I've got somethign that might be considered a problem. I have ( in my opinion) some interesting ideas for mods and TC's but i have all the programming ability of a puffball. I was wondering if there are any people out there who are itching to make some mods for EVN but haven't got any inspiration. If so i would be glad to start a collaboration with anyone who knows there way around the innards of EVN

Sure, just post your ideas here and see if anyone takes up your offer. Don't worry, no one will steal them but people usually respond to good ideas rather than simply the prospect of doing something to relieve their boredom.

Allrighty then, first lets start off with some weapons:

Rail guns:

Black hole gun; it would shoot a small projectile and the way you cna tell where it is is because of the violet glow around it with a faint blue around the outer edges, because of matter getting sucked in and blue-shifting. the problem with this gun isthat it requires a lot of mass, probably 40 tons and 1 shot would use up 1/4 of your energy, but the black hole would suck in all ships withing about 50 pixels of the projectile.

Anti-matter; simply a slug made of anti-matter, it would be basically the same rail gun except that the 100mm AM rail would doo 5 times the damage of a station based 350mm because whatever it hits would blow up big time, so there would have to be explosion effects if ther is a hit. downside would be the fact that the thing would probably cost about 8 times as much as a regular rail gun of the same size.

Lasers:

Gamma-ray lasers. these would only be disabling weapons, the would go right through sheild like butter and probably 3 seconds continuous exposure would disalbe the ship, depending on size.The beam would be EXTREMELY long, about the range of a 100mm rail gun. Problems: the beam would not be turreted so you would have to aim carefully, and the beam would wear out after about 500 mins total use or 3 mins continuous, requiring it to be replaced because there would be no way to keep the parts in that laser from geting destroyed by the frequency.

Missiles:

Black-hole missiles; you fire a missle that creates a black hole inside itself that is made to evaporate and explode precisely as it hits the target ship. you would need a large explosion radius. about 1.5 times the size of an EMP torp. Pros; the missle would mass nothing because the black hole would not be made until after the missile is launched. Con: to build a missle that would do that would make most cmalll ships seem cheap. it would probably run people anywhere from 5,000-10,000 per missile but it would do about 4 times the damage of an EMP torp, and be about as fast as a Hellhound.

This post has been edited by wondersnail : 30 March 2006 - 02:07 AM

Hm, while the Anti-matter gun and the Black-hole missile seem easy enough, you may have problems with the other two.
You want the black-hole gun to suck in ships but unfortunately negative impact only works on beam weapons and beam weapons cannot be used as submunitions, so I don't immediately see any possible way to achieve this effect. Using a fighter with repulsion beams as weapons wouldn't work since you (the developer) have no control over when the fighter will use its weapons, nor on which targets.
Gamma-ray lasers are hampered by the fact that beams (unlike projectiles) can only be aimed in the same directions that your ship can face, which means ships with less frames will have great difficulty hitting a target far away.

@guy, on Mar 30 2006, 12:06 AM, said in Ideas:

You want the black-hole gun to suck in ships but unfortunately negative impact only works on beam weapons and beam weapons cannot be used as submunitions... Using a fighter with repulsion beams as weapons wouldn't work since you (the developer) have no control over when the fighter will use its weapons, nor on which targets.
Gamma-ray lasers are hampered by the fact that beams (unlike projectiles) can only be aimed in the same directions that your ship can face, which means ships with less frames will have great difficulty hitting a target far away.

Allright thanks for the feed back , now i would like to know a couple of things. First, wouldn't there be a way to make it look like the ship was destroyed after it go hit by the black hole? like say make it cloak and be disabled while taking it off the targetting computer?
Second I don't understand what you mean by repulsion beams?
Third, I don't really think that the Gamma Ray Laser has a problem that serious, it's more like a rail gun when firing because with smaller ships you would have to wait for them to come closer to make sure you would hit them anyway, but with larger ships like Leviathans and Aurouran Carriers, all you would have to do is hold the Autopilot button and you would be aimed right at them with no fuss. So yeah you would have a harder time hitting smaller ships but all you would have to do is get closer to them.

This post has been edited by wondersnail : 30 March 2006 - 02:41 PM

Some of these are a little too strong. The fact that the gamma ray is so hard to aim balances it out, but the AM gun sounds ridiculously overpowered. Maybe make it have a really short range and damage the player's ship as well.

Black hole missiles seem overly strong, too. Maybe you could make them weigh like 3-5 tons each, so that you could fit the black-hole-generating machinery inside. That would probably balance them out nicely, since you'd only need a few to destroy everything you see.

BTW black holes don't actually "suck" things in. They just have a really strong gravitational pull and you'll fall into orbit. If your orbit is too close, however, not even light can escape them, and then , because of your proximity to the black hole's center, you are sucked in, stretched to infinity, and killed. In theory, of course.

