Are these types of outfits possible?

Hi guys,

I haven't touched Nova Modding since about 2005, but I've been wanting to get started on a plugin for EVN mostly for my own amusement and was wondering if it were possible/how I could go about making two such outfits:

1. An active shield regeneration system - When activated (with secondary fire) it drains fuel at an enormous rate to give modest shield regeneration, eg dumping fuel into the shield grid or whatever.

2. A similar idea to the above, but it activates the Jamming systems to protect yourself from various space missile attacks.

Yes to both, but to make it both toggleable and instantaneous (meaning you don't have to jump or land), it needs to be done through aborting a mission that grants/deletes outfits.

Alright, I was never great at manipulating missions so I'll just go over the outfit here.

Setup:
oütf 1 (Active Jammer) - Purchasable from the Outfitters, activates the mïsn 2
oütf 2 (~Jamming Mode Active) - actually does the changes, ie. Fuelscoop -200 units, Jammer Type 1 +100
mïsn 1 (Jammer Disabled) - Invisible, unabortable by the player. Removes oütf 2 on activating, adds oütf 2 on abort, activates mïsn 2
mïsn 2 (Jammer Enabled) - Invisible, unabortable by the player. Activates mïsn 1 on abort

Now, the only thing I'm missing is how to get a secondary weapon to toggle them - unless you mean that the only possible way to actually do it is through the i key mission dialog?

Yup, you've pretty much got it. As far as I know, missions are the only way to go.

The only thing that you have to make sure of is to set the missions up like this:

Mission 1 starts when you buy the outfit
Aborting mission 1 fails mission 2
On fail, Mission 2 aborts and grants the regen outfit

Selling the regenerator outfit aborts Mission 2, then Mission 1 in that order , and a crön does the same if you don't have the regenerator outfit (in case you sold the parent ship). That way, when you get rid of the outfit, the mission goes away without triggering.

It seems like you're set! Good luck to you!

Oh and also based on your description, I think you should go back and make sure you know how Nova handles fuel scoops.

Hm, alright. That's a bit clunky but it should work for my purposes.

How do I set up the crön? (I've never used them before) Do I just have it also activate when I buy the outfit, restart itself if you still have the outfit and abort the missions if I don't have the outfit?

Now the only other thing to keep in mind is that you can only have up to 8 active missions at a time, correct? (So I should avoid abusing this too much)

And yes, I was planning to go re-read the Nova Bible before I started sticking values in there

Max simultaneous missions is actually 16, not 8, but yes, it's still good not to use those if you don't have to.

For your purposes, the crön will work a lot like a mission. You'll tell it to activate any time that you don't have the proper outfit, and set it to abort the missions when it stats. Make sure it has a %chance of 100 and a duration of 1.

I actually thought of another way of going about this that I'm pretty sure would work. It would be a less resource-heavy solution (since it doesn't take up missions or the active mission slot), but it's a little less intuitive for the player. What you would do is make the jammer outfit in two parts: the first part gives you the jamming/regen and energy drain, and the second part is the converse of that, making it a zero sum. Buying the first one grants you the second one, which should be invisible in the outfitter. Now here's the kicker: make the first one a fighter bay and the second one a fighter. The fighter should be of a ship type that is either invisible or tiny and a planet-type ship, so it can't be hit, and untargetable. Give it an escort type of freighter. That way, when you launch the fighter, your ship will lose the attributes it gives, meaning you get energy drain, shield recharge, etc. When you want it back, just tell freighters to return to the ship.

Like I said, it's not as intuitive, but it's easier on the resource load.

FYI, stats from ammo are recalculated when you land or view the player info (press 'p') not when the ammo is fired (or fighter is re-docked). Also, any time a Gxxx or Dxxx is evaluated.

This post has been edited by Qaanol : 04 May 2009 - 06:34 PM

Ooh, actually that's a neat little solution!

You could explain it properly in-game as a sort of "Defence Pod" or "Repair Pod"

Edit: Hrm, that's disappointing. On the other hand, I have an idea, I think.

This post has been edited by ~Xenesis~ : 04 May 2009 - 07:00 PM

Oh yeah, I forgot about the having to press P part. Well, I guess it's either that or doing it via missions.