob, on Nov 1 2007, 09:39 AM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

Now, it is mentioned that Guy himself made a Spaceported version for Josh's use; however, this was months ago, before the speeds in Guy's ports were altered, and so if it was more complete, it would still be outdated (moreover, there's no evidence that he ever gave it to anyone but Josh).

What conversion changes did you make in that version, Guy?

IIRC, the changes I made to the SpacePorted product were to make it more compatible with the existing official EV port. Ie, nothing useful to you now.

Here are some more calculations which I don't think are in b5:
Ship Accel and accel upgrade values = AccelSpeedFactorSpeedFactor - This one's important!
Tribute = TechLevel*1000, minimum of 1000
(btw, I have a b6 orca sent me which does most of these calculations but there's a bug which messes up the shield regen and amor fields)

This post has been edited by Guy : 01 November 2007 - 05:18 AM

Rats.

I'll need to go back and change things to suit this new information, though I suppose it isn't too surprising; I was rather surprised when the Slicer accel in the port was different from the Arada's earlier (despite them having the same accel in the origina plugin/original EVO).

The info is welcome, though; I wouldn't have been able to figure it out very easily otherwise (especially the tribute stuff).

Thanks.

@consul-bob, on Oct 30 2007, 03:05 PM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

Greetings.

As of late, I've spent much of my developmental energies on porting, and have decided, after completing a port of a small plugin that it's not likely any of you have ever heard of, to port Clavius & Beyond, though which version (3.2s or 3.3) I'm not sure.

This process is vastly streamlined, with modern SpacePort, and should only take a week or two, barring technical problems or laziness, to complete, as far as technical details.

The future, though, I'm not so certain about. I think I'm going to port a few more plugins, before I seriously consider working on a project of my own, but which one immediately after Clavius is unknown.

The most likely candidates are New Horizons, RoP, or a member of the Empire series (most likely E2), but I'm willing to take suggestions.

So if you want a particular plugin to dominate my attention after I'm sure Clavius is ported, let me know, and I'll look into the possibility.

Thanks.

A little off topic, but I just wanted to mention that my port of E5: Heart of Darkness has reached public beta. See this topic.

I have begun work on porting RoP, though it may take a while since I don't have tons of free time these days.

You NEED to port EVGE. EVGE is one of the best EV plugs ever, second only perhaps the Empire plugs. I've spent hundreds of hours playing EVGE, and am dying to play it again in Nova. Of course, any plug is better than none, but EVGE is one of the best.

Thanks!

To be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of EVGE when I played some of it for EV. It did add a lot of stuff, but that stuff didn't always try very hard to blend in with the existing universe, and the main powers, the Confederation and Rebellion, were rendered completely useless satellite powers in the face of the two new governments, who both championed individual causes (Orion the Confed, Polaris the Rebel), but had better tech than the Confeds or Rebels could ever hope to have. A lot of the new tech was basically just one-upping everything in EV. I didn't really like that approach too well, and it didn't really "grab" me in the end. I know mine isn't likely a popular opinion, but that's how I feel about it.

Nevertheless, if people really want it that badly, I'd be willing to consider porting it.

I've been thinking pretty seriously compiling a guide of info related to porting these things. That way, if the time comes and I don't do a particular plugin, y'all will have the ability to port them as well, so it won't be as necessary to have any one guy to do something.

Reason for edits:
Edit #1. To make myself look less stupid (yeah, I know) and phrase it in a way that fits in with what I said before, while conveying my current line of thought.
Edit #2. To add in this "reason for edits" which I didn't add the first time.

This post has been edited by Consul Bob : 07 November 2007 - 04:22 AM

Just throwing this out there: I love the Clavius & Beyond plug, and definitely support what you're doing. Good work.

@consul-bob, on Nov 7 2007, 01:16 AM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

To be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of EVGE when I played some of it for EV. It did add a lot of stuff, but that stuff didn't always try very hard to blend in with the existing universe, and the main powers, the Confederation and Rebellion, were rendered completely useless satellite powers in the face of the two new governments, who both championed individual causes (Orion the Confed, Polaris the Rebel), but had better tech than the Confeds or Rebels could ever hope to have. A lot of the new tech was basically just one-upping everything in EV. I didn't really like that approach too well, and it didn't really "grab" me in the end. I know mine isn't likely a popular opinion, but that's how I feel about it.

Nevertheless, if people really want it that badly, I'd be willing to consider porting it.

I've been thinking pretty seriously compiling a guide of info related to porting these things. That way, if the time comes and I don't do a particular plugin, y'all will have the ability to port them as well, so it won't be as necessary to have any one guy to do something.

Reason for edits:
Edit #1. To make myself look less stupid (yeah, I know) and phrase it in a way that fits in with what I said before, while conveying my current line of thought.
Edit #2. To add in this "reason for edits" which I didn't add the first time.

You are correct, EVGE did have some weaknesses. But I just found it was so vast a plugin, with so many cool ships and some not half-bad missions, that you really didn't notice the "one-upping" you're talking about. And, until one got the alien marauder, EVGE was actually hard. The first time I played it, it was impossibly hard. Then I came back later, and it wasn't so hard, bt having to kill that alien marauder was tough.

