Plug-in
From EVN Wiki
Plug-ins are user-made expansions of the EVN universe. There is a common distinction between the so-called "Total Conversions" (TCs) and the other plugs because a TC is of greater scale generally (everything is different from the original "novaverse"), though in the view of some developers (Martin Turner and Peter "Pace" Craddock to name a couple), this distinction has no substance.
[edit] TC or Not TC?
Because of the TC/non-TC distinction, UE_R&D (Retribution lead developer) came up with the term "quasi-TC" as a way of indicating large plug-ins such as ARPIA2 and Aftermath. It is interesting to note the difference in size between Edward's Teacup TC and these two "normal" plug-ins, as this TC is so small it fits in far less than 100Kb.
However, there are many developers with little experience who become ambitious and announce new total conversion projects without much idea of how much work is involved. Many of these do not get very far and become vaporware. This is, unfortunately, a common phenomenon, causing many to take new TC announcements with a grain of salt.
[edit] Developing Plug-ins
There are several plug-in editors available, namely MissionComputer and ResEdit (with Novatools) for Mac, and EVNEW for Windows. Plug-ins are made of resources, each one representing a ship, outfit, mission, graphic, etc. If you want to develop your own plug-ins, the first step is reading the Nova Bible. It contains explanations of what each resource does and how to use it. The Utilities section of Ambrosia Software's add-on pages contains many useful programs for developing plug-ins. If you need help, EV-Nova.net and the Ambrosia EVN Webboard have forums dedicated to plug-in development.
