Tech Generator Progress, plus "The Expanded Suite"

   TL;DR: The Tech Generator is making progress, focused on generating weapons in the style of different EVx games as a way to test its abilities. Meanwhile, "The Expanded Suite" will carry on the legacy of EVO: Expanded in the new Cosmic Frontier era.

Tech Generator Recent Progress

   At last month's posting, the Tech Generator was producing weapons in the style of EVO(E), based on user-provided specifications, and I was in the process of updating the way it worked to give the user more control and flexibility in specifying a wider variety of weapon styles. That's done now. :)

   The next phase of work on this is testing-by-doing: adding specifications to generate weapons in the style of Frozen Heart/EVC*, Ares, EV Nova, and some Magic: the Gathering-derived concepts that I've been pondering for Orion Skies. Each stage inevitably identifies bugs and limitations in the tech generator, and prompts me to improve its capabilities.

   (*Much of Frozen Heart's contents are a re-skin of EVC; I believe Martin Turner used EVC as a basis and then added new content from there.)

   In any case, the Tech Generator is now producing Frozen Heart/EVC style weapons in addition to EVO(E) style weapons, all based on highly configurable user specifications. Woohoo!

   I'm currently working on implementing Ares-style weapons. Most of them are currently working, but some of them (such as the infamous Flak Cannon) require use of EVN's "submunitions" feature, in which a projectile can create different projectiles when it detonates– and those projectiles can potentially create more projectiles, and so on. These can get a bit complex, especially if the Tech Generator is trying to be balance-conscious when creating them, so I'm focused right now on building systems to keep track of the submunitions and generate them sensibly.

Ares's infamous Flak Drones (right) use a weapon that will require submunitions to implement. Note the little blue flak shells across the middle of the screen, which are fired by the Flak Drone, and detonate to create the explosions + bursts of gray flak you see just up-and-left of center. My poor little Ishiman Cruiser is in trouble!

 

Overall Tech Generator Status

   Here is a rough outline of the stages/milestones the Tech Generator will need to go through:

    🟢 Generate EVO-Style Weaponry: I had to figure out how to do this as I was building it.
    🟢 Generate Weaponry Per User Specifications: Now it can produce a TC's weapons! Sort of.
    🟢 Streamline & Improve Flexibility: Giving the user more power.
    🟢 Generate Frozen Heart/EVC-Style Weaponry: A few updates for some unique FH designs.
    🟡 Generate Ares-Style Weaponry: Needs submunition functionality; working on that now.
    ⚪ Generate EVN-Style Weaponry: Will need many new capabilities I think.
    ⚪ Generate MtG-Inspired Weaponry: One big thing will be weapons with alternate firing modes.
    ⚪ Generate Outfits: These should be comparatively simple compared to weapons. 🤞
    ⚪ Add a "Specials" System: Inspired by classic RPGs, this would be a system whereby the player can find modified or upgraded copies of a given weapon type – for example, discovering a one-of-a-kind customized Blaze Cannon that deals extra damage with each shot.
    ⚪ Explore Strategy Concepts from Magic: the Gathering Using the Generator: In theory, the "Specials" system will enable a lot of strategy-design concepts from Magic; I'll have to test that out once the "Specials" are ready.
    ⚪ Streamline, Reflect, Miscellaneous Updates, add Documentation, Etc: Basically the nuts & bolts of making it a fully-developed, user friendly, helpful tool.

 

"The Expanded Suite"

   A few years ago, the EV series appeared extremely dead. Ambrosia's web site was still up, but was unmaintained and increasingly broken. Matt Burch, Peter Cartwright, and the ATMOS crew, at that time, were not in active contact with the player/modder community. There were no signs of any kind of sequel or update ever happening.

   In the hope of helping the series continue to grow and advance, I created a large-scale plugin for EVO, called EVO: Expanded. The goal was to "expand" on EVO's strengths while keeping the core of the game as close as possible to the original. I designed the new content and writing to match the style of EVO as closely as possible; my hope was that folks who hadn't played EVO in a while wouldn't always be able to tell which content was new, and which had always been there. The vision was a new version of EVO with its balance, combat, and storytelling taken to the next level (building on the already-very-high levels achieved in the original version).

   Now, of course, EVO's creator Peter Cartwright is working on his own updated version of the Override scenario in the form of Cosmic Frontier, which will be vastly superior to EVO Expanded.

   I've thought before of creating an EVOE-like plug-in for Cosmic Frontier – a "CFO: Expanded" – but there are two major problems with that idea:

1. Peter will (I assume) be actively supporting and updating Cosmic Frontier, and I want to let him steer its development over time– both because the actual creator deserves to have that control, and because he's done such a brilliant job with EVO that I know Cosmic Frontier will be in extremely capable hands.
2. EVO: Expanded was only possible because of having many years of experience playing the original game; I wouldn't be able to create a similar work for Cosmic Frontier until I have played it for a similar multi-year length of time.

  However, I've recently realized that EVOE was really a collection of many different updates, focused on different things. Many of those are essentially just "game features" that wouldn't disrupt Peter's vision, and also would be "safe" to add without first spending years gaining deep familiarity with the base scenario. Moreover, the "feature" type elements could be implemented as Lua mods that would work equally well with the base Cosmic Frontier scenario, or with Orion Skies, or with any other TC or scenario.

   With that realization, I'm now planning to work on something called "The Expanded Suite" shortly after Cosmic Frontier's release.

   I plan to start with a few EVOE-inspired features, implemented as separate Lua mods and released together as a package, and I'll aim to release that fairly early on. Over time, I'll be adding more features to it, some of which weren't included in EVOE as they will only be possible on the Cosmic Frontier engine– for example, when I create an Ares adaptation, that will involve a number of its own new Lua features for things like an improved dogfighting AI, which I'll add to The Expanded Suite when I build them. Ditto for any new Lua features I build with Orion Skies.

   In any case, I'm excited for this project, and glad to have a clear pathway forward to ensure EVOE lives on in some manner in the new Cosmic Frontier era. :)

This screenshot from EVO: Expanded shows two features that could be implemented via Lua: 1) An Outfitter-screen listing of weapons' damage values and rate of fire as part of their basic stats display; and 2) The ability to sell your outfits on any inhabited planet, curtailing the need to fly across the galaxy whenever you run out of ammo.

   As always, thanks for reading everyone. I hope you find your holidays full of rest, love, and joy.