Hi, random passer-by here,

I'm an AI junkie looking for a platform to tinker with. I love EV Nova, and I'd like to play with some ship AI such as flocking and coordinating allied ships.

I've looked over the bible, and as far as I can see the only control you have over AI is picking one of four pre-fab behaviour patterns, and setting allegiance. Is there any way of getting in deeper than this? I'm quite comfortable hacking around with C, if there's an API around somewhere that will give me access to the inner workings of the game.

Thanks in advance,

Hematite.

No, there is no way to et into the source, unless you want to edit the actual machine code. Releasing the source would mean that anyone could easily get around the unregistered restrictions, and if he released it without those restrictions, anybody with a C compiler for Mac (CodeWarrior, MPW, THINK C, etc.) could simply compile it and would have no limitations.

Of course, if you know C, you could rewrite the over 100,000 lines of code by yourself and then release it.

In case you couldn't tell, I was kidding there.

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gawd damn.... i always wanted ATMOS to release the source code so i can change the deceleration for the ships... no need to wait for your slow capital ship to do a 180 degree rotation before grinding to a slow halt.

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My parents died in Roswell incident.

A. It's Matt Burch.
B. See my above post.

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Quote

Originally posted by dorrus:
**gawd damn.... i always wanted ATMOS to release the source code so i can change the deceleration for the ships... no need to wait for your slow capital ship to do a 180 degree rotation before grinding to a slow halt.

**

You can still change the acceleration (and deceleration) for ships without having the source code. That can be done easily with a plug-in.

And ATMOS didn't write the engine; just the scenario. Matt "mburch" Burch wrote the engines for all three EV games.

The scenario files work just like regular plug-in files, by the way, so you can open them up in a plug-editing program and take a look at their contents.

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Quote

Originally posted by NTiOzymandias:
And ATMOS didn't write the engine; just the scenario. Matt "mburch" Burch wrote the engines for all three EV games.

w00t! An ally in my lost cause!

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Quote

Originally posted by NTiOzymandias:
**You can still change the acceleration (and deceleration) for ships without having the source code. That can be done easily with a plug-in.
**

i know that. i want to change it so the ships don't have to turn and accelerate the opposite way in order to stop, while retaining their inertia properties. it doesn't really make any sense to think that a huge ship such as leviathan doesn't come with reverse thrusters of some kind.

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My parents died in Roswell incident.

Quote

Originally posted by dorrus:
**i know that. i want to change it so the ships don't have to turn and accelerate the opposite way in order to stop, while retaining their inertia properties. it doesn't really make any sense to think that a huge ship such as leviathan doesn't come with reverse thrusters of some kind.

**

explained as such: see giant engines on back? see anything equal to that on the front?
Realy, the only way you can do that is inertialess ships.

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Quote

Originally posted by ArcAngel Counterstrike:
**explained as such: see giant engines on back? see anything equal to that on the front?
Realy, the only way you can do that is inertialess ships.

**

arcangel, i would like to challenge your explanation (plz dun ban me).
take a space shuttle for example:
see the giant engines on back, see anything equal to that on the front?
it still has means to thrust to any direction.

make no sense?

it's because shuttle uses the gigantic thrusters only for atmospheric flight.

with no aerodynamics and gravity affecting it (except for the orbital velocity which requires gravity) shuttle uses small nozzle-like thrusters to turn, move forward, stop, etc.

even the voyager craft managed to thrust itself with small engines to other planets in order to slingshot using their gravity.

there, my rant justified.

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My parents died in Roswell incident.

(This message has been edited by dorrus (edited 08-18-2004).)

But then again the space shuttle is also traveling at several feet per second, not the high rates of speed implied by the Nova engine.

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i didn't say deceleration rate should be same as the acceleration rate.
besides, evn takes place nearly 3000 years from now. i'm sure that they managed to develop some high-power engines.

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My parents died in Roswell incident.

