Hey all, I'm trying to create some variants of existing ship types using EVNEW. I'm just wondering how I can get new ship resources to share a shan RID with existing types. Example: I would like to create a Wild Geese variant IDA Frigate. The stock scenario seems to be able to share shans (there's only one shan for the IDA Frigate, but there are four ship types that use it), yet I can't seem to get it to work for myself. Any hints or tips would be much appreciated. Thanks.
------------------
That is a not very well-advertized feature of the Nova engine. In the Bible, it says at the end of ship resources:
Quote
Ships' target info picts are stored in PICT resources 3000 and on. The engine is
smart enough to reuse targeting picts for two ship classes that have the same
base sprites: all you have to do is give the first of any series of
identical-looking ship types a target pict in the usual way (PICT resource ID
3000 + shipID - 128) and the engine will use it for all higher-numbered ship
types with the same base sprites.
So basically, if you create a sequence of ships in consecutive ID numbers and you create a shan and a target PICT for only the first in the sequence, Nova will use those for all of the ships in the sequence.
------------------
Get (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")EVNEW(/url) - the free, open-source plugin EVN Editor for Windows!
I noticed that passage in the Bible as well, but I didn't take "series" to literally mean in sequence. There are plenty of examples in the stock scenario where this occurs. For example, Abomination (and variants) use RID's 152, 239-246, 384-389, and 395. But, there are no duplicates of shans, picts, etc. I feel like I'm missing an important piece of info that makes this link possible.
------------------
Actually, that's not the full story. Our scenario coder, Jason Cook, was able to make out-of-order shďps that had the same graphics. Here's the trick:
First, make a shďp, shän and the graphics for the ship in the normal way.
Next, make a new shďp variant.
Finally, make a copy of the shän you wish to use. Change it's ID number so that it matches the ID number of the variant.
Since all the rleD/8 pointers in the duplicate shän point to an already used group of shďp graphics, Nova is smart enough to use the other graphics (comm and shipyard pictures) that match the base rleD/8 ID.
That's all there is to it! 
all the best,
Dave @ ATMOS
Quote
Originally posted by slouch:
I'm an idiot.
Must be. I mean, you're even advertising it...
------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Microsquash Winblows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
