Quote

Originally posted by Coraxus:
**I like to see retro thruster outfits.
**

It's do-able with the current game-engine. Like this:

Type  wëap
Name  RetroRocket
Guidance	0
ExitType	3
MassDmg  0
EnergyDmg	0
Recoil  52
AmmoType	-1004
Reload  0
Count  8
Speed  0
BeamLength	10
BeamWidth	0
Falloff  4
BeamColor	#FFFFFF
CoronaColor	#99DDFF
Inaccuracy	0
Sound  -1
Impact  0
Flags  0x0042
Flags2  0x4400

flags:
Weapon fired by second trigger
Multiple weapons of this type fire simultaneously
planet-type weapon (so that no default scenario ships think your firing on them)
Weapon can be fired while cloaked

The recoil has to be adjusted for the mass of the ship that has the retro rocket installed.
The recoil of 52 just about counteracts against afterburners on a 98 ton shďp.
The ammotype of -1004 uses about the same amount of fuel as afterburners.

(edit: don't you just love UBB)

(This message has been edited by Arturo (edited 07-08-2004).)

1. A scripting language- perhaps in a prög resource? Could be activated by NCBs (!b1040 J128 (has J been used?)) or perhaps inline in a dësc. I remember the old text adventures (Zork, Hitchhikers, etc) where you had a verbosity option, where the first time you entered a room it would spit out the entire description in great detatil but in subsequent entries the desc would be much more limited and perhaps only list the objects present (I am very aware that this could be implemented via NCBs)... I am using mďsns now in my TC to accomplish much the same effect but it would be nice to not have to waste the huge mďsn resource on that, especially since the landing desc on a planet is so limited in space. Would a scrolling field be too much to ask? And if/thens as well in a simpler usage than in the NCBs. I know a lot of this is implementable with NCBs but I don't think that something on the level of a simple BASIC would be that much harder to implement than NCBs themselves.

2. Support for more than "accept" or "reject" in missions... so perhaps you could take proposal a, b, or c, or refuse the whole thing, or renegotiate... Again I am using a severe workaround for this.

3. It's a space opera- I would like to see better support for player run governments and planets- not just dominated... Like the player is granted a patent of nobility and takes responsibility for a planet in the X system, and is therefore in charge of defending it from attack, etc while gaining some benefit from his station. Like a combination of a ränk (for the players rights and privelages) and an öops (to make certain random events occur in/on his planet/s) and a few other things. And you could perhaps build a keep, upgrade it etc, or support the arts, or emphasize trade, build a huge army and a naval flotilla etc, attract allies and enemies... Probably a pipe dream for sure.

4. More than just a bar, mission computer, commodity excange, shipyard and outfitter avalible on a planet. I don't know, I've always wanted to instead of having these static choices, be able to walk into nay number of bars, perhaps listen to the local gossip, change the channel on the news, etc... Play more than just that one stock gamble. Or Outfit the player him/herself, not just the ship (perhaps a new, bigger gun would come in handy next time you boarded a ship?). Or travel to more than one city on a planet (also something that I am using mďsns to do somewhat in my TC)... Perhaps more of an RPG kind of feel is what I am shooting at here. A mäp! resource to handle the areas around the planet (simple 128*128 matrix perhaps, with like a 0 walkable space, 1 a wall, 128-2048 the resid of a stör resource for a specific location there, etc, meeting random people around in the port who may or may not be friendly, that type of etc) and a little first-person view of what's around, like in the old SSI AD&D; games that I used to play on Commodore 64 (which incedentally I wrote a really bad primitive version ov EV for... It really sucked).
   Some of these things would be almost certainly cosmetic- what effect could having a keep for instance have on the actual gameplay besides plotpoint and detail? But personally I think that Cade Connoley needs more than Cargo, Extras and Honors. And I am sooooo sure that all of this is either a pipe dream or is already part of some game that I've not even heard of. Just some ideas.

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I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.
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Quote

...or at least in the syst resource.

That does absolutely nothing when you want the player as part of a mission to destroy a Federation Carrier and its fleet of four Carrier-type Destroyers and four Auroran Outfits Detected Destroyers, not some half-arsed dude probabilities that might give you 11 carriers, might give you 11 Auroran Outfits Detected Destroyers, or anything in between.

Oh, and being able to bold, italicize, and underline text in strings would be nice.

