How do I make a new ship for Nova,or new explosions?

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EVN Rocks. Ambrosia Rocks. Plugs Rock! I rock!!!! MACS RULE!!!
jamo@mac.com

Quote

Originally posted by U.S. Orion:
**How do I make a new ship for Nova,or new explosions?

**

Here is something you might find useful: (I am using the code tag to preserve formatting)

* The shďp resource

     Spaceships are the heart of Nova, so the ship resource contains a lot of
info. The name of a ship class, which is seen in the targeting display,
corresponds to the name of the ship resource. The first nine fields give Nova
some general performance info on each ship type:

Holds             Cargo capacity, in tons. Put a negative sign in front of this
                    value if you want to prevent the player from purchasing
                    mass expansions. (e.g. a value of -100 would mean 100 tons
                    of hold space but no mass expansions allowed)

Shield            Shield strength.

Accel             Acceleration magnitude. 300 is considered an average value.

Speed             Top speed. 300 is also an average value here.

Maneuver          Turn rate. 10 ? 30°/sec.

Fuel              Fuel capacity. 100 = 1 jump.

FreeMass          Space available to add additional items and upgrades. Note
                    that this is in addition to the space taken up by the
                    ship’s stock weapons. (e.g. a ship with 20 tons listed in
                    FreeMass and 10 tons of stock weapons will actually have 30
                    tons of expansion space, with 20 available.)

Armor             Armor strength.

ShieldRech        Shield recharge speed, in number of shield points x1000 per
                    frame. Bigger numbers here mean faster recharge - a value
                    of 1000 is equal to 1 point per frame or 30 points per
                    second.


The next twelve fields tell Nova which stock weapons to put on your ship when
you first buy it:

WeapType (x8)     ID numbers of weapon types
                  -1 or 0     No weapon
                  128-191     Add this weapon type

WeapCount (x8)    How many of each of the above weapons to add
                  -1 or 0     None
                   1 and up   Add this many

AmmoLoad (x8)     The standard ammo load for weapons that need it, or ignored
                    for those that don’t
                  -1 or 0     No ammo
                   1 and up   Include this many rounds of ammo


The next two fields tell Nova what this ship’s maximum loadout of fixed guns and
turreted weapons is. Each ship has an inherent upper limit on fixed guns and
turrets, in order to keep them from becoming absurdly powerful. (e.g. a bulk
freighter has lots of room to add weapons, but is limited to a single turret for
defense) The fields are:

MaxGun     The ship’s maximum number of fixed guns, which are flagged in the
             WeapFlag field of the outf resource.

MaxTur     The ship’s maximum number of turrets, which are flagged in the
             WeapFlag field of the outf resource.


The next field tells Nova where this ship is available for purchase:

TechLevel     What the technology level of the ship is. This ship will be
                available at all shipyards with a tech level of this value or
                higher. (The exception to this rule involves the SpecialTech
                fields of the spöb resource; see the section on spöb resources
                for more information.)


The next field, Cost, tells Nova how much to charge you when you buy this ship.
The cost of buying a ship is always the cost of the new ship minus 25% of the
original cost of your current ship and upgrades. (i.e. you always "trade up" to
a new ship) 

The next field stores info on how the ship explodes:

DeathDelay      The number of frames the ship "disintegrates" before finally
                  exploding.
      0-59      The ship disintegrates for this number of frames and then
                  disappears in a single fireball.
      60+       The ship disintegrates for this number of frames and then
                  disappears in a huge explosion. The exact size of the
                  resulting fireball is proportional to the ship's mass. (see
                  below)


ArmorRech       Armor recharge speed, in number of armor points x1000 per
                    frame. Bigger numbers here mean faster recharge - a value
                    of 1000 is equal to 1 point per frame or 30 points per
                    second.

Explode1       Type of explosion to show (0-63) while the ship is breaking up,
                 or -1 to not show any explosions until the ship is finished
                 being destroyed.
                 
Explode2       Type of explosion to show (0-63) when the ship is completely
                 destroyed. You can also add 1000 to the value of this field in
                 the same manner as the ExplodeType field in the wëap resource.
                 Set to -1 to not show any explosion when the ship is
                 destroyed.

DispWeight     The display weight of this ship type. Ships with a higher
                 display weight are shown closer to the top of the shipyard
                 dialog. This can be used to effectively rearrange the order
                 in which ships are displayed without rearranging the
                 resources themselves.

