A Nova engine "feature" described

With the advent of continuous inflight time progression and a variety of new engine tricks gaining prominence, I felt it was time to work out how to modify my ship without landing.

The obvious way to do this is through ammunition oütf's with other functions in their other ModType fields. For instance, a missile that while onboard makes my ship slower. So I tested it and it worked. Except, after I fired the missile, I was still slow. As luck would have it, I discovered that if I looked at the player information dialog box ('p' by default), my ship's statistics were recalculated, and was again normal speed when the missiles were gone.

The most fun thing I did was make a fighter that doubles as an inertial dampener (ModType 38). When I left the planet after buying one my Manticore moved like a Raven. After I launched the fighter I was still inertialess. When I opened and closes the information box, I was back to having a normal Manticore. Upon recalling the fighter to its bay I still had inertia. Looking at the info made me inertialess again.

Uses of this inflight ship modification feature? Many and varied. Ease of integration with a plugin? Requires ordering the player to check their ship's computer. Coolness factor? Off the charts.

I have not tested this with AI ships, nor have I tested whether removing all my ship's armor in this way will destroy it. My next test will involve a motionless weaponless "fighter" that doubles as a fuel transfer outfit. My hope is that I can litter the system with "refueling spots" for later use.

I should note that all my experimentation was carried out in MacNova 1.0.7.

forcing the player to check the ship info dialogue?

Id have to vote gross. Would be awesome if it worked properly, but this doesnt really qualify. Does the Mxxx / Nxxx operator happen to cause recalculation? (i dont see why it would, but it might. same with jumps)

That would be pretty cool if you didn't have to check the player info box to undo it. Maybe if we knew what opening it did, you could recreate the effect when you use the ammo....

No, it doesnt work like that. Theres a tiny chance changing the day in the system will do it, a chance that changing systems will do it, but its a level lower than anytihng you can do with the ammo itself.

I messed around with this idea awhile back, but ultimately found it to be too clumsy. I was mainly working with carried ships, so they could be launched and recalled, and have the effects toggled on and off. It works, but having to bring up a menu is a bit annoying. Was kind of fun for inertialess drive "on-the-fly", and solar-sail type outfits.

Is there anything that can force a menu to come up on screen (a la the boarding of another ships, hitting the info key, etc.)? If there is, it might be worth checking to see any dialogue causes the behavior to change, or if it's only the info dialogue.

It makes sense that it would only be the info dialogue. And theres no way to force that up.

Yes, there is a way to force a description up in space, though I don't know how. You'll have to ask Pace.

Requiem, on Apr 13 2005, 12:36 AM, said:

Yes, there is a way to force a description up in space, though I don't know how. You'll have to ask Pace.
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Why Pace specifically? There are other people here who also know things.

Anyway, to bring up a dësc in-flight, you define a dësc in the mďsn resource's ShipDoneText field, and then complete the ship goal. Unfortunately, this does not re-evaulate ship stats.

As far as I have been able to test, the only way to get the game to re-evaulate your ship's stats is to land at a spaceport or bring up the Player Info box. The following is what I have tested that does not work:
Bringing up the Mission Info window, Comm windows, Map window, mission descriptions, and exiting to the main screen.
Boarding another ship.
Advancing the date via a mission's PostDateInc.
Hyperjumping to another system, using a hypergate, and using a wormhole.

Edwards, on Apr 13 2005, 07:12 PM, said:

Why Pace specifically? There are other people here who also know things.

Anyway, to bring up a dësc in-flight, you define a dësc in the mďsn resource's ShipDoneText field, and then complete the ship goal. Unfortunately, this does not re-evaulate ship stats.

As far as I have been able to test, the only way to get the game to re-evaulate your ship's stats is to land at a spaceport or bring up the Player Info box. The following is what I have tested that does not work:
Bringing up the Mission Info window, Comm windows, Map window, mission descriptions, and exiting to the main screen.
Boarding another ship.
Advancing the date via a mission's PostDateInc.
Hyperjumping to another system, using a hypergate, and using a wormhole.
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DESC (on ship done)

The intercom sounds from engineering.
"I've done all I can captain, but it's no use. Short of landing the ship there almost nothing I can think of."
"Almost nothing?" You say. "Then there is something."
"Well, it probably won't work. But we could have a stuck flip-flip in the trinary Baxandall circuits. You'll have to poll all the instruments to reset it."
"How do I do that?"
"Well, you're the Captain. I'm just sitting down here with the engines."
For a moment you wonder what he means -- but then it occurs to you that all you have to do is --

END DESC

Martin Turner, on Apr 13 2005, 08:34 PM, said:

DESC
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:laugh: :laugh:

This could be usefull for a "docked" fighter like in SW episode 2 (the dock being the thing that holds the hyperdrive). Use this in conjunction with Keycarried.

Have a bay for the DOCK. "Detaching from" (actually launching) they dock will afftect the keycarried and replace the "ship in dock" sprite with the 'ship alone spirte"

Also make this have the effect of increasing Turn and Speed and decreasing fuel (so no jumping out w/ just fighter) (Make the fighter start with only 50 fuel units and make the dock outf decrease speed, turn, and increase fuel by 250 units).

Thus a player jumps in, then detaches from the dock to fight/fly. on taking off, the dock will be next to him, which could be a bit awkward, but oh well.....

There's no way to make a fighter that constantly stays beneath the ship, by chance? Something that tracks along directly beneath you could be toggled on/off rather easily by "retracting" (recalling it to the bay) it or something...

Shrout1, on Apr 15 2005, 01:36 PM, said:

There's no way to make a fighter that constantly stays beneath the ship, by chance? Something that tracks along directly beneath you could be toggled on/off rather easily by "retracting" (recalling it to the bay) it or something...
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Make an ULTRA fast/agile black dot fighter. Response will seem instant

This post has been edited by modesty_blaise_us : 15 April 2005 - 10:16 AM

would it then have to hate you and use a tractor beam?

NebuchadnezzaR, on Apr 15 2005, 04:59 PM, said:

would it then have to hate you and use a tractor beam?
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It would not neccesarily need to stay below the ship all the time.

Since the "black dot ship" has insane speed and agility.
If it´s on the other side of the map hunting some ship, it´ll be back within a sec.
So response will still seem instant..

Oh, right. Now i see what the point would be. Still, forcing you to open the info menu is such a blatant hack, I dont think it would have any place in any professional plug. But Martin has a good idea there, so who knows?

NebuchadnezzaR, on Apr 15 2005, 07:33 PM, said:

Oh, right. Now i see what the point would be. Still, forcing you to open the info menu is such a blatant hack, I dont think it would have any place in any professional plug. But Martin has a good idea there, so who knows?
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That will be a problem yes..

Martin Turner, on Apr 13 2005, 03:34 PM, said:

DESC

Doesn't OnShipDone normally show up on the status line, unless you have a ship to board?

Clever writing for a silly workaround. IMO, it would pull me out of the game a bit to have to do that. Maybe we could nicely request a patch for 1.0.9.

-reg