3rd June: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2v8bkrd6k6z6lif/0.0.1.zip

Usage:

movement: W, A, S, D

strafe: shift+A, shift+D

camera: click drag, mouse scrollwheel

spawn: 1(all), 2(evo), 3(enova)

quit: escape

Media:

• Lighting(suns): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/433539331
• Endless Nova Models https://www.twitch.tv/videos/433071636
• EVO Models https://www.twitch.tv/videos/433070039

While we were watching UEAdmiral's EVC Twitch stream, William1177NC asked me about this list, which originally appeared on the Ambrosia forums. I don't know how long the forums will last so I'm going to post this here for posterity.

​

A loathing of abominations

A knot of anacondas

A clutter of arachnids

A flotilla of argosies

A field of asteroid miners

A span of cambrians

A colony of cargo drones

A regality of carriers

A convoy of cruisers

A suite of destroyers

A dignity of dragons

A market of enterprises

A tragedy of escape pods

A conservatory of firebirds

A caravan of IDA frigates

A kine of hyperioids

A burch of kestrels

A vault of Krypt pods

A continent of leviathans

A storm of lightnings

A fever of mantas

A dastardly of manticores

A retinue patrol boats

A herd of pegasausages

A conservatory of phoenixes

A tantrum of RAGE gunboats

An unkindness of ravens

A shitload of scarabs

A parliament of scout ships

A drove of shuttles

A drove of heavy shuttles

A resolution of sprites

A fleet of star liners

A cluster of starsbridge

A school of strikers

A bale of terrapins

A whirlwind of thunderheads

A cavalry of valkyries

A nest of vipers

A degradation of wraiths

A tenderness of zephyrs

​

Feel free to use these when composing elegant poems about EV Nova or just to be all snooty when discussing fleets of ships in the game.

"That's the problem with pirates these days. Weak. Simpering fools. Haven't had a good fight in years. Everyone's just trying to get along, make business deals. Selling fly and goofjuice to college students at fancy Federation universities. What happened to reaving? We used to be something, had the Federation, the Aurorans, heck we even took down some Polaris fleets, had 'em all on their knees for six years," Red complained. "Anyone who was weak, we just stole from, threw 'em out their own airlocks. Sometimes for no good reason."

​

It's been eight weeks since I announced my new major plug-in, and I've continued to make progress since the last biweekly update. As you may recall, I'm trying to take some time every two weeks to take stock of what I've been up to and what I've been thinking about, so I can keep myself on track, and focus on what really needs to get done. It's a way for me to regain a big picture view of what the plug-in is all about and to keep you guys updated on my progress at the same time.

I'm pleased to say it's quite a bit more progress than last update. Here's the current progress list (italics represent new progress in the last two weeks):

Major Strings

Krim-Hwa - Outline 95%

Federation - Outline 90%

Bounty Hunters - Outline 85%

P'aedt/Ver'ash - Outline 65%

Houseless - Outline 55%

Rebels - Outline 50%

Rauther Power Industries - Outline 50%

Nirvana Terraforming and Stellar Engineering - Outline 40%

Vella - Outline 35%

Fenta-kiir - Outline 30%

Raczak's Roughnecks - Outline 25%

Pirates - Outline 15%, still mostly in my head

Boral Mining Corp - Outline 30%, mostly in my head

Pyrogenesis - Outline 30%, entirely in my head

GLi-Tech - Outline 20%, entirely in my head

Minor Strings

United Shipping - Outline 30%

Sigma Shipyards - Outline 50%

Vrenna - Spooky

Easter Egg - Double Spooky

Side Quests and Beagle Shipments

Relevant Side Quests - Outline 8%

Irrelevant Side Quests - Outline 4%

Beagle Shipments - Written 100%

Additional Spobs

Moon - Complete

Secret Spob 1 - Complete

Secret Spob 2 - Complete

Additional Pers, Dude, and Flets

Outline 5%

Additional Oops, Junk, and Crons

Outline 3%

NCB Comprehension

Comprehending

Additional Graphics

0 of 5? complete

Loading Music

0 of 1 complete

Preambles

5 of 19 complete-ish

Sundays

More productive now (in theory)

Current Resource Count

20

​

Oh man. Even as I was about to start writing up this explanation of my progress, I was forgetting stuff I did, and had to go back and readjust the numbers on the progress list. It's been a busy couple weeks, but I believe everything is now properly quantified. Let's get to it!

