Well, by his definition, my criticism was constructive. I pointed out a percieved problem (use of Protoss and Chiss), stated why I thought it was a problem (ripping of SC and SW), and offered a solution (adjusting and tweaking them until they are at least slightly different). Though I'll be honest, I'm blunt when it comes to storylines and writing. From my experience, sugar-coated criticism isn't helpful to a writer in the least bit.

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What should we help with, and, perhaps a better question, does he want our help in the first place?

I don't know. I'm just saying that 'that's cheesy' does not qualify as constructive criticism, and that he's too far along to change his story. If he wants help, we should help him if we can.

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You don't necessarily need to rename the Protoss and the Chiss. If there is enough pseudo-scientific gobbledy-gook about interdimensional rifts you can explain away their presence without inciting too much of a "Protoss?! Lame!" response.

True.

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Well, by his definition, my criticism was constructive

Oh, yeah, it was. I was talking about lobf's criticism not being constructive, but you offered up numerous alternatives alongside of your criticism.

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From my experience, sugar-coated criticism isn't helpful to a writer in the least bit.

That's true, but 'That's cheesy' is not just blunt, it's unhelpful and unconstructive. You offered a somewhat blunt, but constructive opinion which adressed what you saw as problems.

@joshtigerheart, on Oct 1 2007, 12:22 AM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

From my experience, sugar-coated criticism isn't helpful to a writer in the least bit.

I hate it when people are all like "I love what you did and all, but..." and I can't tell if they hate it or just have a few minor problems with it. I'd much rather have someone come right out and tell me it's stupid (which doesn't offend me, BTW) than sugar-coat it.

This post has been edited by Cosmic_Nusiance : 01 October 2007 - 10:57 AM

I agree with that. Just as long as they give some advice as to how you can improve, it doesn't bother me.

@shlimazel, on Oct 1 2007, 09:55 AM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

I don't know. I'm just saying that 'that's cheesy' does not qualify as constructive criticism, and that he's too far along to change his story. If he wants help, we should help him if we can.

Arguably, if he isn't in beta, it's not too late. Take Starfox Adventures for example. That was an entirely different, non-Starfox game meant for the Nintendo 64 that was pretty dang far into development when Nintendo asked Rare to turn it into a Starfox game. That meant heavy revisions to the whole story, making changes to every area of the game, adding new graphics (and later updating them numerous times for a Gamecube release), etc. etc. etc. A shame there's no leaked ROMs of that game like there was for Starfox 2 on the SNES, I want to play it before it became a Starfox game. The graphics looked really good for that era.

I'm going to ask Starsword to sit back and think for quite a bit on how well recieved use of the Protoss, Chiss, and SW Expanded universe elements will be recieved in a non-Starcraft, non-Star Wars plug, and carefully weigh whether the work to make adjustments would be worth the better reception. If he still decides to go onward with his present decision, then I won't bring it up anymore, since I doubt he'd change it if he decided to keep it after that kind of reflection.

Didn't mean to make you feel redundant, Shlimazel. Sorry 'bout dat.

Well, using "pseudoscientific gobbledegook" to explain the Protoss and SW presence is out of the question in my opinion. Now, I don't normally consider any idea to be pseudoscience unless I either hate its guts (as in this case) or it's been disproven. In the case of psychics, which both EVN and EVN:UGF use, I admit there's no scientific proof of their existence, but how are we to know if evidence of telepathy didn't appear because psi powers don't exist, or because no telepaths actually took part in the experiment. On the other hand there's the movie The Core. I liked that movie because it was a well-made movie, and the scientists actually acted like scientists; however, the entire premise of the film--the rotation of Earth's outer core is slowing down, causing the magnetic field to collapse--is pseudoscience: Earth's core rotates because the magnetic field exists, not the other way around as it was stated in the film.

Anyway, I'm going to wait until I have a decent mission structure (that is to say, a basic plan of how the storylines will work) until I make a final final decision on it.

Ideas for the various strings are welcome. One question: how do you make a ship upgrade an outfit? I mean, Pace made it so that in ARPIA2, you could buy a Carachnor, then go into the outfitter and buy a rebuild of the ship to make it a "Heavy Weapons Platform" variant. I'm looking to do something like that with, for example, the UGN Apache -class command ship turning into the Aegis -class.

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One question: how do you make a ship upgrade an outfit? I mean, Pace made it so that in ARPIA2, you could buy a Carachnor, then go into the outfitter and buy a rebuild of the ship to make it a "Heavy Weapons Platform" variant. I'm looking to do something like that with, for example, the UGN Apache-class command ship turning into the Aegis-class.

That's a good question. You could just open up the ARPIA2 data files and see what he did. I know how to make variants of standard ship designs that you buy in the shipyard, but I'm not sure as to how he did it in ARPIA2.

You set a contribute bit in the ship resource, and set the same bit in the require resource of the outfit. EV:Pax uses this a lot, and it can also be done with NCBs, though that is way more complicated (I use this a few times too). If you want the explanation of how to do it with NCBs, I'll tell you, but I'd rather not think that hard right now.

