I've reconverted the EVO data files using SpacePort and then fixed up heaps of stuff but there may still be problems with it which don't exist in the current port. It would look silly if I posted an update which made new bugs so I thought I should post here first so people can test it. If you find any bugs in it or know of any other existing bugs then please post them.
(EDIT:Removed) (get complete port from link in sig)
This post has been edited by Guy : 30 January 2007 - 05:42 AM
Wow. You've been busy! Since there has been no sign lately that Soviet mikee (or whoever worked with him on the port) will ever produce an official update, it was about time someone did this.
I'll try to look at the plug in a few days -- I've been playing too much lately and need to buckle down to Real Life issues.
I did go through your readme, which you should probably post into this thread so other people can see it w/o the download & unstuff bother. You fix an impressive list of bugs, many of which I haven't seen myself. (Phyvo, it looks to me that Guy is sticking to bug fixes and changes that try to make the port truer to the experience of playing the original EVO game, rather than adding features.)
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Fixed some govts which were supposed to plunder enemies but didn't.
I thought no govt plundered in EVO -- pirates and such just blasted your ship, rather than stealing credits. Do I remember incorrectly?
Also, do escort hire availabilities in the original game match those in the port? This is something I've had doubts about, but I've never gotten around to play-testing the issue.
Any chance of re-implementing the bounty hunter? 
Hey -- thanks!
Let's see... in the original EVO, you could only hire escorts that were available for purchase without needing any bits set. Even once the bits were set you couldn't hire them.
No Nova port can ever capture the shield recharge behaviour that made Override Azdaras so vicious when you put Dospect on them.
Some of the North Tip Renegades definitely plunder traders. I'm not sure about South Tip or Human Renegades though. No nonrenegades do.
I thought the plunder behaviour was added in nova? It seems like soemthing they would have had if the AI was that developed, but it wasnt. So retroactively making pirates plunder makes sense.
I've seen a Krait plundering a UE trader.
Dr. Trowel, on Sep 28 2005, 02:39 PM, said:
I thought no govt plundered in EVO -- pirates and such just blasted your ship, rather than stealing credits. Do I remember incorrectly?
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The three renegade govts along with Hinwar, Azdgari, and Igadzra are all set to plunder. In EV/O, since the player can't be disabled he also can't be boarded. Otherwise, the plunder behaviour is the same as in Nova - they will plunder trader AIs only. For this reason I doubt you will ever see the Hinwar, Azdgari or Igadzra plundering other ships so it would come as a surprise to find them plundering yourself. I'm wondering, should I remove the flag for these govts and just leave it on the renegades?
Dr. Trowel, on Sep 28 2005, 02:39 PM, said:
Any chance of re-implementing the bounty hunter?
Hey -- thanks!
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Hm, I hadn't thought about that. I'll have a look at it. Is there a plug for the port which already does that?
Qaanol, on Sep 28 2005, 03:50 PM, said:
No Nova port can ever capture the shield recharge behaviour that made Override Azdaras so vicious when you put Dospect on them.
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Heh, true and in fact the armour regen rates are all set to 0.
Okay, here's the list:
Game speed now accurately reflects EVO running at 50%. EVO was designed for older machines which couldn't run it as fast so while doubling speeds will accurately reflect it at 100%, this really is too fast.
Fixed fuel consumption, turn rate, smoke set, and guidance flags of various weapons.
Fixed lengths of beams (they were a tad too short).
Fixed all jamming for weapons, jammers and govts.
Fixed strength of Tractor Beam which was so weak it was hardly noticeable.
Fixed tech level of special items so that they won't disappear.
Fixed some govts which were supposed to plunder enemies but didn't.
Fixed a govt and some missions which were missing scan bits.
Fixed mission comp govts so you're properly rewarded for missions.
Fixed some mission bit strings which tested or set bits 1000 higher than they should.
Fixed some missions which were supposed to grant outfits but didn't or instead cleaned your legal record with some random govt.
Fixed shield recharge of Freighter which was 10 times too high.
Fixed strengths of Fighters and some Aradas which were a 5th of what they were supposed to be.
Fixed hire availability of military ships which aren't supposed to be able to be hired.
Fixed ally and enemy of govt "Escort Zidagar (vs. Azdgari)".
Fixed button labels (missing "Jettison Cargo").
Fixed booms - removed sound from FAE Small and added booms for "Ship Breaks Up" and "Ship Explodes".
Fixed explode types of ships.
Fixed explosion sprites so they play in the correct order.