Your ideas are actually pretty good overall. I wouldn't be able to do the graphics (since I'm pretty incompetent in that respect) but I could do the coding once we've hashed everything out. I'm on a Windows, though, so that might be a little tricky (although it's nothing a converter can't handle). PM me if you want.

@wondersnail, on Mar 30 2006, 01:40 PM, said in Ideas:

So yeah you would have a harder time hitting smaller ships but all you would have to do is get closer to them.

No. You just spin in a circle.

So, basically everything you came up with would be cool if it wasn't all noobishly overpowered (In my opinion).

Ahh but our very first incarnations are always noobishly overpowered, aren't they?

My first test weapons were just planet dominators anyway.

hey hey,

I'm totally seeing where you are coming from when you say that they are too overpowered. so here's some ways to balace them out.

Black-hole missiles:

not only make them about 4 tons apeice but since tehir ability to explode right next to the ship is because of a timimg system each missle has a maximum range of how far away your target was when you launched the missile, so using it on small ships like fighters would be a waste of time cause they would be able to get out of range in 2 secs flat. So i would definately only consider this missile for taking out things like Ravens and Carriers and the like.

AM Rail gun:
I liked the idea of having it have a shorter range and it would anyway because at the speed it's going it would annihilate parts of itself with the interstellar medium. so yeha it's range would probably only be about half of range of a regular railgun of similar size.

Black-hole Rail gunthe rate of fire would be WAY down there. such as like 1 shot every .75 seconds max. also with the energy drain to shoot it and lets say we make it 40-50 tons I think that that should balance it out nicely.

This post has been edited by wondersnail : 30 March 2006 - 05:02 PM

@wondersnail, on Mar 30 2006, 08:40 AM, said in Ideas:

First, wouldn't there be a way to make it look like the ship was destroyed after it go hit by the black hole? like say make it cloak and be disabled while taking it off the targetting computer?

Hm, no. You can't force a ship to cloak (or otherwise disappear) when you hit it with a weapon.

@wondersnail, on Mar 30 2006, 08:40 AM, said in Ideas:

Second I don't understand what you mean by repulsion beams?

Never mind. That was just in case you tried to think of using fighters to do it but you probably weren't thinking of that. (replusion beams are beams with negative impact that repel other ships away)

@wondersnail, on Mar 30 2006, 08:40 AM, said in Ideas:

Third, I don't really think that the Gamma Ray Laser has a problem that serious, it's more like a rail gun when firing because with smaller ships you would have to wait for them to come closer to make sure you would hit them anyway, but with larger ships like Leviathans and Aurouran Carriers, all you would have to do is hold the Autopilot button and you would be aimed right at them with no fuss. So yeah you would have a harder time hitting smaller ships but all you would have to do is get closer to them.

No, see even autopilot won't help if the target is far away because beams simply can't aim at whatever angle you want. Say your ship has 36 frames then you can only fire every 10 degrees. If the target is somewhere away at 45 degrees then firing at 40 or 50 may miss. This is not the case with projectiles which can every 1 degree no matter how many frames your ship has.

@yellow, on Mar 30 2006, 12:48 PM, said in Ideas:

BTW black holes don't actually "suck" things in. They just have a really strong gravitational pull and you'll fall into orbit. If your orbit is too close, however, not even light can escape them, and then , because of your proximity to the black hole's center, you are sucked in, stretched to infinity, and killed. In theory, of course.

Believe me I know a great deal about black holes, have you ever read The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, or The Fabric of The Cosmos, or A Brief History of Time? Those are definitely my favourite books concerning black holes. And I’ve definitely got more items to add to my repertoire.

Point-Singularity Power Generator:

Harnesses the power of a Microscopic Black hole. What you do is get a black hole with a strong electromagnetic charge and hold it in the center of a sphere with some very strong magnets. Then you spin the singularity so fast that it becomes a naked singularity. Now depending on the mass, the black hole will emit more energy the smaller it is as is evaporates. this energy can be harnessed and the general power output of one black hole that is about the mass of the asteroid Vesta is approximately 4x10^6 Megawatts or in layman’s term 4 Terawatts. One problem is that you are now carting around a mass that weighs as much as a small asteroid. but this is offset somewhat by the increased power which can be sent straight to the engines of the ship so you would probably only lose about 50 points from the top speed, but jumping into Hyperspace would be harder as you would need more energy to move that huge mass so you would lose approximately Half of your available jumps, but even if you only had three jumps after installing the generator the energy renewal would let you have about 5 if you kept jumping one after another. The power generated at rest would easily be enough to keep a Raven's four CPL's firing for many minutes

Quote

hey hey,

I'm totally seeing where you are coming from when you say that they are too overpowered. so here's some ways to balace them out.

