A Dreamwave Studios production |
7/6/03
Conversion to Nova by Dr. Trowel
| 8/9/03
Read Me revision by Dr. Trowel |
11/13/03
Cold Fusion is a complete graphics replacement for Escape Velocity: Override. The ships are re-textured and modified variants of the original game models. Many of the outfit items are also modified versions of the Override 3D models, but many have been completely rebuilt from scratch, as were the landscapes. Planet and station “spobs,” explosions, asteroids, missiles, buttons, the sidebar, and other graphics have also been replaced. For the most part, Cold Fusion tries to stay true to the overall creative vision of the original creators of Override -- you should still feel like you are the same universe, but everything will look better. Grainy, flat 256-color graphics are now behind you.
Cold Fusion for Nova is a version of Cold Fusion designed to run on top of Michael Judkins' official "EV Nova: Override Port," which in turn works using the Escape Velocity: Nova game engine. This has the advantage of allowing Cold Fusion to be seen in thousands of colors, rather than dithered down to 256 colors as done by the Override engine. It also allows Cold Fusion to be experienced by everyone who has Nova but doesn't have Override. Though we have only tested it on Macs ourselves, we've gotten reports that PC gamers (Win98, Win 2K Pro, etc.) have been able to run it without problems after running it through the Mac to PC plug converter.
What doesn’t Cold Fusion do? You won't find any new features (besides the new graphics ;) in Cold Fusion at this time: no new ships or outfits to buy, no new places to visit, no new missions, etc. A few of the “sensory improvements” could have minor impacts on gameplay: the sizes of some ship sprites change somewhat, as do a limited number of weapon sounds. In Cold Fusion for Nova, turret and fighter gun placements on ships match those in Override 1.0.2. This is different from the initial (8/7/2003) release of the official "Mac EV Nova Override Port," in which all weapons fire from the center of each ship.
How to use: To use Cold Fusion for Nova, first follow the instructions in the "read me" file that comes with the official "EV Nova: Override Port" to install its files in your Nova Files folder. Then simply drag the six "CFN" plug files from the main download folder and place them in your Nova "plug-ins" folder. If you are currently using any other plugs that involve changing the game's graphics, remove them or Cold Fusion will not run properly.
Cold Fusion freezes on startup. What's wrong? At least on Macs running OS 9, this is usually because of insufficient memory. If this problem occurs, give Nova additional memory (use the Finder’s “get info” command). Cold Fusion for Nova was created with 90001k allocated to Nova without any problems. Limited testing on a 600 MHz iMac G3 suggests that it also works fine with just 60001k.
Why are there six plug-ins? This was done so you could choose which parts of the Cold Fusion experience you want to, um, experience. If you're a Nova player who has never played Override, it's conceivable that you'll find that there are aspects of the game's default "retro" look that you actually like. If so, just don't install the CFN plug that replaces what you want to see. You might also want to remove something if you find that it clashes (visually, for instance) with some other plug that you're trying to run at the same time.
CFN Interface changes things like buttons,
gambling graphics, the status bar on the side of the screen, and the target
pictures that show up when you select a ship to talk to or attack.
CFN Planets changes the looks of planets
and stations, both when in space and once you land on them.
CFN Ships in Space changes the appearance
of ships in flight.
CFN Shipyard & Outfitter Pics changes
graphics for ships when you buy, hire, or hail them, and changes outfit
graphics.
CFN Shots & Rocks changes graphics
for asteroids, explosions, and some weapons, and also gives some extra
oomph to a few sounds.
CFN Turrets is Turrets allows turreted
weapons to fire from more than one point along the length of a ship if
"CFN Ships in Space" is also active.
Do I need to start a new pilot if I install or remove CFN plugs? Nope.
