I was wondering, how many of you would like to play against the other people that play EV all over the world, just to find out how good you really are?

I don't know if anybody has any plans to do this, and I find it weird that I'm the first, but I have to ask just how good a net EV would be.

Mind you, not the whole game. I was thinking just like fighting. You can't jump, there's no missions, just a lot of people put into a system to duke it out. Winner gets money to buy ships and weapons, and escorts.

What do you out there think?

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Three years and my pizza still isn't here.

Maybe I should call.

I think that that would be a hell of a lot easiser than making EV fully networkable and is more likely to happen. But then again, that might get old quick. I mean, EV isn't just a combat game, ya know? I think that the whole EV network game might just need more than a half dozen people on a discusion board to make it work. Mabye we should talk to development?

Drew S.

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What do you mean, I've got to get a life?

I agree. A just network fighting version of EV would be cool, but it wouldn't be as fun. Plus, you'd have to think about how you get money. Otherwise, would it just be everyone in Kestrels? But yes, this is more probable than a fully networked EV.

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EVula
(url="http://"mailto:evula@home.com")mailto:evula@home.com(/url)evula@home.com

forgot my password & the page cleared...

ok, so are you suggesting like an "EV Arena" type game with fragging? that would be cool... maybe have some dumb bots that you can just blow up or plunder... those wouldn't add to your frag total... then you could get money to buy upgrades... prob. be on an instant type basis like picking up weapons... maybe you could do that too... war ships wouldn't be fair tho if you're agaisnt a shuttlecraft... maybe different arenas for different ships... you could have the lets-duke-it-out-with-2-laser-cannons-and-a-shuttle arena, a confeds vs rebels team tourney, etc.

now, who the hell's gonna develop something like that anyway?
i could try to do that on a calc, but it'd take me over a year. i've been working on ti-ev since the summer!

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(url="http://"http://209.67.19.99/~da_mac/orion/")()rion Productions(/url)
~ Robin ( (url="http://"mailto:funky_cheeze@usa.net")mailto:funky_cheeze@usa.net(/url)funky_cheeze@usa.net

I think Da-mac's got it. Mable somthing like Marathon network games. You chose a level, if there are alien (in this case, bot ships) You could chose a ship and weapons and upgrades. That sounds do-able, right?

EV on a TI calc? What is this world coming to?

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What do you mean, I've got to get a life?

Hot damn! Matt Burch has already done this. (url="http://"http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~mburch/exobattle/")Exobattle(/url) is a 3D multiplayer space combat simulator where you zoom around in a Manta-ish fighter and blow things up.

Have you heard of the Ambrosia game called (url="http://"http://www.arescentral.com")Ares(/url)? This is essential what you're talking about, albeit slightly different. Rather than custom ships, you get custom fleets. Star Control 3 also has a similar feature, called Hyper Melee. Ambrosia will never do this kind of plotless network combat, because it has Ares for network games, and EV Multiplayer is in the works - sorta.

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ColdFusion

I'm waiting for the day when "this side up" arrows appear on grocery bags.

(This message has been edited by ColdFusion (edited 02-14-2000).)

personally, ares sucks. the zooming is annoying (yes i know you can fix it at a setting) the ships are stupid, and the controls are funky. especially the fleet assigning stuff. you can't just launch the fighters then hit 'r' or whatever to make 'em engage.
strong case i have there...
but there's no like upgrading & plundering like I suggested in my previous message. you just keep building ships... whoop-de-doo. i like making the money to get upgrades, personally. and as for exobattle, it doesn't recognize my ati128 card!! maybe it wants quick draw & not open gl... i dunno. it also quits itself when i try to do any network play. maybe it don't like os 9.

i suppose exobattle could incorporate all that jazz, but exobattle seems slow on an imac DV. that's kinda pitiful, i think... prob. due to it not finding my graphics card...

well, anyway, off to more of the fun exiciting ti-ev programming world.

