Martin Turner's excellent discussion of production values, which is geared primarily for new stories, got me thinking about cleaning up the "mistakes" (not bugs) in regular EVO. for example, the shipyard description of the UE destroyer says that most captains choose either rockets or hunters, but in practice every single AI destroyer uses both. i created "missile frigate" to fix this apparent discrepancy (which mysteriously got branded as a "cheat").

the "strange asteroid" is another one, recently fixed by an appropriate plug. has anyone found any others out there? i know the game explains why the graphic for the voinian supply ship has two turrets but the ship actually has only one.

perhaps all of these little fixes can be bundled together in one plug, after they all have been identified.

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The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain
rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage
others retained by the people.

Well, the following is from dësc ID 4126, part of the NPD mission string:

Quote

"The great explorer himself," Imir greets you.

This description unnecessarily identifies the player as male. It could be fixed by changing it to "The great explorer returns," or something like that, or by making a Nova port of Override and using the mutable dësc resource feature.

Another problem is the fact that the rocket launcher and rocket turret use different ammunition for no real reason. The original intention was for them to use the same ammunition, but that proved impossible during the development process because of a minor bug in the EV/O engine. This could only be fixed in a Nova port of the Override scenario.

Incidentally, here's a link to my (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=evo/plugins&file;=StrangeAsteroid.sit.hqx")Strange Asteroid(/url) plugin in case anyone wants it.

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David Arthur
(url="http://"http://members.aol.com/darthur1/talon-ev/")Talon Plugin for the original Escape Velocity(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by David Arthur:
This description unnecessarily identifies the player as male.

OK, my worst fears are comfirmed, political correctness has gone mad. The sex of the player always has been at the descretion of the plugin designer, and there it should remain. The actual sex of the real player doesnt come into it.

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--sitharus
(url="http://"http://www.evp.f2s.com/chelp/")Carracho Help(/url)
(url="http://"mailto:sitharus@ureach.com")mailto:sitharus@ureach.com(/url)sitharus@ureach.com

Quote

Originally posted by blackhole:
**OK, my worst fears are comfirmed, political correctness has gone mad. The sex of the player always has been at the descretion of the plugin designer, and there it should remain. The actual sex of the real player doesnt come into it.
**

While I agree with you about political correctness, I don't think it really comes into consideration here. There's no particular reason in the story why the character has to be male in EVO, aside from the fact that he is addressed as such by the other characters. (Whereas, say, the storyline of Frozen Heart pretty much requires that the character be Lars Sřrensson, a man.) Given that the EV series are often billed as space RPGs, why should EVO require the character to be male? If the player (regardless of his/her actual sex) wishes to have a female character, he/she should be permitted to, unless the story simply wouldn't work that way.

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Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. - Albert Einstein
The loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends. - Abraham Lincoln
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. - Mark Twain

I think you guys are blowing this male/female thing way out of porportion. It doesn't really matter. I'm a guy, and I enjoyed Femme Fatal just as much as I would have had the player's character been a guy.

The only thing that gets to me though is in Mugabi and Destiny. The author has the player fall in love with an ALIEN! That is just wrong...

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

Quote

Originally posted by Glenn:
There's no particular reason in the story why the character has to be male in EVO, aside from the fact that he is addressed as such by the other characters.

There's your reason. As for EV:N, I hope people use the new gender constants. If I remember the bible correctly you can now offer some characters for the player to start with, so creating a female/male characters in the same plug will be possible.

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--sitharus
(url="http://"http://www.evp.f2s.com/chelp/")Carracho Help(/url)
(url="http://"mailto:sitharus@ureach.com")mailto:sitharus@ureach.com(/url)sitharus@ureach.com

Well; let us come back to "stange" things in EVO. For instance, it is possible in EVO 1.0.2 to make the appearance of ships depend of the situation of a mission bit. The UE Warship düde has been therefore changed so that UE Cruiser could appear aside from përs. But the Miranu Gunship hasn't been made to appear this way. Why? It could be corrected. The same, why the eastern part of the Miranu North tip is still plagued by renegades even after the destruction of The Rock? (and in the contrary: why does the Zachit presence not disappear from some systems after the destruction of outpost Zachit?) It could be corrected, too.

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M'enfin!
Y'a personne qui parle français ici?

Quote

Originally posted by blackhole:
OK, my worst fears are comfirmed, political correctness has gone mad. The sex of the player always has been at the descretion of the plugin designer, and there it should remain. The actual sex of the real player doesnt come into it.

This has nothing to do with political correctness. Quite simply, the storyline is improved in no way by the statement of the sex of the player's character. Also, the tradition in EV design - excluding plugins like Frozen Heart, where the player's entire character is pre-created by the plugin designer - is to assume as little as possible about the player's character, and allow him or her to fill in the blanks wherever it is appropriate. Unnecessarily identifying the player character as male serves only to distract some people, offend others, and generally look silly.

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David Arthur
(url="http://"http://members.aol.com/darthur1/talon-ev/")Talon Plugin for the original Escape Velocity(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by David Arthur:
Unnecessarily identifying the player character as male serves only to distract some people, offend others, and generally look silly.

Why? If you're distracted or offended you're taking it too seriously. Repeat after me: It's only a game.

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--sitharus
(url="http://"http://www.evp.f2s.com/chelp/")Carracho Help(/url)
(url="http://"mailto:sitharus@ureach.com")mailto:sitharus@ureach.com(/url)sitharus@ureach.com

blackhole, let me ask you this: If the engine of EV and/or EVO supported chärs and gender constants, why should it not allow the player to choose between being a male or a female character?

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Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. - Albert Einstein
The loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends. - Abraham Lincoln
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. - Mark Twain