I wonder if this could be effectively used to create a Battlestar Galactica retract the pods thing?

@krugeruwsp, on 23 March 2015 - 08:29 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

I wonder if this could be effectively used to create a Battlestar Galactica retract the pods thing?

Well, ships with retracting/unfolding elements have been incorporated into EVN since its inception - the Argosy unpacks its nacelles to jump - but what's unique about this is that you can make alternate engine glows for jumping without requiring that the ship actually visibly change. So, you could have a ship with engines at the back and jump nacelles out to the sides, and when jumping it would cut the engines and power up the nacelles instead, without any visible change in the ship's geometry. It seems obvious when you think about it, but could make for some very interesting effects in the game when ships no longer have to run their regular thrusters at full when jumping to light-speed.

Actually, I wish there was a way to set the jumping speed to zero, so that I could have ships jump in place and just fade to white like they do when going into a hypergate; the FTL technology in my universe is more akin to space-folding than actual acceleration to light speed.

@delphi, on 23 March 2015 - 01:50 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

Here's an interesting concept to note, though I know it's probably a few years past being usable in any way
<snip>

Actually, Arpia uses this effect for the Illyana, Sylvatha, and Carachnor. And I believe krugeruwsp's Firefly TC will do the same for the Firefly freighter. At least, the random Firefly plug-in on the add-ons pages that adds the Firefly freighter to EVN uses that effect.

@delphi, on 23 March 2015 - 10:04 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

Actually, I wish there was a way to set the jumping speed to zero, so that I could have ships jump in place and just fade to white like they do when going into a hypergate; the FTL technology in my universe is more akin to space-folding than actual acceleration to light speed.

You could give every ship a cloaking device, activate 'Cloak when Jumping to Hyperspace', and then simply remove the cloak whenever the player purchases or captures a ship. Ships will fade out before jumping, but players won't be able to abuse the cloak.

A side effect of that is that if the player ever does earn a cloaking device, they too will be able to jump while cloaked.

@darthkev, on 24 March 2015 - 01:37 AM, said in EVN - Delphi:

Actually, Arpia uses this effect for the Illyana, Sylvatha, and Carachnor. And I believe krugeruwsp's Firefly TC will do the same for the Firefly freighter. At least, the random Firefly plug-in on the add-ons pages that adds the Firefly freighter to EVN uses that effect.

Huh, yeah, I suppose it does. I haven't thought about that in a long time. To be fair, I wouldn't call it my TC in any sense. I contributed a bit, but mostly a few graphics and some proofreading/writing. There were a lot of people who put in a great deal more than I did. One of these days, we should really just give up and push it out the door. There hasn't been a great deal of development in several years.

@geek, on 24 March 2015 - 02:40 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

A side effect of that is that if the player ever does earn a cloaking device, they too will be able to jump while cloaked.

We'll agree to call that a feature.

As it appears there is life yet in this forum, I'll ask a question.

Is there any way to modify the default buttons that appear in EVN's planet interface and other views? I've noticed that elements like the map size can be controlled by the DITL and DLOG resources, but I am curious if it's possible to create an entirely new planetary interface. See, there are some parts of EVN that I want to change slightly, such as the "Spaceport Bar", in that since your character follows a primarily-military career in the game, I wanted it to seem less like he/she spends their time getting wasted, and turn the "Bar" interface into something else. However, this would require expanding the bar window to incorporate a larger description - I want it to be more like leaving the spaceport and wandering around the settlement/city - and I'm not familiar enough with the DITL and DLOG resources to fully understand how they work.

So, here's my series of questions, open to anybody who can answer them:

• What is the distinction between the DITL and DLOG resources?

• What do they do, and how flexible are they?

• Can the game be fundamentally modified to create new dialog windows off of the "landing" screen not presently available, and/or can existing ones like the bar be repurposed entirely?