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EV on a TI calc? What is this world coming to?

anarchy and chaos during math, chemisty, and physics class. just wait 'till i work out a simplified calc-to-calc ti-ev (not for a long time)

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(url="http://"http://209.67.19.99/~da_mac/orion/")()rion Productions(/url)
~ Robin ( (url="http://"mailto:funky_cheeze@usa.net")mailto:funky_cheeze@usa.net(/url)funky_cheeze@usa.net

I think an EV battle arena would be cool, but eventually it would get mindnumbing. all your doing is blowing up other ships it would need more. more shipps to make the game diversified. 20 ships for a million people to use that is crazy. who would want to play against thousands of people with only 20 ships to chose from. and a good idea would being able to ally with other player and be able to chat and plan strategic moves when you land on a planet. but you would have to be able to jump out of a system if you are going to die. and various systems should have computers in them with a reasonabley good A.I. in order to keep the peace and prevent squabling amongst players. overall a good idea but needs some serious rethinking.

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ace wrote:
I think an EV battle arena would be cool, but eventually it would get mindnumbing. all your doing is blowing up other ships it would need more. more shipps to make the game diversified. 20 ships for a million people to use that is crazy. who would want to play against thousands of people with only 20 ships to chose from. and a good idea would being able to ally with other player and be able to chat and plan strategic moves when you land on a planet. but you would have to be able to jump out of a system if you are going to die. and various systems should have computers in them with a reasonabley good A.I. in order to keep the peace and prevent squabling amongst players. overall a good idea but needs some serious rethinking.

Making ship graphics isn't all that hard. I'm most curious about how to get these ships. Battles, yes, that would be cool. How about missions you can take to hunt and kill other players to earn different ships?

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~ThE kWaNzA mAn~
"Thou shalt not mess with the fury of KwAnZa!"

Cool. The overall response (judging from 8 replies) seems to be in favour of an EV Battle-arena. Personally I couldn't do it, although in a while I might have the skills. Until then, we'll just have to hope Matt or Andrew or SOMEBODY likes the idea as much as some of us.

And yes, I had the idea of a LOT of ships, weapons, and even some random personalities jumping in and helping the loser or something. I don't know.

I still think its a great idea, though.

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Three years and my pizza still isn't here.

Maybe I should call.

Hehehe...

You know, as long as your going to op for a battle oriented Net EV, why not include the rest of the works as well. Comments on that? You don't think its feasible? Well why not!?

CS

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Well, I said this in banter & brawl, so why not here?

After reading Chrestomanci's article, and after much pondering, rethinking, and thumb-twiddling, I've come to the conclusion that EV 3D is a drastic step with enormous difficulties to deal with: boarding, landing, etc. Thus, I have conversely come up with a plan that is a stepping stone to a true 3D EV: an enhanced version of Exobattle, Matt Burch's barebones 3D space-combat sim.
Exobattle has a good game engine, but it has no interface, mediocre AI, no plot. and lacks most of the things that make EV great. Some improvements could bring Exobattle closer to the standard set by EV and might even help developers create EV 3D.

• Firstly, a plot. A quasi-EV plot could fit quite nicely - you're a solo merc fighter pilot, fighting for the Rebels in EV.

• Different ships. You should be able to fly a selection of ships - Lightning, Rapier, etc. In Exobattle as we know it, you fly a sort of quasi-Manta. And plenty of ships to shoot up - Argosies to Confed Cruisers.

• Missions, of course. It would have to be X-Wing/Ares style missions, with a direct objective on a fixed storyline.

• Customizability - EV style upgrades to ships in exchange for cash.

• Better AI and collision detection. It's a bit disconcerting when an enemy flies straight through you.

• And finally, a real interface. Cockpits, useful radar, ship status - desperately needed.

The nice thing about Exobattle is that you don't need a super-powered G4 to run it - it runs on the oldest iMacs and Power Macs with 3D acceleration. And it already has network play through GameSprockets. Since the main game engine is done and is free in the public domain, this avoids the enormous complexity of creating a whole new system, like in Parsec.

Now, if any programmer types want to help out

This post doesn't exactly capture my ideas, but I'll try to elaborate later.

