Përs

For a full list of the persons in EV Nova, see Persons (EVN).

A përs (abbreviated form of person) is a special ship flown by a special person in the game. The pers can have a special name, ship subtitle, weapon loadout, shield strength, picture, etc. The ATMOS developers and many Ambrosia employees also have pers. Also, all of the ships that give a mission when hailed or boarded, or have special names or hail the player with special quotes, are pers. Many plug-in developers also like to include themselves as pers in their plug-ins, and they usually they give themselves powerful starships and/or invincibility.

The përs 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.

The pers resource defines the characteristics of an AI personality - that is, a specific person the player can encounter in the game. These AI-people have their names (which are also the names of the associated pers resource) displayed on the target-info display in place of the name of their ship class. When ships are created, there is a 5% chance that a specific AI-person will also be created. (obviously, as AI-people are killed off, they cease to appear in the game.)

Appearance

The first field tells Nova where a certain person can be encountered:

LinkSyst

Which systems the person can be created in.

• -1: Any system
• 128-2175: ID of a specific system
• 9999-10255: Any system belonging to this specific government
• 15000-15255: Any system belonging to an ally of this govt
• 20000-20255: Any system belonging to any but this govt
• 25000-25255: Any system belonging to an enemy of this govt

Active On

Control bit test expression. Leave blank if unused.

Personality

The next four fields define the person's character traits:

Govt

The person's governmental affiliation.

• -1: Ignored (person is independent)
• 128-383: ID of a specific government

AI Type

The person's AI type (see the section on düde resources).

• 1: Wimpy Trader
• 2: Brave Trader
• 3: Warship
• 4: Interceptor

Aggress

The person's aggression, i.e. how close ships have to be before the person will attack them, on a scale of 1 (close) to 3 (far).

Coward

At what percent of total shield capacity will the person run away from a fight? e.g. a value of 25 would cause the person to retreat when his shields dropped to 25%.

Ship

The next fields tell Nova more about the ship that a person uses:

Ship Type

ID number of the person's ship class.

Weapon Type

ID numbers of weapon types. There are 8 fields.

• -1 or 0: No weapon
• 128-383: Add this weapon type

Weapon Count

There are 8 fields.

How many of each of the above weapons to add (Note: This is in addition to the standard weapons already included with the ship. Standard weapons can be "removed" by entering their ID numbers in the WeapType fields and entering the negative of their standard load for the given ship class in the WeapCount field.)

• -1 or 0: None
• 1 and up: Add this many

Ammo Load

The standard ammo load for weapons that need it, or ignored for those that don’t.

• -1 or 0: No ammo
• 1 and up: Include this many rounds of ammo

Credits

How many credits the person carries.

• 0: ignored (no credits)
• 1 and up: This any credits, +/- 25%

Shield mod

How much to increase/decrease the person's shield capacity, in percent. For example, a value of 130 entered here would make the person's ship have shields that are 30% stronger than if he were flying a stock ship. Similarly, a value of 70 would make his shields 30% weaker. A value less than zero makes this person invincible.

Color

The color to paint this person's ship, encoded the same as HTML colors (00RRGGBB). Set to 00000000 if unused (which is the same as 00FFFFFF, or "pure white paint" i.e. no shading).

Communication

The next fields tell Nova about any special quotes or missions to link to this ship:

Hail Pict

ID number of a PICT resource to be displayed in the communications dialog instead of the standard picture for this person's ship type

Comm Quote

Index number of an entry in STR# resource 7100, to be displayed in the communications dialog.

Hail Quote

Index number of an entry in STR# resource 7101, to be displayed at the bottom of the game screen (i.e. over the radio).

Link Mission

What mission to activate when the ship is boarded or hailed.

Flags

Some control bits.

• 0x0001: The special ship will hold a grudge if attacked, and will subsequently attack the player wherever the twain shall meet.
• 0x0002: Uses escape pod & has afterburner
• 0x0004: HailQuote only shown when ship has a grudge against the player
• 0x0008: HailQuote only shown when ship likes player
• 0x0010: Only show HailQuote when ship begins to attack the player
• 0x0020: Only show HailQuote when ship is disabled
• 0x0040: When LinkMission is accepted with a single SpecialShip, replace it with this ship while removing this one from play. This is generally only useful for escort and refuel-a-ship missions. Note: if the mission's SpecialShip düde type contains the përs ship's ship type in it, the SpecialShip that's created will be of the same type as the përs ship, regardless of the probabilities in the düde resource. This is to prevent a përs ship from accidentally morphing into another ship type before the player's eyes. If you really do want to have the përs ship be replaced by a SpecialShip of a different type, use a düde in the mission's ShipDude field that doesn't contain the përs's ship type.
• 0x0080: Only show quote once
• 0x0100: Deactivate ship (i.e. don’t make it show up again) after accepting its LinkMission
• 0x0200: Offer ship’s LinkMission when boarding it instead of when hailing it
• 0x0400: Don’t show quote when ship’s LinkMission is not available
• 0x0800: Make ship leave after accepting its LinkMission
• 0x1000: Don’t offer if player is flying a wimpy freighter (aiType 1)
• 0x2000: Don’t offer if player is flying a beefy freighter (aiType 2)
• 0x4000: Don’t offer if player is flying a warship (aiType 3)
• 0x8000: Show disaster info when hailing

Flags 2

• 0x0001: This person starts with zero fuel

Outfit Granted

Grant Class

The class of outfit item that is given out by this person's ship when boarded by the player. If there are multiple outfit items with the same ItemClass value, Nova will choose a random outfit item of that ItemClass. Set to 0 or -1 if unused.

Grant Prob

The probability that this person will grant the player any items when boarded. Set to 100 for maximum chance, zero if unused.

Grant Count

The maximum number of outfit items to be given when boarded by the player - the actual value given will be between GrantCount/2 and GrantCount.

See Also

• Persons (EVN)