@-visitor-, on Dec 16 2006, 06:13 PM, said in EVO Questions:

...I could have sworn...

And you could well be right! I certainly can't remember the exact weapons/stats I gave every last pers ship. I just couldn't find it

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It occurs to me that you have talked reletively little about the Miranu, good Mr. Cartwright. It is not as though I have any questions to ask about them, but I still can't help but wonder if there is anything going on in their territory that we are not privy to.

Well, the Miranu are very straight-forward - they're peaceful traders, who want to trade with everyone in this part of the galaxy (and even beyond it if possible!). So there's no extensive backstory or dark secrets in their case.

I assume the same probably goes for the Zachit as well too, right?

@coraxus, on Dec 16 2006, 07:47 PM, said in EVO Questions:

I assume the same probably goes for the Zachit as well too, right?

Well, the Zachit are a disparate group of mercenaries hired and retained by the Miranu - simple as that. But, of course, the individual members of the Zachit each have their own unique and often colourful history.

Something that's always been on my mind is what could've been tucked away in the nebula in the Galactic North-West (I can't remember its name, but it isn't the Proxima Nebula, I know that for a fact).

Was this an idea that you had thought about implementing, Mr. Cartwright?

Hello Mr. Cartwright, it's very nice to see you around these forums. I won't comment on which side of the "being able to do everything in a shuttle/not" divide I fall, but there are a few questions I'd like to ask about EV Override. It was my first Ambrosia game, and I want to commend you on making it so awesome.

First, how come the splash screen was made smaller in version 1.0.2 than it was in 1.0.0? I seem to recall I used to be able to read more of the numbers on the UE ship in the foreground.

What's a piffle?

What shape is a fuzz, what features does it have, and how long is its fur?

Why the UES Incontrovertible?

Why John Cook?

How can Crescent Station block a jump route?

Why does the Council trust the Azdgari to maintain it, and not greedily expand beyond the crescent to the exclusion of the other two strands?

Why the letters AADGIRZ?

What does the Strand species look like?

How about the Miranu, Voinians, Emalgha, Hinwar, Kayans, and the other minor races?

What color is a flying shark?

Was the Strange Asteroid really supposed to be a Coke machine?

How do Crescent ships enter hyperspace faster than human, voinian, and emalghia ships?

Hypothetically, if the south tip strandless worlds joined together in an economic cartel that bribed renegades, incited the defection of a minor Igadzra world, stole human technology, moved uninhabited moons through hyperspace, marketed Hirineeses, and opposed the Miranu Trading Corp, would the Council intervene?

Why is the United Earth pushing sales of land on Molos so much?

What information does the UE get from its listening posts, and what does it do with it?

Who built them and when?

@qaanol, on Dec 19 2006, 05:10 PM, said in EVO Questions:

I won't comment on which side of the "being able to do everything in a shuttle/not" divide I fall

Oh, don't worry - I've read all about you. I've played through a lot of the game in a fighter at one time or other, but a shuttle!? You must be crazy!

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First, how come the splash screen was made smaller in version 1.0.2 than it was in 1.0.0? I seem to recall I used to be able to read more of the numbers on the UE ship in the foreground.

No idea - the splash screen was outsourced by Andrew, so I know nothing about it.

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What's a piffle?

Context? Piffle would usually mean 'rubbish'.

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What shape is a fuzz, what features does it have, and how long is its fur?

It's the shape of a wind-blown ball of fuzz. Its features are concealed by its fur. Its fur is very long.

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Why the UES Incontrovertible?

Why the ship, or why the name? I wanted to have a UE 'ghost ship', seen going down fighting in the war, but rumoured to reappear to save the day when things look most bleak. It's not real, you understand - the only people who claim to have seen it are the same people who claim to have seen space parrots! (Did anyone ever do a plug with space parrots ?)

As for the name, it's meant to be a just barely plausible warship name, or maybe just the other side of ridiculous. As far as I know, there was never an HMS Incontrovertible, but I think there was at least one HMS Indefatigable (for example).

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Why John Cook?

Is this a pers ship? Didn't someone called John Cook work for Ambrosia? If so, everyone at Ambrosia was offered a pers ship.

Edit: Yes, since his ship is between Jason Whong's and David Dunham's in the list, I'm fairly sure he was one of the Ambrosia crew. Since he has a UE Destroyer, I assume he asked for one!

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How can Crescent Station block a jump route?

I don't have an advanced degree in hyperspace physics, so I couldn't tell you. I will give you my layman's knowledge when I get to that stage of revealing the rest of the background/timeline that was written down.

