QUOTE (Syrus @ Feb 24 2010, 02:20 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Very cool. Unfortunately I can no longer compete...bachelors degree gets in the way, but you are the second person I know who won the MAA award. Which is pretty incredible.

Very nice work on the energy consumption problem.

Thanks. That's quite a coincidence! The MCM first ran in 1985, and one team of 3 people is chosen as the MAA winner each year. So that means at most 75 people in the world are MAA award winners from COMAP so far.

QUOTE (darthkev @ Feb 24 2010, 02:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Say Qaanol, you said you had an idea for mapping out systems without actually giving info on them other than their locations and jump points. Are you going to share your idea or are you going to make us beg and guess as to the answer?

Turns out it's not as easy as I hoped. Gray systems disappear when adjacent explored systems don't meet their Visibility requirements. I wanted to make dummy systems connected to 16 systems each until every real system has a dummy connected to it, use Xxxx to reveal the dummies, making the real systems dark gray, and then hide the dummies with Visibility. But that makes the gray circles for connect systems disappear too. It's possible some voodoo with implicit reciprocal links would suffice, but the only way I see for sure now involves making a duplicate of every real system, which isn't worth it for most scenarios. In other words, it would have worked if Nova didn't do implicit reciprocal linking.

The nebula method still works. I wouldn't recommend trying to make circles match systems to the pixel, due to zooming issues. But you could make dots, or icons of stars, and put them in a giant “galaxy map background image” nebula (or more likely, several large nebulæ that get tiled) showing all major stellar systems in the galaxy (note the tiles need not be rectangular, nor even any possess any sort of regularity).

If you do it with tiles then you can reveal it piece by piece (bearing in mind the 32-nebula maximum). That way the player knows from the get-go where there are nearby stars, but not what's orbiting them. You could even make a few secret “systems” that are in empty space not near a star. Pirate hideouts or the like. Just some hunk of rock someone discovered hurtling through the pitch-black void, and no one who hasn't been told about it would have any reason to suspect it's there.

And some of the stars that appear in a nebula might not have a system on them. No stable jump routes have been found, or the like. That leaves a framework encouraging other developers to write plug-ins of their own for your galaxy.

On a side note, I can't come up with any benefit that implicit reciprocal linking provides, except to lazy plug-in developers. And it is responsible for no end of problems and annoyances. If there were one thing I would change in the Nova engine, it would be to eliminate all implicit reciprocal linking. At most the engine should write a warning to the debuglog that one-way links exist, between which systems. That way developers could find where they unintentionally forgot to specify a reciprocal link, but intentional one-way links would work. If any effort were put into the issue beyond that, one-way links could be drawn with an arrow on the map. I really dislike implicit reciprocal links. The engine should assume the plug-in developer wants things the way the resources are.

This post has been edited by Qaanol : 24 February 2010 - 03:20 PM

It definitely would be handy to have one-way links. It's the one thing I really truly miss from the old EVC/EVO days.

It took me a bit of digging around in some old development notes, but I finally found where I came up with the number for map outfits to give you the entire Nova galaxy without going under or over. From my own testing, I came up with 63 jumps maximum from any location on the map to another one (shortest distance, I mean.) I didn't use any math, just lots of trial and error with map outfits. On the other hand, I always bought my map at Sol or Tichel, so if you bought it at say, Mu'ar Haro, it'd probably need more.

Actually, while playing the alpha of SFA, I discovered a one-way link somewhere near the Klingon/Federation boarder. You could go one way, but then the link disappeared and you had to go another way to get back. Weird.

QUOTE (darthkev @ Feb 24 2010, 05:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually, while playing the alpha of SFA, I discovered a one-way link somewhere near the Klingon/Federation boarder. You could go one way, but then the link disappeared and you had to go another way to get back. Weird.

Oh, you can make 1-way links, it just requires having two systems on top of each other in the place from which you can't jump back. See the link to a thread by NebuchadnezzaR in the first post of Cool Nova Hacks. You link the system from which you can jump to the higher-resource-ID system of the two with the same coordinates. Make the two co-located systems have mutually-exclusive Visibility, and set the bits so the lower-ID system is visible. It just takes an extra system resource for every one-way jump, and needless hassle.

