Can I overload certain resources?

Howdy,

I was thinking about the limits placed in the EV Bible about resources. Like no more than "x" # of resources in the the Fleet resource. Well, what would happen if I had more than the max? It seems like unless the whole fleet resource is called all at once every time you jump into a system, it should be Ok. Systems can only reference 8 Fleets at a time, therefore, the whole fleet resource wouldn't need to be loaded into every system. Wondering, thanks.

- Trinix

It wouldn't be recognised by Nova, that's all. Or it might make it crash.

(don't mind me, I know nothing about it)

Is that your guess, what you've been told or what? I can see why something like the Sys resource needs a strict limit because all of them are accessed all at once when accessing the map. However, resources that are only referenced as a small portion and not as a whole should be "ok" to go over the limit, or so I think, lol.

I'm thinking about resources like:
• Spöb
• Flët
• Düde
• Përs
• ränk

I'm not thinking about overloarding these types or resources because they are referenced heavily as a whole, or as a possible large block: {I can see why these have limits}
• Shďp (Like when at a shipyard)
• Oütf (Like when at the outfitter)
• S˙st (The map)
• Gövt (The map - Thinking territory colors)
• crön (has to be kept track of constantly doesn't it?)

Anyone tried?

Why would it say there are limits if they're not real? Nova won't recognise resources beyond the given limits, period.
Now your wording is a bit confusing - you mention things like "the Fleet resource" or "the Sys resource". A resource is a single fleet or a single system, not a collection of them.

The limits seems a bit arbitrary for some of them. Hence why I wondered. Besides, I hate to questions Matt program decisions, but it is possible to create a system of resources with no arbitrary limits on any of them, the only limiting factor would simple be the machine running it, and the plugin developers time to develop it. I would have loved it if he did that.

@trinix, on Aug 19 2007, 09:04 PM, said in Resource #'s:

The limits seems a bit arbitrary for some of them. Hence why I wondered. Besides, I hate to questions Matt program decisions, but it is possible to create a system of resources with no arbitrary limits on any of them, the only limiting factor would simple be the machine running it, and the plugin developers time to develop it. I would have loved it if he did that.

**I'd guess in-game processes like that were dictated in size and scope by the desire of the programmers and ASW to have the game be as accessible as possible to a large number of people with varying levels of computing power. Having 96 ships in one system with 20 fleets would just simply be too much for a lot of older, slower machines.

It's very similar in many ways to how Blizzard did StarCraft. You'd be amazed how well the game plays on older machines.

_bomb

**

@trinix, on Aug 19 2007, 09:04 PM, said in Resource #'s:

The limits seems a bit arbitrary for some of them.

The limits are arbitrary, but that doesn’t mean they’re unnecessary. When you’re designing something like Escape Velocity , you have to decide — in advance — how much memory you plan to assign to each variable or array, which affects how you can use them. That’s why the numbers of resources allowed differ for different resource types (and have increased as each new version of the game has raised its system requirements), and why some of the fields in an individual resource allow higher values than others (for example, a ship’s price can be much higher than its cargo capacity).

If the Nova Bible states that the maximum number of fleets is 256, that means that the engine reads flët resources 128 through 383 and then stops; resources numbered 384 and above (or below 128) might as well not be there.

Will a 1.0.11 update come out to arbitrarily raise a bit some of the resources so that newer machines can take advantage more?

The limits are hard-coded into the engine, Trinx. The version patches typically only rebalance the data files, with the exception of some of the earlier patches, which corrected some crippling game flaws.

Also, I do not believe that v1.0.11 is currently in development, and neither do I find the prospect of raising the limits very likely, as it would require Mr. Burch to re-code some of the more critical parts of the engine (and he's already have well enough of the EV franchise, as-is).

As much as I would like the arbitrary limitations to be lifted, as I am certain much of the community does likewise, I simply do not see it happening. I suppose you could try your hand at editing the engine yourself, but seeing as this would violate the EULA, it would be useless beyond your personal use. Not to mention the legal complications that are involved with such an action...

Sounds like a job for a linux developer then! lol, all jokes aside. A more serious, and doable question for a 1.0.11 update (which I could even do all by myself!!!)

Split the Data files up much more than they are already. I'm thinking of isolated certain resources.

ShipData *(All the Shďp resource. This does not include PIC's!!!)
ShipPics1
ShipPics2 ... etc.. (The Ship graphics split up.)
Consoles *(Console resource split into its own group.)
ShipDesc

Plugins that replace/modify general categories in that way could have swap install options. Allowing for plugins modifying other plugins so to speak. (Setting up for an eventual TC deployment). I'm not saying this would be helpful to the end user who doesn't play plugins, but for developers it could be significant, and could possible change the way they go setting up their TC. It is a very minor thing, requiring no extra code, and can be done in MC4. A 1.0.11 update with this would be nice. If they decided to do a 1.0.11 update to do this, and maybe some of very minor stuff, I'd be happy to list a fully reorganized list.

@-visitor-, on Aug 20 2007, 10:47 PM, said in Resource #'s:

The limits are hard-coded into the engine, Trinx. The version patches typically only rebalance the data files, with the exception of some of the earlier patches, which corrected some crippling game flaws.

...no.

Every new version of Nova has had bug fixes and other engine enhancements. I'm not even sure if they changed the data files in 1.0.10.

Trinix: I doubt if there's a 1.0.11 coming...at all. If there is, the resource limits are definitely not getting raised, and you'd have a tough time convincing Dave to reorganize the data files. Really, when it comes down to it, it's not worth it. The game is over five years old, and I'm willing to bet Matt is pretty sick of it at this point.