If other people prefer, then the Empire plugins are very good. I happened to run into some very annoying bugs while playing them, like when one planet would not change governments no matter how many times you redid the string to get it to work. There were also some minor annoyances that EVN could fix. The fighter bays, for example. Some ships were supposed to be carriers. However, because having just one bay enabled a person to get the max ships by having just one bay, then multiple bays just increased your fighter launch speed, not the number of ships one could carry, so some ships ended up having "extra" fighters which could not be replaced if they were lost. In EVN, a certain type of bay could have a certain limit of ships per bay, and a certain number of bays per carrying ship, depending on the class of ship.

New horizons was also a very good plug. Unfortunately, I quickly found that I could take any ship in the game out with a few upgrades on that 10m civilian ship, and could never find out anything about those weird aliens the game had, which seemed interesting. The RTDF string was kinda neat, though. And I liked the idea that everything was happening after the original EV, while containing some of EV's history, like outdated Confed cruisers.

@cippy, on Nov 7 2007, 09:28 AM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

Just throwing this out there: I love the Clavius & Beyond plug, and definitely support what you're doing. Good work.

Thanks!

@beric, on Nov 7 2007, 10:09 AM, said in Porting EV Plugins:

You are correct, EVGE did have some weaknesses. But I just found it was so vast a plugin, with so many cool ships and some not half-bad missions, that you really didn't notice the "one-upping" you're talking about. And, until one got the alien marauder, EVGE was actually hard. The first time I played it, it was impossibly hard. Then I came back later, and it wasn't so hard, bt having to kill that alien marauder was tough.

Well, plugins grab us in different ways. I'm glad you had a good time with EVGE; it looked like it was well-crafted. It just didn't fit me, at the time. I might try it again and see if the years that've passed have been sufficient to change my mind.

Quote

There were also some minor annoyances that EVN could fix. The fighter bays, for example. Some ships were supposed to be carriers. However, because having just one bay enabled a person to get the max ships by having just one bay, then multiple bays just increased your fighter launch speed, not the number of ships one could carry, so some ships ended up having "extra" fighters which could not be replaced if they were lost. In EVN, a certain type of bay could have a certain limit of ships per bay, and a certain number of bays per carrying ship, depending on the class of ship.

Well, here's the only real problem with that.
EVN does have good features, and they'd really make things more convenient sometimes. But in the main releases of mine, they're not going to be used; the Nova engine'll only be turned to port the plugin, with the only changes being out of necessity (or in the case of typos, in which case they'll be fixed; the author shouldn't lose any face because of a small error they didn't notice). Gameplay, regardless of any minor flaws there may be, will be preserved if at all possible.

Now, there are secondary plugins, like for Guy's EVO port (Mischievous Mods, etc.) that I'd be cool adding in to make minor changes to things in main plugins. "The Grinchians" for Nova has something like that, with the Grinch Lightning Beam plug, which alters the appearance of the main beam to something I felt was more like the original. So I could have changes like those you mention in the secondaries.

Quote

New horizons was also a very good plug. Unfortunately, I quickly found that I could take any ship in the game out with a few upgrades on that 10m civilian ship, and could never find out anything about those weird aliens the game had, which seemed interesting. The RTDF string was kinda neat, though. And I liked the idea that everything was happening after the original EV, while containing some of EV's history, like outdated Confed cruisers.

I like New Horizons; I feel it has a good story. However, I completely understand it when people say that it was flawed, because it's true: they messed a lot of stuff up. The "modern" ships were all too much alike, so whenever I flew, I generally flew in old favorites -- either the Kestrel or the Rebel Destroyer. That was satisfying, taking out the results of a hundred year's of progress with traditional combat ships. In a lot of ways, NH was ahead of its time, but there were some things that could have been fixed or added that weren't the engine's fault.

In other news, "The Grinchians" has been released, and you can obtain it on your local EV Nova addons pages. Kudos to Guy for extensive beta-testing, and giving me a clue as to what I needed to change to make it truly authentic. Similar kudos to Cleindori, who kindly went back and edited the plugin's description to something I sent her; the old one didn't say which port it was for, or even definitively that it was for an EV port at all. It'd be bad if we had Nova players trying to install it for the Nova scenario, and people who still use the original EV port installing the plugin for that.

I'm going to take a break from the physical porting for a short time, but plot out some of the details of the next adventure, with Clavius. With any luck, now that I know a lot more about the porting process, this should go by in a relatively short time.

I won't make any promises as to date or time of release, but be on the lookout for it "real soon"!

Clavius & Beyond is fun and a good one to port. What about Pale?

I must admit it would be nice to see a New Horizons port by the ten-year anniversary next summer : )

If you do proceed with the port, I will be more than happy to assist (with my feeble skills). I think Tobias, one of the other developers, lurk around here as well.

Would be nice to see that old plug working again! But then I'll have to get another Mac as well, as I am currently stuck with the MacBook range that doesn't support 16-bit graphics. Sheesh.

Snorre, part of the NH Team

This post has been edited by snorrev : 25 June 2008 - 02:44 AM

Clavius already got ported. I'm now working on Clavius rEVisited, which is a project to update Clavius and Beyond to work with the rEVisited graphic and gameplay update to EV for Nova. I'm currently working with Guy's versions of both, the EV tc for Nova and rEVisited as he has the least buggy stuff.