NCBs?

Plugmaster-i-guess

What is an NCB and how do i use it?

I'm using the MissionComputer program (it's cool) to create my own plugins, but i god damned don't understand those NCB values. What do they mean.

Example from MissionComputer:

b13 & (b15 | !b72)

What does that mean?!

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Ithin

Quote

Originally posted by Plugmaster-i-guess:
**What is an NCB and how do i use it?

I'm using the MissionComputer program (it's cool) to create my own plugins, but i god damned don't understand those NCB values. What do they mean.

Example from MissionComputer:

b13 & (b15 | !b72)

What does that mean?!

**

That particular example means that bit 13 will be set and bit 15 will be set or bit 72 will become unset I think. I remember wondering how the hell they worked. I'll try explain. NCB's or bits have 2 values, set or unset. All the NCB's start off unset. Say you have 2 missions and you don't want the second to be available until the first is completed. So in the OnComplete field of the first mission you put "b1" and in the AvailableOn field of the second mission you put "b1". This means missions 2 won't be available until bit 1 is set and once mission 1 is completed it sets bit 1, thus making mission 2 available. This might be a bit confusing, I can be like that sometimes.

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(This message has been edited by Deathmatch (edited 08-09-2004).)

Lit Nerd

NCB = Nova Control Bit.

b13 & (b15 | !b72) translates to b13 having to be set and either b15 being set or b72 not being set. For further info, see the opening pages of "The Nova Bible". NCBs are either set or not set.

For a list of used NCBs, see either (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/ResUsedList_v1.0.6.txt.sit?path=evn/guides&file;=ResUsedList_v1.0.6.txt.sit")this(/url) or (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/EV_Nova_Reference.zip?path=evn/guides&file;=EV_Nova_Reference.zip")this(/url).

N.b., I have downloaded neither one, so I cannot personally vouch for either one.

Lit Nerd

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Dr. Trowel

(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/005474.html#")This guide could help.(/url) That, and the Nova bible, of course.

orcaloverbri9

Hehe...I understood the ncb's immediately thanks to my programming background, where the if loops in any language are extremely similar to Nova's ncb's (in fact, I'd bet $1000 each one of those is translated into one or more C if loops).

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who have friends.
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rmx256

I think that the Nova engine needs a programming language. Not just NCB's.

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orcaloverbri9

Quote

Originally posted by rmx256:
I think that the Nova engine needs a programming language. Not just NCB's.

That would be extremely w00t, but it could also be difficult to implement. Of course, we could also type actual C code into, say, a cöde resource, which could then be evaluated by the engine (C has an "eval" or similar function, right?). But I think an AppleScript-ish or JavaScript-ish language would probably be better, just in case someone doesn't wqant to learn C but is willing to learn a simple language.

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who have friends.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/search.html")Add-ons Search Engine(/url)

rmx256

Right, something kind of unstructured and sequentially implemented like BASIC. With basic I/O, string functions, arrays and please god MATH! I've designed sooooo many NCB evals that are supposed to do simple binary counts and addition/subtraction but I am terrified to implement them. Having these things would simplify the coding of my TC tremendously.

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Drinking causes hangovers.
(url="http://"http://www.freewebs.com/rmx256/index.htm")Kemet T.C. Website(/url)

rmx256

We'd probably have to do some serious MacsBugging to find out where to patch new CODE's into the engine, especially since probably there are a few discrete functions per each seemingly similar looking engine feature (I know that my code is like that, instances everywhere)... Then we'd have to figure out how to DOSsercise it which might be damn near impossible since I'm certain that PPC assembler will have 0% chancve of being cross-assemblable into X86.

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Drinking causes hangovers.
(url="http://"http://www.freewebs.com/rmx256/index.htm")Kemet T.C. Website(/url)

brindyblitz

It's be nice if such a scripting language was at least somewhat object oriented, so you could do things like:

target.fuel =- 100

(remove 100 units of fuel from target)

for a fuel draining weapon, something that I don't think is currently possible.

EDIT: but this is highly unlikely to happen...

(This message has been edited by brindyblitz (edited 08-10-2004).)

SpacePirate

Quote

Originally posted by rmx256:
**We'd probably have to do some serious MacsBugging to find out where to patch new CODE's into the engine, especially since probably there are a few discrete functions per each seemingly similar looking engine feature (I know that my code is like that, instances everywhere)... Then we'd have to figure out how to DOSsercise it which might be damn near impossible since I'm certain that PPC assembler will have 0% chancve of being cross-assemblable into X86.

**

MacsBugs is only good for 680x0 FAT applications, as I recall... Nova is Cocoa/PPC.

And no, PPC assembly cannot be cross-assembled to x86.
~ SP

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blackhole

Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**C has an "eval" or similar function, right?
**

No. No compiled language does - it's simply not possible to insert high level variables that could result in code in to a low level language. You'd essentially have to implement your own scripting language, or get an ECMA Script interpreter or something.

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--sitharus
(url="http://"http://www.sitharus.com/")Me, online!(/url)
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orcaloverbri9

Quote

Originally posted by blackhole:
No. No compiled language does - it's simply not possible to insert high level variables that could result in code in to a low level language. You'd essentially have to implement your own scripting language, or get an ECMA Script interpreter or something.

Hmm...somehow I managed to forget that C was a compiled language, while basically all the programming experience I've had (which inludes very minimal C) has been interpreted languages. It's a pity; that can be a useful feature.

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who have friends.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/search.html")Add-ons Search Engine(/url)

rmx256

Yes C is compiled...

Spacepirate, thank you. Now I know why I can no longer break into the debugger on my 8500... For some reason I thought that version 6.something was PPC compatible?

BTW, I read somewhere on the EV-Nova.net webboard that there was a 68k pre-release version of Nova? Does anyone have it still?

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Drinking causes hangovers.
(url="http://"http://www.freewebs.com/rmx256/index.htm")Kemet T.C. Website(/url)

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