Two I can think of, please add and elaborate upon:

- Bar Pictures:

Quote

Nova already has bar pictures implemented, it is just one of those poorly documented features that no one ever hears about. You put the ID of the picture you want to show up in the bar into the Graphic field of the desc for the bar, and it will show up in the game. Pict 8504 is the picture for the bar with pict interface itself, its in Nova Graphics 3

- The Submunitioning Missile With Your Name On It

Quote

the missile travels a short distance, submunitions into one copy of itself, travels a short distance again, and submunitions again... Thirty five times. Each time it submunitions, the submunition was supposed to "fire towards nearest ship." While watching this weapon in action, I noticed that, even cloaked, and with perfect jamming, I couldn't shake these missiles off of me.

Normally, a guided weapon will lose its lock on you when you cloak. However, because the submunition is fired at the target, each submunition has its course adjusted, by Nova itself, to follow the target. I had expected that the weapon would constantly switch targets, so that if another ship got in the way, it would be targeted instead.

When this weapon was fired at my test pilot, I tried to lead it into other targets. What I saw was that the weapon stayed on me, in spite of nearer targets, perfect jamming to its guidance vulnerabilities, and a cloaking device.

So, instead of having an indiscriminate weapon that always sought out the nearest target, I had a cloak-hunting, unjammable missile. I should note that I wasn't cloaked when they started firing at me. However, cloaking only prevented more missiles from being fired, but didn't stop the ones already on my tail.

Features that DON'T work (and should be fixed; I sent in a bug report.):

- Fleets defined in dudes. (Enough explanation).

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(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/ue_rd")Fatal Alliance- an upcoming quasi-TC for EVN.(/url)
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(This message has been edited by UE_Research & Development (edited 11-09-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by UE_Research & Development:
the missile travels a short distance, submunitions into one copy of itself, travels a short distance again, and submunitions again... Thirty five times.

Submunitions may only submunition once. Matt fixed this bug in 1.0.6. Anything more than will not work as expected. You have been warned.

Quote

**Features that DON'T work (and should be fixed; I sent in a bug report.):

- Fleets defined in dudes. (Enough explanation).**

I have been in contact with Matt, and the answer to this is: it's a feature that never worked properly in EV and EVO, and was removed totally from the EVN engine. What you're encountering is an error in the documentation; there is no flët in düde functionality. I will be fixing this in the next revision of the EVN Bible.

all the best,

Dave @ ATMOS

Quote

Originally posted by pipeline:
Submunitions may only submunition once. Matt fixed this bug in 1.0.6. Anything more than will not work as expected. You have been warned.

Uh, you might want to check this out, pipe. (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004783.html#")http://www.ambrosias...ML/004783.html#(/url)

It DOES work and it works exactly as you'd expect.

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(url="http://"http://www.mazca.com/")Mazca(/url) , Moderator, (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=9&SUBMIT;=Go&urgaylol;=yes")EV Developer's Corner(/url)
Look over their! There doing a weird dance with they're hats! - Shenlon

Odd. We were having issues whereby a submunition could rapidly expand until it reached max shots on screen. I could have sworn that Matt prevented that from occuring.

Perhaps what he did instead was pre-flight any submunitions calculation to make sure it'd not exceed max shots on screen.

In any event, this behavior is not a feature, it's a bug, and I caution all here strongly against using it, simply because I cannot guarantee that it won't make Nova fall over.

Dave @ ATMOS

You're breaking my heart, Dave.

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Quote

Originally posted by UncleTwitchy:
You're breaking my heart, Dave.

What?

Read that thread again... I was going to use that bug to simulate the cloak-tracking torpedo used at the end of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

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Starfleet Adventures: A Star Trek TC for EVN (url="http://"http://www.ev-nova.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=145") Discussion Board (/url)
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Quote

Originally posted by pipeline:
Odd. We were having issues whereby a submunition could rapidly expand until it reached max shots on screen. I could have sworn that Matt prevented that from occuring.

I think he did:

Quote

EV Nova Resource Bible: The wëap resource
**

SubLimit       If you have defined a recursively-submunitioning weapon (i.e.
                  one which splits into more copies of itself) this field
                  will allow you to limit the number of recursive splits
                  that happen. This field is ignored if the weapon is
                  not recursively submunitioning.

**

I wouldn't worry.

-reg

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"As a rule we believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if only we could."
~ William James

Quote

Originally posted by pipeline:
**
In any event, this behavior is not a feature, it's a bug, and I caution all here strongly against using it, simply because I cannot guarantee that it won't make Nova fall over.

