Developer Tools

   As I create Orion Skies, my goal is to build tools along the way that will make modding and TC-creation easier not only for myself, but also for any other plug-in authors in the community. I am sharing all of these tools freely with the community, in the hopes that they may be of use. On this page, you can find information and links for them.

   (You'll likely also be interested in Guy's Utilities and Guides; I've personally made heavy use of them.)

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Ship Stats Spreadsheet

I used ResForge to export the stats for all of the ships from all 3 EV games, and then set up this spreadsheet to compare them. For each game, it lists all of that game's ships and their stats, including the average of each stat in that game. It also includes rankings of all ships by various stats, e.g. a ranking of all ships from all 3 EV games by total hit points, etc.

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Tech Generator Spreadsheet

This Google Sheets spreadsheet procedurally generates weapons and outfits for the EVx games, based on flexible user specifications. By default it generates content specifically designed to seamlessly fit into each of the 3 EV games (and also Ares), but it is configurable for use on Total Conversion plug-ins.

My next step is to upgrade it with the ability to export in a format compatible with ResForge and EVNEW's spreadsheet-import functions.

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EVx Weapon & Outfit Stats Listing

 This document gives a full listing of weapon and outfit stats for Frozen Heart, Override, Nova, and Ares. It automatically calculates the Damage Per Second and other balance-related values for weapons, and translates raw outfit stat values into "human-friendly" intuitive values.

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Plug-In Design Template

 I've been working on the design of Orion Skies for some time, and finally settled on a design format that I'm happy with. This document covers a lot of design considerations that, in my opinion, are key to creating a top-quality plug-in.

The goal is that you can use the prompts in this template to guide your thinking as you come up with a "top level" design for the essence of your plug-in. Once you have the essence of your plug-in figured out and internalized in your mind, you can build your plug-in efficiently, flexibly, and organically with your editor of choice, while keeping true to your well-thought-out vision.

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Galaxy Generator Spreadsheet

This Google Sheets spreadsheet automatically generates an EV/CF galaxy. It generates systems with jumplinks and stars, planets, moons, etc; it also generates the planets' and moons' atmospheres, terrain, climates, weather, etc.

My next step is to upgrade it with the ability to export in a format compatible with ResForge and EVNEW's spreadsheet-import functions. Over time I will also be working on graphics to go with this.

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Ship-Space Manager

This is a calculator spreadsheet for plug-in authors that helps keep track of how much free mass each ship should have based on its overall space and what weapons & outfits it is equipped with. Aside from weapons space, it also tracks cargo space, price, gun slots, and turret slots.

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Misns-as-Story Format Template

This document is formatted in a way that mirrors the desc structure of misns. It's meant to make it easy to write a story, then copy-paste it into EV/CFO in the form of missions -- or, conversely, to take a mission line you've been working on and copy-paste it into a story format for purposes such as revising/editing. To demonstrate the system, this document includes some of the missions from The Frozen Heart, an excellently-written Total Conversion plug-in by Martin Turner.

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Listing of Free Media Sources


 Here are some web sites with royalty-free / Creative Commons media (e.g. music, graphics, sound effects) that can be used in plug-ins for free.

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