Gövt

Gövt (abbreviated form of government) is a type of data resource in EV Nova. These govts define factions to the game.

The gövt resource

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EV Bible text

The following information was transcribed from the Nova Bible, ©1995-2006 by Matt Burch. The original document can be viewed here.

A govt resource defines the parameters for a government, which is in turn defined as "any collection of ships and planets that react collectively to the actions of the player and other ships." Governments keep track of how they feel toward you, and they can also have set enemies and allies. The govt resource's fields are:

VoiceType

Sets this government's voice type, used for when you have a ship of this government as your escort (i.e. an escort with an inherent attributes govt field that points to this govt). There can be up to eight different voice types, numbered 0-7. The voice resources are loaded from 'snd' resources as follows:

• 1000-1009 Voice type 0 acknowledgement speech
• 1010-1019 Voice type 0 targeting speech
• 1020-1029 Voice type 0 victory speech
• 1100-1109 Voice type 1 acknowledgement speech
• 1110-1119 Voice type 1 targeting speech
• 1120-1129 Voice type 1 victory speech

...etc, up to:

• 1700-1709 Voice type 7 acknowledgement speech
• 1710-1719 Voice type 7 targeting speech
• 1720-1729 Voice type 7 victory speech

If a particular set of voices (i.e. the acknowledgement, targeting, or victory sounds for a given voice type) contains an even number of sound resources, Nova will only use either the even- or odd-numbered sounds for each particular ship. The Nova scenario uses this to implement both male and female voices for certain governments. To let each ship decide for itself whether to use even- or odd-numbered sounds, set VoiceType to between 0 and 7. To force ships to use only odd-numbered sounds, set VoiceType to between 1000 and 1007. To force ships to use only even-numbered sounds, set VoiceType to between 2000 and 2007.

(None of the preceeding paragraph applies if Nova doesn't have an even number of sounds to work with)

If you don't want any ships of a government to use speech, set that govt's VoiceType to -1. Also note that ship types with no inherent attributes govt defined (see shïp section for more information) will always use voice type 0.

Flags & Flags2

Sets a variety of characteristics (see below).

Crime and Punishment

CrimeTol

The maximum amount of evilness the player can accumulate before warships of this govt start to beat on him.

ScanFine

If the player is caught carrying an illegal (and non-mission-related) cargo or item by a ship of this govt and he isn't yet evil enough to attack (i.e. his legal status in the current system isn't below CrimeTol) then he will be fined the amount in this field.

SmugPenalty

The amount of evilness a player gains for being detected smuggling illegal cargo (defined in a misn resource) past this government's ships.

DisabPenalty

The amount of evilness for disabling one of this govt's ships.

BoardPenalty

Evilness from pirating one of this govt's ships.

KillPenalty

Evilness from killing this govt's ships.

ShootPenalty

Evilness from shooting one of this govt's ships (currently ignored).

InitialRec

The player’s initial legal record in systems controlled by this govt (0 is neutral, positive is good, negative is bad).

Combat

MaxOdds

The maximum combat odds ships of this govt will consider favorable. Combat odds are calculated by summing the strengths of the ship's enemies (where a ship's strength is taken from the Strength field in the shïp resource, and modified from between 30% and 100% of that value depending on the ship's present shield stat) and comparing it to the sum of the strength of the ship's friends. A value of 100 in this field represents 1-to-1 combat odds, and will cause a ship of this govt not to attack unless it calculates that it is as strong, or stronger than, its enemy. A value of 200 represents 2-to-1 combat odds, meaning that ships of this govt won't engage if they are outnumbered by more than 2-to-1. 300 means that ships of this govt won't engage a group of enemies more than 3x stronger than them and their friends, etc.

Allies and Enemies

Class1-Class4

Allows you to assign this govt to up to four different "classes", which are simply arbitrary groupings of govts that you can use to flexibly assign allies and enemies. Two govts of the same class are not inherently allied unless one of them has that same class number set in one of its Ally fields. Set unused class fields to -1.

Ally1-Ally4

The number of up to four classes that this govt will be allied with. Set to -1 if unused.

Enemy1-Enemy4

The number of up to four classes that this govt will be enemies with. Set to -1 if unused.

Interface

ID of an ïntf resource to use when the player is flying a ship whose inherent attributes govt or inherent combat govt is equal to this govt type. Values less than 128 will be interpreted as 128.

NewsPic

ID of a PICT resource to use as the background of the news window when the player is on a planet or station owned by this govt. Values less than 128 are ignored and the standard independent/generic news background (ID 9000) is substituted instead.