Dave @ ATMOS**

Well...
a. It appears not to make the Nova fall over. A plugin maker using a strange effect like this (lets call it a helpful bug) has a responsability to carefully test to make sure it cant make Nova fall over. Right?

b. If they test and find that it doesnt make Nova fall over, the only other concern is wheather the bug will be "fixed" in a future version, thus making thier bug-exploiting plugin into a buggy pluggin...

So: Is the Wise and Powerful Matt Burch planning to change the behavior of this aspect of the engine? Or can this bug be counted on to still be there when plugin makers want to use it? (if it does get fixed, it would be sad - it would make it impossible to make cloak-trackers, which have potential storyline use)

-Az

Quote

Originally posted by pipeline:
**Odd. We were having issues whereby a submunition could rapidly expand until it reached max shots on screen. I could have sworn that Matt prevented that from occuring.
**

He definately did, though not in the way Regulus suggested.

As a test, I made a weap that submunitioned into 12 of itself with sublimit of 2. So it should be exeeding the max shots onscreen limit. The following behavior was noted:

T+0: Fired (1 shot on screen)
T+10: First submunition (12 shots on screen)
T+15: Fired again (13 shots on screen)
T+20: First batch submunitions (145 shots on screen - obviously, this cant be, so not all the submun's must have been created)
T+25: Second batch submunitions into only one submun
T+30: First batch expires (so now only one from second batch is on screen)
T+35: Second batch submuntions (now 12 on screen)
T:45: Second batch expires normally.
Doing this in the area of an angry fed carrier (with all the shots from him and his thug-- i mean fighters) caused no noticable odd behavior - wven with the gazillion shots on the screen, the feds still looked like they could shoot and all.
To test the engine even more rigorously, I cranked the reload down the 3 and bought 4 of these- so they fire every frame. The inital shot always fires, and I think it is submunitioning atleast once every time a shot expires, but clearly it cant be allowing all of them to submunition (and the swarm of shots created on screen looks about the same as the one created above). I noticed a red dot on the IFF, and it just so happened to be an argossy (with chain guns). Holding down the spacebar in no way inhibited the Argossy's ability to fire as far as I could determine.
It looks to me as if there is some check to limit the number of submuns from a single weapon. Which is the way i would want the engine to behave. There doesnt seem to be any bug with submunitions making to many shots.

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Regulus: As you can see, SubLimits dont prevent running into the shot limit if not used correctly (that's done by the submun limiter demonstrated above) - Submuns let you have splitting projetiles or wobbling projectiles that dont go on infinately.

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-10-2003).)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-10-2003).)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-10-2003).)

Quote

I have been in contact with Matt, and the answer to this is: it's a feature that never worked properly in EV and EVO, and was removed totally from the EVN engine. What you're encountering is an error in the documentation; there is no flët in düde functionality. I will be fixing this in the next revision of the EVN Bible.

Oh well... :frown:. I had lots of ideas incorporating it, but I suppose I'll just have to trash them all.

Quote

a. It appears not to make the Nova fall over. A plugin maker using a strange effect like this (lets call it a helpful bug) has a responsability to carefully test to make sure it cant make Nova fall over. Right?

b. If they test and find that it doesnt make Nova fall over, the only other concern is wheather the bug will be "fixed" in a future version, thus making thier bug-exploiting plugin into a buggy pluggin...

It'll be interesting to see what other people do with this kind of recursive action.

------------------
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Secret Project: Nearing Completion. (No links available)
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Do what you like. All I'm saying is that it's not a behavior planned by us, and I can't guarantee that you won't break something else by using it.

Dave @ ATMOS

Sweet looking effect possible with recursive submunitioning: Snakes.
Set a weapon to submunition into one projectile, with subtheta of something around 10. lifetime 5 or so for a speed of 1000. Sub limit of 8 will due - adjust for range.
Partical count of 1, Partical speed of 0, make the particals last 30-40 frames.
Looks awesome, specially if well coordinated. I think it looks like snakes slithering through space, but that may just be me. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/Cobra.zip")www.aznt.com/EVN/Cobra.zip(/url) (zipped .rez - made it on EVNEW and dont feel like firing up my mac and figuring out how to use that there converter on the addons page at the moment)
Thanks to Bryce for the graphics (from his scrapped Shard War TC, the pieces of which can be downloaded from (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN")www.aznt.com/EVN(/url) )
-Az

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Quote

Originally posted by UE_Research & Development:
**Oh well... . I had lots of ideas incorporating it, but I suppose I'll just have to trash them all.

**

Don't give up hope. Where there's a will, there's a way, and I must have a will, for I have way. See my board (believe it or not, it was inconspicuously targeted a lot toward you :)): (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004810.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/004810.html(/url)

I know it's possible that this has been done before. But, hell, you have documented instructions on how to do it nonetheless, so who cares?

Hope you didn't trash them yet.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.

Quote

Originally posted by pipeline:
**Odd. We were having issues whereby a submunition could rapidly expand until it reached max shots on screen. I could have sworn that Matt prevented that from occuring.

Perhaps what he did instead was pre-flight any submunitions calculation to make sure it'd not exceed max shots on screen.

In any event, this behavior is not a feature, it's a bug, and I caution all here strongly against using it, simply because I cannot guarantee that it won't make Nova fall over.

Dave @ ATMOS**

EDIT: Was wrong.
-Az

I swear, the more i look at the data files, the more questions I have. Was the light blaster once a front quadrant turret like the BRL was? What's up with the map with tech level 999 and 75% avail? Whats the deal with there being two versions and coresponding techlevels for forged ES&W; licenses (not including the Fed. Sting one)? Why are there 3 tech levels used for things you can never buy (999,9999, and 31, the last of which is aliens)?

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It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-20-2003).)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-20-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
**Sweet looking effect possible with recursive submunitioning: Snakes.
Set a weapon to submunition into one projectile, with subtheta of something around 10. lifetime 5 or so for a speed of 1000. Sub limit of 8 will due - adjust for range.
Partical count of 1, Partical speed of 0, make the particals last 30-40 frames.
Looks awesome, specially if well coordinated. I think it looks like snakes slithering through space, but that may just be me. www.aznt.com/EVN/Cobra.zip (zipped .rez - made it on EVNEW and dont feel like firing up my mac and figuring out how to use that there converter on the addons page at the moment)
Thanks to Bryce for the graphics (from his scrapped Shard War TC, the pieces of which can be downloaded from www.aznt.com/EVN )
-Az

**

I took a look at that link, hoping to find a space station or two I could use in my Firefly TC, but many of the links seem to not be working.

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Quote

Originally posted by Lindley:
**I took a look at that link, hoping to find a space station or two I could use in my Firefly TC, but many of the links seem to not be working.

**

I dont even know wheather they should still be up there at all. There has been talk about the shardwar tc being ressurected, but the whole thing is really unclear.
Until I find out wheather I should even leave those graphics up there, I wont do any work on getting all the links to work.
In any case, since I am unwilling to release anything as a .rez format because much of the community wouldnt be able to use them, and since I dev on a PC, and since my mac wont run X which is required for RezConv (8.1 or better my ass!) and because David Arthurs converter doesnt work, releasing/posting stuff for me isnt very feasable. My mac cant be connected to the net, by the way, which doesnt help either.
BTW, this topic was long dead. Please dont gravedig.

Oh, and the reason the link in my post doesnt work is that I cant convert my pc-format plugin to mac format, and thus i cannot in good concience release it. Arios, David... please... the community needs a reliable way to convert plugins!
-Az

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It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)
Stuffit is a piece of .sit.

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 02-07-2004).)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 02-07-2004).)

^Someone linked to this thread from a much more recent one. I didn't actually realize how old it was until I'd posted.

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Quote

Originally posted by Lindley:
**^Someone linked to this thread from a much more recent one. I didn't actually realize how old it was until I'd posted.

**

Aaaah, yeah, we all hate when that happens. Its not nearly as bad as when you post in an old thread because some newbie bumped it from the depths of the abyss, but still kinda annoying.
-Az

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It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)
Stuffit is a piece of .sit.

here is a good one: missle counter-measures. while the gaming engine no longer allows for a counter-measure flag, it is possible to mahe un-guided counter measures by using a slow moving point-defence projectile that utilises the "shot detonates at the end of lifespan" flag. give it a slow speed, a short lifespan, and a moderate blast radius.

also, i don't know for sure if it will work or not, but it may be possible to make "homing" point defense systems by using submunitions (for a point-defence weapon, the 'nearest target' should be the closest hostile fighter or missle) anyways, you could try it.

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A warrior can shape himself to suit anything in the universe.
A master can shape the universe to suit himself.

I belive I tried this once in a plugin of mine, "Planetary Blockade", which turned into a weapons-feature testbed for lots of different effects. Couldn't get it to work quite right, but I did manage to make a PD system that released a short-lived cloud of highly repulsive, yet light damage flares out the back. While it doesn't do exactly what you're decribing, the effect (and sight) of seeing the enemy fighters on your tail being swept back by a huge cloud of railgun detonations (the little ones look just like quantum torpedoes from star trek) is really funny.

Theoretically, what you're decribing should work. Launch an unguided projectile, set it to submunition to a PD weapon, set it to launch at the nerest target and give it a short proximity radius and it should work.

I'm not sure why I couldn't get it to work properly though.

Of course, no amount of substitution makes up for a dedicated in-engine flare system.

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When viewing a Terrapin for the first time, I realized that anything flies-if you throw it hard enough!