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Why does the Council trust the Azdgari to maintain it, and not greedily expand beyond the crescent to the exclusion of the other two strands?

Well, in the first place, the Council (as described above) has agents throughout all three Strands, so it would quickly learn about any Azdgari plan to do this. In the second place, although the Azdgari have been entrusted with the protection of this station, that doesn't mean they understand how it works

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Why the letters AADGIRZ?

I don't remember there being any reason for those specific letters.

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What does the Strand species look like?

How about the Miranu, Voinians, Emalgha, Hinwar, Kayans, and the other minor races?

I have no idea. I decided very early on that I would rely on using distinctive character features - described in the text - to distinguish the aliens, as EV offered no natural way to show what aliens looked like (and coming up with decent alien graphics would have been prohibitively expensive anyway). So from that point on, I never thought about it - it would be no use me having an image of the alien in my head, when the reader couldn't share that image.

This post has been edited by pac : 19 December 2006 - 02:30 PM

"Qaanol" said:

What color is a flying shark?

They come in a range of colours.

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Was the Strange Asteroid really supposed to be a Coke machine?

Yes. (If you spotted an alien drinks machine floating through your space, you'd want to hire someone to investigate it too!)

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How do Crescent ships enter hyperspace faster than human, voinian, and emalghia ships?

The factors here are the mass of the ship, and the power of the hyperdrive (which is dependent on size and miniaturisation technology). But the relationship between the two is not direct. So, Voinian ships are huge - an engine big enough to allow one to jump quickly would be bigger than the ship itself. Conversely, Crescent technology is much more mature in this area, and Crescent ships are much less massive, so they tend to jump much faster. A few more modern (and specialised) human vessels (like the Scoutship) do jump fairly quickly.

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Hypothetically, if the south tip strandless worlds joined together in an economic cartel that bribed renegades, incited the defection of a minor Igadzra world, stole human technology, moved uninhabited moons through hyperspace, marketed Hirineeses, and opposed the Miranu Trading Corp, would the Council intervene?

They wouldn't need to. They could stop it all before it even began, as Council agents are as common in Strandless space as they are among the Strands. However, the Council appreciate a good plug-in too, so they might not act instantly.

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Why is the United Earth pushing sales of land on Molos so much?

Earth is over-populated and polluted, and this is the latest colony world to become viable. No other reason that I know of.

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What information does the UE get from its listening posts, and what does it do with it?

Who built them and when?

You can see one example in the game manual: a scan of a Miranu Courier. The UE navy knows that there are aliens out there, but is not eager (after the Voinian experience) to go out looking for them. The listening posts were built (between the founding of the UE and the start of the game) to passively pick up this kind of information.

Good day, Mr. Cartwright! Good to see creators still wandering around answering the questions of the slavering players wanting to know...

...just my two questions, though - does New Rome's 'flying shark' really exist?

And did those marines on Fu ever get through to the old Voinian coot?

@pac, on Dec 15 2006, 11:59 AM, said in EVO Questions:

When the Voinians come into contact with these humans, they (the Voinians) are horrified - this is the first alien race who've developed their own spacefaring technology they have run into! This shouldn't be allowed! So the Voinians decide to wipe them all out.

But wait... hadn't they already enslaved a few spacefaring races already? And what about the Emalgha? They already had hyperspace drives and their own ships, and they were fighting the Voinians. Is there any backstory as to why the Voinians enslaved these races? I mean I'm sure the Voinian Empire is more than just an empire driven to conquer the galaxy.

@evweb, on Dec 20 2006, 09:59 AM, said in EVO Questions:

...I'm sure the Voinian Empire is more than just an empire driven to conquer the galaxy.

Somehow, I kind of doubt that. I've always seen them as such. :laugh:

@evweb, on Dec 20 2006, 05:59 PM, said in EVO Questions:

But wait... hadn't they already enslaved a few spacefaring races already? And what about the Emalgha? They already had hyperspace drives and their own ships, and they were fighting the Voinians. Is there any backstory as to why the Voinians enslaved these races? I mean I'm sure the Voinian Empire is more than just an empire driven to conquer the galaxy.

Sorry, I should have said 'first alien race who've developed their own interstellar spacefaring technology'. The Emalgha had just made it into space (possibly to one or both of their moons) when the Voinians arrive.

(Edit: The Emalgha's native spaceflight was brought to a stop, and their homeworld was invaded. Later, when the Voinian fleet suffered reverses against the humans, the Emalgha were able to stage an uprising and overthrow the Voinians. They then were able to copy Voinian hyperdrive (and other) technology, and improvise the rest themselves. They never developed hyperdrives themselves.)

