O.K I'm new to plugs (just started using 'em) and I wanted to know what programs are good for creating your own. Any help would be much appreciated! Either EV or EVO, but I prefer EV (its smaller) THNX 
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I try to think but nothing happens!- Ultimate Rebel
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Originally posted by Ultimate Rebel:
**O.K I'm new to plugs (just started using 'em) and I wanted to know what programs are good for creating your own. Any help would be much appreciated! Either EV or EVO, but I prefer EV (its smaller) THNX:)
**
Well, the indispensable program for plug making is ResEdit - kinda quirky and takes some time to learn but absolutely esential (unless you want to drop a couple hundred dollars on Resorceror.) There is good-looking and realatively easy to use program called EV-Edit which is horribly buggy but might be a good training tool to learn how the various parts of a plug are related but is not really recommended for serious work. EVO Formula Calc is great for sorting out the ID numbers of various resources (despite the name it works fine for both games.) If you are designing many systems, EVO Developers Map is wonderful. For debugging plugs and many other jobs, Plug Checker is essential. And of coures, the EV Bible is the essential reference source.
I have not even mentioned the programs necessary to create your own graphics, I will leave that to someone who knows more about that aspect of plug making.
Hope this helps some, and good luck with your plugs.
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Joe Burnette
"I find that humans can be divided into only two meaningful categories: Decent Humans and Sonsofbitches; both types appear to be evenly distributed
among all shapes, colors, sizes, and nationalities." -- Keith Laumer
Besides ResEdit, there's this great tutorial and reference app called the "ResEdit Guide" It's originally developed for EV, but I used it to teach me about EVO plugins. Awesome. Another utility you'll want when you get serious is the "EVO formula Calculator" You said you were primarily interested in EV, so you may not find a use for that one. I was just like you a month or two ago, so hang in there!
Sources:
ResEdit Guide (YOU WANT THIS!!!) (url="http://"http://www.grand-novice.com/EVES-site/dwnlds_1.html")http://www.grand-nov...e/dwnlds_1.html(/url)
EVO formula Calculator: (url="http://"http://members01.chello.se/warlordpontus/ev/evocalc.html")http://members01.che...ev/evocalc.html(/url)
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Windows Starting Up: The world's most common error message.
The EV Bible Annotated Addition is easier to use (At least I found it much easier) It can be found on the same page as the ResEdit Guide
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Silent Night will be going into beta hopefully sometime in the summer of 2002!
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"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small step for Neil, but it's a long one for me."
-Pete Conrad third man on the moon
If you're willing to just fiddle around till you figure things out, all you really need is ResEdit, the EV or EVO Bible Annotated, and the appropriate ResEdit templates (included with EVO; I'm not sure about EV).
Unless you're planning a total conversion, it's handy to download one of the galactic maps for whichever game - makes it much easier to visualize where your plug fits in, which systems need to be changed, and so forth.
I didn't use the EV/O Formula Calc when I did Secession, cause I didn't know it existed. But it looks like it's probably a handy tool to have.
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Hardy har har! Little do they know: They are ALL going to hell!! Hardy har har! - God, attributed
I know, I know. I must be some sort of freak, but I hate using ResEdit. I use several utilities which all suck alone, but when used together create a GREAT contraption! Here's my stuff:
EVOGod- Does most of my stuff. weapons, outfits, missions, dudes, fleets, and governments.
EVO Developers Map- Does my planets and systems.
Shipwrite- Does my ships
The Docks- Does my ships PICT stuff. Shipwrite seems to have a bug in this part of it!
Resourcer w/ EVO Templates- I use this for my people, ship bugs, and anything else. I know Resource is mega-expensive, so do the dirty word- Hotline! (Get it from download.com, and then go to hotlinehq.com and search for resourcer. Bad bad me.)
Using these, I am currently making a sweet plug-in that is looking really good. And don't get me wrong, ResEdit is great, but I can't stand hex calculations and all of that BS. I use it for putting in new ship PICTs and the like.
Alex
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hypercard3@yahoo.com
iMac 333 6G HD,160 MB RAM
If you want to make graphics you will want a 3D and 2D graphics program. Free ones are mechanisto, Strate 3D, pixels, and any demo software you can find. For 2D you can use Photoshop (demo and use a screen grab) and Graphic Converter, fireworks works also.
- Squinky
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WARNING: THIS OBJECT DOES NOT EXIST - the existential negation campaign
(url="http://"http://www.tufts.edu/~nrolan01")My Stuff(/url)
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Personally, for "Reign of the UE" for EVO, I used Shipwrite for the ships and Mission Control for the missions, then used ResEdit and EVO Formula Calc for the governments, missions, dudes, etc. If you are making a plug for EV, I would recommend EVO Developer's Map (it works for EV- just add in the EV Data), Schmelta-V (it does your missions, dudes, and persons, EVO Formula Calc (the numbers will work for EV) and ResEdit. Another thing... I would also try to get EV Text- it is an application which transfers all your text files in the plugin into a text file, with which you chan check spelling and grammar a la Micro$oft Word or a similar word processor.
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"- St. Iraeneus
Voinian lovers are ignorant of the UE marines taking over Borb Station.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/show.pl?product=evo&category;=plugins&display;=date&file;=ReignOfTheUE.Bin")Reign of the UE(/url): Get it today!
