Dark Nova: alive or dead?

Artaud · Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 11:29 pm Post subject: Dark Nova: alive or dead?

Hi guys

This has always been one of my favorite mods. I currently play 4.27, in spite of encountering some crash problems during tactical combat.

Is this mod still being worked on, or is it in limbo?

bearclaw · Moderator Joined: Aug 04, 2003 Location: BC, Canada

I'm so glad to hear that this is one of your favorites!

Is Dark Nova dead? No.
Has there been any work on it in a VERY long time? No again.

I have a list of things to work on for DN5 but I haven't done anything with it in quite a while now. Other projects on the go and whatnot. I do plan on getting this up to speed again at some point. Just no eta yet.

Dark Nova 4 for SE4... that I haven't done any work on in even longer. Not sure if I will or not.

When you have crashes in tactical combat, are fighters involved? And do any of the fighters have Assault Rockets installed? There were a couple of issues regarding Assault Rockets and tactical combat. First: there was a bug in SE4 when fighters launched seekers, or was that when seekers targeted fighters... Can't recall which but I do believe that the latest version of SE4 fixed that. I'm sure someone here remembers better than me and can clarify that. I do belive I also added a seeker PD weapon that triggers that same bug too, but I don't remember precesely now.

Secondly, there was an issue with the.bmp for the Assault Rockets that can cause a crash in Tactical Combat. Again, IIRC, opening the.bmp in any graphic program and saving it as a.bmp with the exact same name fixed that one.

Artaud · Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 10:42 pm Post subject:

No, there aren't fighters involved, or assault rockets. I'll have to return to the particular game I was playing to see if I can get the same crash.

But I like the mod a lot. Diversity, choices, asteroid mining...there is so much about the mod to love.

I'm still on version 4.27 for SE4. I don't have SE5.

If you decide not to return to Dark Nova for SE4, please know that all of the work you did has been greatly appreciated. People might say that it's just a game, and that's true, but having such a pleasant diversion is really important in these difficult times.

bearclaw · Moderator Joined: Aug 04, 2003 Location: BC, Canada

I've had a couple people now ask about DN4. I might yet release another update. There is a feature I wanted to put out but never did I call "Libraries".

Basicly, you would have to set DN4 games for no tech trades. Instead, if you wanted to trade or gift technology to another, you would have to build a special proto-type ship for them to deconstruct and analize. For component technologies, that wouldn't be an issue but for things like facilites and such you would get a special "library" component. I think of it like a physical database of the technology you want to trade/gift. The receipiant has to deconstruct/analyze the "libraray" database in order to gain the technology.

Modding it would be straightforward enough, it would just take a lot of modding.

I think that was the last thing for DN4 that I wanted to get in.

Coolaminator · Space Emperor Joined: Dec 11, 2007

I hope, that DN not dead =)

Artaud · Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 12:13 am Post subject:

I hope this mod is not dead.

ekolis · Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:11 pm Post subject:

You're in luck - I'm starting a Dark Nova 4.29 game! Very Happy

http://beta.pbw.spaceempires.net/games/inkyvoid

Artaud · Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 5:50 pm Post subject:

Is 4.29 functional? Well, I suppose my question is a silly one, if you are starting a PBW game.

I recently downloaded DN 4.29, and it appears that a couple of races have no images. "The Brotherhood" is one of them.

Lots of interesting techs in DN. It's great to see that people are still playing it.

I looked through the downloads section, and there are mods that I have still never played, even after all these years. Some mods just grab you and you keep coming back to them, again and again. But I recently tried a couple of mods for the first time, and have been pleasantly surprised.

ekolis · Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 8:52 pm Post subject:

I just used 4.29 because it was the latest version. If it's broken, we can always use an older version. Bearclaw, you around to explain?

bearclaw · Moderator Joined: Aug 04, 2003 Location: BC, Canada

4.29 should be working. At least I'm not aware of any fatal errors.

there are a few race folders that are 'empty' on purpose. The way SE4 grabs images for use in games works so that if it can't find an image in a mod folder, it will attempt to find a matching image in the default image folders. By having empty folders for races, all someone needs to do is install the races to the default SE4 picture / races folder and Dark Nova will find the correct images. This way, there is no need to install race images more than once on a computer. The race folders in DN4.29 are for the few DN4 compatible races that are out there.

ekolis · Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:39 pm Post subject:

Hmm, I had to delete one of those folders because it was making SE4 give an error when I try to scroll past that shipset in race setup. Maybe that only happens when I don't actually have the shipset installed, though...

Artaud · Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 12:45 am Post subject:

bearclaw · Moderator Joined: Aug 04, 2003 Location: BC, Canada

That is correct.
SEIV will check for the files in the mod folder first, failing that it will check the default folder and failing that, will give an error.

Edit: sorry for the delay in responding. Just found out that I had an old email set up on SE.net for my account which is why I wasn't getting notices of new replies here.

ekolis · Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 8:06 pm Post subject:

You actually use the email notifications feature on forums?! Shocked

Poor, poor Bearclaw's inbox...

ekolis · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 8:45 pm Post subject:

Wow has it been over a year already since I started that game?!

Artaud · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 10:05 pm Post subject:

I once again hope that this great mod is not dead!~ Very Happy

ekolis · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:27 pm Post subject:

I heard rumors of Bearclaw being interested in reviving it, so I've started posting bugs and stuff over on the forum here... Razz