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" The Zaphod Beeblebrox?"

"No, just a Zaphod Beeblebrox; didn't you hear I come in six-packs?"
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

(This message has been edited by ColdFusion (edited 02-24-2000).)

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ColdFusion wrote:

I have conversely come up with a plan that is a stepping stone to a true 3D EV: an enhanced version of Exobattle, Matt Burch's barebones 3D space-combat sim.
Exobattle has a good game engine, but it has no interface, mediocre AI, no plot. and lacks most of the things that make EV great. Some improvements could bring Exobattle closer to the standard set by EV and might even help developers create EV 3D.

i think matt's done what he has for a reason, really. exo battle's kinda hard to control, tho. but the what gets damaged stuff's a neat idea. TARGET THE ENGINES!!!

about landing, tho - if it's a starport wouldn't you dock above the surface's atmosphere? well, stations you would, anyway. i don't have this real good picture of a x00 ton, 140 or so foot long bulk freighter landing anywhere... that could just be a quicktime movie for the hell of it... i dunno, there ain't transporters in EV, huh? so i guess they would land. they land everything in StarWars...

by the way, anyone know how to make a 3dmf file?? 'cuz i could play with the ship models 'n textures...

one last thing - anyone have trouble w/ networking exobattle & os9?

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(url="http://"http://209.67.19.99/~da_mac/orion/")()rion Productions(/url)
~ Robin ( (url="http://"mailto:funky_cheeze@usa.net")mailto:funky_cheeze@usa.net(/url)funky_cheeze@usa.net

Maybe If we get any programmers, then we could develop this in the plug group?

or perhaps some kind programmer at Aeon might take up the challenge?

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Mad Mitsubishi Nosher Boy
Aka Master Robinton.

Aeon has tried... it tried to round up alot of people from outside Aeon too...

It aint gonna happen... for a while atleast

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Unix for business
Linux for development
BeOS for media
Mac OS for productivity
Windows for solitaire

Quote

Robin wrote:
**about landing, tho - if it's a starport wouldn't you dock above the surface's atmosphere? well, stations you would, anyway. i don't have this real good picture of a x00 ton, 140 or so foot long bulk freighter landing anywhere... that could just be a quicktime movie for the hell of it... i dunno, there ain't transporters in EV, huh? so i guess they would land. they land everything in StarWars...

**

A bulk freighter (this is a good guess, at least) can't support it's own weight - if it landed, it would collapse. You'd use lighters (small cargo ships) to transport cargo from an orbiting vessel down to a planet. Just had to tell you.

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" The Zaphod Beeblebrox?"

"No, just a Zaphod Beeblebrox; didn't you hear I come in six-packs?"
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

yeah,
i guess it would be funny you being the first to menthion it that would be really cool but it wouldn't be fun just doing combat i mean we could help each other with really hard missions and stuff because some people are really lame at the game,but it would be fun and i hope they do get something like that
Ad85_2000

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Adam Sinclair

Well, if you think about it, not many vessels are capable of atmostpheric entry. Even though the majority of EV's ships are areodynamic, the ships are basicly incapable of landing. Almost all of them are too heavy to fly in a major gravity field without monster engines, and ships like the Kestrel might have a few problems (look at the angle of the wings). The ideas of lighters or shuttles would work. But if you're in a ship big enough to need shuttles, don't you have crew to go down to the planet for you? (Not to mention fly the ship?)

P.S. I still think that it's a good idea. I just have too much time. What about a program that evaluate's your skills, based on critera?

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What do you mean, I've got to get a life?

I Think a small simple program could be acheivable, nothing very drastic though. At the moment you best option for a dogfight is to just get 2 of the same ship from the same race in Ares and go 1 on 1 in the middle of a system. The only thing is you can only have 2 players as far as i know...

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"How can i make it go faster"? -Me-

Maybe you could have it like myth2, where people could select certain types of games, where you would be given certain ships, the system would have other enemies, maybe special conditions, etc. That would also solve the problem of having huge ships -vs- single weenie ship.