Black-hole missiles:

not only make them about 4 tons apeice but since tehir ability to explode right next to the ship is because of a timimg system each missle has a maximum range of how far away your target was when you launched the missile, so using it on small ships like fighters would be a waste of time cause they would be able to get out of range in 2 secs flat. So i would definately only consider this missile for taking out things like Ravens and Carriers and the like.

Problem is, AI doesn't think about these things and will actually run right into that big explosion just like a dog runs at anything you throw provided it is between you and them. My idea to balance it out would be using submunitions to create a huge blast radius that also hits the player with negative impact.. so you would also be sucked in and if you get too close.. boom.. along with the rest of them. But the other problem is to fire 2 types of weapons and have them somehow stay active together, from a single weapon... and in order to sustain the gravity effect you need recursive subs. Maybe you could have the weapon submunitions switch between two very rapidly but last time I tried that Nova didn't like it very much if I remember correctly. Which would mean using about half of all the weapons ressource just for a weapon.

Note: Also, I wonder how you would attempt to fit this in the nova universe where the word blackhole is very rarely seen and the one place I can remember seeing it is in the raven's description and the stated cause would be engine failure for something of that big mass that moves so sluggishly. I wonder how you will explain a missile of a sane size producing that kind of effect. However, you are free to use it with a plug in which it could be explained.

Quote

Gamma-ray lasers. these would only be disabling weapons, the would go right through sheild like butter and probably 3 seconds continuous exposure would disalbe the ship, depending on size.The beam would be EXTREMELY long, about the range of a 100mm rail gun. Problems: the beam would not be turreted so you would have to aim carefully, and the beam would wear out after about 500 mins total use or 3 mins continuous, requiring it to be replaced because there would be no way to keep the parts in that laser from geting destroyed by the frequency.

Quote

No. You just spin in a circle.

He is right, just spinning your ship a bit would probably end up disabling everything in front of you the way you say it. It is true that ships with fewer frames would have troubles also. Again, the computer doesn't really care no matter what you throw at them. It could however, be extremely expensive, also create invisible amunitions for it. Then give a set amount and when the weapon runs out, you have to replace it in order to get ammos. But then I wonder if you can have it drain fuel at the same time, too.

Quote

Point-Singularity Power Generator:

Harnesses the power of a Microscopic Black hole. What you do is get a black hole with a strong electromagnetic charge and hold it in the center of a sphere with some very strong magnets. Then you spin the singularity so fast that it becomes a naked singularity. Now depending on the mass, the black hole will emit more energy the smaller it is as is evaporates. this energy can be harnessed and the general power output of one black hole that is about the mass of the asteroid Vesta is approximately 4x10^6 Megawatts or in layman’s term 4 Terawatts. One problem is that you are now carting around a mass that weighs as much as a small asteroid. but this is offset somewhat by the increased power which can be sent straight to the engines of the ship so you would probably only lose about 50 points from the top speed, but jumping into Hyperspace would be harder as you would need more energy to move that huge mass so you would lose approximately Half of your available jumps, but even if you only had three jumps after installing the generator the energy renewal would let you have about 5 if you kept jumping one after another. The power generated at rest would easily be enough to keep a Raven's four CPL's firing for many minutes

I fail to see how something the size of a small asteroid can compare with the mass of a blackhole, which is the mass of, at least , a small star that imploded and possibly tons of space dust plus possibly many asteroids who were also pulled in, and maybe add some planets to this and you've got an incredible mass to produce an object the size of a human fist. The black thing around them we see and we think is actually the hole is the absence of light because of the overpowered gravity force that can even bend or litterally stop light. I also fail to see how you would actually translate this into something that produces energy... and spinning it would also require a lot of energy.

Note: In my opinion, black holes are really impressive, because they can even stop light with raw mass gravity. According to Einstein, to reach the speed of light, you need to have a mass of zero, because as you accelerate, at some point, your mass increases exponentially and you would need an infinite source of energy to keep accelerating. So, basically, black holes are able to affect massless particles with their own mass.. which is.. a total mystery :blink:

That is, as far as real world applies, talking about the game however, you're free to use scientific terms to make it seem possible or even make something plain impossible such as star wars when they land in an asteroid and they just leave the ship with breathing masks but no suit... technically they'd either burn or freeze instantly, not even mentionning the fact that their bodies would explode because of the space emptiness effect... so as far as game goes, you could even create a cat launcher that goes through shields and deals a small amount of constant damage and ionize your ship and blame it on a cat chewing your cables for all I care.

Also, halving jumps is impossible, for this reason getting a reasonnable number is a bit hard. As for increasing the ship's mass, it's not possible with an outfit.