Does Cold Fusion work with other plug-ins? Yes. Cold Fusion is compatible with any other plugs that run with the port of EVO to EVN and do not involve changing the game's graphics. The exception is CFN’s “Turrets is Turrets” component, which may interfere with plugs or port updates that modify the stats of the game’s existing weapons. Expansion plugs -- the kinds that add new missions, weapons, ships, systems, and so on -- should be no problem at all.
Some of the planet graphics overlap the edges of other station / spob objects. Is this a bug? Not really. Many of the complaints I've read regarding Override are that the planets are far too small. While Cold Fusion does indeed greatly enlarge the scale of planet and station graphics, the original location of the spob objects has not been changed. So you will come across a few systems where this occurs. We also know that the bigger planet graphics have an interesting effect on the dialog that comes up when you hail a planet. Let's agree to call this a "feature" rather than a "bug."
Why can't I sell my escorts or see government borders? The official EV Nova: Override Port disables a few features of Nova to better match the gameplay of the original EV: Override game. Cold Fusion for Nova doesn't put these features back in. This is a graphical upgrade plug; we're trying to do as little as possible that makes the game harder or easier. Most plugs that put these features back in will probably work just fine alongside Cold Fusion for Nova.
Can you get more technical in your explanation of CFN Turrets is Turrets? I can take it. OK, if you insist, though you don't really need to understand this in order to play. In the official port of Override to Nova, "shan" resources do not specify where different kinds of fire issue forth from each ship class (X, Y, and Z locations are all set to "0" so that all shots fire from the center of the ship's rotation). This is changed in "CFN Ships in Space" so that turrets fire from the locations along the spine of the ship that are specified in Override 1.0.2. There's no adjustment to allow for the 3/4 rather than straight overhead ship views used in Cold Fusion, but the visual improvement is still pretty clear. This by itself has no effect on the game, however, because the official port of Override to Nova sets all weapons, including turrets, to fire from gun rather than turret locations. CFN Turrets is Turrets is a set of "weap" resources that identifies turrets as turrets for the purpose of determining the origin of fire. There is one other change made to a couple of the weap resources in CFN Turrets is Turrets, but it's purely a visual thing -- weapon specs such as damage and rate of fire are unchanged from the values set in the official Override port. You may want to remove CFN Turrets is Turrets if future (post 8/7/03) versions of the official port of EVO to Nova adjust weapon speeds and ranges, as some have suggested on the web boards. (CFN Ships in Space also restores the side-to-side displacement of unguided guns specified for 3 classes of fighters in Override 1.0.2. This works even if CFN Turrets is Turrets isn't installed.)
I don’t have EVN, but I do have EVO. Can I use Cold Fusion for Nova? No, but you can use the original version of Cold Fusion. Although you will only be able to see 256 colors, in our humble opinion the graphics still look much better than those that came with the game. Look for Cold Fusion on Ambrosia’s addons page for Escape Velocity Override: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/evo/addons.html. That (original) CF version won’t run under Nova, by the way.
Does CFN work with the new version of the official port of Override to Nova? If you’re talking about a version or update released after Aug. 7, 2003, you’re talking about something that was not on the addons page on Nov. 5, 2003, when Dr. Trowel wrote this Read Me. How would we know? Chances are, everything will be OK with the possible exception of “CFN Turrets is Turrets.” Check Dr. Trowel’s web site (http://home.comcast.net/~drtrowel/). If you have problems not addressed there, drop him a line. By the way, we haven’t checked whether CFN works with the “unofficial” ports of EVO to Nova.
I followed all the install directions, but the game graphics look just like they did when I ran the EVN Override port without CFN! Why? If you decoded the “.sit” archive with Stuffit 7, try either downgrading (to Stuffit 5.5, for instance) or upgrading (to Stuffit 8, for instance). When you look at the icons for the 6 CFN plugs, do you see a wrench and a screwdriver, or are the icons blank? If blank (on a mac), you need to set the type and creator codes to match those of other EVN plugs. Stuffit is supposed to do this automatically, but Stuffit 7 is buggy.