I know that the titles for the buttons are easy to edit, but I want to see if there's a way to completely repurpose the planet windows and some of the screens that spawn off of them (including larger outfitter/shipyard windows, perhaps).

@delphi, on 25 March 2015 - 10:11 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

I wanted it to seem less like he/she spends their time getting wasted, and turn the "Bar" interface into something else.

so, you're going to make it a ##### tent instead?

@delphi, on 25 March 2015 - 10:11 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

What is the distinction between the DITL and DLOG resources?

All I can reasonably assume is both are required as both seem to be present in every TC I've looked at.

Quote

What do they do, and how flexible are they?

They simply determine the size of various windows and the placement of various details of the window, such as where the landing image for a spöb is placed and how big it is. Considering how they were modified from EVN to work for EVC's and EVO's original interface, I'd say they're pretty flexible.

Quote

Can the game be fundamentally modified to create new dialog windows off of the "landing" screen not presently available, and/or can existing ones like the bar be repurposed entirely?

You can't add new windows, but you should be able to simply modify the bar's original window to be larger. I've never seen it used (okay, there was one time, but I don't remember which plug-in) but EVN already allows bars to have an image of their own, in case you wanna add pictures of the city outside the spaceport.

I should add I have no experience actually editing the DITL and DLOG resources, I just know what they're capable of.

@darthkev, on 26 March 2015 - 02:55 AM, said in EVN - Delphi:

I should add I have no experience actually editing the DITL and DLOG resources, I just know what they're capable of.

Thanks, that's still really helpful. See, I think I'd like to potentially remove/modify the bar buttons; I don't see gambling being necessary, and the payouts just become useless once you get to even a barely-appreciable mission or good cargo route. Also, I thought it might be neat to do exactly what you described: make the bar window bigger and give it its own graphic, or at least copy the one from the main landing screen so that it's just like "page two" of the landing window, with options other than the spaceport ones. If it was overlaid to be exactly the same size as the primary landing window, it would only appear that the buttons changed rather than a smaller window being spawned. It would also give me the opportunity to change the button sizes (I think; again, I don't fully understand the resources) to better accommodate the TC's overall larger resolution. The originals were made to be compatible with down to 800x600 (IIRC), but mine is generally designed for a minimum 720 pixel screen height, and allowing for all the way up to 1080 on my interface graphics.

I noticed that the DITL and DLOG resources are unused in Nova by itself, but if you say that almost every TC has them defined, maybe I'll have a look through a few of them to see how they're implemented; perhaps there are some overlapping details that I will be able to discern and then modify to my purposes.

Edit: Found a perfect example of a "tweak" I want to do. The "Recharge" button in the spaceport is completely unnecessary in my TC, because all ships regenerate their "power" (or rather, bleed off heat) at such a rate that paying money to do it is unnecessary. So, if I'm understanding the interface from Uncle Twitchy's "SFA" TC, I should be able to remove the button in DITL/DLOG resource 1000 (the spaceport view) to disable the feature. This suggests the same should be doable in the bar as well, to remove the gambling button. Also, since the buttons are positionable, it looks like I should be able to design my own spaceport interface with different button arrangements.

Now I only wish that I could make the landing interfaces change along with the ship interfaces. THAT would be cool, and really immersive. Otherwise, I need to come up with some sort of "default" interface that accommodates both the Enclave's fuchsia and the NDC's steel blue. Grey works for both, but I'd have loved to make it a bit more exotic.

This post has been edited by Delphi : 26 March 2015 - 11:53 AM

Are you saying simply that you wish the landing interface was as changeable, or that you could make it change with the player ship? The former, you could probably wrangle to a degree by resizing the landing pic bit of the DITL/DLOG to cover the whole interface and changing your landing pics to fit whatever design scheme fits your government. (The buttons would have to be in the same places on each interface, though.) The latter depends on how willing you are to swap out syst/spob whenever the player changes to a ship of a different interface.

EDIT: Also, you have this thread backed up, right?