Doing evil deeds to one government will improve your rating with its enemies, and vice versa. Allied governments also communicate your actions, so attacking one government will make its allies hate you too.

Flags

The different bits that can be set in a govt's Flags field are:

• 0x0001: Xenophobic (Warships of this govt attack everyone except their allies. Useful for making pirates and other nasties.)
• 0x0002: Ships of this govt will attack the player in non-allied systems if he's a criminal there (useful for making one govt care only about the player's actions on its home turf, while another is nosy and enforces its own laws everywhere it goes)
• 0x0004: Always attacks player
• 0x0008: Player's shots won't hit ships of this govt.
• 0x0010: Warships of this govt will retreat when their shields drop below 25% - otherwise they fight to the death
• 0x0020: Nosy ships of other non-allied governments ignore ships of this govt that are under attack
• 0x0040: Never attacks player (also, player’s weapons can’t hit them)
• 0x0080: Freighters (i.e. AiTypes 1 and 2) for this particular government have 50% of the standard InherentJam value for warships (AiType 3) of the same government.
• 0x0100: ‘pers’ ships of this govt won’t use escape pod, but will act as if they did
• 0x0200: Warships will take bribes.
• 0x0400: Can't hail ships of this govt. (if a ship type has an inherent attributes govt which includes this flag, all ships of that type will inherit this property)
• 0x0800: Ships of this govt start out disabled (derelicts). Note that ships of other governments don't care if you attack or board derelict govt ships.
• 0x1000: Warships will plunder non-mission, trader-type enemies (including the player) before destroying them
• 0x2000: Freighters will take bribes.
• 0x4000: Planets of this govt will take bribes
• 0x8000: Ships of this govt taking bribes will demand a larger percentage of your cash supply, and their planets will always take bribes (useful for pirates)

Flags2

• 0x0001: When hailing ships of this govt, the request assistance / beg for mercy button is disabled and the govt is not talkative.
• 0x0002: This govt is considered "minor" for the purposes of drawing the political boundaries on the map.
• 0x0004: This govt's systems don't affect the political boundaries on the map.
• 0x0008: Ships of this govt don't send distress messages and don't respond with greetings when hailed (if a ship type has an inherent attributes govt which includes this flag, all ships of that type will inherit this property)
• 0x0010: Roadside Assistance - Ships of this govt will always repair or refuel the player for free
• 0x0020: Ships of this govt don't use hypergates
• 0x0040: Ships of this govt prefer to use hypergates instead of jumping out
• 0x0080: Ships of this govt prefer to use wormholes instead of jumping out

SkillMult

The SkillMult field allows you to apply a global multiplier to the skill levels of ships that belong to this government. A value of 100 will cause this government's ships to be just as skilled as any other ships of the same type. A value of 50 will cause this govt's ships to only be 50% as skilled, and a value of 150 will cause this govt's ships to be 50% more skilled as the stock ship is rated. This allows you to create governments whose pilots are more highly trained than the stock pilots, so they can gain extra speed and acceleration from their ships. Values in this field of less than 1 are ignored.

ScanMask

This is a 16-bit flags field that is used in conjunction with the ScanMask field in the mïsn resource. If any of the 1 bits in a government's ScanMask field match any of the 1 bits in a mission's ScanMask field, that government will consider the mission's cargo illegal. Set to zero if unused.

Require

These two Require fields together form a 64-bit flag that is logically and'ed with the Contribute fields from the player's current ship and outfit items. If for each 1 bit in the Require fields there is not a matching 1 bit in one or more of the Contribute fields then you won't be allowed to visit any planets or stations owned by this govt - this is useful for making travel permits, for example. Leave these set to zero if unused.

InhJam1-4

The government's inherent jamming ability for each of the four jamming types, from 0 to 100%.

MediumName

The government's name in medium length, which is primarily used in the string "Sensors detect xxx reinforcement fleet approaching."

Color

The government's theme color, encoded the same as HTML colors. (00RRGGBB)

ShipColor

The theme color for this government's ships, encoded the same as HTML colors (00RRGGBB). You should use this sparingly, as it gets annoying when you have dozens of multicolored variants of some ship type flying around all at once. Set to 00000000 if unused (which is the same as 00FFFFFF, or "pure white paint" i.e. no shading)

CommName

The short string to show for ships of this government when they are hailed by the player.

TargetCode

The short string to show in the player's target display when a ship of this government is targeted.