My question wasn’t answered here. Man, if you read through all that and are still having problems you must be pretty frustrated, huh? Sorry. Three suggestions: check Dr. Trowel’s web site, look in the web-board forums either at Ambrosia or at ev-nova.net, or send Dr. Trowel an email. Actually, if you post to the forums Dr. Trowel would like it if you emailed him too, just so he knows to look at the forums.
Credits: Most of the major eye candy in Cold Fusion was done by Joseph Payne (or more commonly referred to as Captain Skyblade around the ASW forums). All of the ships and outfit graphics were either modified or created by him in Infini-D 4.5, the same software used to generate the original Override models.
The majority of the landscapes were made by Slav. Additional scenes were created by Joseph Payne and Brian Wiggins (Ragashingo). Software used includes Bryce, MojoWorld, Terragen, Infini-D and Photoshop.
The alternate sounds that come with Cold Fusion originate from Escape Velocity (proton, fighter bay and drone launch sounds).
Adaptation of Cold Fusion to the Nova plug-in format was done by Dr. Trowel, with Joseph’s approval. He also messed with the gambling graphics and revised this read-me, borrowing heavily (AKA "stealing shamelessly") from the one Joseph wrote for the Override version of the plug.
Future Plans: The CFN plugs in this archive are all at the initial release (1.0.0) state. Only this read me has been revised since Dr. Trowel first posted CFN on his web site.
Shortly after completion of the conversion of Cold Fusion to EVN, Skyblade announced his retirement from involvement in EV development and graphics projects. His “Dreamwave Studios” web site (http://dreamwave.evula.net) now contains only his farewell notice. (Skyblade writes that he will eventually have a new site, with a new name and a non-EV mission.) Dreamwave was one of the largest EV shipyard and plug resource pages in its day, providing item-by-item downloads for most of the ship graphics used in Cold Fusion as well as much more. The materials from the site were transferred to EVula. They had not yet appeared on any of the sites in EVula’s “Evil Empire” as of this writing, but should eventually be accessible via one of these addresses:
http://www.evula.com/shipyard/
http://www.evula.com/escape_velocity/
http://www.ev-nova.net/
Prior to his departure from the EV/O/N development community, Skyblade had expressed interest in making an EV version of Cold Fusion, and also in revising Cold Fusion to slightly increase the distance between planets and their moons / stations and to further improve such things as the buttons, landscapes, intro pics and spob objects. Musings had also begun on a "super eye-catcher" version 2.0 of Cold Fusion for Nova with Azdara ship banks, Voinian Cruiser engine glows, Nova-ish target pics, bigger landscapes and shipyard pics, etc.
Upon his departure, Skyblade gave Dr. Trowel permission to submit CFN to the Ambrosia addons page and to “update it whenever you like.” Unfortunately, Dr. Trowel doesn’t have Skyblade’s graphic talents and skills (or his Infini-D models), so at this point it is not likely that a full-on “CFN 2.0” will ever be released. A less ambitious “CFN 1.1” is more in the realm of the possible, if time, enthusiasm, and encouragement coincide. At this time I have ideas for a range of tweaks, some suggested by users: different smoke trails, varying sidebars, target pics separated into their own plug, further improvements to weapon placement, and so on. I may also see if I can work out an expeditious way of adding engine glows and running lights with Photoshop.
Contact Information:
Captain Skyblade
dreamwave@evula.net
http://dreamwave.evula.net
Dr. Trowel
drtrowel@comcast.net
http://home.comcast.net/~drtrowel/
Cool. Yeah, we think so too. Cold Fusion for Nova was created to simply (and hopefully) allow you to have a better time playing in the Override universe. All we ask for in return is: enjoy it!
(This is a really ugly web site. Well, don't blame Captain Skyblade, who is an excellent web designer -- Dr. Trowel did this site on his own. He lacks much design sense and has a preference for antiquated tools. Actually, you could say that his interest in antiquated tools is professional....)