Spaceships are the heart of EV, so the ship resource contains a lot of info. The name of a ship class, which is seen in the targeting display, corresponds to the name of the ship resource. The first nine fields give EV some general performance info on each ship type:
Holds Cargo capacity, in tons. Put a negative sign in front of this value if you want to prevent the player from purchasing mass expansions. (e.g. a value of -100 would mean 100 tons of hold space but no mass expansions allowed)
Shield Shield strength. (Player’s shield is a bit stronger than this)
Accel Acceleration magnitude. 300 is considered an average value.
Speed Top speed. 300 is also an average value here.
Maneuver Turn rate. 1 ≈ 30°/sec.
Fuel Fuel capacity. 100 = 1 jump.
FreeMass Space available to add additional items and upgrades. Note that this is in addition to the space taken up by the ship’s stock weapons. (e.g. a ship with 20 tons listed in FreeMass and 10 tons of stock weapons will actually have 30 tons of expansion space, with 20 available.)
Armor Armor strength. Armor takes damage when shields go down, and when a ship’s is 2/3 gone it becomes disabled.
ShieldRe Shield recharge speed, in number of frames per shield percentage point regenerated; bigger numbers here make for slower recharging. 30 ≈ 1% per second.
The next twelve fields tell EV which stock weapons to put on your ship when you first buy it:
WeapType (x4) ID numbers of weapon types
-1 or 0 No weapon
128-191 Add this weapon type
WeapCount (x4) How many of each of the above weapons to add
-1 or 0 None
1 and up Add this many
AmmoLoad (x4) 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
The next two fields tell EV what this ship’s maximum loadout of fixed guns and turreted weapons is. Each ship has an inherent upper limit on fixed guns and turrets, in order to keep them from becoming absurdly powerful. (e.g. a bulk freighter has lots of room to add weapons, but is limited to a single turret for defense) The fields are:
MaxGun The ship’s maximum number of fixed guns, which are flagged in the WeapFlag field of the outf resource.
MaxTur The ship’s maximum number of turrets, which are flagged in the WeapFlag field of the outf resource.
The next field tells EV where this ship is available for purchase:
TechLevel What the technology level of the ship is. This ship will be available at all shipyards with a tech level of this value or higher. (The exception to this rule invloves the SpecialTech fields of the spöb resource; see the section on spöb resources for more information.)
The next field, Cost, tells EV how much to charge you when you buy this ship. The cost of buying a ship is always the cost of the new ship minus 25% of the original cost of your current ship and upgrades. (i.e. you always "trade up" to a new ship)
The next field stores info on how the ship explodes:
DeathDelay The number of frames the ship "disintegrates" before finally exploding.
0-59 The ship disintegrates for this number of frames and then disappears in a single fireball.
60+ The ship disintegrates for this number of frames and then disappears in a huge explosion. The exact size of the resulting fireball is proportional to the ship's mass. (see below)
The next four fields tell EV where the ship's turrets should fire from:
TurretYDisp (x4) Exactly where on the Y-axis of the ship the turrets should fire from. EV cycles through each of these four values in turn as the turrets are fired.
0 Fire from exact center of the ship graphic
1 and up Fire from this many pixels forward of center
-1 and below Fire from this many pixels aft of center
The next two fields store info on the physical dimensions of the ship:
Mass The mass of the ship, in tons. This doesn't affect acceleration or speed at all, but it does affect travel time in hyperspace and the display on the density scanner. Also, the blast radius and impact strength when the ship explodes is proportional to its mass.
1-99 1 day per jump, small blip on density scanner
100-199 2 days per jump, large blip on density scanner
200 and up 3 days per jump, large blip on density scanner
Length The ship's length in meters. Currently unused in any calculations, but it’s kinda cool, so it’s displayed in the "detailed ship info" dialog.
The next field tells EV what kind of AI the ship will have if it's not created in connection with a dude resource. The only place this field is useful is when a ship is created as an escort ship; otherwise, it's ignored:
InherentAI What AI the ship uses when it's escorting the player.
1-3 Use this kind of AI. (see the AI descriptions above)
The next field contains the number of crew members that are on each type of ship, and the field after that tells EV whether or not the item's availability is linked to the completion of a mission:
MissionBit Tells EV whether to offer this ship only if a certain mission bit is set. (see mïsn for more info)
-1 Ignored
0-255 Offer the ship only if this mission bit is set
The next field tells EV what government is associated with a ship type:
