Just wondering
OK, I've already checked throug the forum and didn't find what I wanted, so I'm sorry if I missed it, but I was wondering if it is possible to have the same spob in multiple systems, and if so, how? I tried it and it worked in the first system that it was in (lowest ID), but it was invisible and unlandable in the others. Anyway, help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Crusader Alpha, on Jun 21 2005, 12:33 PM, said:
I tried it and it worked in the first system that it was in (lowest ID), but it was invisible and unlandable in the others.View Post
That is correct. You cannot have a spob appear in multiple systems at the same time. If only one system is visible at a time, however, it will work properly.
Edwards
Alright, thanks. On the same topic: If I wanted to make a star appear in every system, let's say, are their any other ways of doing it than by going through systems one by one and using up my precious maximum number of spobs space? It is just irritating that there are only certian planets visible in a system(Sol, for instance), and that there are almost no stars visible at all in the game. Is there a way past this at all that allows for a somewhat large universe?
You do get some two thousand and forty-eight stellar objects to work with, and an equal number of systems. The default Nova scenario has only 411 spöbs and 545 s˙sts, so you could easily add a sun to each system while only using up half the total number of spöb resources.
Alternately, you could possibly create the sun as a planet-type ship, and have a constantly active (but invisible) mission which calls for the sun to appear in the centre of any system that the player is in. Ah, wait... that won't work, as there is no "centre of system" option for the "Ship Start" field - only randomly in system, on top of one of the planets, or jumping in from hyperspace.
Regarding Sol, if you want to go for perfect accuracy, scientists are currently aware of some one hundred and fifty-odd planets and moons in our solar system alone. That slightly exceeds the system limit of sixteen...
P.S. Edwards, are you certain it does work when only one system is visible at a time?
What if I was to use a singular spob and put it in every system, then place a planetary ship over it? I know that the spob would not be visible and would be unlandable, but if it was covered up by the image of the ship...
Anyway, would that work or would it mess up the game and cause strange things to happen?
Any other ideas are still appreciated.
Also, all I would want are the major planets and the large moons, so the thing about 150 planets and other objects in Sol is not quite what I was thinking. Thanks for it, though, I didn't know that. 
Crusader Alpha, on Jun 22 2005, 02:06 PM, said:
What if I was to use a singular spob and put it in every system, then place a planetary ship over it? I know that the spob would not be visible and would be unlandable, but if it was covered up by the image of the ship...
I thought of that. Unfortunately, it must be one of the four Nav Defaults, which reduces you to three for all of your other planets. Also, all of the AI ships would try to land on the planet under the star, making it appear as though they're flying throgh it. On top of this, all of the planets and ships in Nova are lit from the same direction, as though the star is in that directions - thus even though you can't see the star, you can tell it's there.
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Anyway, would that work or would it mess up the game and cause strange things to happen?
Strange Things would happen at the very least - PC Nova is really quite touchy about little errors, and this multiple-systems-spöb thing may even cause the game to choke up completely.
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Any other ideas are still appreciated.
You've still got the fallback idea of using a separate spöb for the sun for each system. They can all use the same image resource, so it won't make the plugin much larger, and even if you have a thousand systems (and hence a thousand stars) that still leaves you with another thousand assorted other stellar objects to work with.
Edwards, on Jun 22 2005, 12:09 AM, said:
Positive. At least, as long as you aren't in a higher-RID'd system when a lower-RID'd one appears.
Edwards
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But, if you have two versions of a system both with the same planet, is Nova smart enough to know that the planet is nontransient (meaning it would be included in random missions)?
Belthazar, on Jun 21 2005, 11:58 PM, said:
I thought of that. Unfortunately, it must be one of the four Nav Defaults,
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nope, not true. Docs are wrong. I was just wondering this myself the other day. I tested it out, and you can use -1 through -16 to corespond to the spobs in those slots. It works perfeclty, the only problem is some editors implement it in a 'helpful' pulldown menu that doesnt have any option lower than negative 4. Either use something that has an input field, or use a text editor to plug -5 in there yourself.
PBoat101, on Jun 22 2005, 06:53 PM, said:
But, if you have two versions of a system both with the same planet, is Nova smart enough to know that the planet is nontransient (meaning it would be included in random missions)?
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Yes, the bible indicates that it's smart enough to do that:
"This means that if you have multiple systems that occupy the same coordinates at different times in the game and not all of them contain stellar object X, no missions will use stellar object X as their random destination."
