I was thinking about gathering a bunch of different inovations, loopholes, etc from plug-in developers and publishing them to the plug-in developer's community, if you would all be willing to controbute. If I get enough, I'll publish them. I will give the people who made them credit, and if requested, hold off until certian plugs are released or dead.

An example: my mission bit recycling system. This is a way to get around running out of mission bits. It requires the story to be broken up into 2+ plug-ins.

Plug 1: Mission 1: sets bit 1, 1 much be clear
Plug 1: Mission 2: sets bit 2, 1 must be set, 2 must be clear
Plug 1: Mission 3: sets bit 3, 2 must be set, 3 must be clear

Plug 2: Mission 1: clears bit 1, 1 must be set
Plug 2: Mission 2: clears bit 2, 1 must be clear, 2 must be set
Plug 2: Mission 3: clears bit 3, 2 must be clear, 3 must be set

I'll personally add anything else I can think of. Of course, there are the old tricks like how to make a station that's a ship, how to make stealth ships/weapons, etc.

Once The Driving Force is released, I'll also add how to make a disrpution field.

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

Interesting, the collaborators of such a team would be welcome to carry out such a project at EV-Dev.net.

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The major inconvenient is to require the user to change the plugs himself. But it is quite imaginative and interesting.

A little trick: you want a storyline (or a mission) to start after 2 different storylines have been finished? It is impossible the normal way, the BitMustBeCleared field is used if you do not want the mission to be made more than once, and there is only one BitMustBeSet field. The trick is to make the mission available in only one planet, with the bit xxx required, and the planet is in fact made appear (or changed secretely) with the bit yyy. Therefore, the mission will not appear until both xxx and yyy bits have been set. This will be unuseful with EVN but I'm using it for EVO, and could be useful with EV.

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most of these will proably become obseliete when EVN is released anyway.

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

Quote

Originally posted by Zacha Pedro:
**A little trick: you want a storyline (or a mission) to start after 2 different storylines have been finished? It is impossible the normal way, the BitMustBeCleared field is used if you do not want the mission to be made more than once, and there is only one BitMustBeSet field. The trick is to make the mission available in only one planet, with the bit xxx required, and the planet is in fact made appear (or changed secretely) with the bit yyy. Therefore, the mission will not appear until both xxx and yyy bits have been set. This will be unuseful with EVN but I'm using it for EVO, and could be useful with EV.
**

Yep. That's what I had to do for Secession (several times at various story points), because it requires Free Huron, the Needle Jammer, the UE Cruiser, and the NPD to all be done (whew!) before the storyline can be completed. Nova will be a godsend for people who want to make plug-ins that tie into the existing storylines.

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Quote

Originally posted by 21st Century Digital Boy:
**Of course, there are the old tricks like how to make a station that's a ship, how to make stealth ships/weapons, etc.
**

What do you mean by these? Are they just the obvious tricks of making a ship with the same graphic as the station, and setting it as the station's defense fleet or whatever; and making ships/weapons stealth by making their graphics black?

Quote

Originally posted by Deepwood:
What do you mean by these? Are they just the obvious tricks of making a ship with the same graphic as the station, and setting it as the station's defense fleet or whatever; and making ships/weapons stealth by making their graphics black?

Yup. Oh yeah, I also remembered how to change a system more than once without changing plugs.

If you need to change it several times, but it will never be changed two times with the same pilot, then you just have seperate mission bits that make the old system disappear and the new ones appear.

If you are going to change the same system more than once with the same pilot, there are three ways to do it, but all three require considerable explanation. So you'll just have to download this when it's done.

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

there's an old topic, titled "undocumented craftiness," that carries this theme. unfortunately, i can't seem to locate it right now. try looking for topics started by seant or planet phil.

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others retained by the people.

Quote

Originally posted by 21st Century Digital Boy:
**If you need to change it several times, but it will never be changed two times with the same pilot, then you just have seperate mission bits that make the old system disappear and the new ones appear.