Mass           The mass of the ship, in tons. This doesn't affect acceleration
                 or speed at all, but it does affect travel time in hyperspace
                 and the display on the density scanner. Also, the blast radius
                 and impact strength when the ship explodes is proportional to
                 its mass.
  1-99         1 day per jump, small blip on density scanner
  100-199      2 days per jump, large blip on density scanner
  200 and up   3 days per jump, large blip on density scanner


Length     The ship's length in meters. Currently unused in any calculations,
             but it’s kinda cool, so it’s displayed in the "detailed ship info"
             dialog.


The next field tells Nova what kind of AI the ship will have if it's not created
in connection with a dude resource. The only place this field is useful is when
a ship is created as an escort ship; otherwise, it's ignored:

InherentAI     What AI the ship uses when it's escorting the player.
       1-4     Use this kind of AI. (see the AI descriptions above) Note
               that only ships with inherent AI of 1 or 2 can be used to
               carry cargo when they are the player's escorts.

Crew           Number of crew members. Ships with 0 crew can't be boarded,
                 nor can they capture any other ships.

Strength       An arbitrary value that represents the relative strength of
                 the ship type with respect to the rest of the universe.
                 Used when calculating combat odds (see the govt resource
                 for details).

The next field tells Nova what government is associated with a ship type.
Note that unlike previous EV games, Nova actually handles two inherent
government associations for each ship type: an inherent combat govt
(used when an AI ship or stellar is deciding if it likes or hates another
ship) and an inherent attributes govt (used for non-combat things like
voice type, distress message flags, etc). Sometimes you might want to
create a ship type that inherits attributes from a particular govt but
isn't considered to be inherently of that govt in combat, so Nova lets
you use the InherentGovt field in several different ways:

InherentGovt     -1          No inherent combat govt or inherent attributes
                              govt for this ship
                 128-383     Ship is treated as being inherently of the
                              govt with this ID, both for AI combat
                              and attributes inheritance)
                 1128-1383   Ship has an inherent attributes govt with
                              this ID (minus 1000) but no inherent
                              combat govt.
                 2128-2383   Ship has an inherent combat govt with
                              this ID (minus 2000) but no inherent
                              attributes govt.

The next field is for some miscellaneous flags:

Flags        0x0001     Slow jumping (75% normal speed)
             0x0002     Semi-fast jumping (125%)
             0x0004     Fast jumping (150%)
             0x0008     Player ship takes advantage of FuelRegen property
             0x0010     Ship is disabled at 10% armor instead of 33%
             0x0020     Ship has afterburner when player has an advanced combat
                           rating
             0x0040     Ship always has afterburner (for AIs only)
             0x0100     Show % armor on target display instead of “Shields
                          Down”
             0x0200     Don't show armor or shield state on status display
             0x0400     Ship is a planet-type ship, and can only be hit by
                          planet-type weapons
             0x1000     Ship’s turrets have a blind spot to the front
             0x2000     Ship’s turrets have a blind spot to the sides
             0x4000     Ship’s turrets have a blind spot to the rear
             0x8000     Ship is an escape ship type - if the player is carrying
                          any ships of this type and decides to eject, he will
                          fly off in a ship of this type (with random damage)
                          instead of an escape pod.

PodCount     For decorative purposes, AI ships can be made to launch escape
             pods when they're destroyed. This field contains the standard
             number of escape pods for an AI ship of this type to launch when
             destroyed, at a rate of one per second. Note that this has nothing
             to do with the përs field's escape pod flag, it's just for eye
             candy. Don't overuse this field, as it can be annoying if used
             too often. (perhaps restrict it only to luxury liner type ships).


DefaultItems   Up to eight default items with which to equip this ship when the
                 player buys or captures one. Note that AI-controlled ships
                 will ignore these fields; also, don’t put anything in here
                 that isn’t a physical item - i.e. afterburners, shield
                 boosters, and the like are okay, but no fake IDs, maps, etc.
               128-255    Ship comes stock with this item
               -1         Ignored

ItemCount      The number of each DefaultItem with which to equip the player.

FuelRegen      This ship type’s inherent fuel regeneration property. Works
                 exactly the same as the fuel scoop ModVal property - useful
                 for making ships with built-in fuel replenishment. Note that
                 for the player to be able to use this field, the 0x0008 flag
                 must also be set. (this allows you to give enemy ships
                 built-in fuel scoops but still make the player have to buy his
                 own)

SkillVar       The amount (in percent) to which this ship’s pilots’ skill
                 varies. This affects acceleration and turn rate for each ship:
                 i.e. a skill variance of 10% would make each ship of a given
                 type up to 10% slower or faster than “stock”. Values from
                 1 to 50% are valid.
          