This post has been edited by ScratSkinner : 26 March 2015 - 01:05 PM

@delphi, on 26 March 2015 - 11:39 AM, said in EVN - Delphi:

I noticed that the DITL and DLOG resources are unused in Nova by itself, but if you say that almost every TC has them defined, maybe I'll have a look through a few of them to see how they're implemented; perhaps there are some overlapping details that I will be able to discern and then modify to my purposes.

Actually, Nova uses them, too, but they aren't in the Nova Files. If you go into Nova's Package Contents/Resources, you should see a file named Nova-DF.rsrc. If you make a copy of that file and change its extension to .ndat, you can read it with Mission Computer. That file contains all the DITL and DLOG resources for EVN. At least, that's how Mac Nova does it. I don't know how things work on the Windows side.

DarthKev said:

Actually, Nova uses them, too, but they aren't in the Nova Files. If you go into Nova's Package Contents/Resources, you should see a file named Nova-DF.rsrc. If you make a copy of that file and change its extension to .ndat, you can read it with Mission Computer. That file contains all the DITL and DLOG resources for EVN. At least, that's how Mac Nova does it. I don't know how things work on the Windows side.

Excellent find, DarthKev! The resources for SFA were very informative and gave me an idea on how the two resources are used. With that in mind, I think I can accomplish at least a majority of my intentions.

ScratSkinner said:

The former, you could probably wrangle to a degree by resizing the landing pic bit of the DITL/DLOG to cover the whole interface and changing your landing pics to fit whatever design scheme fits your government. (The buttons would have to be in the same places on each interface, though.) The latter depends on how willing you are to swap out syst/spob whenever the player changes to a ship of a different interface.

That's a clever idea, but my TC has just a few too many planetary resources to make that feasible; I'd have to swap the whole galaxy map on a regular basis when the player switches ships, including some messy swaps on planets that are already affected by storyline changes. But I like the concept.

No, I don't really have the thread backed up. Is there a way to capture all of it in one fell swoop? I've got screenshots from a few of my more important sections of the discussion - usually relating to new and interesting things I can do with the engine, like this discussion here - but I haven't copied the entire thing; 70 pages is a lot to go through by hand.

On a different note, here's a first-draft concept of a new planetary/station landing screen.

It's entirely in greyscale right now, because I still have yet to experiment with extra ornamentation while still keeping it "government neutral", but it gives you a general idea of how I'm changing the functionality of it by way of clever renaming.

"Exit Ship" is the new "Spaceport Bar" button, which takes you to any point of interest in the environment outside of your ship. So, I can even put a "bar" on planets that are uninhabited, in which it's used to take you to some geological formation or abandoned research station, or what have you. As there will be no "gamble" button, it won't seem like you found a strange slot machine in the middle of a toxic wasteland. Escorts are the only button I have to keep but can't really fudge, but that's easy enough to fix by setting uninhabited planets to simply not show a list of escorts; "There are no ships available to hire here". It's basically just a "do more" button for planets that support it. It also means that I don't have to necessarily have a bar on every planet; some planets may just be commercial worlds that exist solely for trading and outfitting ships, without a reason to go beyond the spaceport. It's implied that if you are at a spaceport, there is some sort of local entertainment for you to enjoy, so the "bar" button is unnecessary by itself.

Meanwhile, the other features should be fairly obvious if you know the buttons that you'd normally see. "Commerce" takes you to the trading interface, "Assignments" is where your missions and other quests/activities can be selected, "Refit" is where you outfit your ship, and "Shipyard" is pretty self-explanatory. On planets without a certain feature, the button will still appear, but will be greyed out. The planet/station picture, its title, and the description will appear in the right window. I've done away with the "hardware frames" used in the original Nova UI, allowing all three elements to appear in the single display like a proper modern interface. The whole dialog window itself is supposed to be evocative of a portable tablet device. I'll be adding some extra ornamentation and ports to better enhance this effect; probably a non-functional "power" switch/button on one corner, for sure.