@starsword, on Oct 2 2007, 06:16 PM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

One question: how do you make a ship upgrade an outfit?

In the OnPurchase field, put Hxxx where xxx is the ID of the ship resource you want to upgrade the ship to. This is usually a variant of the original.

For that he could have just checked the Bible, Cosmic. My answer wasn't in the Bible and therefore was vastly superior.

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For that he could have just checked the Bible, Cosmic. My answer wasn't in the Bible and therefore was vastly superior.

But he didn't. That's why he's asking.

@zapp, on Oct 2 2007, 08:39 PM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

For that he could have just checked the Bible, Cosmic. My answer wasn't in the Bible and therefore was vastly superior.

@cosmic_nusiance, on Oct 2 2007, 09:47 PM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

But he didn't. That's why he's asking.

Okay, you two, cut the bickering.

I suspected that was how it was done, but I wasn't sure enough to try it myself. Thanks guys. I'm going to put the upgrade OUTFs into a different file from the rest of the OUTFs because I've finished the others and posted them on my site inside the file "Weapon Design Requisites.zip".

EDIT: Wait a sec. If I do it that way, the ship'll keep the name you gave it when you bought it, right?

This post has been edited by StarSword : 03 October 2007 - 05:41 PM

Yes. Unless you set some NCBs to change the name to a designated STR#.

Sorry to grave dig, (its not really, it has to be 4 months old, I believe the consensus was) but do you have a pdf program yet? You can actually do it in preview, if you are using macs. Take a screenshot of the text or whatever, copy it, do a new document in preview, and save it as a pdf.

@shlimazel, on Oct 3 2007, 12:20 AM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

I'm not sure as to how he did it in ARPIA2.

Actually, it's an advanced version of the simple technique Cosmic_Nuisance suggested, because just changing the ship with that operator isn't enough. You have to give the new ship to the player, along with all the new ship's standard weapons, but you also have to remove the standard weapons that come with the previous variant. Otherwise, it's really "cheaty".

And yes, you keep your old ship name.

This post has been edited by Pace : 05 October 2007 - 10:51 AM

@0101181920, on Oct 4 2007, 12:24 AM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

Sorry to grave dig, (its not really, it has to be 4 months old, I believe the consensus was) but do you have a pdf program yet? You can actually do it in preview, if you are using macs. Take a screenshot of the text or whatever, copy it, do a new document in preview, and save it as a pdf.

Hang on, what are you talking about?

And no, I'm using Windows.

I am currently working on EV Nova: Apohis. It was supposed to be a rather large plug, but limitations not only in the nova engine, but in my old Imac as well, have slowed things considerably. Do not fear, however, because I am supposed to be getting a nice new computer soon, and I will be able to commence work at speed. :laugh:

Starsword, I would tend to agree with the others about original races. Your story-line sounds depressingly similar to the one already in Nova. other than that, I wish you luck in you endeavor.

I've been working on various FLET resources for the TC lately. For each major government I've allotted three "system defense" FLETs (strong fleet, medium fleet, weak fleet), in addition to three "battle group" FLETs that appear basically at random. I'm also building an assortment of pirate gangs and trader convoys.

@starsword, on Oct 5 2007, 10:08 AM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

Hang on, what are you talking about?

And no, I'm using Windows.

Earlier in the thread, you said something about not having PDF making software. Hence, I offered a solution. Unfortuanatly, I just found out that it doesn't work. I will now do penance by doing some thing wierd. :ph3r :blin: :wacko :unsur: (:angr: :wu: : <_ --:rolleyes B lol: D P ) o _^ huh: mellow: That was all supposed to be emoticons, but I quote:

Webboard @ Oct 13 2007, 12:54 PM said:

THE FOLLOWING ERROR(S) WERE FOUND
You have posted a message with more emoticons than this board allows. Please reduce the number of emoticons you've added to the message

Edit:
I am victorious. I have figured out how to manufacture fake quotes, or quotes not supported by this website. I am very insane. All of my subjects must bow down before me. (editors note. I have no subjects) Fun fun fun.

This post has been edited by 101181920 : 13 October 2007 - 02:56 PM

@0101181920, on Oct 13 2007, 03:53 PM, said in EV Nova: United Galactic Federation:

Earlier in the thread, you said something about not having PDF making software. Hence, I offered a solution. Unfortuanatly, I just found out that it doesn't work. I will now do penance by doing some thing wierd. :ph3r :blin: :wacko :unsur: (:angr: :wu: : <_ --:rolleyes B lol: D P ) o _^ huh: mellow: That was all supposed to be emoticons, but I quote:
Edit:
I am victorious. I have figured out how to manufacture fake quotes, or quotes not supported by this website. I am very insane. All of my subjects must bow down before me. (editors note. I have no subjects) Fun fun fun.

Um. :blink: