All right, I've noticed that there hasn't been a new Ship Variants plugin since version 1.0.6...I don't know how busy the original maker is, but I am now using Ship Variants 1.0.6 with EVNova 1.0.8 and I have a few things to say about it:

1. The price of the Star Liner is now 500,000 credits. However, both upgrades are significantly cheaper, and the highest-level upgrade costs 300,000 and still bears the text about how it costs "more than twice the original". I'm assuming this means that the Star Liner was made to be more expensive in later versions of Nova, but the Ship Variants plugin has not been updated accordingly. It is also possible that other ships have been changed in ways that the plugin should be updated to reflect.

2. There are many, many versions of the Auroran ships, even above their ship classes. "Va Themgiir" class, as well as "Heraan - Va Themgiir" class and "Tekel - Va Themgiir" class, etc. Is it possible for a future version of Ship Variants to incorporate these as well? Of course, available only to Auroran players who have reached the appropriate parts of the plot line and only available in the shipyards of the appropriate House.

3. Ship Variants makes the used ships for sale in the shipyard disappear. Would it be possible to have the used ships back, and perhaps used versions of the variants? Also, what about hiring escorts who fly variant ships?

4. Will the Fighter Variant Fix (to keep the right kinds of fighters in your bays) need to be upgraded as well?

In conclusion, I want to say that I am aware of the great amount of work involved in this, and if the original maker of the plug is too busy, I would like to offer my help. Has anyone else noticed anything that needs to be updated in Ship Variants, and is anyone else interested in helping? Thanks.

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AIM: Cavanoskus

Ship Variants is copyright Dan Brauer (goes as Angel on these boards), and the 1.0.6 version also has IP of WraithSniper.

I would get in contact with both of these people and find out there opinions before proceeding.

As for the specific questions.

1. The 1.0.7 update changed several of the stock ships prices to balance out how powerful they were.

2. Those variants were left out because they would have required modifying a large chunk of the Auroran House spöb's to allow for realism. (Heraani selling Moashi variant ships, I think not.)

3. Yes and Yes. The used ships were left out to remove some of the load on the shipyard dialouges (they have a tendency to get error prone when large numbers of ships show up). Escort variants were left out because Dan (and his beta team) really didn't want to have to deal with setting the HireChance fields to "appropriate" values.

4. It doesn't really need it, as the prices of the bays are still in line. The only thing that has changed is the quantity of pirate viper bays allowed, but as it stands, it doesn't impede the realism.

As for help, I am willing to help beta it, provided that you talk to the two people I mentioned above. All you really need to do is use the data files (and changelog) against the current edition. Its mind numbing, but straight forward (I know this from experience). Then just update and beta.

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"If you can't feel the Force, you're not pushing it." -Prof. Li on the "Force"
"We're sending a complicated system into an unknown environment at very high speed. I feel calm. I feel ready. I can only conclude it's because I don't have a full grasp of the situation." - Mark Adler
"Otherwise, you might be up a certain creek which we all know too well without any means of downstream propulsion." - Lequis MX

Quote

Originally posted by Chuckles:
**Ship Variants is copyright Dan Brauer (goes as Angel on these boards), and the 1.0.6 version also has IP of WraithSniper.

I would get in contact with both of these people and find out there opinions before proceeding.

As for the specific questions.

1. The 1.0.7 update changed several of the stock ships prices to balance out how powerful they were.

2. Those variants were left out because they would have required modifying a large chunk of the Auroran House spöb's to allow for realism. (Heraani selling Moashi variant ships, I think not.)

3. Yes and Yes. The used ships were left out to remove some of the load on the shipyard dialouges (they have a tendency to get error prone when large numbers of ships show up). Escort variants were left out because Dan (and his beta team) really didn't want to have to deal with setting the HireChance fields to "appropriate" values.

4. It doesn't really need it, as the prices of the bays are still in line. The only thing that has changed is the quantity of pirate viper bays allowed, but as it stands, it doesn't impede the realism.

As for help, I am willing to help beta it, provided that you talk to the two people I mentioned above. All you really need to do is use the data files (and changelog) against the current edition. Its mind numbing, but straight forward (I know this from experience). Then just update and beta.

**

Dan comes on every now and then, if he happens to lurk by this board he could probably answer some questions. But for now, I'll have to do.
Not sure what you mean by the way of saying that it has my IP. But whatever, yeah, I can answer a few questions, having worked on the plugin a couple of times.
1. I wasn't aware of there being changes to the ships in 1.0.7 or 1.0.8, or at least, as far as I remember. However, if there are, then yes, it should be updated. I suppose Dan may already be working on an update, or maybe not, it depends on how active he is on the boards right now.
2. While yes, it would be possible to add those variants to the plugin, as Chuckles said, it would require a lot of work. Your best bet would be to try to do this yourself if you want to see it get done.
3. Again, yes, possible, but extra work. This would be a bit easier to do then #2 though. Also, there really is a limit to how many ships can show up in the shipyard, and so there would have to be a limited amount of used ships to be added. So in conclusion, of all of the points raised in this question, having variant escorts would be the best one to implement.
4. Don't know, as I haven't worked on this part of the plugin myself. In fact, I have never used the fighters plugin, I'm still not sure if it is necessary or not.
As to offering your help, Dan has certainly taken it before, but you should definitely contact him and discuss how to work on an update. I would probably be willing to work on another update myself, seeing how my school year ends in about three weeks, and then I will have plenty of free time for something like this.
Certainly, you should discuss with him not only the updates that may need to be done, but also your ideas on expanding the functionality of the plugin.
As for beta testing, more than likely those who want to beta test and ask will be called to do so. Doing so has caught errors in the past, and I believe the read me mentions how he used 36 beta testers at one time.
And if it is needed, Dan's email is in the read me, of course. And mine, in my profile.

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A wise man is one who knows when he is being a fool.
Join the (url="http://"http://folding.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/teampage?q=35022")Ambrosia Folding@Home Team(/url) and donate your spare CPU cycles to help the (url="http://"http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/")Folding@Home(/url) distributed computing project! Ask me if you have questions.

(This message has been edited by WraithSniper (edited 05-19-2004).)

Yes, everything is looking good for me, and I happen to have some time off work these days. I've still got all my development files (I hope) for ShipVariants, and since people seem interested in an up-to-date version. Updating ShipVariants has always been a tricky game of catch-up, because it requires an exact knowledge of what has been changed from version to version of Nova, and Ambrosia is not too reliable with their documentation of these changes. Sometimes they're easy to find with ResCompare, but sometimes Ambrosia changes something basic about every ship, and the result is a bunch of false positives for changes.

I still have Nova version 1.0.6 installed, and if everybody is happy with WraithSniper's ShipVariants 1.0.6, then the actual process of updating shouldn't be a big deal. I'm going to take a look at the update situation now, and I'll post back here to say more about the other requests.

Update : Here's the deal: there are no changes in any ships from Nova 1.0.6 to Nova 1.0.8. The price discrepancy in Star Liners is a bug in version 1.0.6 of ShipVariants. 500 000 is the correct price for Star Liners anyway, and the variants are hands-down better, and will cost more.

Allowing the player to purchase house variants of Auroran ships would be very difficult and time-consuming. I would have to:

1. Find out what they all are, and what missions they relate to.
2. Find out where they should show up, and when, which may require altering ships, and would definitely require altering planets.
3. Write descriptions detailing the differences in armament, etc. for all the variants.

So I guess it's as easy as one, two, three! Seriously, though, that's not only a lot of work for little benefit, but it means changing a lot of resources that I like to stay out of for compatibility reasons. On top of that, it would have to be tested to all hell before it could be released, which would be as grueling a task as making the changes in the first place. All so I can fly an Auroran Va Thomgiir Thromkin Firebird (Xtreem Edition)? I'm a purist, and I'd really love to give people the ability to do that, but the reality of it is that it's just too much work, and it could interfere with other plugins.

I cut used ships from ShipVariants early on because they would be redundant. Since I only get two lines to describe ships in their icons, I would either have to further abbreviate ship names or rely more heavily on the long description text. I like coherent, intuitive user interfaces, and both these things would take away from the excellent presentation ShipVariants currently employs. Also, the matter of clutter has been mentioned, and whether or not it would cause errors, it would make the shipyard more difficult to navigate than it needs to be.

Hiring variant ships is just a matter of writing descriptions for their pilots. It's a lot of descriptions, and more work because each one tends to include a bit on the pilot, and I think I'd run out of ideas. Ships are ships, and it's Ok to let them share word for word. Pilots are people, and it's more work to make them different from one another. How do you say "this guy likes armor over mobility" in twenty different ways? You either repeat yourself and sound stupid, or you obfuscate meaning and sound stupid. In any case, that's certainly something I'd consider doing. Having the ships show up for hire is just a matter of increasing their probability from zero.

Finally, Cavanoskus mentioned the Fighter Variant Fix. As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with it, as the oversight on ATMOS/Ambrosia's part hasn't changed. I haven't tried it recently, however.

Any other problems? I'm a little worried because of this Luxury Liner bug. I don't know how it was introduced, because I don't have records of previous changes to its stats or price. The fact that the price of the regular version is higher than the upgades points to a price correction by someone (me or whoever) who forgot to look at the upgrades. In any case, bug-finds are welcome, and will be made into bug-fixes as soon as possible.

(This message has been edited by Angel (edited 05-20-2004).)

I'd have to do a quick round of template comparison between the "standard" ships, but I am pretty sure the Starliner got a price bump from 250k to 500k and that the Valks all got a similar boost.

Fortunately, this time it won't take 30 pages of data to figure out what has changed.

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"If you can't feel the Force, you're not pushing it." -Prof. Li on the "Force"
"We're sending a complicated system into an unknown environment at very high speed. I feel calm. I feel ready. I can only conclude it's because I don't have a full grasp of the situation." - Mark Adler
"Otherwise, you might be up a certain creek which we all know too well without any means of downstream propulsion." - Lequis MX

I liked the fighter variant bug, you could use it to get like 400 Vipers

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Pah!
I spit on you and your
fancy sig!
Pah!

Can you explain that fighter bug? Do you mean taking back more fighters of a standard kind from variant bays in order to bypass your maximums?

Angel, I am glad you saw this, I was giving it a few days for you to notice it rather than bothering you right away with an email. You too, WraithSniper.

I understand what you mean by having to compress the text when making used variants, and I see that regardless of how cool such a thing might be, it would also be a pain in the neck and graphically unappealing as well. For anyone who likes used ships that much (I don't, really, I just like the realism of having them available) maybe I (or someone) could make a sort of "Joe's Used Shipyard" type of plugin, but I see no reason to unless there is demand for it. I like used ships because they contribute to the realism of the universe, but the only practical application in the game that they even had was to save the player the trouble of buying a few starter outfits (or in some cases trick the player into getting a piece of junk). Obviously the novelty of this can wear off (who wants to take off and land several times until the "good" used Heavy Shuttle appears in the shipyard?) and I am certainly willing to exchange used ships for Variant ships.

Variant escorts seem a little more practical, but I can understand getting burnt out over character text. Especially since escorts also have a "cheap" version and a "good" version, that would be two character/ship descriptions for every ship variant. Besides, you CAN always capture and upgrade to the variant you desire. The ability to hire extra-powerful escorts would only be useful if you can't capture them yet, but then again, if you have enough credits to hire the souped-up ones in the first place, why not go buy a better ship and do some capturing? But still, if people want it, they must have their own reasons, and if anyone wants to make it, I'd love to help, and descriptive text is one of my strong points.

Now, the Auroran thing...I understand the compatibility issue. I guess once again it could come down to how much demand there is for that sort of thing, but if for any reason it was going to be done, it might be possible to:
1.Make them appear when the player has reached the appropriate point in the Auroran storyline (i.e. when Abominations become available, so do House Abominations)
2.Make the House variants only appear in the shipyards of the appropriate House planets and stations (or even make them only appear on that House's home planet and other stations that would make sense, like stations with the word "Shipyards" in their names (i.e. Forticus Shipyards). To avoid shipyard clutter you could exclude the normal (non-House affiliated) Auroran ships from any shipyards selling the House ships. The shipyards on planets ruled by Aurora's central government would have only the non-House ships.
3.I volunteer to write descriptive text should you or anyone else decide to do this.

I know it's a lot of work for very little result, and I completely see the practical reasons NOT to do it, and honestly it isn't really even that important to me, but I thought I'd just sort of think aloud about it. In case anyone gets inspired or anything. Just kind of trading ideas around in care you see something you like.

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AIM: Cavanoskus

(This message has been edited by Cavanoskus (edited 05-21-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by Angel:
Can you explain that fighter bug? Do you mean taking back more fighters of a standard kind from variant bays in order to bypass your maximums?

Yup, if -for example- you have 2 vipers in a bay, and 2 beam vipers in their bay, they turn into 4 vipers. Rinse and repeat

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Pah!
I spit on you and your
fancy sig!
Pah!

People have definitely asked me to do the Auroran variants before, and that's something I might do over the summer. I'm leaving on Tuesday for Europe for two weeks, so I won't be doing much before then. I'm inspired, though, so it's likely I'll do it.

Excellent, do you want any help from me? I'm best with descriptive text, and I know that can be a pain to write... I am pretty inexperienced in other areas of plugin making, but I'd like to help any way I can.

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AIM: Cavanoskus

(This message has been edited by Cavanoskus (edited 05-23-2004).)

Ditto here. If you need help, I'd be happy to lend a hand.

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A wise man is one who knows when he is being a fool.
Join the (url="http://"http://folding.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/teampage?q=35022")Ambrosia Folding@Home Team(/url) and donate your spare CPU cycles to help the (url="http://"http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/")Folding@Home(/url) distributed computing project! Ask me if you have questions.

Quote

Originally posted by Cavanoskus:
**Excellent, do you want any help from me? I'm best with descriptive text, and I know that can be a pain to write... I am pretty inexperienced in other areas of plugin making, but I'd like to help any way I can.

**

You know, if the plugin does add Auroran variants, or even variant escorts, that is a lot of writing to do....

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A wise man is one who knows when he is being a fool.
Join the (url="http://"http://folding.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/teampage?q=35022")Ambrosia Folding@Home Team(/url) and donate your spare CPU cycles to help the (url="http://"http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/")Folding@Home(/url) distributed computing project! Ask me if you have questions.

Ok, Cavanoskus: I'm not going to be developing the actual plugin for a few weeks, but it'll be a breeze if you can have descriptions of every variant's pilot finished by then. Like WraithSniper says, it's a lot of writing, but if you can get it done, I'll do the rest.

Do you want descriptions for Auroran House variants, or variant escorts, or both?

I'm sure I can have that done within a few weeks. Maybe sooner than that, depending on a couple of things.

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AIM: Cavanoskus

(This message has been edited by Cavanoskus (edited 05-24-2004).)

Just the variant escorts for now, because those I can implement rather easily. If you can write them in ResEdit, that would be even better.