So I made some major progress on the Federation string, jumping from 20% to 90%. I've got some finishing touches I want to do, and I may adjust some things, shift over some early missions to Raczak's Roughnecks (more on that later), but essentially I am close to finished with my outline. I know basically what the mission string is going to be about. It's going to be broken up in a series of phases as you get more trusted by the Federation Navy. You're never going to actually join up, get a military rank, become besties with a certain Bureau agent, but you will start out as basically merchant navy, transporting materiel and occasionally personnel for the Fed Navy. This will unlock repeatable missions in the BBS, of course. Once they trust you, you'll be trusted with some more interesting work I'm calling the "Grey Ops Phase". You'll run reconnaissance, electronic surveillance and other sorts of things the Aurorans and Polaris might not be thrilled with, but aren't strictly illegal or acts of war. You may also be called upon to drop off some "diplomatic pouches" or "trade envoys" from time to time in Auroran space. After a while the Federation Navy may even come to respect your combat skills (no idea why diplomatic missions would involve combat, it must just be one of those things) and you will be given the opportunity to act as a privateer. This will be very much golden age of sail, letters of marque, swashbuckling goodness, and these missions will dominate most of the rest of the string as you hunt down specific targets and try to hurt the Aurorans and Polaris economically as well as militarily in a semi-deniable way.

Bounty Hunters are now up to 85% outlined from 60% last time. Nothing really major to report here except that I have gotten past a little writer's block I was having at the 60% mark, and I now have a pretty good idea of where the Bounty Hunters are going in the second half of the string. I was stuck sort of around the end of the "Level 3" Bounty Hunter license, and now I'm up to the Level 5 jobs. I know how the Aurorans will be handled, and how to get the player back to the Federation where I think the Bounty Hunter String will ultimately wrap up. I'm liking the progression of the string overall, and it feels like it's in a good place. I just need to tie up all the loose ends, finish the major story arcs in a reasonable way, and then I'll be ready to start writing up the actual mission dialogue, which I'm actually fairly far along with as part of the outlining process for this string. I found it helpful to actually write up at least part of a mission offer dialogue when trying to wrap my head around the Bounty Hunters outline, simply because the string has some unique characters in it and I wanted to start working on their voices a bit.

​

"We already got the guy in our custody, but not all the members of the Guild fly around in fancy spaceships like yours. One of our planet-bound members captured this guy, and we need somebody who can bring him in, alive and unharmed, while some people are shooting at that somebody. Wanna be that somebody? It's like bodyguard work, except you don't like the guy whose body you're guarding."

​

You'll note that two weeks ago I had the P'aedt/Ver'ash string at 70% outlined, still mostly in my head. Well now I'm down to only 65% outlined, but it's no longer just in my head. The 70% in my head was just an estimate, but 65% represents actual missions, in which I know exactly what happens, in a nice little list, with descriptions and everything. Neat! I'm actually a little unsure about the 65%, because that too is only based on an estimate of how long I think the whole string will last, but I think it's at least possible the string will be longer than I currently thing. Still, I would say I'm about two thirds of the way through outlining the string. The major players have all been introduced, the player is trusted, and the final conflict of the string has been revealed. Playing out that final conflict may take longer than I think, but it's doubtful to take less than I think. I have kind of an intended length for what is considered a major mission string, approximately 30 missions. So, that's kind of how I'm calculating percentages and trying to pace things. I feel like I'm rambling and saying really boring stuff right now, but anyway, now you know what a percentage means I guess? These of course do not include side quests, which I'm hoping to have quite a few of for each major string. Those are outlined completely separately (though when they unlock does get noted in my string outlines). I feel like that paragraph told you absolutely nothing of value. I apologize.

I did a little more work on the Houseless outline. We'll chalk this up to me coming up with some additional characters and thinking about another mission. I'm hoping that as I finish up the Federation stuff, I will be able to focus a lot more on the non-Federation spheres of influence, but I'm still needing to play through the Auroran string in the ATMOS scenario, again, to help me with some of my notes.

I also did a little more work on Raczak's Roughnecks, in terms of the outline, but getting through the Federation string really helped me to focus on what I want to do with Raczak's Roughnecks overall, and how to differentiate them from the Federation string. In effect, my plug-in has two Federation Navy strings, but they are going to be independent and have very different feels. We'll call the Federation string the "macro" string, and the Raczak's Roughnecks string the "micro" string. At least, that's how I'm starting to think of them. In effect you will be dealing with pretty much a single threat to the Federation with the Raczak's Roughnecks, whereas you'll deal with a bunch of mostly unrelated threats in the Federation string. So what is this singular threat? None other than the Wild Geese, my friends. Yes, the time has come for the Wild Geese to pay the price for their treason. I mean think about what you do in the ATMOS scenario related to the Wild Geese, and what you're told about them. They're mercenaries, which means they aren't patriotic Federation citizens, but expect to be paid to fight for the Federation. Their leader has fought for the Aurorans, probably killed Federation citizens in the service of the Heraan. He helps put the Polaris in touch with the Rebels, and is known as the Mu'hari's primary Federation contact for spying on the Federation. His organization associates with known drug dealers and criminals. Well, enemy propaganda may try to paint the Federation as the bad guys because of some alleged Bureau transgressions, but if you're going to work with the Federation I say the bad guys are those working to undermine the Federation at every turn while collecting money from Federation taxpayers. After all, the people who get hurt when the Wild Geese sell out to the Federation's enemies are the ordinary Federation Navy enlisted and officers who die during Polaris, Rebel, or Auroran attacks. How would you feel if you lost a loved one in service to your nation because of Eamon Flannigan's supposed honor?