                 
Flags2         0x0001    Ship exhibits swarming behavior
               0x0002    Ship prefers standoff attacks
               0x0004    Ship can't be targeted
               0x0008    Ship can be fired on by point defense systems
               0x0010    Don't use fighter voices
               0x0020    Ship can jump without slowing down
               0x0040    Ship is inertialess
               0x0080    AI ships of this type will run away/dock if out of
                           ammo for all ammo-using weapons
               0x0100    AI ships of this type will cloak when their weapon
                           goes into burst reload
               0x0200    AI ships will cloak when running away
               0x0400    AI ships will cloak when hyperspacing
               0x0800    AI ships will cloak when just flying around
               0x1000    AI ships will not uncloak until close to their target
               0x2000    AI ships will cloak when docking
               0x4000    AI ships will cloak when preemptively attacked 


Availability   Control bit test expression. The player will be able to purchase
               this type of ship when the expression evaluates to true. Leave
               blank if unused. Depending on the configuration of other flags,
               the ship might appear in the shipyard but not be able to be
               purchased if its Availability evaluates to false.
 
AppearOn       Control bit test expression. Ships of this type will not show up
               in dude resources if this expression evaluates to false. Leave
               blank if unused.
               
OnPurchase     Control bit set expression. Leave blank if unused. 

Deionize       The rate at which this ship type dissipates ionization charge.
               A value of 100 equals 1 point of ion energy per 1/30th of a
               second. Higher values for Deionize yield faster ion charge
               dissipation.
               
IonizeMax      The amount of ion charge at which a ship of this type will be
               considered "fully ionized".
               
KeyCarried     The key carried ship type, used for interesting effects in 
               the wëap and shän resources.

DefaultItms2   More default items, used as above
ItemCount

Contribute      These two Contribute fields together form a 64-bit flag that is
Contribute      subsequently combined with the Contribute fields from the
                outfit items in the player's possession, to be used with the
                Require fields in the outf and misn resources.

Require        These two Require fields together form a 64-bit flag that is
Require         logically and'ed with the Contribute fields from the player's
                current ship and outfit items. If for each 1 bit in the Require
                fields there is a matching 1 bit in one or more of the
                Contribute fields, the ship can be purchased. Leave these
                set to zero if unused. Depending on the configuration of other
                flags, the ship might appear in the shipyard but not be able to
                be purchased if the player doesn't meet the Requirements.

BuyRandom      The percent chance that a ship of this type will be available for
                 purchase on a given day. A BuyRandom of 0 means this ship will
                 never be made available for purchase.

HireRandom     The percent chance that a ship of this type will be available for
                 hire in the bar on a given day. A HireRandom of 0 means this
                 ship will never be made available for hire.

OnCapture      Control bit set expression, evaluated when you capture a ship of
                 this type. Leave blank if unused. 

OnRetire       Control bit set expression, evaluated when you sell a ship of
                 this type and/or replace it with a captured ship.

Subtitle       The subtitle to show on the target display for this ship type

Flags3         Even more flags!
               0x0001    Ship destroys asteroids
               0x0002    Ship scoops asteroid debris
               0x0010    Ship ignores gravity
               0x0020    Ship ignores deadly stellars
               0x0040    Ship's turreted shots appear above the ship instead
                          of below
               0x0100    Don't show ship in shipyard if Availability is false
               0x0200    Don't show ship in shipyard if Require bits not met
               0x4000    When this ship is available for sale, it prevents all
                          higher-numbered ship types with equal DispWeight from
                          being made available for sale at the same time.

UpgradeTo      If an escort ship of this type can be upgraded, this field holds
                the ID of the ship type that it can be upgraded to. Set to 0 or
                -1 if this ship class can't be upgraded.
                
EscUpgrdCost   The cost to upgrade an escort ship of this type to the next more
                advanced version, as defined in the UpgradeTo field.

EscSellValue   The amount of cash the player gets for selling off a captured
                escort of this type. If you input a number that's less than or
                equal to zero here, Nova will default to 10% of the ship's
                original cost.

EscortType     Tells Nova which of the four categories of escorts to put this
                ship type into when organizing the escort control menu.
                -1  Have the game try to figure it out at runtime
                 0  Fighter
                 1  Medium Ship
                 2  Warship
                 3  Freighter

ShortName     The short string that is displayed in the shipyard dialog menu
               for this ship type. If you want to split this name into two
               separate  lines, put the characters "n" into the name, e.g.:
               "Big Shipn(used)". When using this, lines that start with
               an alphanumeric character are drawn in white, while lines
               that start with other symbols are drawn in grey.


CommName       The short string to display for this ship when it is hailed by
                the player.