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(This message has been edited by UE_Research & Development (edited 07-08-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by UE_Research & Development:
**That does absolutely nothing when you want the player as part of a mission to destroy a Federation Carrier and its fleet of four Carrier-type Destroyers and four Auroran Outfits Detected Destroyers, not some half-arsed dude probabilities that might give you 11 carriers, might give you 11 Auroran Outfits Detected Destroyers, or anything in between.

Oh, and being able to bold, italicize, and underline text in strings would be nice.

**

I do this all the time. It just takes multiple missions, and they aren't grouped nicely into a fleet sadly.

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/aftermath")Aftermath(/url)

5. Music in more than an intro sense... Like normal BG music, combat music, music specific to being in certain s˙sts, mission specific, etc etc

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.
(url="http://"http://www.freewebs.com/rmx256/index.htm")Kemet T.C. Website(/url)

Well, if you just wish to include ambience music(s) not triggered by anything in the game, you can just distribute it (them) in mp3with the plug (note: respect copyright) and ask the user to play them in iTunes while he plays.

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<rant> I wish that the game would allow the dang AI to use space bombs. I go and make very nice, in my opinion, space bomb weapons so that my plug could actually add some real bombers, but nooOOOoooo... </end another rant>

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Quote

Originally posted by UE_Research & Development:
That screenshot was a joke. Officially, there's going to be no EV4 to begin with.

Ouch that was not funny. A 3D EV, something like Vendetta within the EVN universe is something I really dreamed of. Now I thought it may come true and then it turns out to be a “joke”. Didn't laugh about that one. :frown:

pipeline: you mean “unfolds to fire”? That's not a continuous animation.

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“It is interesting that well-protected secrets and complicated puzzles are often solved faster than easy ones. Why? Because the better a secret is protected and the more complicated a puzzle is, the more thinkers it attracts.” - me
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Quote

Originally posted by Mazer Rackham:
**...a TC where all travel takes place via hypergates until someone discovers faster-than-light that can be built into a ship...

**

A TC like this would actually be very, very confusing. First of all, it would be hard to navigate because you can't see hypergate connections without actually being in one. Secondly, you can forget timed missions, because the hypergate makes ships travel instantly... the only passage of time would be from landing on planets, and thus any mission with a time limit would be pretty pointless, as any time limit would only limit the number of missions you could handle at once, without hindering your ability to do them at all.

Quote

Originally posted by UE_Research & Development:
**That does absolutely nothing when you want the player as part of a mission to destroy a Federation Carrier and its fleet of four Carrier-type Destroyers and four Auroran Outfits Detected Destroyers, not some half-arsed dude probabilities that might give you 11 carriers, might give you 11 Auroran Outfits Detected Destroyers, or anything in between.

Oh, and being able to bold, italicize, and underline text in strings would be nice.

**

Heheh, forgot to reply to this. Anyways, I wasn't thinking in terms of missions. I was thinking in terms of wanting a fleet to show up in a system. You weren't exactly that specific as to what you would use them for. I see you point, though.

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/search.html")The plug-in search engine!(/url)

How 'bout dimensional jumping? Like one ship would have regular warp another can dimensional jump.

You know how mission have you drop mission-related items on spobs, why not do the same on ships you board?

(i.e. you carry a number of pilots and drop each one of them inside a disabled ship or something.)

Hmm, how bout making syst and spobs versatile to prevent developers having to waste an entire system and spobs RID just so that the visbit will change like one word of a landing description to something else. This way, the only thing that change could be just the spob itself, or maybe just the desc RID in a spob.

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Quote

A TC like this would actually be very, very confusing. First of all, it would be hard to navigate because you can't see hypergate connections without actually being in one. Secondly, you can forget timed missions, because the hypergate makes ships travel instantly... the only passage of time would be from landing on planets, and thus any mission with a time limit would be pretty pointless, as any time limit would only limit the number of missions you could handle at once, without hindering your ability to do them at all.

You would have to account for this in the scenario, but that by no means would make the TC impossible. A rush delivery isn't possible, true. Cargo fees would then become based almost entirely on the size of the cargo to be transported (bulk cargo missions) or the value and therefore danger of transporting the cargo (pirate attacks, anyone?) As for navigation, the developer could include hyperspace links, but the player not initally able to use them. Besides, there would be multiple uninhabited systems between the hypergate-linked systems, and since there wouldn't be a map outfit in the traditional sense (it would reveal systems by government instead of by proximity) the systems that you can see are the ones that the hypergate can reach.

