My first attempt at plugin making was in playing around at modifying the STEV plug from years back. That's usually a good way to start----make modifications either to the game, or another plug. It gives you a feel for how everything works.
After that, I made a serious effort to make an EVO expansion based around Crescent Station. I wrote out a (IMO) good mission string leading up to the crucial juncture.....and then, when it came to designing my own systems and graphics, my interest kind of fizzled out. Writing planet descs is harder than one might think. So, one conclusion you can draw: If you've got a good story idea, but not much else, you might be better off trying to fit it into the Nova/EV/EVO scenario as an add-on, rather than making a TC.
Last year, I made an abortive attempt at starting a Babylon 5 TC for Nova, using red-tinted systems and hypergates to better simulate the B5 universe than I had seen done before. Its possible I might eventually go back to that, but again, it was the descriptions that really killed my interest.
So, on my most recent project, a Firefly TC ( Firefly is a very EV-like show-----I highly recommend the DVDs to anyone who hasn't seen it), I went straight for the heart of the problem. There's already a rudimentary universe and storyline in place from the show; my problem is just figuring out how to expand on that, and what came before....and possibly, what came after. I figured all of that would fall together once I gave it a framework on which to reside: So, I started with the planets.
The very first thing I did, was write up a bunch of planet descs, and create their associated spobs, with some basic settings that I thought up in a few seconds. Then I wen back, and did some bar descs.
After all that was done , I drew up a basic galactic map in Photoshop, and then systed it up in Mission Computer. Then I used Terragen to create a few landscapes.
That's about where I am now. I've got 75+ stellar objects; at best, I might crest 100 in the finished TC. Its not going to be huge, just big enough to (hopefully) not get boring as I tell the story I have in mind.
But I couldn't have done all that on my own. I don't have that kind of motivation. So I put out a general request for aid from Firefly fans------I asked them to make up planet descs, and send them to me. I screened them, edited them, and added them. Its made the work go very fast, and I'm more than satisfied with the result.
The only major stumbling block that I can see at this point, is graphics. I'm making an effort to aquaint myself with some free 3D programs, but its not easy----not at all. If there's any graphics people on this board intersted in contributing a ship, a landscape, whatever-----let me know. I'll probably even be starting a thread on this in the near future.
Oh yeah, the point of writing all that. I guess my advice is: Get a dedicated team together. Don't try to do everything yourself.
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