Long Name      The long string to display when the player purchases a ship of
                this type or starts a new pilot.
                
MovieFile      The filename of a QuickTime movie to display in place of the
                ship picture  in the shipyard dialog. The QuickTime movie must
                reside within the Nova Files or Nova Plug-Ins folders and will
                be looped continuously while the player has this ship type
                selected.


Ships' target info picts are stored in PICT resources 3000 and on. The engine is
smart enough to reuse targeting picts for two ship classes that have the same
base sprites: all you have to do is give the first of any series of
identical-looking ship types a target pict in the usual way (PICT resource ID
3000 + shipID - 128) and the engine will use it for all higher-numbered ship
types with the same base sprites.

And here:

* The shän resource

	Shan (ship animation) resources contain sprite info for ship graphics, which
are too complex for the more rudimentary spin resource.

BaseImageID     The resource ID of the basic sprite images for this ship

BaseMaskID      The ID of the corresponding sprite masks (ignored if the base
                  image is an rleD/rle8 resource)

BaseSetCount    The number of sprite sets for the basic sprite images. A sprite
                  set is usually 36 sprite images, and the graphics for all of
                  a ship's basic sprite sets are stored in the same
PICT/rleD/rle8
                  resource, referred to in BaseImageID.
                  
BaseXSize       The X size of each basic sprite image

BaseYSize       The Y size of each basic sprite image

BaseTransp      The inherent transparency of the basic sprite images, from
                  0 (no transparency) to 32 (fully transparent).

AltImageID      The resource ID of the alternating sprite images for this ship.
                  Sprites from the alt sprite sets can be displayed on top of
                  the basic sprite for the ship, cycling through each available
                  sprite set at a rate defined in the Delay field, below.
                  Set to zero if unused.
                  
AltMaskID       The corresponding mask ID. Set to zero if unused.

AltSetCount     The number of sprite sets for the alternating sprites.

AltXSize

AltYSize


GlowImageID     Engine glow
GlowMaskID
GlowXSize
GlowYSize


LightImageID    Running lights
LightMaskID
LightXSize
LightYSize


WeapImageID     Weapon effects
WeapMaskID
WeapXSize
WeapYSize


ShieldImageID     Shield bubble (shield sprite have a number of frames
ShieldMaskID       exactly equal to 1, FramesPer, or BaseSetCount*FramesPer)
ShieldXSize
ShieldYSize


Flags      0x0001    Extra frames in base image are used to display banking.
                       The first set of sprites is used for level flight, the
                       second for banking left, and the third for banking right.
           0x0002    Extra frames in base image are used for animated ship
                       parts such as for folding/unfolding wings. The sprites
                       will be cycled upon landing, taking off, and
                       entering/exiting hyperspace.
           0x0004    The second set of frames in the base image are displayed
                       when the ship is not carrying any of its KeyCarried type
                       ships onboard.
           0x0008    Extra frames in base image are shown in sequence, just
                       like the sprites in the alternating image. The AnimDelay
                       field has the same effect in this case.
           0x0010    Stop the ships' animations when it is disabled
           0x0020    Hide alt sprites when the ship is disabled
           0x0040    Hide running light sprites when the ship is disabled
           0x0080    Ship unfolds when firing weapons, and folds back up when
                      not firing.
           0x0100    Adjust ship's visual presentation to correct for the skew
                      caused by graphics that are rendered highly off-axis from
                      vertical. This uses the ship's UpCompressY and DnCompressY
                      fields to interpolate the proper sprite frame to display
                      based on the ship's actual heading. Use this with
                      caution, as it tends to cause very jerky ship
                      rotation and is mostly included as a curiosity.
                      
           Note that the first four flags in this field are mutually
             exclusive - i.e. you can have a ship that banks, unfolds,
             changes appearance when it is carrying a certain other ship
             type, or animates in sequence, but these effects can't be
             combined. The only exception is that having both flags
             0x0001 and 0x0002 set is treated specially - it results in
             a ship whose extra frames are used for banking and which
             always displays its engine glow when it is turning, whether
             or not it is actually accelerating. (This something that
             got thrown in at some point when I realized that it would
             be necessary to have in order to replicate the behavior of
             a certain type of ship from a certain TV show).
           

AnimDelay  The delay between frames of the sprite animations, in 30ths of a
             second.

WeapDecay  The rate at which the weapon glow sprite fades out to transparency,
             if applicable. 50 is a good median number - lower numbers yield
             slower decays.