You could simulate the deceleration effect that you're looking for by using a weapon. You could create a "retro thruster" outfit that was really a weapon fired by the second trigger. By making the weapon shoot straight forward all the time, and by using the recoil field in the weapon resource, you could create this effect. Granted, the AI would never use it, but it would eliminate the hassle of turning that huge lumbering capital ship around. I've actually been toying with this idea for use in my total conversion ever since I managed to navigate around a system by using a chain gun style weapon. At any rate this might not be as graceful as an engine change, but it should get the job done.

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Dorrus, I believe that the point ACC was trying to make is that yes, a ship could deaccelerate with forward firing thrusters, but only at a very small rate. The only real way to make forward firing thrusters that slow the ship an appricable rate would be to have them as powerful as the engines that got the craft up to it's original velocity, or to just turn the craft around and use those engines to slow it down. Thrusters are fine for things like the Shuttle docking with the ISS, as their velocities as seen from earth are nearly identical when they choose to meet up at the same orbital altitude.

The point is, that forward firing thrusers weren't implimented in Nova AI, and so Nova's AI can't use them.

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As I understand it, the movement in EV is actually very similar to how interstellar travel would be done in reality. The fastest way to get from one star to another is to constantly thrust until you're half way there, then reverse the facing of the ship and thrust (in the opposite direction) the other half way. That way you have huge engines on one end of the ship which fire basically all the time, and a couple of little turning engines. So really, EV is very realistic... if you ignore the hyper-space, aliens, psychics and lack of third dimension

Strange that I should reply to the topic now it's getting off topic... Yeah, I wasn't really expecting to have access to the full source. I was just hoping that some of the game might have been exposed to a scripting language or something, which would mean that the core engine could still be protected. I guess that's what you've got with the ability to make new scenarios and resources. It's just a shame that most people consider AI to be part of the core engine, rather than an extension that modders might want to change :frown:

Speaking of coding the whole thing from scratch, have any of you looked at Epiar? (http://Epiar.net) It seems to be fairly beta, but it's OS. I haven't got around to checking it out yet.

Hematite.

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Quote

Originally posted by Hematite:
**As I understand it, the movement in EV is actually very similar to how interstellar travel would be done in reality. The fastest way to get from one star to another is to constantly thrust until you're half way there, then reverse the facing of the ship and thrust (in the opposite direction) the other half way. That way you have huge engines on one end of the ship which fire basically all the time, and a couple of little turning engines. So really, EV is very realistic... if you ignore the hyper-space, aliens, psychics and lack of third dimension;)

Hematite.

**

Hah... classic. You'd also have to include the big rings around planets in that list... gotta love the idea though.

But yeah, the fastest way to get to another star is actually to sit down, put your hands in your ears, and try really hard. That should do it.

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Quote

Originally posted by Hematite:
psychics(b)

Well, how do YOU know that a bunch of telepaths didn't escape Earth in the time of ancient civilizations? I mean, that would explain why we never see them.

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Quote

Originally posted by Hematite:
As I understand it, the movement in EV is actually very similar to how interstellar travel would be done in reality. The fastest way to get from one star to another is to constantly thrust until you're half way there, then reverse the facing of the ship and thrust (in the opposite direction) the other half way. That way you have huge engines on one end of the ship which fire basically all the time, and a couple of little turning engines. So really, EV is very realistic... if you ignore the hyper-space, aliens, psychics and lack of third dimension;)

Agreed. Especially when "landing" at a docking station. However, it's not necessarily true for a planet, in real life. You forget about descension

Yeah, it's too bad there isn't whole lot of scripting beyond NCBs. But then again, I don't know too many games that let you mess with the physics systems. Who knows -- maybe EV4 will have broader support

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Quote

Originally posted by Azdara:
Hah... classic. You'd also have to include the big rings around planets in that list... gotta love the idea though.:)

Actualy, artifical rings around planets are possible, just far beyond the abilities of modern building techniques. Not to mention the astronomical cost of building such a thing.

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i would say impossible due to all the satellites and space debris orbiting around the earth, even in low altitudes.

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My parents died in Roswell incident.

Haven't you guys heard about the planning and debating about putting in to get a space elevator going up to the space station? (url="http://"http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html")http://www.space.com...r_020327-1.html(/url)

Artificial ring around a planet isn't a far cry from that.

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