Mumbling Psycho said:

so as far as game goes, you could even create a cat launcher that goes through shields and deals a small amount of constant damage and ionize your ship and blame it on a cat chewing your cables for all I care.

That sounds like an interesting plug idea...

@shrout1, on Mar 30 2006, 01:34 PM, said in Ideas:

Ahh but our very first incarnations are always noobishly overpowered, aren't they?

My first test weapons were just planet dominators anyway.

None of my first weapons were overpowered. I think my first one was a cluster missile that subbed into six IR missiles at the end of it's short life. It weighed one ton and cost 5,000 credits. Completely useless though, cause the subs only went after one target.

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Mar 30 2006, 11:25 PM, said in Ideas:

None of my first weapons were overpowered. I think my first one was a cluster missile that subbed into six IR missiles at the end of it's short life. It weighed one ton and cost 5,000 credits. Completely useless though, cause the subs only went after one target.

That's not useless.
If they spread out enough, it makes it harder to shoot down with PD...

@ Guy:
I'm pretty sure I got negative impacts to work with projectiles, it only seemed to work every couple seconds of so though.

I tried to create a weapon that would set up a disturbance in a small area. Any ship in that area would be pulled towards it.

I had a weapon that would fly out to a certian distance, then sub into a radial spread of many parts, these would then sub into two parts at theta -170 (so, almost exactly reversed) then they would sub and reverse again. And do this a few times. This would create a localized area in space where many subs of the the weapon were bouncing back and forth. (I believe there was some prox so that even when the weapon hit, it could still produce a sub going the other direction)

When the weapon was bouncing out, it would get negative impact. When bouncing in, it would get positive impact.

This worked to an extent, but the problem was that the munitions wouldn't always impart the impact effect. It only seemed like a ship could be effected every couple of seconds.

@shrout1, on Mar 30 2006, 04:34 PM, said in Ideas:

Ahh but our very first incarnations are always noobishly overpowered, aren't they?

My first test weapons were just planet dominators anyway.

My first time playing with the Nova engine I built an ionizing lighting-beam point defense turret that would disable but not destroy. It was pretty awesome.

Then I played around with submunitions, but nothing in particular stands out right now.

@mumbling-psycho, on Mar 30 2006, 02:58 PM, said in Ideas:

My idea to balance it out would be using submunitions to create a huge blast radius that also hits the player with negative impact.. so you would also be sucked in and if you get too close.. boom.. along with the rest of them.

that would be a great idea because after all you are shooting a black hole at someone so it's only logical that you would get pulled along with it as well

@mumbling-psycho, on Mar 30 2006, 02:58 PM, said in Ideas:

I fail to see how something the size of a small asteroid can compare with the mass of a blackhole, which is the mass of, at least , a small star that imploded and possibly tons of space dust plus possibly many asteroids who were also pulled in, and maybe add some planets to this and you've got an incredible mass to produce an object the size of a human fist. The black thing around them we see and we think is actually the hole is the absence of light because of the overpowered gravity force that can even bend or litterally stop light. I also fail to see how you would actually translate this into something that produces energy... and spinning it would also require a lot of energy.

You are simply thinking of one way for black hole's to form, when a star collapses on itself. But there is another way to create a black hole. You can simply compress a solid mass past its Schwarzschild radius. That is if you crush something enough it will turn into a black hole. It's thought that there are some black holes like this floating around from the Big Bang, when there were pressures enough to do that. but it would actually be easier to make a small black hole and you would get a better energy return because a black hole that weighed as much as the sun would only give of a few miliwatts of energy, while a smaller black hole that weighed as much as a larger asteroid would emit 4 terawatts of energy due to evaporation. and spinning it would be difficult but you would get a great energy return because you could also manufacture anti-matter by shooting a stream of particles just outside of their Point-of-No-Return and the " gravitational rip tide" (as I call it) will change the spin of the particles which changes them into Anti-matter, so you would get an even better energy return.

This post has been edited by wondersnail : 31 March 2006 - 12:35 AM

@mrxak, on Mar 30 2006, 08:43 PM, said in Ideas:

My first time playing with the Nova engine I built an ionizing lighting-beam point defense turret that would disable but not destroy. It was pretty awesome.

Then I played around with submunitions, but nothing in particular stands out right now.

I first played with EVedit for EV:O quite sometime back...

I made cheat outfits at first, just to see what the effects of different experiments would be. My favorite was a variant of the Miranu Defense Pod - it shot out a multitude of Vonian mines which were so sensitive they exploded whenever another ship entered the system and in turn destroyed any ship (other than my own) that was in the system.

Real cop-out, really, but fun for a first try.

I think my first "plugin" changed the Executive Transport from EVC into das ubership. Unfortunately I failed to realize why reasonable limits on max speed and acceleration are useful; the thing was impossible to land!