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.)

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All About rEV: Expanded

Image
TL;DR: I'm working on a major plug-in for EVC-on-Nova.   rEV: Expanded     Hi, all. I've done a lot of modding since my last blog post, and wanted to share a bit about what I've been doing.    For those who haven't played it, rEV is a fantastic plug-in for EVC-on-Nova . In addition to wonderful updated graphics, it also adds a variety of neat outfits, ship variants, and gameplay features. It is very worth checking out! It was initiated by Kris Quistorff, who created the graphics, and features many innovative gameplay and technical updates from andrews05 .    I am currently building a new plug-in that uses  rEV as its basis. rEV: Expanded is intended to update many aspects of EVC, expanding on EVC's strengths (hence the name). rEV: Expanded has four main focus areas: Quality of Life Features The Combat Experience Strategic Balance and Depth Story    I'll discuss each of those areas below, but first here's a quick video I recently recorded in rEV:E of a
Read more

2022 Review, and a Look Forward

Image
TL;DR: Lots of accomplishments this year, with many more planned for the future. :) Progress in 2022    This year, a number of major milestones were hit, and a lot of technical progress was accomplished "behind the scenes" to enable Orion Skies to live up to my vision of its ideal form. Full Design    In 2022 I was able to finish a complete design of Orion Skies’s world & history , and an outline of the major story elements that will unfold in-game.    I also finished the technical/gameplay design, and even created a specific plan to release Orion Skies in parts (first a small-but-meaningful initial release, and then adding expansions to fill it out). Tech Generator    The Tech Generator implements user-guided procedural techniques to produce data for weapons and outfits for an EV scenario, while ensuring they all fit specific balance targets.    This year, the Tech Generator reached Version 1.0, giving the user control over all of the data fields that go into the outf
Read more

The World of Orion Skies

Image
TL;DR: An explanation of Orion Skies's world, and an animated "world vision gallery".    In last month's blog post, I had been working on "visual worldbuilding" – similar to creating a "vision board", I'd been collecting artwork online that gives a strong impression of Orion Skies's universe. The goal was to create an animated image gallery that dynamically shows what the world of Orion Skies looks like & feels like. I find this sort of thing incredibly helpful to visualize the world and, as I build the plug-in, bring that world to life in-game.    I have now completed that world vision gallery! For this month's blog post, I wanted to share a video recording I made of the gallery, and to describe some key elements of what it shows. WORLD VISION GALLERY Here's a link to the world vision gallery video . Please note that most of the artwork in this gallery is not mine– though some of it is photos I took while I was living in Tanza
Read more