PBoat101, on Jun 22 2005, 12:53 PM, said:
But, if you have two versions of a system both with the same planet, is Nova smart enough to know that the planet is nontransient (meaning it would be included in random missions)?View Post
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Testing this to be sure I was right in saying "yes" brought up some interesting points:
A spob is considered "non-transient" as long as the system* that it is currently visible in has no alternate versions that do not contain the spob. Beyond that one constraint, anything goes.
Examples:
If you have spob that appears in two systems (at different times), and those two systems are in different locations, it will be considered non-transient as long as neither of the two systems has a version without the spob.
Let us call the above systems "1" and "2". If system 1 has no alternate, but system 2 does**, then the spob is considered non-transient when system 1 is visible, but it is considered transient when system 2 is visible. Interesting, eh?
I've attached a model of this to this post, so you people can see this in action. Pick up random missions and swap systems around in the "Swapper" system. This plug was designed for use with the AbsoluteMinimum data files. If you're on a Mac, you will need the Mac Plugin Converter to convert AbsoluteMinimum.
The "target must be at least two systems away" constraint for random missions will be ignored if there is no valid spob more than two systems away. Thus, if the universe only has one valid spob, and you pick up a random mission on it, the mission will go to the spob you are on.
*Lowest-RID'd system that it appears in, that is currently visible.
**System 2's alternate does not contain the spob.
Edwards
Transient.bin.zip (899bytes)This post has been edited by Edwards : 22 June 2005 - 11:20 PM
NebuchadnezzaR, on Jun 22 2005, 09:12 PM, said:
nope, not true. Docs are wrong. I was just wondering this myself the other day. I tested it out, and you can use -1 through -16 to corespond to the spobs in those slots. It works perfeclty, the only problem is some editors implement it in a 'helpful' pulldown menu that doesnt have any option lower than negative 4. Either use something that has an input field, or use a text editor to plug -5 in there yourself.
Nifty. I forget, what do we do about incorrect documentation in the Bible?
NebuchadnezzaR, on Jun 23 2005, 01:12 PM, said:
nope, not true. Docs are wrong.
I stand corrected. Learn something new every day. 
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It works perfeclty, the only problem is some editors implement it in a 'helpful' pulldown menu that doesnt have any option lower than negative 4. Either use something that has an input field, or use a text editor to plug -5 in there yourself.
EVNEW has the helpful pullown menu, but it does accept input from text files (in the same way that it can save to text files) and can handle that field being forced to a value it doesn't see (the pull down menu just shows a blank when rolled up) although it is a little bit of a pain counting twenty-three fields. Arguably, I suppose, one could use Excel to make the corrections, and thankfully Excel can save the files in a tab-delimited list of a form that EVNEW likes. (Did Aprosenf make it specifically with Excel in mind?)
Another thought occurs to me: if, say, a mission were to create a ship to appear over spöb 12, for example, but no spöb 12 existed in that particular system, where would the ship appear? Would it not appear at all, or would it appear elsewhere? Say, the system centre? (I'd test it myself, but I really should be studying for exams instead of posting to the forums. )
NebuchadnezzaR said:
Docs are wrong. I was just wondering this myself the other day. I tested it out, and you can use -1 through -16 to corespond to the spobs in those slots. It works perfeclty, the only problem is some editors implement it in a 'helpful' pulldown menu that doesnt have any option lower than negative 4. Either use something that has an input field, or use a text editor to plug -5 in there yourself.
Your post has been brought to my attention, and I'm pleased to report that MissionComputer 3.1's 'helpful' pulldown menu will list all 16 nav. defaults.
Belthazar, on Jun 23 2005, 01:00 AM, said:
Arguably, I suppose, one could use Excel to make the corrections, and thankfully Excel can save the files in a tab-delimited list of a form that EVNEW likes. (Did Aprosenf make it specifically with Excel in mind?)View Post
Yes, he probably did, especially if he had used ConText and ResStore.
Belthazar, on Jun 23 2005, 01:00 AM, said:
Another thought occurs to me: if, say, a mission were to create a ship to appear over spöb 12, for example, but no spöb 12 existed in that particular system, where would the ship appear? Would it not appear at all, or would it appear elsewhere? Say, the system centre? (I'd test it myself, but I really should be studying for exams instead of posting to the forums. )View Post
It will appear in a random location in the system, I believe.
Edwards
Guy, on Jun 23 2005, 08:09 PM, said:
Sounds good :). When can we expect this 3.1?
When it's done of course.
Trust me, when it's released, you'll be glad you were willing to wait. 
Guy, on Jun 23 2005, 09:09 PM, said:
Sounds good :). When can we expect this 3.1?
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Very soon - the testers have 3.1.0b2, and I don't anticipate a third beta. Most of what's left to do is documentation.
