Technical issues with original Nova data.

Hello - I'm working on a project of my own for converting EV Classic over to Nova. Now, before anyone states that there is already such a plug-in that does this, it would do well to remember, that this is in fact NOT an EV Classic mod for Nova. It even says in the description of the plug-in itself that new ships, weapons, and other things are added. Therefore, this is EV Classic with an add-on, not EV Classic.

My intention is to make an EV Classic for Nova that is the plain, simple EV Classic without any additions, changes, or anything of the kind. The aim of the intention is the following: if the original setup of EV Classic can be closely mimiced, then plug-ins of the original EV Classic can easily be converted over to Nova with the use of MissionComputer's resource copier.

What I don't want to do is create the add-on as an actual add-on, which uses higher numbers of ship IDs and the like. What I'm attempting to do is the more normal Total Conversion method of deleting the existing Nova data and simply replacing it with the data I want.

However, my problem is that within the Nova data that matches Classic data (like ship, outf, and so on), there exists somewhere something that, when deleted, prevents Nova from actually starting.

Can anyone more knowledgeable about Nova's systems guide me on how I could go about deleting as much Nova data as possible in order to replace it with Classic data, without causing the game to crash when it starts?

Don't worry about it, people, Ambrosia included, are way ahead of you. Ambrosia did a straight port of EVC way back when. Then someone did the addon you're probably thinking about, rEVisted. Then Guy went and fixed up the official port, correcting bugs, and tweaking the in-game numbers so they more closely matched actual EVC performance. At some point, someone also did a plug where EVC was added to EVN instead of working as a TC.

Ambrosia also did an official port for Override and later Guy fixed that one up too.

You can find both ports, as well as some other stuff related to them and unrelated to them here.

Of course, if you still want to, you can port EVC yourself, but there really isn't much point to it when there's already an official and fixed-up unofficial port. But if you insist, a good base to start with, however, would be Absolute Minimum, which contains all the necessary resources for Nova to start without crashing, and that's it. Also, you'll have a hefty workload ahead of you, as EVC and Nova use many different resource types, most notable different graphic formats.

This post has been edited by JoshTigerheart : 31 January 2010 - 07:54 PM

QUOTE (ThoraxAntburner @ Jan 31 2010, 06:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

. . . if the original setup of EV Classic can be closely mimiced, then plug-ins of the original EV Classic can easily be converted over to Nova with the use of MissionComputer's resource copier.

This wouldn't work. MissionComputer's resource copier just moves resources from one file to another. It doesn't convert them from the old format to the new one; an EV Nova shïp resource, for example, does not follow the same structure as one from the previous games.

What you need to do this sort of conversion is a programme like SpacePort, which knows how to read the old format and adapt it to the new one, moving the fields to their new locations and adjusting the values in the places where things are expressed differently by the new game. Even so, most plug-ins will still require additional work, because some aspects require a human decision rather than being possible to adapt mathematically.

Well, thanks for the Classic link! And where would I find SpacePort? All my Google searches give me actual ports, and not programs. =/

In any case, I'll let you know how things turn out.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/assets/modules/a....php?addon=2257

See also second result here.

Thank you!

OK - I have Classic EV installed and it works just fine, and I used spaceport to convert one of my plugins, and that went very smoothly. I stuck this plug-in in the Classic EV plug-ins folder and...

...nothing happened. It's like the plug-in isn't there.

Suggestions? =(

Did you do anything at all to the plug-in after using Spaceport to convert it? If not, that's your problem. Like David Arthur said, some things would need to be done by you. By this, I mean not everything can be converted. You need to go through and double check that everything is in order as it usually isn't.

Try that.

What is the complete path of the plug-in file that is not working on your hard drive?

What is the complete path of the data file that are working?

@Darthkev - I opened it up with MissionComputer, got this...

128: UE Shipping: Recruitment
129: Aid the Voinians!
130:
1000: These resources are not real.
1001: If you are seeing this text in
1002: the running application, please
1003: email me with the details at
1004: davidarthur@evula.net.
11024: Bob's resource

This is ALL that the plug shows. It's also complaining that the plug-in is too big and that I should break it up, but I can't break it up because I can't open it in order to break it up...

@Qaanol - I don't understand your questions.

Try breaking up the original plug-in with MC. MC can still open EVC files, so it'd be a simple task to fix it. Once you have the EVC plug broken up, then try porting those and working from there.

Will do - I'll let you know the results later today.

QUOTE (ThoraxAntburner @ Feb 3 2010, 12:02 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is ALL that the plug shows. It's also complaining that the plug-in is too big and that I should break it up, but I can't break it up because I can't open it in order to break it up...

That text is only ever shown if something goes very wrong — the only time I've seen it myself since the early stages of 1.0 was when I was working on support for .ndat files. The only thing I can think would cause this is some fairly serious file corruption.

I just put the plug-in again, after having made the files smaller. This time, it claims that PICT 3011 is missing, and then complains that there is some error regarding volumes/nightly/ambrosia/releases, and it says it's an assertion failure. =/

In that case, I'm thinking the copy of the plug-in you have is corrupted, like David has said. Hope you have a backup somewhere.

Well yes, I made a copy before converting it to Nova. However, it works just fine in EV Classic...

Most likely some resource you ported over is making references to some missing graphic. That's the most common source of "crashing at start up". You're now at the part where you need to check all the resources, see what graphics that need to be added/fixed/replaced, and so fourth. Using a debug log will be quite handy here... sometimes.

Also make sure to read the log Spaceport makes when converting as that can have some very useful information.

The log had nothing meaningful to say with regard to graphics.

At the moment I'm doing a personal project to improve and organize this plug more for EVC...that is, so everything is easily findable and in a sensible order. Once I've finished with that, then I'll hunt down this thread again (I'll try to make sure it still exists) and go for round 2...if I'm still having troubles I might at that point try to put it in your hands.

So, for now, I'm quitting the Nova attempt to later.

Nonetheless, I want to thank all of you for your help! I'm happy to have the guidance. Perhaps we will see each other again.

-J

Actually - if someone could answer one thing before I go.

In EV Classic, in wëap, does the "ammo type" field actually do anything? I've fiddled with this field as much as I like, it doesn't appear to change anything at all, as though the feature is disabled - which is sensible, because the outf resource has an option to pick what weapon one wants the ammunition to be attached to.