If you are going to change the same system more than once with the same pilot, there are three ways to do it, but all three require considerable explanation. So you'll just have to download this when it's done.
**

Unless I remember incorrectly, the method you just described can also be used to change a system repeatedly with the same pilot. Have "System(v1)" be hidden by bit 1, "System(v2)" be shown by bit 2, and "System(v3)" be shown by bit 3. When the first change is needed, have a mission which sets both bits 1 and 2, rendering v1 invisible and v2 visible. When the next change is needed, have the mission clear bit 2 and set bit 3, and now v3 is the visible one. It's easy!

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Quote

Originally posted by the Necromicon:
**Interesting, the collaborators of such a team would be welcome to carry out such a project at EV-Dev.net.

**

EV-Dev.net gives me the error: "the specified server could not be found". I would prefer this project be discussed here at ambrosia anyway-- fewer places to look for information.

Some other post on this board said the length of time that you spend accelerating in hyperspace is determined by the length of a sound resource... Nothing I downloaded from the addons page mention this. Such "features" like this should be included in your reference as well.

Also good: Describe how to modify the dialog boxes-- Final Battle completely reworked the EV interface.

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I imagine this question has been asked before, but I can't find it, so...

It's fairly straightforward to figure out which mission bits have been used for what, but is there any way to tell which mission bits are unused as yet? Say, if you're making an expansion but you want the original missions to stay working?

Quote

Originally posted by Karril:
It's fairly straightforward to figure out which mission bits have been used for what, but is there any way to tell which mission bits are unused as yet? Say, if you're making an expansion but you want the original missions to stay working?

Take bits 0-511, remove the ones that have been used, and there you have it!

Seriously, use one of the mission-bit cataloging programs from the Add-ons to get a list of all of the bits used by EV/O. I had such a list at one point, but I think I lost it when I switched computers. If I remember correctly, EVO used three large groups of bits for its missions, so you should be able to figure out which those are pretty easily. Anything located between or after those groups should be perfectly OK to use.

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Quote

Originally posted by magicianeer:
Also good: Describe how to modify the dialog boxes-- Final Battle completely reworked the EV interface.

It's somewhat straightforward - all you have to do is include copies of the appropriate DLOG and DITL resources from the main EV (or Override) application file in your plug-in. To increase the size of a window, change the dimensions of its DLOG resource. To move or resize interface elements, edit its DITL resource - each button or text field is defined as a rectangular "user item". The tricky part can be figuring out which user item is which, since they're unlabeled in the DITL. But if you're reasonably familiar with the layout of the EV interface, it's not too hard.

Be aware that there are a few constraints on the size of the dialogs. I've heard that EV/O become unhappy if the map window overlaps the game's status panel, so make sure it's small enough that that won't happen. Probably a good idea to avoid doing that for the other windows as well.

Hope this helps!

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Thanx everyone! This has been helpful. I'll let you know when it's done.

BTW, if you anyone has any other things to contribute, feel free to keep posing...

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

Thanks Glenn!

I do have one other question though - how do the AlwaysPers fields work? Can you make a system such that a certain person will appear every time you enter it?

Thanks Glenn!

I do have one other question though - how do the AlwaysPers fields work? Can you make a system such that a certain person will appear every time you enter it (which is what I'm trying to do)? 'cause if you can, it isn't working for me :frown:

Quote

Originally posted by Karril:
how do the AlwaysPers fields work? Can you make a system such that a certain person will appear every time you enter it (which is what I'm trying to do)? 'cause if you can, it isn't working for me:frown:

woohoo! i'm not the only one. i'm not sure if my problem is in the pers itself (though how is beyond me) or the alwayspers field, but i haven't been able to get it to work in the two or three little five minute tests i did before giving up

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

Hmmm... All that the Bible says is:

Quote

Want to make a ‘pers’ type ship always appear? Put its ID into one of the AlwaysPers fields that appear at the end of the syst resource.

Unfortunately, most of my developing time was spent in EVO 1.0.1; Secession 1.5 was finished shortly before the release of EVO 1.0.2, and I haven't done a whole lot of plug work since. So, I've never really messed around with 1.0.2's new features enough to really know what's what. Judging from the description, I'd put the pers's resource ID (or possibly its pers ID (resource ID - 128) into an AlwaysPers field for the system, and make sure that the pers itself is permitted (that is, no problems with the pers' MissionBit). If that's what you're doing, and it's not working, I'm afraid I can't really help. Sorry!

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