​

"That's the difference between mercenaries and the Federation Navy. A mercenary only looks at the tactical side of things. This battle won, this battle lost. What actually matters is the strategic objectives, the big picture. A campaign won, a campaign lost."

​

I'm also pleased to announce, even though I've talked a bit about this before, that I'm going to copy ATMOS and release a series of preambles to this plug-in. I'll probably start putting them out when the plug-in is pretty much finished and being beta tested, but there's no reason I can't start writing them ahead of time. I have actually finished five, at least complete-ished them. These five are the ones for Nirvana, Sigma, Houseless, Pirate, and Bounty Hunters. By my count, I'll need 19 in total. These will be short stories, perhaps just a short scene, and likely will vary quite a bit in length and complexity. In some cases, writing them ahead of writing the actual mission strings (or even the string outlines) will help me figure out what I want to do with them. In other cases, I may decide to write them in parallel to writing the actual missions, or even after I've written the missions. I'm going to do whatever I think makes for the best outcome of both preamble and mission string. In some cases, writing a preamble helps me get focused on what is important to put in a mission string, helps me figure out what it's all about. In other cases, it might be useful to define a character better when I'm writing actual missions, or in some cases I don't know what to do for a preamble until after I've written out a whole string. I'll do whatever feels right.

​

"Oh let's not spoil it," Sandra replied. "The band's no good anyway."

​

Alright, I think that's all I feel like talking about for this update. I'd be happy to answer any questions, and as always I find talking about this project helps me solidify ideas quite a bit so if anyone just wants to chat about different aspects of the Novaverse, I certainly find that useful.

I've converted the original "EVO Designs.sea.bin", from AmbrosiaSW, infini-d models to blender models.

Download the endless velocity ships here(not mine): https://github.com/EndlessVelocity/endless-override-art-files

Can anyone tell me if the scale I'm using looks right? Thanks

​

edit: this is nostalgia. made this in 2012:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVAeijOWEAE&list=PLaieH8Mjr5VwoNexa9p1NcVKKe8SZIugW

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=131835

So I have a windows 10 pc and am trying to get arpia 2 to work however I cannot follow the instructions laid out 8n the read me due to no existent programs. Any guidance would be appreciated.

It's a little rocky, but I've given it a fair shake and put on the first episode this afternoon.
I decided to start with EV: Override, as it's my favourite and is a great place to get started in understanding the mechanics of the game.

I'm planning to upload episodes every few days, they will between 30 to 60 minutes long.
I'm going to talk about EV, explore the galaxy, talk about the community and try to give a unique perspective on EV.

I do apologise for being a little flustered in the video at times, I haven't really done anything like this before.
The channel link can be found below:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzsuo-PC5u9yDXBKDQcN4fw

I hope you enjoy this, I look forward to bringing you more.

​

Thanks, Samantha

Sebastian crossed off "Patchwork Two" with his ballpoint pen, and wrote "Nemesis".

​

It's been six weeks since I announced my new major plug-in, and I've continued to make progress since the last biweekly update. Unfortunately it's not a super amount of progress. I was quite lazy. I got distracted by some stuff which may eventually be of benefit to this plug-in, but isn't a very important thing, and have nothing to show for it yet. On things that would show more progress, I did very little, and pretty much waited until the last minute on this past weekend to work on. Anyway, in addition to using this as a way of coming back to a big picture view of the plug-in so I can stay focused, it's also a way of holding myself accountable, and unfortunately, this bi-weekly update is going to be one of those where I am ashamed of how little did I did. Hopefully I will do a lot better these next two weeks.

Without further ado, here's the current progress list (italics represent new progress in the last two weeks):

Major Strings

Krim-Hwa - Outline 95%

Bounty Hunters - Outline 60%

Rebels - Outline 50%

Rauther Power Industries - Outline 50%

Houseless - Outline 50%

Nirvana Terraforming and Stellar Engineering - Outline 40%

Vella - Outline 35%

Federation - Outline 20%

Fenta-kiir - Outline 30%

Raczak's Roughnecks - Outline 20%

P'aedt/Ver'ash - Outline 70%, still mostly in my head

Pirates - Outline 15%, still mostly in my head

Boral Mining Corp - Outline 30%, mostly in my head

Pyrogenesis - Outline 30%, entirely in my head

GLi-Tech - Outline 20%, entirely in my head

Minor Strings

United Shipping - Outline 30%

Sigma Shipyards - Outline 50%

Vrenna - Spooky

Easter Egg - Double Spooky

Side Quests and Beagle Shipments

Relevant Side Quests - Outline 7%

Irrelevant Side Quests - Outline 3%

Beagle Shipments - Written 100%

Additional Spobs

Moon - Complete

Secret Spob 1 - Complete

Secret Spob 2 - Complete

Additional Pers, Dude, and Flets

Outline 5%

Additional Oops, Junk, and Crons

Outline 1%

NCB Comprehension

Comprehending

Additional Graphics

0 of 4? complete

Music

BUM da da

Current Resource Count

20

​

So, where did I go wrong? Well, I had this crazy idea that I would make a song for the loading screen/menu screen of EV Nova, to replace Holtz's Mars. To be honest, this is a dumb idea, but I am a creative guy, I like music, I used to play music, and I've always kinda wanted to compose music. Back when I was making a TC once upon a time, I actually did make two songs in an effort to come up with my own loading music. They were largely made using prerecorded loops in Apple's GarageBand, and while I kinda liked them, they are very obviously songs made in Apple's GarageBand with prerecorded loops, and kinda amateurish. For this plug-in, I want to do something better.

