Now I'm so full of piss and vinegar!

Hi everyone. Is it just me, or are Ambrosia NPCs (Matt Burch, Andrew Welch, "Cajun" David Richards, and so on), as well as other NPCs with unique names and comm replies (such as S.S. Burgstahler - "It... is... not... in... the... book!") not in Guy's EV port for EV Nova? It took me only 30 minutes of gameplay in the Mac game (version 1.0.5) to find one, but I'm up to more than $1 million in credits for the EVN port (so a handful hours of gameplay) and have not seen one NPC. I'm someone who targets all ships in every system I hyperspace in to find pirates to hunt.

Were most of the NPCs removed for a specific reason? Or was the port set up so that those NPCs would appear very, very rarely? Thanks for any answer to my curiosity. :hector_bird:

I'm pretty sure all the NPCs are there. If you're using a pilot file that started out as a Nova pilot, the NPCs won't show up. Creating a new pilot file while the EVC conversion is loaded should cause the NPCs to show up properly.

No, I created a brand new pilot file for EVC. No Ambrosia NPC's. The NPC's I remember from the old Mac game (such as Raef LaFrentz (sp?)) are there, but not the Ambrosia people and (I assume) people that Matt Burch knew that didn't work for Ambrosia at the time the original Mac game was made.

Strange. I know I've encountered them before while playing Guy's port...

I guess they were removed in either the first EVC port or the second port by Guy. I'm guessing the former as Ambrosia had a hand in making the first port, to my understanding, and might have removed the Burch/Ambrosia references to differentiate it from the original Mac game. I can't imagine why Guy would do that for the 2nd port. If anyone who played the 1st port (I haven't) remember Ambrosia NPC's in it feel free to share here!

I have to admit when the time comes for me to try EVO again I will play it on the Mac as I played it only a handful of times and I want to see what Mac-exclusive goodies were in it so I can properly compare it with Guy's EVO-->EVN port. I have to admit I like being the "old fogey" who still remembers EVC as it was on the Mac in the late 1990's. :hector_bird:

I just checked my copy of Guy’s port, and all the përs resources I expect are there, including Matt Burch, Andrew Welch, Cajun, and Raef LaFrentz. The mechanics for making përs ships appear have changed in the new version, so it may be that they’re less frequent than they used to be. But it could also just be coincidence: the ships appear randomly, and with a fairly low probability, rather than ‘every 30 minutes’ or anything on that level.

Neither port, incidentally, was made internally by Ambrosia. They endorsed the original one, but I believe it was made principally by Soviet mikee, based on original work and technology by Ralph Sutherland (of NovaTools fame).

@david-arthur, on 15 January 2012 - 12:34 PM, said in Some Mac EVC NPCs not in EVN port?:

(font="Helvetica"rather than ‘every 30 minutes’ or anything on that level.

I didn't mean THAT, sorry if it sounded like I thought that way in the original post. I was trying to explain that it took only a little bit of time on the old Mac game to see several of those Ambrosia NPC's. I have played 10+ hours so far on the Nova conversion and seen Raef 2-3 times total, but none of the Ambrosia NPC's.

You don't see any coding that might suggest that certain përs were to be skipped entirely even though they were in the data file, do you? I have seen many other non-Ambrosia NPCs at least several times (not just Raef, he is the easiest one for me to remember off the top of my head for both versions of EVC) but not the Ambrosia/Burch ones.

Ambrosia might not have made the first EVC to EVN port, but I can imagine that they made suggestions to SovietMike and NovaTools (not the same guy as w00tWare, however his name is spelled?) when that plug-in was submitted for approval to the EV Nova plug-ins page. I'm not trying to suggest conspiracy theories :ninja: but I thought it was an incredibly interesting difference between the original Mac game and the EVN port.

This post has been edited by BFB611 : 15 January 2012 - 12:59 PM

@bfb611, on 15 January 2012 - 12:58 PM, said in Some Mac EVC NPCs not in EVN port?:

I have played 10+ hours so far on the Nova conversion and seen Raef 2-3 times total, but none of the Ambrosia NPC's.

Yes, I understand. I was just saying that there’s never any guarantee that you will see a certain përs at all , let alone within a given time period. I certainly never thought of them as making frequent appearances, even in the original game.

@bfb611, on 15 January 2012 - 12:58 PM, said in Some Mac EVC NPCs not in EVN port?:

You don't see any coding that might suggest that certain përs were to be skipped entirely even though they were in the data file, do you?

No. The fields for limiting them to certain systems or NCB conditions are blank.

@bfb611, on 15 January 2012 - 12:58 PM, said in Some Mac EVC NPCs not in EVN port?:

. . . I can imagine that they made suggestions to SovietMike and NovaTools (not the same guy as w00tWare, however his name is spelled?) when that plug-in was submitted for approval to the EV Nova plug-ins page.

The conversion was developed partly alongside EV Nova itself. DrRalph wrote a convertor called ‘PortAuthority’ at the same time as he developed NovaTools. I wasn’t directly involved myself, but I believe Soviet mikee came on board later, when DrRalph decided he didn’t have the time to turn the automatic conversion into a finished project.

