EVO Tech Update isn't the worst plug. It's not great, but it's not the worst plug. Besides, it's probably better than anything I could whip up.
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AIM - Skyblade500
(url="http://"http://www.angelfire.com/ma3/skyblade")Skyblade Software(/url)
I hate to be negative, but I've been trying out some plugs.
I like Babylon5... I ended up backing the 'bad folk', and doing quite well, changing the map and so on.
I'm having difficulties with Frozen Heart. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but the plot seems very linear. If it is supposed to be, then that's not really to my taste (for whatever that's worth).
Personally, I like plugins with multiple avenues of progress. Mainly because, inevitably, certain things will be obvious to the designer and not to a given player. If there is one somewhat difficult line of progress, then it becomes like old Infocom games...
'get rock' I don't see that here.
'take rock' I can't see how to 'take'
'grab rock' You grab the rock.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Frozen Heart's map, graphics, and other features are pretty neat. Except the shuttle... the wacky rotation of the shuttle is quite jarring.
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When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I
know it is wrong.
- Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
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Originally posted by zhouj:
**UND has to be the worst plug-in ever
**
Yep. I once downloaded it. Very early on you had to fight this enormous fleet of Council Warships! :eek: Didn't like it. Then I looked at it in EV-Edit and saw that there weren't many systems beyond the Crescent. I later downloaded Beyond the Crescent and saw that it had even fewer system. Question: Why can't anybody make a substantial galaxy beyond the Cresecent, like F-25 but in a different location
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Originally posted by Kevin Jordan:
**Any plug which is pure shoot-em-up is the worst.
e.g. go to system A fight 7 Corvettes
go to B fight 22 Kestrels
go to C and fight the entire Alien space navy.
Because FH is a thinking man's plug many people do not appreciate it. I think it the best of some very good plugs.
**
True. But if you're doing a "conquer" plugin (one that continues the UE missions), what should you do in order to avoid the "epic battle, conquer system, epic battle, conquer system" thing?
God bless,
UE Patriot
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"Turn me over, I'm done on this side."- St. Lawerence at his martyrdom
"The glory of God is man fully alive"- some saint whose name I can't remember
Voinian lovers are ignorant of the UE marines taking over Borb Station.
Reign of the UE: Coming next year!
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And lo, UE Patriot said unto the people:
True. But if you're doing a "conquer" plugin (one that continues the UE missions), what should you do in order to avoid the "epic battle, conquer system, epic battle, conquer system" thing?
I think moderation is the key here. If you've get epic battle, conquer system, epic battle, conquer system, then you have no plot; there's nothing interesting happening. For a conquer plug, there should be missions such as "Recon on Melkizideq system" or "Transport General Hobnobery to Sol". If the player is going to conquer a system, then do it through various means. For example, the player could transport nuclear weapons to a planet, or have to draw the Voinian fleet away from a planet that's about to be invaded by a UE fleet that's hiding in hyperspace. Save the Epic Battle for Voina for the last mission, then have explosions coming out the wazoo. 
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"Stuff happens, so don't worry untill it hits the fan" --Anonymous
I liked frozen heart but stopped playing it because the mission strings (which were clearly NON-linear) were always jamming each other. I'd get a mission to bring some guy to some planet and when i got there nothing would happen. i'd leave and land again, nothing, again, nothing, until the mission date was reached and i'd get one of those little bullets in my mission overview.
I didn't have a problem with it at first, but i had three of those at the same time - missions which i had done according to the given assignments and which were still not considered finished. True, MT warned for these dependencies in the readme, but that's not much comfort to me...
still, very nice plug (though it had a horrible splash screen - or was that a CLUT problem?)
probably a dozen times better then what mine will look like in the end :frown:
sarcas
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what really bugs me are the basic cheat plugs (you know, a ship availible everywhere with that is simply another ship with a ridiculus amount of shields armor and weaponry.) the worst i saw was for EVO, where the miranu courier had something like 15 neutron turrets, a zidigar bay, near infinite shield, wa faster than an azdara, and cost about 10 mil. less than it could be sold for. pretty much a waste of time on somebodies part. (no reall origonal thinking). for some reason those just piss me off, as they take all of the challenge out of the game. and it was pitched as a "cool new ship" too. :mad: )
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the key to understanding wise sayings in having wisdom to apply them to real life.
Hmm incidentally reread my post and found it quite negative about Frozen Heart. Therefore, a few postive remarks: what i DID love about frozen heart is the fact that it abuses the game engine. With that I mean it uses the engine for things it was never designed for. The astroids and the black hole are the best examples of this, I think. Simply excellent. Very nice plug, too bad the mission line was badly composited... hope i won't have the same problem with mine.
Sarcas
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I downloaded Babylon 5, once, didn't play it much. I didn't really like it because it didn't really feel like a total conversion plug... I mean, the guy used top down graphics and EVO graphics. I didn't play it that much, but my first impressions weren't so good.
As for Frozen Heart, I LOVE Frozen Heart! The plot was good (though at one time I did get stuck on the "Disable Galactic Leisure Craft/Bring Evidence of PPI Slavery to Earth" missions- got through it, though, now I'm at the end mission. As for that "weird" way the ships rotate, in another topic (debating the merits of top-down v/s angled... man, people can have such strong opinions on such a silly thing :rolleyes: ) Martin Turner wrote that the ships are supposed to be banking. That is, they're turning like airplanes do. But the larger the ships are, the less banking there is (that's why the big Rigellian and Magellan ships don't seem to have "funny" rotation). As for Femme Fatale, it seems cool, but really Mr. Turner, recover a disabled ship in an asteriod field while the player can still afford nothing better than a shuttle? Really, you should know better.
God bless,
UE Patriot
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"Turn me over, I'm done on this side."- St. Lawerence at his martyrdom
"The glory of God is man fully alive"- some saint whose name I can't remember
Voinian lovers are ignorant of the UE marines taking over Borb Station.
Reign of the UE: Coming next year!
Well, it is supposed to be a challenge.
Incidentally, if you've got that far in the plot and can only afford a shuttle, then you must have been playing Lady Luck too much in the bar.
For testing purposes, I favoured the Wanderer because it has a nice feel to it (Wanderer Class was also a favourite type in cult-TV series Blake's 7: I think they applied the name to at least three completely different types of ship.)
Most people prefer the Rim Prospecter. If you are really short on cash, you can buy a Rim Prospecter, strip out the Tractor Beam, sell it, and use the money to buy another Rim Prospecter. This is because the RP is such an unfashionable ship that most pilots would rather pay the extra and have a TB as an aftermarket add-on. No other ships are fitted with Original Equipment TBs, and probably half the TBs on the aftermarket are ex Rim Prospecter.
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M A R T I N • T U R N E R