Thank you all! I will start right away!! I wanted EV, cos its smaller and should be easier to handle. I have resedit and evedit, but I like neither too much. One is too confusing with all the numbers and equations, and the other destroyed my ev version (I re-downloaded it), and all (or most) of the missions in evo. Thanks again! 
God Bless! (So I'm copying UE Patriot)
Ultimate Rebel
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I try to think but nothing happens!- Ultimate Rebel
I could only find evogod and the docks out of all those you listed for me. where are the others listed? also, I can't figure out how to create a new ship. I'm trying to make new outfits, but I don't know how to make the picture for it.
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I try to think but nothing happens!- Ultimate Rebel
go here:
(url="http://"http://members01.chello.se/warlordpontus/ev/tools.html")http://members01.che...s/ev/tools.html(/url)
that should get you the developers map, the calculator thingy and the text editor thingy
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riot tonight, everybody lets go!
Rule #2 of plugin development:
- Thou shalt not use EV-Edit
I would suggest against EVO God, while it is a good program it's still really only in alpha and the authour said that there wouldn't be any further development of it. I've noticed some bugs and some rather odd behaviour as well, some of them rather fatal if you don't catch them in ResEdit (no, I can't remember exactly what they were, I stopped using it when I initially found them and I didn't record them. I think that they were in the Mission Editor part, but I'm not sure.).
One note about Ponuts's EV Inro Text program, it doesn't work with OS 9.1. I couldn't get it to work anyways, it worked fine for me under 8.6.
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Phoenix
(url="http://"http://commonwealth.cjb.net")EVO : Nemesis(/url)
EV-Edit works fine for me. Maybe you don´t have the upgraded version, I use 3.2.1. I finally found the ev developers map, and later found that you can do the same in EV-Edit.
I also have an idea for a new plug. If anyone is interested in helping me I´ll say what it´s about. I´m also playing around, creating new planets and systems. I also created a new beam weapon, but I don´t know how insert (or create) a picture for that item. Also, does anyone here know of a good utility for creating new ships for EV? I know you can create missions in RES-Edit and EV-Edit, but if there´s an easier one please tell what it is. BTW,what is the calculator thingy?
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I try to think but nothing happens!- Ultimate Rebel
(This message has been edited by Ultimate Rebel (edited 06-26-2001).)
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Originally posted by Ultimate Rebel:
**BTW,what is the calculator thingy?
**
what you do is select the thing you want to build (i.e: the outfit) from the formula menu. then type the id number of your outfit (i.e: 130) then hit return. it will tell you what the codes are for the desc resource, the pictures, etc. create a desc resource with the code number it gives you, then write the description for the outfit. as for the pictures, just change the pic id to the numbers it tells you. (the smaller one, 32x32, is the one in the 6100 area, and the 100x100 is in the 6000 area)
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riot tonight, everybody lets go!
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EV-Edit works fine for me. Maybe you don´t have the upgraded version, I use 3.2.1.
I used the latest version (guess that's it) and it started out fine but as the plug got bigger more problems appeared until it was totally corrupted (note, not just bug-ridden, I think EV-Edit did something to the data resource). Just remember to always keep back-ups, more projects have been scraped 'cause a file got corrupted or deleted and the designer didn't have any backups.
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Phoenix
(url="http://"http://commonwealth.cjb.net")EVO : Nemesis(/url)
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Originally posted by Phoenix:
**I used the latest version (guess that's it) and it started out fine but as the plug got bigger more problems appeared until it was totally corrupted (note, not just bug-ridden, I think EV-Edit did something to the data resource). Just remember to always keep back-ups, more projects have been scraped 'cause a file got corrupted or deleted and the designer didn't have any backups.
**
don't remind me. i've had bad times with corrupted files.
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riot tonight, everybody lets go!
I build plugins (for my own use so far) in multiple pieces-- one plug file for each ship, one plug file for each misn string, one plug per syst (or cluster of related systs), one plug/outf. Minor resources like descs and perses go with one of the major resources-- perses go in the file for the ship flown by the pers, descs go with the object being described, spobs go with systs that contain them. Each plug file works alone in standard EV, helpful for testing. Put in all the files at once to get the effect of the full thing.
Some resources get duplicated in multiple files, and some have dependencies. Notably some ship files depend on some outf files, and misns, govts, and systs all share dudes (and dudes are scarce given all this contention for them). I have an imperfect resource ID assignment system to control this.
If some tool trashes a plug file (EV developers map ate one of my syst files, Resorcerer has "dropped" resources on a few occasions) I haven't lost my life.
This all came about partly because of my reliance on shipyards for getting graphics-- they are usually distributed one ship/file. Curious, how do others organize their plugin development?
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Quote
Originally posted by antihero:
**what you do is select the thing you want to build (i.e: the outfit) from the formula menu. then type the id number of your outfit (i.e: 130) then hit return. it will tell you what the codes are for the desc resource, the pictures, etc. create a desc resource with the code number it gives you, then write the description for the outfit. as for the pictures, just change the pic id to the numbers it tells you. (the smaller one, 32x32, is the one in the 6100 area, and the 100x100 is in the 6000 area)
**
Aaaahhhhh. cool. I need to get that.
I cannot start the plug I had wanted to for many reasons, but I am doing one "Persons of the EV Webboard". antihero and magicianeer have already given me their descriptions of their përs. If anyone wants to be in it, just visit the EV webboard.
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I try to think but nothing happens!- Ultimate Rebel
