Ingredients:

- characteristics as described in the s˙st resource
- other systems to link with
- düde to place in the system
- a gövt for the system
- text for the message buoys

Uses:

The system is where all flying and combat takes place. It is also where you will find the planets that you can land on. You can also set what kind of people the player will find in the system as well as the 'space debris' that may be found (such as asteroids or radar interference). You can also do some nifty things with systems, such as hide or show them, or change them according to the completion or failure of a mission.

Construction:

Making a system is a bit more complicated than making a planet because it draws upon many more resources. Editing a system works just like editing a planet. Making a new one is more difficult.

Here are some tips:

- All of the Con fields are links. Remember, though, that if s˙st 153 is linked to s˙st 129, s˙st 129 also has to link to s˙st 153.

- Same with the spöb's NavDef fields. If spöb 146 is in s˙st 153, s˙st 153 must have the spöb ID 146 in one of its NavDef fields and spöb 146 must have the s˙st ID 153 in its System field.

- For EV Nova things are a little different - you only have to place the spob in the system, you don't also have to put the system in the spob resource

- Visbit: This is a more complicated part of plug-in design. VisBit controls whether or not a system is visible. Remember, this is dependent upon the state of a certain mission bit, on or off. If you put 128 into the VisBit field, that system will only be visible when bit 128 is ON. If you put 1128 into the field, it will be visible only when 128 is OFF. EV Nova uses !B128 rather than 1128.

Making a system appear or disappear: To make a system appear after a mission is completed, you put a certain CompBitSet2 into the mďsn resource (you'll want to use CompBitSet2 because it can be independent of mission flow; another mission could clear that bit without necessarily bringing back the original mission). That same value is placed into the s˙st's VisBit field. When the mission is completed, the system will appear. If you want to make the system disappear at a later time, you could clear the bit with another mission (by putting 1000+ the bit number into that mission's CompBitSet2 field).

Altering a system: Altering a system is another trick you could easily accomplish with VisBit. Here's what you need:

- Two systems, the original with VisBit xxx and the new one with VisBit 1xxx. The new one should be in the same location and have some perceptible change.

- A mission that will set bit xxx. When the mission is completed, bit xxx is set, causing the original system with VisBit 1xxx to disappear and the new system to appear in its place. Note that the new system will be unexplored to the player because the player has never been in it (though the player won't realize that, you should: these are two different systems, just in the same place, one hidden, one visible).

- The s˙st resource also holds the location where the System appears on the map. Placing systems may take some experimentation. It is a good idea to start at the center (0, 0) and work from there. You will need to run EV to see where the new system is placed on the map.

- Text also can be displayed when the player enters a system. This text is held in the STR# resource group under STR# ID 1000. Just enter the number of the string into the s˙st's Message field.

(This message has been edited by Martin Turner (edited 11-03-2003).)