@trinix, on Aug 20 2007, 09:16 PM, said in Resource #'s:

Will a 1.0.11 update come out to arbitrarily raise a bit some of the resources so that newer machines can take advantage more?

The Escape Velocity engine is now more than ten years old, and even the major revision that accompanied EV Nova was released more than five years ago. Any significant improvements now would be tantamount to rewriting the game from scratch, something you wouldn’t suggest if you had any sense of how much time and aggravation the development of EV Nova involved.

@david-arthur, on Aug 22 2007, 12:10 PM, said in Resource #'s:

The Escape Velocity engine is now more than ten years old, and even the major revision that accompanied EV Nova was released more than five years ago. Any significant improvements now would be tantamount to rewriting the game from scratch, something you wouldn’t suggest if you had any sense of how much time and aggravation the development of EV Nova involved.

In general I agree, but would raising the resource limit be that hard, really? It seems like something that would be in a constant at the beginning of evnova.h or whatever. Am I missing something?

I'm missing something - which limits in particular are we wanting to raise and why? Trinix mentioned spöb (already huge), flët (um, why?), düde (big enough, I should hope), përs (also huge) and ränk (I guess that might be nice to have higher if you're using ranks heavily for things they weren't originally intended for).

Just ask a TC maker; resource limits are the bane of creativity, and, ultimately, the life-span of a plug-in.

Trinix isn't a TC maker, I know that much ;). Pace could probably have used a few more missions but the 1000 mission limit is not arbitrary, nor is the 768 ship limit.

In response to DA, I agree the making of EVN took awhile, and was difficult. I'll also note that I disagree (also note, after the fact) with how they made the game, and the resources used. But those decisions have been made, and so we live with them. And if it would be really that hard to adjust some of the arbitrary limits, well...

In response to Guy, he is correct, I'm not a really original TC plugin developer. I make plugins for more own use mainly, and I'm only working on one plugin for actual release at the moment. My "TC-esque" plugins are for personal use, and I do not have it up to my level of standards, anywhere close in fact. If and when my TC-esque plugins ever sufficiently develop to the point that I'd be proud of stamping my e-mail address onto it, then I'd think about releasing it.

And to everyone; why in the world would Matt care if the EV name was used for another game, made completely from scratch, new code, the works, under Ambrosia's direction? Is he really so sick of it, that Ambrosia can't even say a sentence with the word "EV" in it? And why must we get Matt to code or supervise it, if he didn't want to? All he'd need to do is say "Ok, you can use the "EV" name into another edition to the game series."

@trinix, on Aug 24 2007, 01:44 PM, said in Resource #'s:

I'll also note that I disagree (also note, after the fact) with how they made the game, and the resources used.

The game was made by upgrading the existing engine which was a perfectly reasonable way to do it at the time.

@trinix, on Aug 24 2007, 01:44 PM, said in Resource #'s:

In response to Guy, he is correct, I'm not a really original TC plugin developer.

That doesn't answer the question of why we're complaining about limits.

@trinix, on Aug 24 2007, 01:44 PM, said in Resource #'s:

And to everyone; why in the world would Matt care if the EV name was used for another game, made completely from scratch, new code, the works, under Ambrosia's direction? Is he really so sick of it, that Ambrosia can't even say a sentence with the word "EV" in it? And why must we get Matt to code or supervise it, if he didn't want to? All he'd need to do is say "Ok, you can use the "EV" name into another edition to the game series."

Matt doesn't need to be involved at all except to get his permission to use the name, assuming you want to use the name. If someone could show him some sort of prototype of a new engine which showed great potential he'd probably happily let them use the name.

That would be great if Matt would let us use the name. Maybe unrealistic, but great.

~vIsitor~ said in Resource #'s:

Just ask a TC maker; resource limits are the bane of creativity, and, ultimately, the life-span of a plug-in.

I rather think that the desire to impress by size rather than story and gameplay that afflicts so many developers might be a more significant bane.

Trinix said in Resource #'s:

In response to DA, I agree the making of EVN took awhile, and was difficult.

Just to make sure things are in proportion, Matt and the crew at ATMOS ended up spending several more years struggling with mission-trees and the like than they anticipated when they signed on to publish EV Nova , and didn’t see any money until the game was released. Count back to the development of Escape Velocity in the 1990s, and remember that these people have families and day jobs, and it really starts to add up.

@trinix, on Aug 23 2007, 09:44 PM, said:

But those decisions have been made, and so we live with them.

Most of the important decisions were back in the mid-1990s, when the original Escape Velocity was a RAM hog which took several minutes to load on most people’s computers, and slowed down to a crawl if there were more than about ten ships in a system. EV Nova itself was limited by the age of its code base, and many of the improvements it introduced were already incremental changes to the incremental changes that had been made for EV Override , and you’re now asking for this to happen again.

Over the long term, that isn’t the sort of approach that produces a strong or stable programme. Despite the impressiveness of what Matt has achieved over the years, at this stage I would be extremely sceptical of any plans for a new Escape Velocity which involved using significant amounts of the existing code.

@trinix, on Aug 23 2007, 09:44 PM, said:

And why must we get Matt to code or supervise it, if he didn't want to?

The question is, if Matt didn’t write it, who would? Though they sometimes give a good impression of it, Ambrosia is not a major development house with enormous teams of programmers, writers, and artists on staff who could initiate such a task on their own; most of their products, especially games, are created by external developers (like Matt) who then bring them to Ambrosia to be published. Almost all of Ambrosia’s employees are in customer service, administration, and other day-to-day operations. The rights to the Escape Velocity name are by far the least significant obstacle to the creation of the next great shareware space adventure for Macintosh.