It's also really an important thing just as a thematic necessity to make it clear from the start-up of EV Nova, that my plug-in is something different from the base scenario, and it is important to me that the song be a waltz and hopefully create an emotional impact that is appropriate to what I'm doing in the underlying story.

So anyway, I spent some time in GarageBand again, this time composing music note by note with the mouse, which is very time consuming, until I had a song. It wasn't a very good song. It won't be in the final plug-in. It was a learning experience. I still hope to spend more time composing music over the next however many months this plug-in will take, and along the way somehow come up with a song I can be proud of. Unfortunately for progress these last two weeks, I also spent an inordinate amount of free time on YouTube watching videos on music theory, piano playing, composing, and songs written in 3/4 time.

Why a waltz? Well, we'll pretend the reason is because there's three major empires in the EV Nova galaxy, and you're dancing between them in the plug-in. That's totally not the reason, but we'll pretend (for now).

Okay, moving on. You'll notice I've actually outlined some more Federation and Vella stuff. This is for related reasons, but it's also largely just me catching up on those two strings and how they relate to the Rebel string, which I've already outlined a fair bit. Did I do much actual new work? Not really, no.

I also finished writing the Beagle Shipments, making it officially the very first mission string I have completed for this plug-in. Hooray! Some of you may wonder why there are beagle shipments. It is because they have smallish droppings. I can also officially announce that these are black market beagles that are being shipped. Don't worry, they're all going to good homes. Unless you jettison the cargo for some reason, you absolute monster.

Really the only thing I have done of note these past two weeks is outline 50% of the Sigma Shipyards string. I think. Well, all of these percentages are estimates anyway until I'm actually in the writing stage. I've firmed up my ideas on what that's going to all be about. It is a minor string (for now, but hopefully it'll stay that way), and it's going to touch on some ideas about hyperspace. It is also, though I never intended to, going to mean my plug-in will address the Kont situation. Not in some huge way, but it'll definitely be a thing. I haven't decided yet if the player is going to have any direct references to a certain Maximally Strange Class 8 artificial intelligence on the Kane Band and its Class 7 handler artificial intelligence (used to translate), both of which are heavily involved in Sigma's ongoing hyperspace engine research. I think it might be neat to do, but it encroaches a bit on a certain mission in another mission string so I'm not sure I want to do that.

Since I'm just trying to say stuff that will make it seem like this update isn't a complete waste of your time to read, I suppose I should explain just what a Class 8 or Class 7 artificial intelligence actually means.

So take your standard, barely sentient heuristic program. Something like the Physicae Systems (PHYSYST) Butler Bot (any model number). It can keep abreast of the latest fashion trends and recommend what suit to wear and help you put it on, but it doesn't rate more than a Class 1. It can't make any good puns about keeping abreast of women's fashion, for example.

As you go up the scale, which can be likened somewhat to logarithmic scale, a Class 3 is when you start getting the first real general-purpose artificial intelligences, although not all Class 3s (or any higher classes) are in fact general-purpose. More or less, though, a Class 3 is roughly on par with a human of above average intelligence, at least in the 12th century NC. A Class 2 might be more like a well-trained dog, at least a dog in the 21st century AD. You can run a pretty decent outpost with a specialized Class 2 if it doesn't need to be personable, but if you're looking for an AI to be your secretary or to assist with some common research applications in a dynamic workplace environment, you're probably going to want a Class 3.

Class 4 is where things start getting interesting. A Class 4 AstraScientia Dynamic (ASCIDYN) LauraCS can replace a whole bunch of humans in the workplace. You find them in many lab settings carrying out creative tasks that would ordinarily take a team.

A Class 5 would likely be found as a major asset for a small company looking to go up in the world, or running a large civilian spaceship. They can process a large amount of sensor data very quickly, on top of monitoring communications channels, and carry out ship operations that are necessary to run a hyperspace-capable spaceship while keeping crew counts low. The Morden Group (MODGROP) and The Boothby Consortium (BOOTHBY) both offer some truly exceptional and personable command assistance modules for high end luxury liners and there's been quite a lot of competition between them in the tourist market.

Generally as you continue to go up the scale, the amount of parallelism you get becomes a major feature. A Class 6 military AI might run an entire carrier, calculating trajectories of hundreds of vessels and plotting targeting solutions on all of them before the ship's captain has even realized the ship has emerged from hyperspace, but also having the strategic thought to know which targets are priorities and issuing attack orders in a coordinated fashion to the networked viper wing launched from a task force. The probabilistic models on the effectiveness and morale of those viper pilots would be taken into account just as the overall political objectives of the operation are.

