What are your personal choices for EVO editors, in order of best to worst. These are all that I could think of. Some of them don't work at all or as well as others, but your comments are appreciated.

EV-Edit
Schmelta-V and a touch-up in another editor for EVO-specific features
ResEdit
Resourcer
Pontus EVO Developer's Map
R&R; ShipWrite
R&R; Mission Control
R&R; Templates
ResKnife
Snoop
Sorcerer
Ressurection
EVO God
EEEVO

This information is to help newbies learn how to make quality plug-ins easily. More important than the order is the reasoning behind it. Put in anything that might possibly be sort of slightly relavent or better.

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Signed,
Brian Schack
"DOS Computers, manufactured by millions of companies, are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."
--The New York Times, November 26, 1991 (also quoted in MacAddict 4)

(This message has been edited by Ellmist (edited 08-30-2001).)

I find ResEdit works fine for all editing. It can handle everything in the game, unlike some of them which only work on certain resources. ResEdit isn't buggy at all, doesn't make plugs that screw up (unless, of course, they're programmed incorrectly and screw up on their own). Also, I actually like not having a fancy GUI like EV-Edit's, the simple layout of ResEdit templates just works good for me. I think when Nova comes out, though, this will all be an academic question, because we'll all be using the w00tRalphTools™. Don't have enough experience with any of the others to form much of an opinion, because I've never needed or wanted to try anything other than ResEdit.

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- Macavenger | e-mail: (url="http://"mailto:e-gamerguy1@home.com")mailto:e-gamerguy1@home.com(/url)e-gamerguy1@home.com

I'm not going to pick any one editor. I just want to know the specific advantages and disadvantages of each.

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Originally posted by Macavenger:
I find ResEdit works fine for all editing. It can handle everything in the game, unlike some of them which only work on certain resources.

Here's a point I'll include, but it can be also interpreted as a specialization.

**

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ResEdit isn't buggy at all, doesn't make plugs that screw up (unless, of course, they're programmed incorrectly and screw up on their own).

**

Quote

Originally posted by Ellmist:
**What are your personal choices for EVO editors, in order of best to worst....
**

Best editor without question is ResEdit. The price is right, reliability is excellent, and it allows editing of all resources, not just EV-specific types. The fact that it can sometimes repair damaged resources is a bonus. We might also note that the Nova tools will only work within ResEdit.

EVO Developers Map is an excellent supplement to ResEdit for its limited application of making systems and spobs. I find the visual interface much easier and quicker to use than ResEdit, especially for placing systems - though people with a better visualization of numreical coodrinates than I might not need it.

I have not used Schmelta-V much, but found it to be helpful for designing missions, easing the process of relating all the elements to the correct ID#s. I have seen reports of bugs in Schmelta, though I have not encountered any in my limited use.

EV-Edit could be useful as a learning tool, with the caveat that one should never open a file with EV-Edit unless you are willing to risk the file being corrupted beyond repair - in other words, always work on a copy, not original files. EV-Edit can actually be used successfully to make plugs, but I am not willing to expend the extra effort required to make multitudes of back-up copies and then go through all the resources with ResEdit and clean up the problems created by EV-Edit.

Most of the other editors you mentioned I have too little experience with to comment on (some I haven't heard of), but the R&R; tools seem to be generally solid.

A couple of other tools you did not mention because they are not actual editors, but are extrememely helpful, are Plug Checker and EVO Formula Calc.

Pontus Ilbring's EVO Formula Calc is most useful as a supplement to ResEdit or Resorceror, it calculates all the related ID#s for descs, picts, STR s, etc. for a given ship, misn, or other resource ID#.

DYNA Systemes' Plug Checker, oddly enough, checks plugs for correct ID#s, missing resources, and many other problems much faster than one can review individual resources. It is not perfect and will sometimes announce "errors" that are not actually errors, but after an editor and the EV/EVO bible is probably the most essential tool a plug-in developer can have.

Hope this helps a little.

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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

Not so much my fav editing app but rather the best combo :

Schmelta-V
Res-edit
Ev Formula Calc
Ev Developers Map

This combination is completely free, less buggy and take up less HD space than Ev-Edit does. I mean, what kind of idiot makes a TC or PC on Ev-edit ?? That's just asking for trouble

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Wham!Man - The original and still the best

ResEdit is by far my favorite, simply because it is the most versatile(?sp?).

EVO Developer's Map is, I think, essential, as well.

More recently, I've been using the editors I've made for myself. I can't give an opinion on their usefullness, but I will say that PFE2b and PFE3b are the only pilot file editors out there. I also like my EV<--> apps and use them alot: it allows me to organize resource data in ways ResEdit won't allow.

I should add that I use an application called ResCompare, as well. I'm not sure who makes it anymore.

(This message has been edited by seant (edited 08-31-2001).)

I prefer Resorcerer. It does everything Resedit does, but better. You have to use it to understand. Now, I would not buy it (0x100 dollars!) just for EV editing, but if your day job involves heavy mac use like mine, Resorcerer will find ways to be useful.

Other essentials: Object Formulas, EV Mission Bits 2.0, EVBAE, m2s (R&R; movie to sprite tool), Strata 3D 3.0.2

EV developers Map looks promising, but I find it easier to place systs and spobs by hand in Resorcerer.

There exists a set of misn text importer/exporter tools which will probably be essential if I ever get serious about making a misn string.

Offtopic: Is there a plug that "removes" the EV galaxy and scenario, like a blank Total Conversion plugin?

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Quote

Originally posted by Wham!Man:
**I mean, what kind of idiot makes a TC or PC on Ev-edit ?? That's just asking for trouble

**

I did - at least most of it.

What kind of an idiot does that make me?

; )

Martin

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

And it never ruined your plug? You got really lucky...

But I agree with whoever said it - EV-Edit is excellent for learning the ropes, anthough I wouldn't recomment it for much else.

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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...

Martin: That would explain why I couldn't get some of the missions until I edited them to be able to make them availible. At least now it doesn't seem like cheating or anything...

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Silent Night, a plug-in for Nova, will feature a small, unique galaxy. With only three races, I will be able to change the galaxy to my hearts desire. To help me finish it faster, I will not be slowed down by making ship graphic- I will use the ones from Nova.
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Approving someone else's work is not the same as creating it yourself- Bill Watterson, Author of Calvin and Hobbes

No, I'm afraid it was cheating. I used Schmelta V for the missions, which are difficult but bug free.

Actually I used EV-Edit to flesh out the plugin, and then used PlugChecker to pull out all of the little 'quirks' that EV-Edit introduces.

I found that keeping the plugin in separate files limited EV-Edit's crash fixation, but I did backup very, very regularly.

All of the post PlugChecker stuff was done in ResEdit or Schmelta.

Incidentally, the one thing that EV-Edit always corrupts (aside from missions, which simply don't work) is the proportions of ships in a system if you have previously set them and then open the system in EV-Edit. Very frustrating.

I don't think I used it at all for Femme Fatale, except perhaps for a couple of ships - by that time Pontus's little marvels were available.

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R