(semi-cheat)

Howdy everybody,

I was thinking about creating a small plugin (For the original EVN), that would:

• Unlock all the ships
• Keep the ships at their same price points
• Revive a few planets all over the universe to sell them. Like Jupiter, some dead planet close to the Auroran system, and something close to the Polaris. And maybe something close to the Rebels/pirates.

My question is:
• Has this been done for EVN yet? If not;

Then my next questions are:
• Shall I do the same to all the outfits.
• Shall I get rid of all the other bits related to the ships. Like setting a bit that makes the Feds attack you because your in, lets say a Rebel starbridge, etc... And of course the availability bits.
• Shall I set likelihood of ship being in shipyards (that can take them) to 100%?
• Shall I significantly reduce the tech level so that all the ships are available everywhere for download?
• Will my deletion of the bits affect mission availability? Like the contribute bits. Will that interfere with one of the major storylines if I got rid of it?

Any suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated. I'll start work on it ASAP once I have a few answers.

@trinix, on Aug 19 2007, 04:06 AM, said in Minor Plugin:

• Shall I do the same to all the outfits.
• Shall I get rid of all the other bits related to the ships. Like setting a bit that makes the Feds attack you because your in, lets say a Rebel starbridge, etc... And of course the availability bits.
• Shall I set likelihood of ship being in shipyards (that can take them) to 100%?
• Shall I significantly reduce the tech level so that all the ships are available everywhere for download?
• Will my deletion of the bits affect mission availability? Like the contribute bits. Will that interfere with one of the major storylines if I got rid of it?
Any suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated. I'll start work on it ASAP once I have a few answers.

I don't believe that this has been done exactly as you said. There is the "Ship Variants" plug-in, which unlocks all ship variants, but only when available from the storyline (for example, you can buy the Close-Quarters variant Fed Patrol Boat, but not until you can buy the normal Fed Patrol Boat from the Fed storyline).

As for outfits, I'd say this: go ahead and do it! But, since that will take quite a while, make two different plugins. Start with ships, and then move on to so people can 1) get the ships plug faster and 2) put in one plug or the other, or both. Just make sure there aren't any resource conflicts. You could even make 3, one to include the outfits, one to include the ships, and a third that would always be in that retools the planets you wish to sell them from.

For the %availability and tech level questions, that's really up to you. Since it is pretty cheat-ish, I'd make them 100% from everywhere (or maybe make all Fed ships available from Fed ports, Polaris available from Polaris ports, etc.) if I were making it, but it's you're plug so do as you please! That's the joy of it! :laugh:

Deleting the Contribute bits or AvailableOn mission bit strings shouldn't interfere with storylines.

Now, the tricky question is the one about making Feds not attack you for being in a Rebel Starbridge, for example. I may be wrong on this, but that really cool sidebar for your ship display on the right-hand side of the screen changes based on the gov't type of the ship you're flying. So you could certainly make every ship have -1 government meaning no government would attack you just because of the ship you're in, but you would also make every ship have that same vanilla display panel.

I may be wrong about that though. I've never played around with it, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works based on my own plug-in development.

Good luck on your plugin! Be sure to keep us updated!

Your console comment was a shrewd insight. Your right, if a ship belongs to a certain gov't, then it will have their console if specified. Otherwise, it will use the default console. If I make all the ships have no inherent gov't, then the only gov't ships you'll see are those in fleets or specified by missions. Because I like the consoles, I'll separate that into separate plugins so the default console could be anything the player wants.

Completely agree with you on separating the plugin into Outfits vs Ships. I'll do the ships first. I'll duplicate that and create variations in availability. I'll host a poll to figure out the most popular availability combinations and do the top 2-3. Same for the outfits when their time comes.

The other problem mentioned was that if I zero out all the government fields for the ships, then their won't simple be just single gov't ships unless they are part of the fleet with only one ship! Off hand, I'm thinking I'll redo, and expand the fleet field to compensate for that.

----- Tech Levels
If I did the tech levels to zero, then they'll show up everywhere. I'm trying to go for a semi-cheat, in other words, limiting availability to a few places with outrageous tech levels that can buy anything basically, for a price. So as not to interfere with the game, they'd be dead planets revived. However, if the popular demand is what you suggest, then I'll do it.

This post has been edited by Trinix : 19 August 2007 - 12:14 AM

Your plug sounds like a great idea. There are two ways to go. The first is like a cheat, with all 100% availabilities, the second is a kinda "black market" thing that jacks the prices and lowers the availability of the bigger ships significantly. I was working on something like that (called "black market" no less) but, alas, it is now vaporware.