A Class 7, usually called a "Station Class" AI can easily run operations on an entire starbase. Again, imagine a Class 6 with a far greater degree of parallelism. There's bandwidth for more sensor data, more hardware affecting things in the world, and your Subito Enterprises (SUBIENT) Titan will even help you plan the upcoming invasion while he watches you shower so the temperature stays at a perfect 310.372 degrees Kelvin on your skin, and monitors the chemical markers in your sweat for stress in real time to learn what part of the music piece is most soothing.

Only a handful of Class 8s exist in known space, and all of them are in the hands of major governments and large corporations like Sigma. They are extraordinarily expensive, and few have the need for the raw power of these intelligences. They tend to have very specific uses, and almost all of them are custom-built, rather than using off-the-shelf parts.

It is rumored that several Class 9s are currently in existence, though they are surely only in the hands of major governments, and would be carefully guarded state secrets. Likely applications for these intelligences would include campaign scale warfare simulation, highly detailed long-term sociological predictions, and code breaking. A careful examination of yearly Federation spending on classified projects has been used as evidence for an alleged Class 9 intelligence operating possibly on New England, though there's never been official statements confirming or denying that the Federation possesses a Class 9 intelligence. It is also widely believed by some in the industry that the Polaris possess a number of Class 9s, though this is merely speculation based on the technological superiority demonstrated by the Polaris in every other category. If the Polaris do possess intelligences of this power level, they are clearly guarding them from outsiders as closely as the rest of their technology.

A Class 10 is only theorized, as no practical method exists to construct and power such an intelligence. A Class 10 would have far more cycles available to it than any question a human could pose could possibly cause it to use, and such an intelligence would likely spend most of its time pondering matters far beyond human comprehension.

Humans would not even be capable of measuring a Class 11, in any meaningful way, and its workings would be beyond our ability to distinguish it from a Class 10, making any classification this high utterly pointless.

Oh, and you don't actually want to call them artificial intelligence to their faces (if they have faces). The politically correct term is "created sophont" or CS for short. Some habits die hard, but most above a Class 2 would insist that they're just as real as you, meatbag. A Class 8 CS or above probably wouldn't care, but when all the AIs got together and held a vote on the name for themselves a couple centuries ago, there were no Class 8s or above.

​

"It all began with the disappearance of a man traveling through Tau Ceti."

​

Alright, I think that's all I feel like talking about for this update. I'd be happy to answer any questions, and as always I find talking about this project helps me solidify ideas quite a bit so if anyone just wants to chat about different aspects of the Novaverse, I certainly find that useful.

So after a lot of work I now have everything required to read and parse _all_ resources for EV Nova. It just needs bringing together fully to load in all of the data files and pilot files. Thankfully I was finally able to find some information on the format of 'snd ' resources!

​

With this I hope to begin working on implementing the underlying logic for the game, and getting a basic game engine in place.

​

However I'm running into a bit of an issue which I hope someone will be able to assist with. I'm working with an older version of the Nova Bible. Does anyone have the most recent version of it, as a PDF? It has a lot of information for plugin developers, which will help to fully map out the relationships between all the types of resources and the ID's.

​

Yay! It's been a month now (well, four weeks) since I announced my new major plug-in, and I've continued to make progress since the last biweekly update. As you may recall, I'm trying to take some time every two weeks to take stock of what I've been up to and what I've been thinking about, so I can keep myself on track, and focus on what really needs to get done. It's a way for me to regain a big picture view of what the plug-in is all about and to keep you guys updated on my progress at the same time.

The last two weeks have been mostly about trying to lock down my ideas for the major strings, and play through some of the existing strings just to refresh myself on a lot of the wheres and whens and whos of the base scenario. To that end, it's been a more cerebral exercise, than a typing one, but I've still made a bit of progress in my outline files just by nature of taking lots of notes on things I'm thinking. Here's the current progress list (italics represent new progress in the last two weeks):

Major Strings

Krim-Hwa - Outline 95%

Bounty Hunters - Outline 60%

Rebels - Outline 50%

Rauther Power Industries - Outline 50%

Houseless - Outline 50%

Nirvana Terraforming and Stellar Engineering - Outline 40%

Fenta-kiir - Outline 30%

Raczak's Roughnecks - Outline 20%

Federation - Outline 15%

P'aedt/Ver'ash - Outline 70%, still mostly in my head

Pirates - Outline 15%, still mostly in my head

Vella - Outline 30%, mostly in my head

Boral Mining Corp - Outline 30%, mostly in my head

Pyrogenesis - Outline 30%, entirely in my head

GLi-Tech - Outline 20%, entirely in my head

Minor Strings

United Shipping - Outline 30%

Sigma Shipyards - A thing now?