Ambrosia were well aware of what was being done, but didn’t direct its development, or include it in the quality-control process through which the game itself was put. In any case, the goal of both ports was to replicate the original game as closely as they could manage under the new engine, not to differentiate it in some way.

@david-arthur, on 15 January 2012 - 01:54 PM, said in Some Mac EVC NPCs not in EVN port?:

Yes, I understand. I was just saying that there’s never any guarantee that you will see a certain përs at all , let alone within a given time period. I certainly never thought of them as making frequent appearances, even in the original game.

I just opened the EV Data file on my Mac (ResEdit) for the first time and saw many, MANY NPC's I have never encountered in both the Mac and EVC for Nova versions. I have never gone out of my way to try the Confed or Rebel storylines although I'm a few missions into Confed now. It may be that I will see more of those NPC's later on.

What you are saying is that it's possible, when I start a new pilot file or whatever, is that I may see certain NPCs from time to time, and may never encounter others at all? If so, and if albuminouslump remembers seeing Ambrosia NPC's in Guy's conversion, then my current pilot file may have had the bad luck to not show any Amborisa NPC's, or have it being an improbability at the very least?

I just counted 425 përs AND I assume none of them are mission-related? That is, I won't see them only by accepting a certain mission? I remember I had one recent mission in which I had to assassinate a pirate and his name isn't in the përs... his name was Star Raider I think? Anyway what I'm trying to say is that the way I'm understanding it now, when I create a new file, a certain percentage of përs will be available and others won't be seen at all. Is my thinking correct?

That would make sense. When I played the Mac original years ago, I always used Strict Play so I had many new pilot files as I got killed a lot. Right now for EVC-->EVN I'm using non-Strict Play as I'm too old now to start a brand new game every time I accidentally die, haha. That may explain why I have not been seeing the 6 Ambrosia/Burch NPCs at all (listing them to make sure I don't look anyone; all have unique Comm Greetings):

-Matt Burch
-Andrew Welch
-Gayle Haarr
-"Cajun" David Richard
-Jeff Henken
-S.S. Burgstahler
-Cap'n Hector (only if unregistered, I believe)

Thanks for your patience as I try to better understand how this classic game work(ed). :hector_bird:

EDIT: One more thinking I have is that if the original Mac game and EVN engine bring up përs differently, then Nova likely makes përs appear much less often because the Nova universe is sooo huge so it wouldn't make sense for you to see certain përs as often as, for example, the Ambrosia people in the original Mac game.

This post has been edited by BFB611 : 15 January 2012 - 04:36 PM

@bfb611, on 15 January 2012 - 04:24 PM, said in Some Mac EVC NPCs not in EVN port?:

What you are saying is that it's possible, when I start a new pilot file or whatever, is that I may see certain NPCs from time to time, and may never encounter others at all? … Anyway what I'm trying to say is that the way I'm understanding it now, when I create a new file, a certain percentage of përs will be available and others won't be seen at all. Is my thinking correct?

You’ll never see a përs that didn’t exist when you created your pilot file. If you add a plug-in afterwards, the përs resources it contains will not be activated. But I don’t think that’s the issue in this case.

Other than that, there’s no such thing as an ‘unlucky’ pilot file. I was just referring to the fact that they appear through a random formula calculated each time you enter a system, and you aren’t guaranteed to see any particular one.

@bfb611, on 15 January 2012 - 04:24 PM, said in Some Mac EVC NPCs not in EVN port?:

I just counted 425 përs AND I assume none of them are mission-related? That is, I won't see them only by accepting a certain mission? I remember I had one recent mission in which I had to assassinate a pirate and his name isn't in the përs... his name was Star Raider I think?

Mission ships are created through a different mechanism, even if they have a custom name. None of the përs ships play a mission role in that sense, though there are some which offer missions, and a small number (like the alien fighters, the rebel escort carriers, and the upgraded Confederation cruisers) that only appear after certain missions are completed.

Thanks David. If I ever see an Ambosia NPC in EVC Nova I'll be sure to take a screen shot for posterity.

I just stumbled across this topic by accident, but why not answer it while I'm here?

If I remember correctly, when you enter a system, there is a very small chance, I think 1% though it might be 5%, to generate an eligible pers ships. Eligible ones are those not generated using the system resource (you can, for example, force Matt Burch to have a 90% chance to show up in Sol in EVN) and not restricted in some way from spawning in the system, such as needing certain NCBs to be set that the pilot hasn't set. If a pers is generated, it will pick one, at random I believe, from the list of eligible pers. There are 219 perses in EVC. So, if my math isn't off (and there's a good chance it is), you have a 0.02283105022831% chance of encountering a specific pers* upon entering a system, assuming it's a 5% pers spawn chance and all perses are eligible (but they won't be, so it'd actually be higher).

*Based on resource I.D. There are a number of duplicate perses, such as ten identical Merchant Couriers. I'm counting those as all separate perses for the purposes of this math.

This post has been edited by JoshTigerheart : 15 January 2012 - 07:49 PM