Read-Me for EV:N
Battle Arena v1.1
*Version 1.1 fixes many bugs from version 1.0, please consult the changelog at
the end of this readme
Hello.
My name is Kenneth
“GutlessWonder” Webb, and I am the author of the plug you just downloaded and
unzipped: EV:N Battle Arena.
First and foremost, I would like to thank you for trying out my
plug. I spent a lot of time on it
making it as “complete” as I could, and I hope that you as a player enjoy it.
“EV:N Battle
Arena has a single purpose: to
provide an Arena that will allow the player to test their piloting skills
against “super-ships” more powerful than anything currently in Nova (with the
possible exception of ATMOS ships, et. al.). It is designed particularly to be challenging, providing
some more difficulty and entertainment after one of the Six Major Strings has
been completed.”
Legal-wise,
everything is copyrighted by its respective owners. I have drawn many things from sources across the internet,
but I have also made up a lot of the character names and the entire Sophie
story (except where it mentions certain characters in the bar scenes). Basically, unless you know for certain
where a particular idea came from and have permission, don’t reuse it.
This plug is to
be considered entirely free-ware.
While I don’t mind you downloading it and then sharing it amongst
others, I must respectfully request that this read-me be included and that it
be done for free. I will not,
under any circumstances, accept any compensation for this plug. If you like it, that’s wonderful! If not, that’s fine as well, but this
was all just for enjoyment.
Contact: Any comments, support, criticisms, and
bug reports can be directed to either webbkr@hotmail.com
or, preferably, strongman169@hotmail.com It is important that the subject
contain something in the vein of “Battle Arena”, as hotmail has junk email
filters and otherwise I might miss an important email (which means I might miss
yours).
I can also be contacted on the Ambrosia Software Webboards (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/),
under the username of “GutlessWonder”.
Plug Installation v1.1:
This plug was originally
created entirely on EVNEW, using MS Paint and Adobe Photo Deluxe as support
tools.
Version 1.1 was
created on an Apple MacMini, using David Arthur’s Mission Computer software and
compressed with orcaloverbri’s Plug-in Archiver.
Important: You MUST have a registered copy
of Nova to use this plug.
Windows Users v1.1:
1) Download and unzip the “EVN
Battle Arena.zip” file.
2) Open the “EVN Battle Arena”
folder. (Note, you’ve done these
if you’re reading this)
3) Drag just the “EVN Battle
Arena.bin” file to your plug-in converter, included with your copy of Nova. Any DS_store, _Icon, or resource.map
files can be deleted.
4) Place the resulting “EVN Battle
Arena.rez” file in your plug-ins folder.
Macintosh Users v1.1:
1) Download and unzip the “EVN Battle
Arena.zip” file.
2) Open the “EVN Battle Arena” folder. (Note, you’ve done these if you’re
reading this)
3) “Un-stuff” the “EVN Battle
Arena.bin” file.
4) Place the “EVN Battle Arena” plug
into your plug-ins folder.
Now, you should be
all set to get up and running!
Running EV:N Battle Arena:
EV:N Battle Arena has a single purpose: to provide an Arena that will allow the
player to test their piloting skills against “super-ships” more powerful than
anything currently in Nova (with the possible exception of ATMOS ships, et.
al.). It is designed particularly
to be challenging, providing some more difficulty and entertainment after one
of the Six Major Strings has been completed.
This plug may actually
be played before, during, or after any of the six main strings, or anything else
in Nova, for that matter, as long as the initial conditions are met. It is highly recommended that you start
a new pilot before using this plug, as there are some parts of the plug that require a new pilot to work as designed. There are only two requirements to get
things started initially:
*You must have a “Frightening” combat rating (at least 25600 in your
pilot-log).
*You must have dominated at
least one planet or station.
Once both of these conditions are met, simply flying
around and landing at different places will eventually trigger the introduction
mission. From there, following the
mission prompts will allow you to complete all of the missions included. If at any time you have a mission that
is not coming up and you think it should, try taking off and landing again, or
checking the bar. Some missions
are only available after specific missions have been completed, others may be
restricted by some missions only setting certain bits upon landing on the
station, which requires you as the player to lift off and land again for things
to set up correctly. No missions
are only offered as a random chance, and once offered will always be offered
again, 100% chance (except in one special place, as detailed in game in the
mission texts).
It should be noted that
to win a battle, you must witness your opponent’s ship blowing up completely.
Which means that even if your target is in the middle of blowing up, you
won’t get credit for the win until the ship actually disappears from the screen
(really long death delays are the main problems here, such as the Leviathans
and the Cambrian, for example).
I have attempted,
in certain places, to make this plug-in compatible with some of the dynamic
events that occur in the standard Nova universe, for the sake of general
completeness. I have also ensured
that certain events are gender specific.
Otherwise, everything should be fairly straightforward.