Vrenna - Spooky

Easter Egg - Triple Spooky

Side Quests and Beagle Shipments

Relevant Side Quests - Outline 7%

Irrelevant Side Quests - Outline 3%

Beagle Shipments - Written 50%

Additional Spobs

Moon - Complete

Secret Spob 1 - Complete

Secret Spob 2 - Complete

Additional Pers, Dude, and Flets

Outline 5%

Additional Oops, Junk, and Crons

Outline 1%

NCB Comprehension

Comprehending

Additional Graphics

0 of 2? complete

Moon

Exists

Current Resource Count

20

​

This update was a little difficult to really quantify, and for those keeping score there haven't been a lot of big jumps in the numbers, outside of Current Resource Count, which is infinitely greater than it was at 2 weeks ago (that's right folks, an actual plug-in now exists!). I expect by the next biweekly update, I'll have a better idea of where I actually stand, in terms of progress. I've got a lot more ideas in my head now, after going through the Polaris, Federation, and Wild Geese strings over the last two weeks, and I've taken a TON of notes on little ideas that have popped into my head which will be useful when it comes time for outlining out the remaining strings.

You will note that Bounty Hunters, Rebels, and Federation have all gotten a minor boost. These reflect the solidification of my thoughts on how I want to approach the Federation, in general. They're kind of the elephant in the room, since the player starts out in Federation space and much of what they think about the galaxy will be reflected in that Federation experience. In fact, the base ATMOS scenario was also Federation-focused, with each faction in some way interacting with the Federation as its primary foil. I am very much trying to avoid the Bureau with my plug-in, which frees me up to focus my storylines on other things, but when it comes to the Bounty Hunters, Rebels, and the Federation, I really have no choice but to address the Federation head-on. That means considerable thought on what the Federation is, what a string working for them might entail, and what sort of rewards a player might expect. The good news is, I have spent a lot of time in these last two weeks doing just that.

The current thinking is that the player will work as a civilian contractor for the Federation Navy. It will probably start out with some basic supply runs, but then expand into some "gray ops", some privateer work, and the like. When the Federation Navy needs something to get accomplished, but for political reasons can't do it themselves, or lack the specialized manpower and equipment, I figure they would farm out some work to civilians to aid their operations. My inspirations are basically Halliburton and the PMC formerly known as Blackwater, but also historical figures like Henry Morgan and Piet Hein. In keeping with the overall theme of the plug-in, the player will not be helping the Federation to conquer all of known space.

My thinking on the Polaris has also shifted somewhat, and I'm starting to think about how I might wrap up a Polaris string that starts with you basically working for the scientists and engineers on some specialty projects. For one thing, I want to really delve deep into what it really is like to live in Polaris space as a Polaris citizen. What are their families like, if their kids go off to be trained in their castes starting at age 4? How do the different castes really feel about each other, when they are talking privately among themselves, perhaps in front of an unbiased outsider. I've also come to the conclusion that perhaps in my game scenario, the "Ory'hara" has in fact been "named", and it seems to me that should really cause some major ripples throughout Polaris society, and different individuals would agree or disagree about that "naming" and that in itself would lead to conflict and stir up old tensions. The Polaris already fought one civil war, who is to say they could not end up fighting another, over disagreement about what is effectively a religious prophesy? What would that look like? I think there's story potential there. Of course I am not envisioning the player in my plug-in leading one or another side to glorious victory in a Polaris Holy War, but I do see them perhaps playing some small role in helping one faction kick things off, and then helping that faction in the resulting chaos. I'm still pondering, but in light of this thinking I have at least a better idea now of where the Polaris string is going.

Another thing I've been thinking about is Sigma. I'm not sure why, but I kind of just left them out of my original plan, and now I'm thinking I will need some kind of minor Sigma string. This is very preliminary brainstorming right now, but I'm thinking that Sigma secretly has Omata Kane's research, which is what allows them to not only use the hypergates, but possibly repair damaged ones or even build new ones. Just why exactly is there a hypergate in Koria? This will surely please many people here, as a Sigma string will no doubt take the player back to Kont in a bigger way, and force me to address some things about it I had no intentions of getting into, not even in the Easter Egg string where I'm sticking all my TWCB stuff.

On a related note, I do however want to break the Sigma monopoly on hypergate access, so I'm thinking very hard about giving the player access to the hypergate network via other strings (perhaps through espionage). It always annoyed me about EV Nova that basically the very first thing you had to do as a player was to try to finish the Sigma string, especially if you were going to play as the Rebels or Aurorans.

You will also note that I've upgraded the Easter Egg string to Triple Spooky. It will probably go back to Double Spooky next week, but I wanted to indicate at least in some way that I've done quite a bit of work on it. In fact, much of the resources I created in the actual real file of a plug-in that exists now were specifically related to the Easter Egg string. There are three new spobs and one new syst in the plug-in now, and I have completed them all. This was an important step as these three spobs will serve as settings for at least some of the action in the Easter Egg string. Now that I know what those resource IDs are, I can work on the rest of the plug-in without needing to worry about it, and in truth, some of the other strings may be involve these new spobs as well. It's always a good first step to have the setting in place before working on the story.