I have to speak about the tech levels idea. I would suggest that you can buy anything available from the various gov'ts, but only up to the specified tech level of the world. For instance, say you want some Polaris Tech. Well, you can just head over to Polaris space, but you want to get some warships. And you know from playing the storyline that they're only available on Nil'Kemorya Worlds, so you decide to stop at Nil'a He (the westernmost Nil'Kemorya Station).

Likewise, say you're wanting a Legal Ion Cannon. If you've played the Fed Storyline, they're only available on a few worlds; Rautherion and Gli-Tech-Nia are two of them, though there may be more. You'll have to go to one of those worlds to get them, as such.

I'd suggest (unless you're really set on making this a cheat) leaving the Unrelenting and Thunderforge out; you could probably put the T-Forge in, but just make sure it comes with an exorbitant price tag. The Unrelenting is given to you (so is the T-Forge, but you have to work for it), so I would advise against implementing that.

That oughta do for now. See ya!

All the ships you couldn't have bought are automatically set to 50% availability. Variants are also available. I'll be having a beta testing period in which anyone can give me some feedback on the plugin, and any adjustments that need to be made. For instance, I may miss something like a desc, or need to take something out.

I'll wait for the price adjustments until the beta testing period as that I don't think it is necessary, but it may be. I'd just like you guys to try it out first hand and let me know after playing a bit with the plug.

So far, you have to land in a gov't territory to buy one of their classes of ships.

I was not that impressed with the T-Forge in my experiences a while back. I thought the Vellos Javalin or Scarab, Raven, Pirate Carrier were definitely better, and possible a Fed Carrier and Destroyer if used correctly. I'd probable jack up the prices though on the T-Forge and Unrelenting though if it is still recommended during beta testing. I can also just leave them out if popular opinion is to do such.

------Ship availability + Polaris
• To get a Polaris ship you'd have to be friends enough with them to land on one of their military stations that also had a shipyard. That seems like a difficult prospect unless your in their storyline.

@trinix, on Aug 19 2007, 08:36 AM, said in Minor Plugin:

------Ship availability + Polaris
• To get a Polaris ship you'd have to be friends enough with them to land on one of their military stations that also had a shipyard. That seems like a difficult prospect unless your in their storyline.

Not true. Doing enough United Shipping missions fixes that right up. In fact, I've found that the best thing to do is get United Shipping and start working on improving your standings with the Polaris. It only takes about an hour or two to accomplish this.

@warlord-mike, on Aug 19 2007, 12:30 PM, said in Minor Plugin:

Not true. Doing enough United Shipping missions fixes that right up. In fact, I've found that the best thing to do is get United Shipping and start working on improving your standings with the Polaris. It only takes about an hour or two to accomplish this.

Thanks for the heads up Mike. I hadn't realized that. Plugin creation on schedule, damn, 288 ships??? lol.

Ran into a general question about the ship's resource, made a new thread about it.
http://www.ambrosias...howtopic=114629

There's one more thing you could do to make the player safe from attack because of the ship they fly (I used this one in Anathema with great results). Just make a mission from the mission computer that, on accept, activates a bunch of ranks. Make one rank for every major government, and check the "ships of this gov't won't attack player" flag. Make sure the rank won't deactivate if the player shoots/kills a ship of that gov't. Also, if you make the ranks start with a ";" symbol, they won't show up in the rank panel.

Alright, I have a plugin Alpha ready. All the shďps have been modified for availability. I did not mess with hiring abilities though.

Name: Unleasher (Get it, it's unleashing ships>? )
Version: 0.0.9 (Alpha)

I've been playing around with it. A couple of points of interest:
• Wraith (Adult) ships are EXTREMELY fun to go and ride around in, especially starting a new pilot and buying one right off the bat! They'll let the user hyperspace while cloaked, and won't uncloak even if hit. Their natural abilities are incredible!
• After raiding Manticores/Levies; I went an bought a 4.5 Million credit variation to the Destroyer. Also a fun joy ride, and extremely powerful.
• Vellos ships cost nothing at the moment (given their nature), might be interested in some feedback there.

E-mail me if your interested in testing out the plugin. Ideas on variations and what not, as well as other modifications would be quite helpful/welcome.

E-mail: trinix@sbcglobal.net

- Trinix