Replaced the Nova interference patterns with EVO's ones.
Added Transition sound for new pilots.
EV/O shield generators are impossible to emulate accurately in the Nova engine but the ones in the port are way too powerful. I've cut them to one tenth and they're still very good.
Fixed fuel bar location.
Fixed grid colour and button font.
Added shipyard/comm pics for Zachit ships and Igadzra Arada which were previously missing them.
Added Warp Up.x2 sound for jumping in x2 mode.
Modified main menu - no longer has Port Authority logo and box for pilot info has a bottom to it.
Yup, so they had all been properly negated but some hadn't had 1000 subtracted from them.
Just made another fix: translated and removed EVO's 0x0020 misn flag.
And here's a test plug for the Bounty Hunter. I've set the govt to have immortal perses but for some reason it doesn't work. Start a new pilot - you'll get a nice ship with a deadly rating, earth has no defence fleet and the Bounty Hunter will always be in Sol.
That's alot more than what I was doing (even though I never released the plug-in itself), so far I've mostly edited the mission bits because they were just dumped over to the Nova without regard to translate them properly. In your list, you mentioned about the explosions and stuff, have you finally fixed the bug taht prevented the Nova port of EVO from actually playing the sound of the ship explosion once and for all?
(EDIT) Now that I've downloaded, HOLY SHIOT. I didn't expect too find that sounds were also implimented in a resource I never thought to look into, no wonder why that damn bug escaped me.
BTW, I have some of more missing pics as I too have added them in my own version, but you've come along way in updating the plug-in which really, really needed one.
And for people who never seen governments loot, that's because not all of the conditions are met in which a player can witness the plundering. Their ships never encounter freighters belonging to their enemies. In the meantime, I'm gonna re-explore the galaxy, and see the changes, or misses. But this is a sign of good hope that will motivate me to porting FOTVE over. Assuming that practically all of the bugs are squashed out once and for all.
(/EDIT)
This post has been edited by Coraxus : 30 September 2005 - 03:56 PM
Guy, are those fixes you made from the reconverted version made by SpacePort, or just differences from the official port?
Coraxus, on Sep 30 2005, 08:32 PM, said:
That's alot more than what I was doing (even though I never released the plug-in itself), so far I've mostly edited the mission bits because they were just dumped over to the Nova without regard to translate them properly.
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I think most of them did get translated properly. Is there anything you've found that I've missed?
Coraxus, on Sep 30 2005, 08:32 PM, said:
BTW, I have some of more missing pics as I too have added them in my own version, but you've come along way in updating the plug-in which really, really needed one.
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Some more? What else is missing? Actually wait a second, I think I stole those pics from one of your EVO plugs :rolleyes: The darker blue on the zachit fighter is a little darker than it should be.
orcaloverbri9, on Oct 1 2005, 12:57 AM, said:
Guy, are those fixes you made from the reconverted version made by SpacePort, or just differences from the official port?
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They're differences from the official port, so technically I haven't actually 'fixed' them. I started out making a patch plug and keeping a log of the fixes but later decided to just reconvert the whole thing. I had already made a big list of SpacePort's shortcomings so I knew what had to be done after conversion.
Well, my resources files for the games are a lil disorganized but I had added the shipyard pics for the Voinian Dreadnought and the Igazra only because Nova uses them for communications as well. As for the Zachit fighter being darker, well, I just used the actual Infini-D file and the settings used to render shipyard pics. So it wasn't like I changed something on it to make it out of the ordinary.
A couple of thing I did notice, is that some of the carrier ships, like the Turncoat or the UE Cruiser, they tend to launch their fighters right in the middle of a dogfight instead of an instant reaction on detecting an enemy ship in the system. Also, you forgot to classify each ships, I have an escort fleet of Strand capital ships that are assigned as fighters rather than warships.
This post has been edited by Coraxus : 30 September 2005 - 09:11 PM
Yeah, same reason I added the zachit ships and igadzra arada. The dreadnought and igazra already have pics though.
Don't think there's anything that can be done about the fighters - it's just part of Nova's AI.
Oh yeah, I did notice my scoutship and transporter escorts were classed as fighters but forgot to do anything about. Fixed now.
Coraxus, on Sep 30 2005, 09:06 PM, said:
A couple of thing I did notice, is that some of the carrier ships, like the Turncoat or the UE Cruiser, they tend to launch their fighters right in the middle of a dogfight instead of an instant reaction on detecting an enemy ship in the system. Also, you forgot to classify each ships, I have an escort fleet of Strand capital ships that are assigned as fighters rather than warships.