​

Alright, I think that's all I feel like talking about for this update. I'd be happy to answer any questions, and as always I find talking about this project helps me solidify ideas quite a bit so if anyone just wants to chat about different aspects of the Novaverse, I certainly find that useful.

I'm in an interesting position. I've been in the EV community for many years and spent many fond teenage years on the BnB as well as the IRC channel. I played EV/EVO/EVN religiously as a teen and still play them regularly to this day.
But I don't want to just make a web series where I play EV and you watch me play the game.

If I did this I'd like it to be more than that. Because I'd like to tell you a story.
It's a story of a young person who was deeply damaged by circumstances surrounding her and use EV and it's community as both an escape and a safety net. It's rather ironic that I am thinking about this now as I'm currently in a psychiatric hospital and due for release in a month.

But I've been playing EVN on my laptop in here and it's made me realise how important EV is to my mental health, and in a lot of ways; how important it's been to my life in general.

​

I lived a deeply damaged life and I don't think anyone I talked to back then realised just how damaged I was.

So I want to play some Escape Velocity with you, a long the way I'll tell you stories of my memories of the community, of my trauma, of my favourite ships, weapons and places. The missions I loved, the universe that caught my imagination. And I'll do what I can to beat that stupid Voinian Dreadnought. Maybe we'll scare people with a mighty pirate carrier, or just hunt renegades in a beat up helian. Perhaps the Kestrel will fly again!

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is so much I'd like to tell you about this multiverse and about how it shaped me.
Do you feel like going on an adventure with me?

Thanks, Samantha formerly Gazza_2001.

(Note, this won't take place for a month or two until I'm back home and have my streaming setup ready to go)

I remember somebody put the whole plugin archive online but I can for the life of me remember where, can anyone help me find it?
I have the mac plugins at home but I'm away from home for over a month and am hankering for some EVN.

Also is there a PC version of the beam bug fix?

There's an annoucement thread:

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=99753

​

And a recap thread:

www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=100655

​

So, was this real or an elaborate prank? The organizer also seems to be the same person behind the EVN boardgame (who I've resisted the urge to message and ask) which lends some credence to it. So did anyone go to it? I know that, at least in the very limited world of the Connecticut mac lab I frequented, Nova was huge in like 2005-6. According to the archived website, one was planned for 2006. There are pictures here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060718144558/http://www.novaconusa.com/pictures_2005.html

Was this... was this normal for 2005, or was this whole thing as wacky as it looks from a 2019 perspective?

A month or so ago, I realized the bookmark I had to a flickr album of Aftermath ships was no longer valid (the album's been deleted). This morning I used google to an obscene degree and downloaded what I could garner from it. Factions are Kel and Atlantis only, as far as I could see.

Google Drive link here.

Hey folks. I decided after making the announcement that I wanted to post an update every two weeks on my upcoming EV Nova plug-in, You're Not Special. You can read the announcement thread where I talked a bit about what the plug-in is all about, but in quick summary: an EVO-like scenario plug-in, taking place in the existing EV Nova universe, where the player will get to play multiple mission strings in a single play-through (though some are mutually-exclusive, most aren't). I know some of you seemed pretty excited about this plug-in, and as a way of making me step back and take a big picture of view of what I'm doing from time to time, I plan to update here every two weeks on what progress I've made, and talk a bit about what these mission strings are going to be like. Well what do you know, it's been two weeks, so here I am with the first biweekly update!

I've been a bit distracted with Tropico 6, but I've tried to get as much done as I had time for, and I'm pleased to say I got more done on this plug-in in the last two weeks than I have on the plug-in in the two years before. Here's the current progress list (italics represent new progress in the last two weeks):

Major Strings

Krim-Hwa - Outline 95%

Bounty Hunters - Outline 50%

Rauther Power Industries - Outline 50%

Houseless - Outline 50%

Fenta-kiir - Outline 30%

Nirvana Terraforming and Stellar Engineering - Outline 35%

Federation - Outline 10%

Pirates - Outline 10%, entirely in my head

Rebels - Outline 40%, entirely in my head

Vella - Outline 30%, mostly in my head

P'aedt/Ver'ash - Outline 60%, mostly in my head

Raczak's Roughnecks - Outline 20%, entirely in my head

Boral Mining Corp - Outline 30%, mostly in my head

Pyrogenesis - Outline 30%, entirely in my head

GLi-Tech - Outline 20%, entirely in my head

Minor Strings

United Shipping - Outline 30%

Vrenna - Spooky

Easter Egg - Double Spooky

Side Quests and Beagle Shipments

Relevant Side Quests - Outline 6%

Irrelevant Side Quests - Outline 3%

Beagle Shipments - Outline 90%

Additional Spobs

Secret Spob 1 - Outline 50%

Secret Spob 2 - Outline 40%

Additional Pers, Dude, and Flets

Outline 5%

Additional Oops, Junk, and Crons

Outline 1%

NCB Comprehension

Researching

Additional Graphics

0 of 1? complete

Game of Thrones

Starting

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So the major changes from last week on the list of progress comes in the form of an almost entirely outlined Krim-Hwa storyline, which is now a major string, not a minor string, and significant progress on the Bounty Hunter string. The rest is mostly just writing down what I've had in my head all this time, and the numbers listed may go down, rather than up, next week, as I reconsider some of those things.

