EMPIRE TRILOGY creator's first NOVA plug...

Hello, some of you may know me from my "Empire" series of plugs for EVC. I have just completed (except the primary mission strings) my first ever NOVA plug called HEART AND SOL though for reasons I cannot decipher, it constantly crashes not long after starting.

The beta plug in question can be found at the following temporary hidden link:

http://www.evula.org...aS_BetaTest.zip

I am wondering if any experienced NOVA plug writers would be so kind as to offer any insight in to what is causing this problem, and if there is any possible fix or counter? Any advice would be greatly appreciated and I thank you all in advance for your time.

Regards,

Tim

ethology101 (at) yahoo (dot) com
www.evula.org/empire_trilogy

Can't check it out right now but have you looked at the debug log to see if it says anything helpful? Crashes are usually related to sprites - maybe you have a bad shan somewhere which causes a crash whenever that ship appears.

Maybe I can offer some clarification as I tested it. It crashes when I jump from Matar to left, and it crashes when I jump into Diphidia.

Oh, I see what it is. Check all s˙st resources, and change the message buoy from "0" to "-1" wherever you encounter this "0". It causes a crash in WinNova.
I strongly suggest downloading this: PC Nova crashes, a list compiled by Belthazar.

This post has been edited by Pace : 28 March 2007 - 05:08 AM

Um, that was fixed as of 1.0.9, last I heard, Pace. I should know. I was on the WinNova beta team.

Ask kauthor what version he has, he's the one experiencing crashes going into systems with that "0" problem

1.0.10, and I was on both beta teams.

Hrm I can't find anything that could explain the crash in the Altair system. I'll give it another look tomorrow.

Okay, my observations are very simple: your custom-made spďns for planets do not work. It would seem that, actually, Nova no longer/doesn't handle PICTs for planets, somehow.
I'll try to see what happens if I make RLEs out of your PICTs, see if that works.

Sorry for the triple posting, but that way, everyone knows there's a new post

Found the bug: it wasn't PICT-related, but it was spďn-related. You didn't have the right size/dimensions in the "Sprite Size" field. For example, spďn 1066 uses 130x100 instead of 144x96, which is the true size of the PICT it refers to. And this causes a crash.
Basically, check the size of EVERY PICT you use, and make sure you use that size in any spďns/

Also, I'd suggest converting from PICT to RLE, along with reading a bit more of the Nova bible. No offence meant, but spďns are NOT what you want for ship graphics. Shäns are the way to go, and the only right one.
So yeah, there's still quite a way to go before it's perfect, structure-wise.

@pace, on Mar 29 2007, 03:53 PM, said in NOVA Plug Troubleshooting Assistance, Anyone?:

Found the bug: it wasn't PICT-related, but it was spďn-related. You didn't have the right size/dimensions in the "Sprite Size" field. For example, spďn 1066 uses 130x100 instead of 144x96, which is the true size of the PICT it refers to. And this causes a crash.
Basically, check the size of EVERY PICT you use, and make sure you use that size in any spďns/

Also, I'd suggest converting from PICT to RLE, along with reading a bit more of the Nova bible. No offence meant, but spďns are NOT what you want for ship graphics. Shäns are the way to go, and the only right one.
So yeah, there's still quite a way to go before it's perfect, structure-wise.

Much thanks, Pace. I will start on fixing that problem ASAP.

Out of curiousity, are you aware of any NOVA equivalent of the old EVC "Plug Checker" utility?

Regards,

Tim

Ah, I miss that app. There's no Nova equivalent sadly but we do get a debug log in Nova which picks up plenty of errors.