If it all works the way I want it to, I'll have the "Exit Ship" button take you to a dialog window of equal size and matching in its template, either showing an alternate graphic or simply carrying the planet's graphic over, as if only certain elements of the window itself changed. The description will incorporate what's different about the new area, or I could simply leave it the same on planets where I require the player exit their ship but for which there isn't really anything not already described in the first description window. It'll give the illusion that the "bar" window is the same as the planetary/station landing window, in that the frames will remain the same but the menu options and other interactive elements will change as necessary. This is a philosophy I've been using throughout the TC to date: hiding UI elements under other ones by creatively flipping conventional concepts around; the temperature gauge on ships, for instance, is a black bar that uncovers a graphic as it depletes, instead of being the graphic itself.

EDIT: On a related but somewhat different note, does anybody know if it's at all possible to change the interface key bindings for the planetary interface? As it stands, "O" is bound to the Outfitter, "S" for the shipyard, etc, and while some of these work as is, it would be nice to change them to fit the new interface, if possible. I suspect they might be cooked right into Nova itself, but if there's a way to modify them, it would be helpful.

This post has been edited by Delphi : 26 March 2015 - 03:35 PM

How do you folks feel about the color green? Ableford Integrated Systems makes starship equipment for the civilian market and a wide array of other purposes, so I posit they'd be a good neutral party to produce the Remote Ship Management Interface (RSMI).

I merged the displays into one, for a more modern tablet feel, and here I've shown on the placeholder reference spaces for the title, the picture, and the description. Those won't appear on the final version, but will have text or images in them, accordingly.

This post has been edited by Delphi : 26 March 2015 - 07:13 PM

@delphi, on 26 March 2015 - 03:27 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

On a related but somewhat different note, does anybody know if it's at all possible to change the interface key bindings for the planetary interface?

Unfortunately, no. Those commands are hardcoded.

@delphi, on 26 March 2015 - 07:12 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

How do you folks feel about the color green?

I was gonna suggest you do half and half between NDC and Enclave colors. Half blue, half purple. But the green actually looks much better.

I've redesigned the game's "small shuttle", which I keep changing names on, to a more streamlined design that better fits the NDC's utilitarian but functional designs. The previous one was too bulbous and amateur-looking in its design complexity, really just following in the templates set by Star Trek and other science fiction of bygone decades. The updated version is a bit more clunky and angular, but in a way that looks more "slim". I'll be honest, in all of this, I've been largely inspired by the designs of the "Combine" from Half Life 2: ugly panels with strange decoration, but all pointing to a unified, functional mechanical design.

With all of that in mind, here's what I am thinking of re-naming the "Logistic Shuttle", changed from its original name of "Administrative Personnel Shuttle". The old name was inaccurate, as the shuttle is used for practically any purpose where a larger freight vessel or starship is unwieldy, covering passenger transport between a planet and a station, movement of small wares, and even basic police duties.

Give it a bit more armour and it almost looks like it could serve as a dropship for troops and light vehicles.

@darthkev, on 28 March 2015 - 02:37 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

Give it a bit more armour and it almost looks like it could serve as a dropship for troops and light vehicles.

The NDC dropship is a significantly heavier vehicle. Don't worry; it features in the game as well. It's something of a specialty ship, though; you wouldn't find great usefulness in day-to-day operations. As for the Enclave, they usually use the multipurpose Kevilan class (as seen in my user picture).

Love seeing all the buzz in here! Cool concepts Delphi! I actually really like the green in the interface shown above. The layout actually gives me an EVO feel for some reason. Not sure why... Keep it up!

PS: all these replaced graphics which you think "aren't good enough" anymore... should still totally leave them around as easter eggs or random graphics for people to play with

i sure hope you're going to make a prequel to this TC (obviously it would be called EV Oracle).