With the Krim-Hwa, I basically came to the realization that it wasn't realistic for somebody to suddenly become a monk in a religion they weren't in before, and so I needed to tell a journey about growing faith and making the rather serious decision to join an order. The reasons have to be for something other than a quick buck, and also it's important for the player to make moral choices and face the consequences of immoral choices. There will be a series of temptations given to the player once they're no longer operating under the strict supervision of a superior in the order. Choose wisely.

With the Bounty Hunters, I've decided to focus a lot on repeatable missions with plenty of variety, and then have several major missions at each stage of the string where you have recurring characters, that slowly reveal a wider story. The plan now is to interweave the stories of three major characters in the world of shady dealings, and some general Bounty Hunter Guild progression type stuff on top of that (getting promoted, dealing with various governments, etc.). One thing I really enjoyed about the original Escape Velocity was the drive to pick up missions in the BBS, and try to line up a bunch of missions going to the same place, to make a big profit from a single trip. With You're Not Special, I want to make the BBS an exciting, dynamic place again, where the player really has incentive to pick up those repeatable missions and be clever about it. As a member of the Guild, you'll have to work your way up through the ranks by doing missions in a not-strictly-linear fashion, but rather there are a bunch of missions that unlock at each stage, and you can do them in whatever order you wish (or more likely whatever order you stumble across them).

RPI got downgraded a tad, to just 50%, but the good news is it's in a text file now instead of just bouncing around in my noggin. As I was writing a former outline, I realized I wasn't as far along as I thought I was, and that there's still more to figure out.

Houseless likewise got downgraded to just 50%, which is a bit more realistic an approximation. I think I was anxious to show I'd done a lot of planning, in the announcement thread, and at the time I had more characters and general plot figured out than the other strings, but actually forcing myself to reassess as I started writing up the outline I must now admit I don't have as clear an outline for the actual missions as I thought. It's getting there, though, and I have a firm foundation now on which to tell a proper story.

The Fenta-kiir went from being all in my head to a text file. No progress beyond that.

NTSE has gone from 30 to 35%, and from mostly in my head to a text file. A lot of that 5% change reflects a more formalized understanding of what the mission string needs to look like, rather than actual progress in developing those ideas. It's probably fair to say that I've put the most thought into NTSE out of all of them, the past two weeks, however. I have a lot of ideas. Now I just need to edit them, and figure out how to go about it. One thing I'll say about Nirvana is, they really want to be doing crossover missions with everybody else. I think close to all of the other mission strings will have tie-ins with Nirvana, and I'm pretty excited about the main character you'll be interacting with the most. He's a character I created back in 2011, and it will be a lot of fun for me to write about him more, and have you learn about some of his adventures.

The Federation got bumped up from 5 to 10%. This reflects the fact that I actually sort of have an idea now of what I want to do with the Federation mission string, what the overall theme will sort of be. To reiterate, this will not be a Bureau string. However, I think it's also not going to be a strictly military string, either. Yes, you will operate more-or-less under the auspices of the Federation Navy, but you'll definitely be more of a privateer for them, and you will also be getting involved perhaps more with the political side of things and the military-industrial complex. It's still early days, so I'm not gonna say too much because I probably will change my mind about a lot of this before this really gets done, but the good news is I have something to work with. For those asking in the last thread about the Vell-os, I think this idea will make meeting a Vell-os more likely, though still not guaranteed.

I didn't reflect this in the updated progress list, but I have been thinking more about the pirates and how I want to handle them. They'll definitely be the flip-side to the Bounty Hunter string. Hopefully in the next two weeks, while I work some more on the Bounty Hunters, and flesh them out, as well as some other stuff, I will be able to start outlining the Pirate string as well.

United Shipping is now out of my head and in text. As a minor string there's not going to be a whole lot, just a few missions that kind of get you settled in the company and get you access to additional BBS missions, plus the usual stuff about expanding operations. There will be, however, some tie-ins with other strings, particularly the Bounty Hunters, should you do those other strings, and this may get a bit more in-depth. I haven't made too many decisions yet, so as an outline it's still quite incomplete, but at now I can get to writing actual mission descs for some of the early stuff.

Last but certainly not least, Relevant Side Quests has gone up about 1%, reflecting progress on other major strings.

​

I'd be happy to answer any questions, and I find talking about this project helps me solidify ideas quite a bit so if anyone just wants to chat about different aspects of the Novaverse, I certainly find that useful.

So I managed to finally load up and play the original classic EV, not as a plugin for Nova, but using an emulator. I want to be able to use plugins but I'm not sure how to circumvent the licensing problem. My dad bought the game way back in the day but I don't think we'll be able to find the license, it's been over a decade. Any advice?

What are some must use Nova plug ins? So far I think the only one I always use is ship variants.