FramesPer  The number of frames for one rotation of this ship - usually 36 is
             a good number, but larger ships can benefit from having more
             frames per rotation to make their turning animation look smoother.
             Be sure this value is equal to the actual number of frames per
             revolution in your images, or bad things will happen!

BlinkMode  0 or -1  Ignored
           1        Square-wave blinking:
                 BlinkValA is the light on-time
                 BlinkValB is the delay between blinks
                 BlinkValC is the number of blinks in a group
                 BlinkValD is the delay between groups
           2        Triangle-wave pulsing:
                 BlinkValA is the minimum intensity (1-32)
                 BlinkValB is the intensity increase per frame, x100
                 BlinkValC is the maximum intensity (1-32)
                 BlinkValD is the intensity decrease per frame, x100
           3        Random pulsing:
                 BlinkValA is the minimum intensity (1-32)
                 BlinkValB is the maximum intensity (1-32)
                 BlinkValC is the delay between intensity changes
                 BlinkValD is ignored


GunPosX        Here you can set the exit points on the ship sprite for four
GunPosY         different classes of weapons. Note that The "Gun" "Beam" etc.
TurretPosX      designations are for convenience only, since which set of
TurretPosY      weapon exit points is used by a given weapon are defined in
GuidedPosX      that weapon's ExitType field. The x & y positions of each 
GuidedPosY      weapon exit point are measured in pixels from the center of the
BeamPosX        ship when the ship is pointing straight up (frame index 0). See
BeamPosY        the next four fields if you need to account for any perspective
                corrections in your sprites.
                
UpCompressX    If you have ship sprites that are rendered at an angle, these
UpCompressY     fields are used to correct for the ships perspective when
DnCompressX     calculating the weapon exit points (above). If the ship is
DnCompressY     pointing generally "up" (heading is 0-90 or 270-359) then
                UpCompressX/Y are used; if the ship is pointing generally
                "down" (heading is 91-269 degrees) then DnCompressX/Y are used.
                These values are divided by 100 and then multiplied by the
                rotated x & y values in the weapon exit point fields to apply a
                rough correction factor, so values less that 100 will bring
                the exit points in closer to the ship and values greater than
                100 will move the exit points farther out. Experimentation is
                the best way to learn how this works. Values of zero are
                interpreted the same as a value of 100, so you can leave
                this field set to zero if unused.

GunPosZ        Here you can set further weapon exit point offsets in order to
TurretPosZ      compensate for skew caused by the z position of a ship
GuidedPosZ      graphic's weapon exit point. These values are added to a
BeamPosZ        shot or beam's position after the weapon exit point x & y
                offsets and the x & y compression factors have been applied,
                so the effect of these values is not scaled. Positive values
                here move up the screen, negative values move down the screen.
                (this is a lot easier to use with the editor than it is to
                describe)

Note: if you use engine glows or running lights, you must have the same number
of engine glow and/or running light frames as base frames (including banking
frames!) or Nova will choke.

And for explosions:

* The bööm resource

	The boom resource is used to customize the various explosion types. Nova
supports up to 64 different explosion types. The graphics for the explosions are
loaded from spďn resources 400-463, the sounds are loaded from snd resources
300-363, and the behavior of each explosion type is contained within bööm
resources 128-191. Each bööm resource contains three fields:

FrameAdvance   The rate at which the explosion will animate - a value of 100
                will cause each frame of the explosion to appear for exactly
                one frame of the game animation, and lower values will stretch
                out the explosion animation and make it stay onscreen longer.

SoundIndex     The index (0-63) of the explosion sound to associate with this
                explosion type, or -1 for a silent explosion. Usually you'd set
                this to either -1 or to the same value as the explosion index
                itself (e.g. 1 for bööm resource 129, etc.) but if you want to
                use the same sound for two different explosion types, you can
                do that with this field.
                
GraphicIndex   The index (0-63) of the explosion graphic to associate with this
                explosion type. Usually you'd set this to the same value as the
                explosion index itself (e.g. 1 for bööm resource 129, etc.) but
                if you want to use the same graphic for two different explosion
                types (like the small weapon explosion and the ship-breaking-up
                explosion) you can do that with this field.

Any more questions?

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"The best revenge is a life well lived." -My father

No. I mean how do I make a set of frames for a new ship or explosion? What program do I need?

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EVN Rocks. Ambrosia Rocks. Plugs Rock! I rock!!!! MACS RULE!!!
jamo@mac.com

If you want to make the graphics, use a 3D program or Photoshop or something. If you mean how do you get them into Nova, save as PICT and then use EnRLE (which is a part of NovaTools and is downloaded seperately). Then simply reference that from the shan and boom resources.

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Why are you all looking at me like that?