I realize the topic has moved on, but I have a quick note re AbsoluteMinimum-I've also had trouble with it before, but I can't remember what the issue is. I intend to try to track the bugs down and post a fixed version of it when I have the time.

Qaanol, if I understand you correctly, then I don't think that's the case here. I could be wrong, but I will attempt to describe the situation.

_ Systems involved in the one-way jump:
ID 366: Deep Space 7
ID 1077: Sherman's Planet
ID 1405: Sherman's Planet
ID 1409: Sherman's Planet
ID 1410: Sherman's Planet_

The one way link here does indeed go from Deep Space 7 to Sherman's Planet. You cannot get from Sherman's Planet back to Deep Space 7. So far this seems right, but other factors don't add up to me.

_ Requirements for each system to appear:
Deep Space 7: clear, no bits
Sherman's Planet 1077: b521
Sherman's Planet 1405: !b570
Sherman's Planet 1409: b550
Sherman's Planet 1410: b599_

None of these bits are mutually exclusive. You could have all of these expressions true at the same time. Then there's the links.

_ Systems linked to:
Deep Space 7: Sherman's Planet 1077 and four other systems
Sherman's Planet 1077: Deep Space 7 and four other systems
Sherman's Planet 1405: Deep Space 7 and two other systems
Sherman's Planet 1409: Deep Space 7 and two other systems
Sherman's Planet 1410: two other systems, doesn't link to Deep Space 7_

This doesn't add up to me. Qaanol, is this what you mean, or is something else at work making this one-way link possible?

QUOTE (Shlimazel @ Feb 24 2010, 04:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I realize the topic has moved on, but I have a quick note re AbsoluteMinimum-I've also had trouble with it before, but I can't remember what the issue is. I intend to try to track the bugs down and post a fixed version of it when I have the time.

So this is just a minor thing, but I think the planet gnostic should start out at a high tech level. I didn't really understand the concept initially and it made it difficult to be able to guy my map (which I think was tech level 82 and the planet was 0).

A more interesting point would be if we made a package that included absolute minimum and resources for new plugin makers. That is a list of plugs (Arpia, Coliseum, EV: Nova, EV: Classic, EV: Override) so at the very least you'd have some ships and planet pics for placeholders to start with. The idea being here that someone doesn't have to go shopping for placeholders, but still has enough graphics to fill in the new stuff later (I assume here, graphics come second in most plugs/TCs and the storyline comes first, getting a playable well written story with proper bit management is paramount because you can always substitute graphics later).

I guess plugpack is kind of this idea, but I don't think it is aimed at developers.

As for the threads topic, this is kind of the "Syrus's revolving problems thread" so the topic is always changing.

-Syrus

Umm, if someone is making a TC for EVN, they don't need to go looking for placeholders. They have EVN already or they wouldn't be making a TC. They can just use graphics from EVN as placeholders.

This post has been edited by darthkev : 25 February 2010 - 01:33 AM

QUOTE (darthkev @ Feb 24 2010, 10:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Umm, if someone is making a TC for EVN, they don't need to go looking for placeholders. They have EVN already or they wouldn't be making a TC. They can just use graphics from EVN as placeholders.

So the difficult issue I'm facing is separating different aspects of the game in my mind. That is, with 454 systems, it is difficult to remember what goes where. If I just use the Nova graphics, when when I go through later, I may very well miss certain planets, and ships that need update.

My idea was to use several different versions of placeholders so each race has a given catagory. Say race 1 is EVC, race 2 is EVO, race 3 is Arpia 2, etc...

In my mind this separates the races so it is easier for me to focus on one race and know when that race is completely updated. That is, instead of having 454 systems of EVN graphics that I have to flip through and find placeholders, I know that race 1 is done when no EVC graphics exist in it any longer. I know race 2 is done when all the EVO graphics have been replaced. If everything is EVN then there could be some obscure planet or ship or outfit, I've overlooked that not even the beta testers know need to be changed. I don't plan on playing through this 454 times to check every system (although that might happen).

Also, ideally, I don't want to reuse placeholders, as in EVNEW it makes it easier to drop and replace each resource used if they are all separate. I'm trying to reduce work for myself. Two nights ago I went though and renamed all the systems by their id number because it is easier to pick out system 200 rather that...find this blank space in a sea of blank spaces.