The Voinians (or at least, their prevailing culture) believe in their own destiny and uniqueness - anything else out there which displays technology or intelligence just shouldn't, and has to be either enslaved or wiped out.

This post has been edited by pac : 20 December 2006 - 01:28 PM

@ryuu, on Dec 20 2006, 12:17 PM, said in EVO Questions:

...just my two questions, though - does New Rome's 'flying shark' really exist?

Of course! Get out of the Spaceport Bar for once and join a safari looking for one!

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And did those marines on Fu ever get through to the old Voinian coot?

He's probably still there complaining

Did you have a plot worked out for when the Voinians conquer UE? And did you just have the last Voinian mission success desc there to so you didn't have to make more missions? And how come if the Voinians can build a Dreadnought and design a cloaking device, they're capital ships are so poorly armed?

(If you can't tell, I'm a Voinian Fanatic)

Hmm. Just come back from a nostalgic round of Override on Nova(It's just not the same, darnit), and I have more questions -

First, why are the UE Freighter and Cargo Transporter the only ships with solar panels on 'em? (I like the panels, actually, gave them a bit of a 'retro' look)

Second, does sanity come into account when looking for space parrots?

Were the gatling-type guns on the UE Fighter intentional, or did they just look 'cool'?

And last, is there any truth to the thousand-turret Supply Ship of the Voinian Empire, or is it just exaggeration for the benefit and awe of the human?

@evweb, on Dec 20 2006, 08:09 PM, said in EVO Questions:

Did you have a plot worked out for when the Voinians conquer UE?

No, they lose.

Even if you do the Voinian mission strings, the achievements are very minor compared to the UE offensives on the other side - a pilot who does it is just backing the wrong horse! The timeline assumes that all the events of all the strings in the game happen - so Verril Prime gets bombed (again), etc., but the UE-Emalgha offensive happens anyway.

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And did you just have the last Voinian mission success desc there to so you didn't have to make more missions?

No: the project referred to at the end of that mission string is the Dreadnought project - and we know how that ends!

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And how come if the Voinians can build a Dreadnought and design a cloaking device, they're capital ships are so poorly armed?

A combination of arrogance and lack of invention. Neutron turrets and lots of rockets worked for centuries, so why should anything change? It's remarkable that they've adapted as much as they have.

If they never came across a hyperspace capable species before humans, why do they need capital ships. It should be easy to keep non space fairing races in check with less armed ships

This post has been edited by Hypochondriac : 20 December 2006 - 10:38 PM

@ryuu, on Dec 20 2006, 11:14 PM, said in EVO Questions:

First, why are the UE Freighter and Cargo Transporter the only ships with solar panels on 'em? (I like the panels, actually, gave them a bit of a 'retro' look)

They are completely non-military ships. On any ship going into a dangerous situation, that's a pretty big target. And more modern designs just have very little need for them.

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Second, does sanity come into account when looking for space parrots?

Well, there's one obvious space parrot who everyone (who has played unregistered) will have met. You have to stay up very late to see any others

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Were the gatling-type guns on the UE Fighter intentional, or did they just look 'cool'?

They were always part of that ship design. In fact, at one point they were even bigger, I think, but it looked unbalanced.

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And last, is there any truth to the thousand-turret Supply Ship of the Voinian Empire, or is it just exaggeration for the benefit and awe of the human?

What rumours? The actual text says:

'In recent times equipment shortages have forced the Supply Corps to limit the armament on these ships to a single neutron turret, a far-cry from days gone by.'

In 'days gone by' they might have had two. There's no mention of thousands there.

(SORRY DOUBLE POST)

This post has been edited by UE_Research & Development: 20 December 2006 - 10:28 PM

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There's no mention of thousands there.

Are you completely sure about that? I could have sworn that the hire description had something to that effect. Of course, it is a Voinian jingoist captain you're talking to, though...

@hypochondriac, on Dec 21 2006, 03:18 AM, said in EVO Questions:

If the never came across a hyperspace capable species before humans, why do they need capital ships. It should be easy to keep non space fairing races in check with less armed ships

Well, remember, before the Voinians encountered humans they didn't have rocket turrets or fighters (or interceptors). So: a ship with the mobility of a Voinian Cruiser with no fighters and only forward-firing rockets? Not much of a fighting vessel, right? Precisely because they'd never met significant opposition before!

They built huge ships because they were symbols of the pride of the Empire! And a fleet of Cruisers makes an excellent tool for planetary discipline: got a widespread planetary revolt? Bombard them until it stops!