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If you set carrier ships to use stand-off tactics they might release fighters sooner... but will the effects on how they deal with their other weapons make their behavior less like that of carriers in the original EVO?
(I still haven't found time to try your plug, Guy, so sorry if you've already checked this out.)
It could be argued that an inability to give different orders to different classes of escorts makes combat more like it was in the original game -- it's a limitation that you had to keep in mind when deciding whether to commit your escorts to battle.
Have you managed to put the "nose shot" comm graphics back in the game? I can think of two ways to give players a chance to encounter them....
Guy, on Sep 30 2005, 08:47 PM, said:
...I had already made a big list of SpacePort's shortcomings...
Could you list them? Or alternatively, attach them/send them to me/burn-them-to-a-CD-figure-out-where-I-live-run-here-and-hand-it-to-me-just-before-you-drop-dead-on-the-threshold?
I used to have the SpacePort source (as you may or may not be aware, it is semi-open source), but I deleted it at some point. I asked SP for it again since I doubt he feels like supporting the thing anymore, and it would be nice to track down some of those bugs, no?
Dr. Trowel, on Oct 1 2005, 04:26 AM, said:
If you set carrier ships to use stand-off tactics they might release fighters sooner... but will the effects on how they deal with their other weapons make their behavior less like that of carriers in the original EVO?
(I still haven't found time to try your plug, Guy, so sorry if you've already checked this out.)
It could be argued that an inability to give different orders to different classes of escorts makes combat more like it was in the original game -- it's a limitation that you had to keep in mind when deciding whether to commit your escorts to battle.
Have you managed to put the "nose shot" comm graphics back in the game? I can think of two ways to give players a chance to encounter them....
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No worries, just as long as enough people can test this out and be satisfied there's no bugs (something which didn't appear to happen at all with the initial port). I'll probably hold off releasing it for while just to be safe but if I can get some official testers that'd be great.
And yeah, I could make the escorts like that but it's much nicer just to set them all to -1. For some reason SpacePort had set them to 0 (fighter).
As for the nose shots, let's see, make every ship a pers? Or include a movie file for all the normal shipyard pics? Heh, well I won't be doing either of those. I'm quite happy to forget about them but if you have a nice idea then do tell.
orca, I'll PM you about SpacePort.
Guy, on Oct 1 2005, 06:02 AM, said:
As for the nose shots, let's see, make every ship a pers? Or include a movie file for all the normal shipyard pics? Heh, well I won't be doing either of those. I'm quite happy to forget about them but if you have a nice idea then do tell.
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One idea did indeed innvolve pers-es: just modify existing pers-es so that they use the nose shots for their ships. It would make meeting a pers a smidgen more special. The ConText work would be fairly straightforward drudgery, using Excel to sort the pers resources by ship type and then adding the proper resource numbers for the nose shots.
My other idea is, I think, more elegant: use the nose shots in place of the large Nova shipyard pics, so they appear above the detailed ship info. You'd probably have to copy the dlog a/o ditl resources for the current EVO-N ship info dialog box, give the copy the resource # used by the illustrated ship info dialog in the stock Nova scenario, then hack it so there's a space for a pict the size of the nose shots. (I suppose the illustration could just as easily be beside or below the ship stats, if that looked better -- or maybe even between two columns of stats, if that is customizable....)
That's an idea that's been in my "secret plans" file since shortly after I ported Cold Fusion. My intention was to make three such plugs: one each for EVC-N, EVO-N, and CFN. If you beat me to it, that would be cool with me! If not, I'll get to it eventually.
Dr. Trowel, on Oct 1 2005, 12:26 AM, said:
It could be argued that an inability to give different orders to different classes of escorts makes combat more like it was in the original game -- it's a limitation that you had to keep in mind when deciding whether to commit your escorts to battle.
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Perhaps for combat, but freighters won't carry cargo if they're not properly classified. Or is the ship classification independent of the escort classification?
(quote name='Guy' date='Oct 1 2005, 11:02 AM')
No worries, just as long as enough people can test this out and be satisfied there's no bugs (something which didn't appear to happen at all with the initial port). I'll probably hold off releasing it for while just to be safe but if I can get some official testers that'd be great.
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I'd be very happy to test your Plug!
Thanks again for all your help testing my plug.
I'll send you an update in a few weeks after I'm fully recovered.
Please send me an eMail with any further changes attached.
regards
John - Afterburner