Another feature I'd like to see: the ability to set the range of distances (in hyperspace jumps) between the destinations of a mission. Longer missions that pay more would be pretty cool, in my opinion. It would also allow a mission moving stuff in-system (probably paying less). Why does Europa never need a delivery from Earth?

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To quote a pillar of American society: D'OH!

Another thing would be good:
spöbs be influenced by bits. For instance: “can only land if bxxx is set” or a Visibility (test) bit. Right now you can only change the spöbs through completely replacing the entire system. This is extensive, thus unecessary.

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“It is interesting that well-protected secrets and complicated puzzles are often solved faster than easy ones. Why? Because the better a secret is protected and the more complicated a puzzle is, the more thinkers it attracts.” - me
(url="http://"http://starlightdev.freewebpage.org")STARLIGHT DEVELOPMENT(/url)

Another idea I've had is for a new flag in the oütf menu: is deactivated while ionized.

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To quote a pillar of American society: D'OH!

Quote

Originally posted by Arion:
**pipeline: you mean “unfolds to fire”? That's not a continuous animation.
**

No, he means the weapon glow. Just add multiple sets to the weapon glow and use the 0x0008 flag (Extra frames in base image are shown in sequence). The extra sets in the weapon glow will be shown in sequence as well.

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"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." — Douglas Adams

Two new flags in the spob resource to determine if the spob can be selected and if it shows up on radar.

The option to display a nonstandard message when approaching a planet. This would replace the "planet's environment is too hostile" string as well, if applicable. I am so sick of the same message displaying for a seismically unstable planet and a gas giant.

A hypergate-only TC need not be confusing. The solution is to put a dummy system at the same coordinates as each system with a hypergate. The dummy systems would link to dummy systems behind the system's hypergate's destinations. The dummy systems could never be reached by the player, but they would be explored via an Xxxx (IIRC) ncb in the real system's OnExplore field. It would behave almost identically to the normmal scenario, except that you'd use hypergates to reach other systems instead of the hyperdrive.

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I'd like to see player-specific game environments.

This would basically mean that the appearance of the bar that shows your cargo, fuel, etc. could be changed during gameplay by the player to one of several pre-loaded templates, or a downloaded template made by a third party.

Ship-specific toolbars would also be cool- you buy a ship and a special toolbar comes pre-installed. A fighter's toolbar would be less cluttered and more edgy looking than a warship's, while a freighter's toolbar could show a cross section of the hold (similar to an EV: Classic scan picture) that showed each ten-ton block of cargo and denoted different cargo types with different colors.

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Quote

Originally posted by Entropy:
**I'd like to see player-specific game environments.

This would basically mean that the appearance of the bar that shows your cargo, fuel, etc. could be changed during gameplay by the player to one of several pre-loaded templates, or a downloaded template made by a third party.

Ship-specific toolbars would also be cool- you buy a ship and a special toolbar comes pre-installed. A fighter's toolbar would be less cluttered and more edgy looking than a warship's, while a freighter's toolbar could show a cross section of the hold (similar to an EV: Classic scan picture) that showed each ten-ton block of cargo and denoted different cargo types with different colors.

**

There is a workaround by getting a different ship with a different Inherent Government. You would have to make, say, a Federation Freighters gövt, a Federation Fighters gövt, and a Federation Warships gövt (but with the same visible name and attributes) to have the different toolbars.

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To quote a pillar of American society: D'OH!

I just came up with this because I'm debating whether or not to have a firing animation for a ship. It would be nice if turrets could be made to rotate. For instance, the turrets on the sides of the Destroyer could follow the target. That would be cool.

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Cmon people, the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=20&SUBMIT;=Go")Chronicles(/url) are worth looking at.
I love Frigates, as is easily seen:(url="http://"http://www.dabie.k-ow.net/~glasskids/EV_Frigates_page.html")EV Frigates(/url).

That could work, as long as the turrets have their own masks. Perhaps you could have an option for whether the turret is placed above the ship sprite or below, like with beams. Still, it would be difficult to have turrets both above and below the ship.

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Quote

Originally posted by Phyvo:
**That could work, as long as the turrets have their own masks. Perhaps you could have an option for whether the turret is placed above the ship sprite or below, like with beams. Still, it would be difficult to have turrets both above and below the ship.

**

how would it work? And would it look good enough?

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Cmon people, the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=20&SUBMIT;=Go")Chronicles(/url) are worth looking at.
I love Frigates, as is easily seen:(url="http://"http://www.dabie.k-ow.net/~glasskids/EV_Frigates_page.html")EV Frigates(/url).