How difficult would it be to recreate a ship as a pers from the info from a pilot log?

If it was possible, could one say, write a simple pers creation program as a add on to one of the existing plug creation utilities?

If this was possible, people could import their ships into someone else's version of EV, by making an easy ship exchange system.

IE, create a specialized ship exchange plug, which creates a new system where a single ship imported from someone else's pilot log is created.

Of course, this is probably just a pipe dream. So shoot it down as you will.

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You'd probably need a shďp to go along with the përs, as most people have seriously customized ships and the four fields in the përs resource would n0t be enough to hold all of thier stuff...

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Originally posted by Randomdude:
How difficult would it be to recreate a ship as a pers from the info from a pilot log?

I've never studied a pilot log before, but if all the info was there, it would be a simple matter of making a couple of resources. But there is no simple utility that lets you drag and drop a pilot log onto it and spits out a plugin. That would be cool, though.

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If it was possible, could one say, write a simple pers creation program as a add on to one of the existing plug creation utilities?

I don't believe that's possible. Most of the guys who have made plug creation utilities don't want you to mess with them.

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The pilot log contains all the necessary outfits and stuff to fully equip a ship, though creating a new ship is slightly more problematic.

I'm going to start studying a plugin creator and see if a simple automated ship creation program is possible.

Where do you guys think I should start? EVNew or should I get a Mac emulator and try one of the other ones?

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Man, you have no idea how useful this would be to me... Wow!

If you do do it, please make it in Java or something else crossplatform as it sounds like you're on a PC- both sides could use it.

It would definately have to make a new ship type for it, although the Pers could just reference that ship type and be done (Almost all the Pers in my plug are built this way). The interesting part would be for things like the speed upgrades. It really depends on what you want to do. For my purposes, making the pilot's ship into a pers wouldn't be very useful- but if that's what you want to do, you have a lot of work to do. Basically, you'll need to cross reference all the outfits the pilot has- and translate them into values the AI ships can use! Remember, the AI doesn't really use default outfits- so if the pilot has speed upgrades, you'll have to find them, and create the new pers ship with those speed upgrades as part of the ships definition. It's really not a tough programming task- but you'll have to be hooked into the correct data files.

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Yeah, I understand the problem with speed upgrades, but there's only what, 2 of 3 (sigma upgrades, port and polish, override) in the entire game? Of course, I hope the AI reactors have the speed increases built in. The speed boosts from reactors should be already included in the ai ship data, since some of them come equipped with the advanced reactors.

The most unfortunate thing is, Vellos weapons and outfits are a lot more complex to do, since it seems that I would have to look for mission bits instead of outfits. So vellos players again, fall to the wayside.

What I plan to do basically, is for a player to create an AI ship with his old pilot's name, ships, and outfits in a system near Sol called Arena.

Then the player can take a new pilot and challenge the old pilot. This would also create some tougher opponents for vets to fight. Imagine taking on a Polaris string mod starbridge.

Of course, most of this is just random speculation right now, since I have to take a look into the workings of the plug creation utilities and see what happens.

Hopefully, the reference and creation is straightforward enough to be ripped out and a outfit to outfit matching program could be created, but I don't even know if this is possible yet or if its just too much trouble to be worth.

Meanwhile, any suggestions on which utility I should be looking at first? I'm trying EVNew right now, but any ideas would be helpful.

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EVNEW? If you're using EVNEW, then that means you're on a PC, and if you're on a PC, that means EVNEW is your only option...

I could always try one of the mac emulators, and besides, I could probably loan a powerbook off my friend for a while.

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Umm, Masamune, there's one limitation to that...Mac plug-ins and Windows plug-ins aren't the same. Unless the program automatically detected itself...

Hmm...I could do part of it, but certainly not all...seant could do it I'm sure. Of course, that would be only for Mac probably, and he doesn't necessarily want to. And of course, Mr. Burch could definately do it. Again, whether he wants to is another story.

On Windows, the task is simple if you know enough C++ to scan through folders, read text files, etc. The EVNEW source code is enough to handle the rest pretty much.

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I'm personally surprised at EVNEW's source. It's surprisingly easy to read despite the disturbing lack of comments.

The ship section at least, hopefully the core functions can be ripped well.

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Is there still an interest in a utility of this sort? I've been gone for a while....

I'd be willing to port the utility that did this for EVO to Nova and make it work for both Mac and Windows.

Drop me an email at seantAThellskitchenDOTorg if you are interested.

-STH

If I remember correctly, the pers can only have outfits added to what is stock. Many people Like myself sell much (or all) of the stock load out. What that means is if my pilot has only 3 railguns on a modified starbridge class c, you wouldn't be able to duplicate that, since the class c has blasters stock, and they would carry over to the pers.

erikthered, on Feb 16 2005, 10:07 PM, said:

If I remember correctly, the pers can only have outfits added to what is stock. Many people Like myself sell much (or all) of the stock load out. What that means is if my pilot has only 3 railguns on a modified starbridge class c, you wouldn't be able to duplicate that, since the class c has blasters stock, and they would carry over to the pers.
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IIRC, përs resources can also SUBTRACT weapons from their base ship types by using negative quantities with valid weapon IDs.

(edit:)
Oh, crap. I just noticed how old this thread is!

This post has been edited by Amnenth : 16 February 2005 - 10:26 PM

If I remember correctly, default weapons may be removed by using a negative quantity.

If you enter a negative quantity in one field, you have one less field to enter outfits. If my character's ship has hell hounds, rain guns, IR missiles, and FPCs, and I take off stock medium and light blasters, I only have 2 fields left, and can't recreate the my load out.

Oh man, I didn't realize its age until you said something. It was near the top of the list, and that's where I start... Well, do we keep going or not?

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Yeah, I understand the problem with speed upgrades, but there's only what, 2 of 3 (sigma upgrades, port and polish, override) in the entire game?

No, there are more than that. Those three, plus Thorium Reactor, Fusion Reactor, and AM reactor, and every FPC, railgun, MB, MBT, HBT, and a few other things that you get rid of.

No, you would have to make a shďp and then a përs.

But yes, I'd laugh at just about every newb that tried taking on MY Unrelenting.
Happy Fourth ;-).

EDIT: then you would have to activate the përs. I seem to remember seeing a thread about that somewhere (and how a Mac user was looking for a tester)...

This post has been edited by The Apple Cřre : 18 February 2005 - 01:02 AM

Is there any sort of interest in a plug like this yet? I could whip up a spreadsheet that would calculate a modified ships statistics based on what outfits they have. Then create a new ship with these stats and with the users weapons loadout. Load that ship into a new pers and add any more weapons. (Do you think anyone has more than 12 weapon types?)

IIRC there was talk of a community plug that inserted members of the EVN forum community as pers into the game. This would take it a step further but I wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes if it has been done before.