Does that help you understand how I am organizing things?

-Syrus

Current Topic Post

So I have a game feature which I need to check if it is possible. So once the character joins a certain race, their ship gains a constant drain on its energy resource. This seems possibly as a ram scoop adds energy, there should be a way to reduce it (there also might have been in EVN, I can't remember).

However, the question I have is the upside to this downside is that I need a way to increase the regeneration of shields and armor as the player ship gets hit, while increasing the energy drain.

That is, the player normally has a drain on energy (of set hopefully by a "fusion reactor" or "antimatter reactor"), however, the benefit of this race or outfit, is that when hit the ships shields are regenerated quickly in place of energy.

Is this possible? If not, is it possible to instantaneously replace shield damage with energy consumption? (that is if shields drop by X they instantly go back to 100 percent and a constant amount of energy is drawn).

Hmmm...(thinking to self) it may be possible to have a command like afterburners that drains fuel and replenishes shields. This might make more sense in terms of the plug. Is this possible?( That is player presses "L" say, shields regenerate, but fuel is lost).

Thoughts.

-Syrus

This post has been edited by Syrus : 25 February 2010 - 03:52 PM

Ok, I see what you mean now. That would be useful for keeping things clear and organized. Now someone just needs to make it. Since it's your idea, Syrus, why not make it yourself?

Now, if we could shift back to one-way links in EVN for just a moment, could someone confirm whether or not the situation I described above works as a one-way link in EVN?

I know two methods to accomplish what you want. I implemented both of them…wow has it really been three years?

See here and here. Try them out, I imagine you'll like what they do.

The version in the first link, called "abilities", works by letting you start a mission, then abort it in flight. OnAbort you are given a special outfit. There are several varieties in that plug-in. One of them is a very-fast shield recharger (among other effects). Another mission is also started, which causes a zero-armor ship to jump in. When it dies, that mission aborts and removes the special outfit. The duration of the recharging is controlled by the death-delay of the ship. The major benefit here is that you can have multiple active ability missions that each have a different effect when triggered.

The second link has a version called "booster" which is less polished but does work if you're careful about how things are set up. The upshot is you select the booster as a weapon and fire one. That makes you start recharging really fast for a short time. The major benefit here is that you can have a large number of the the same ability (controlled by how much ammunition you have for the weapon) without being restricted by the 16-active-missions cap. This could be modified to have different boosters, but they would be stacking. As in, if you want to get the level 2 effect, it also gives you the level 1 effect. The effects need not have the same durations though.

Oh, right, booster works by having an invisible 1-armor mission ship with ridiculously high shields and shield recharge (if you made a level 2 it would have 2 armor and high armor recharge). You fire a 0-shield-damage, 1-armor-damage, shield-bypassing weapon with huge blast radius (level 2 would be 2 damage). Mission ship dies, mission aborts, booster is granted. Then things happen to make the booster last the proper amount of time, and the first mission restart so you can use more boosters.

If you care about being able to end the infinite loop of missions, use Fxxx somewhere. Or just not even worry about it and let the booster mission always be active, because the only way to get the boost is with the booster weapon, so if the player has no ammo it doesn't matter. The other way to set this up is with planet-type mission ships. That is, depending on whether your scenario already has planet-type weapon or shield-bypassing weapons. If it has both, this is not the trick for you. If it has neither, you could use both to make two separate "ladders" of boosters. Planet-type is probably better if you only use one, since then there isn't any damage to normal ships at all.

EDIT: I should probably mention that to use the Abilities plug-in, land and go to a bar. I had forgotten how ridiculous of a storyline I wrote for that.

And to use Booster, buy the weapon and its ammunition. It's fairly pricey and massy, so you might want to make a chär that starts with a bunch of money and a good ship with plenty of space. Also, Booster make you recharge both shields and fuel the way I set it up, but the tradeoffs are your radar gets complete interference and you can't fire any weapons. To see what the Abilities do, try them out. There are quite a few, and I think each of they includes a special weapon along with its other benefits.

This post has been edited by Qaanol : 25 February 2010 - 10:44 PM