Again, I will
reiterate that this plug-in is designed to be challenging. Your opponents have extremely upgraded
statistics, and no, you can’t have their ships. This plug IS beatable, but if you absolutely cannot do it, I
would suggest walking away from Nova for a little bit, then coming back and
practicing. Different opponents
have different weaknesses, and some simply require as much brute force as you
can muster. Some may require that
you run them out of ammo, others may require that you get in close, fast, and
deal as much damage as possible, hopefully killing them before they can get any
shots in at all. You will simply
have to find what works the best, and go from there. Trial and error is your friend.
The story I have
provided is simply there to add a little extra depth to the missions, to add to
the plug’s “completeness”. It’s
not designed to compete, in any way, with Nova’s own storylines, simply to
complement them.
Technical Specifications:
This plug in uses many
descs and picts, creates many new ships and shans, many new outfits, uses 1
cron, and a bunch of (unused by Nova) mission bits. It also uses many missions, creates a new spob and a new
syst (as well as modifying an existing one), a couple new govts, and some extra
dudes, plus a handful of ranks.
All of this
means, in short, that I cannot and will not guarantee this plug’s compatibility
with any other Nova plug-ins. I
will make every attempt I can to answer specific requests for resource lists,
but as everyone has the ability to get a plug editor I will leave it as a
simple exercise for individuals to crack open this plug in an editor and
determine which resources are being used.
If you absolutely cannot do this, you may request a list of the
resources I have used via email (please see contact information above).
Special Note: I will reiterate here that I will make
every effort possible to answer any and all emails that I receive regarding
this plug-in, but I will not tolerate flaming, abuse, or spam in any
fashion. If you cannot keep things
civil, or otherwise cause problems, I will ignore your emails. Continuing abuse and/or any threats
WILL be reported immediately and appropriately. If you have a legitimate concern about something I may or
may not have done and have therefore done wrong by you, I will first apologize
for it here, and ask that the matter be discussed as adults
Another note: This plug-in will contain bugs and
errors. While it should work,
regardless of your version of Nova, I can only guarantee that it will work on
the latest versions, available from the Ambrosia Software Escape Velocity: Nova
official website.
At the time this
Read-Me was written those versions are (Mac) 1.0.10 and (Win) 1.0.10
Any bug fixes will
be credited in future revisions of both the plug-in and this read-me file.
Thank You’s
and Dedications:
First, I would like to
give a big thanks to Matt Burch, creator of Escape Velocity. Second, I would like to thank both
ATMOS (creators of Nova), and Ambrosia Software. Also high on my thank-you list are Adam Rosenfeld (Aprosenf), creator of EVNEW, and David
Arthur, creator of Mission Computer. Without any of the above, this plug would not be possible. I must also thank orcaloverbri, creator
of Plug-in Archiver.
I would also like to thank everyone who has
downloaded my plug (and who has stuck with me so far in this Read-Me). This was created for the enjoyment of Nova
players everywhere, and I hope it has achieved its desired effect.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this
plug-in to the EV:N Bar Members, who, despite the anonymity of the webboards,
feel like something akin to family (at least online). Y’all know who you are (including you, Synesthesia, even if
you haven’t been around in a while), and I owe all of you a big thanks, at the
very least. Please don’t lynch me
for using some of your characters here, I had the best of intentions, honest!
Special Links:
You
already know where the Add-Ons page is, as well as the Nova page (with all of
its links). This section is being
provided to give some links that do not appear explicitly on the Nova homepage
or in this document.
http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/
- The EVNEW Homepage
Known Issues:
This
plug-in does not contain any rle8’s.
I have no way of properly making these on my computer (without a fair
amount of hassle). This means that
Nova won’t display properly under certain conditions on the Mac. Specifically it won’t run on a Mac that
cannot display more than 8-bit color.
(to the best of my knowledge)
There is a work-around to this, but unless I get reports of this being
an issue then I will not worry about it at present.
Version 1.1 was tested entirely on an Intel Mac Mini. While it should work on any Windows and
non-intel Apple computers, please report any aberrant behavior so that I can
fix it as soon as possible.
EV:N Battle Arena Version History:
v1.0 – Released on July 18, 2005 – Initial
Release
v1.1 – Released December, 2007
Changelog
(most bugs reported by Edwards):
·
Tweaked the AI of Eamon Flannigan
·
Fixed display weights in outfitters; any
outfit capable of being sold anywhere should now appear below all battles
·
Increased armor value of Nightmare Beta
·
Increased mass, weapon range, and weapon
impact of Rabid Manta
·
Decreased Gutless’ shields by 33%
·
Numerous spelling and grammatical errors fixed
·
De-capitalized any instance of the “k” in
Nil’kemorya (this may not be correct, but at least it’s now consistent)
·
Fixed bug with UESC station landing pict
displaying on other stations
Known bugs:
·
The Witch Queen has random white spots in her
image where the top sprites are too dark.
I fixed this once but my Windows computer had a hard-drive failure. I still haven’t figured out the best
way to fix this on a Mac yet.
--
This Read-Me Copyrighted 2007 by Kenneth Webb