NovaJS

This is an experiment in making Escape Velocity Nova run in the browser. Escape Velocity Nova (EV Nova) is a game created by Ambrosia Software in collaboration with ATMOS.

Here's a live demo of the main branch (supports multiplayer, works in modern browsers). There's also a demo of the alpha js release, which is an earlier version written in JavaScript (0.1-alpha-js).

Controls (mostly standard EV Nova):

• Arrow keys to move
• Spacebar to fire
• There is a button on the right side of the screen to add enemy ships.
• L while moving slowly over a planet to land
• Tab to select a target
• W to choose a secondary weapon
• Left Shift to fire secondary weapon (not only Ctrl since that's used by Windows)
• R to choose nearest target
• Hold A to point towards target.
• M to open the map and select a system to jump to.
• J to jump.
• Scroll down in the outfitter and shipyard with the arrow keys to see more items

Project Goals

• Function as a Nova Engine that can, given Nova files, run EV Nova.
• Support Nova Plug-ins.
• Improve on some of the issues with EV Nova's engine (such as limited turning angles) as long as doing so does not negatively affect gameplay.
• Support multiplayer to an extent.

Wait, but isn't EV Nova Copyrighted?

Yes. Escape Velocity Nova is copyrighted by Ambrosia Software. I claim no rights to anything in the objects directory. The end goal of this project is to write a Nova engine that can interpret Nova files without including any Nova data itself.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

node.js, npm, A Mac copy of EV Nova (Direct Link)

Installing

For the main branch

Clone the main branch

git clone https://github.com/mattsoulanille/NovaJS.git

Install dependencies with Yarn

cd NovaJS/
yarn

If you are using Ubuntu and see 00h00m00s 0/0: : ERROR: There are no scenarios; must have at least one. after running yarn, you may need to apt install yarnpkg instead (and substitue yarnpkg wherever you see yarn in this readme).

(Optional) Read from the Bazel Remote Cache

To speed up compilation and test time, you can configure Bazel to use cached build and test results created by the project's continouous integration runs. To enable this, add build --config=remote_cache to .bazelrc.user at the root of the project. You may need to create .bazelrc.user.

(Optional) Run the tests

Tests can be run with yarn test. This will take a while the first time it's run since it tests all targets in the project. This includes building docker images for NovaJS. Subsequent runs should be much faster.

Add Nova Files and Plug-ins

Copy your Nova Files and Plug-ins directories to the nova/Nova_Data/ directory. Make sure files are in .ndat or Mac resource fork format. Windows .res is not yet supported (PRs welcome though). Since resource fork is Mac-specific, Plug-ins can be saved as .ndat for use on Windows and Linux. Ideally, this won't matter once .res is supported, but that's a lower priority at the moment. If this proves annoying for users or developers, I can try to fix it.

Run NovaJS

To start NovaJS, run

yarn start

To watch for changes and automatically restart, run

yarn watch

To run with docker, run

yarn bazel run //nova:nova_image

This of course requires docker to be installed (and I've only gotten it to work on Linux. I've tried on Mac, but not Windows yet).

For the alpha js relase:

Download the release with your browser or with the following command

curl -L https://github.com/mattsoulanille/NovaJS/archive/v0.1-alpha-js.tar.gz | tar xzf -

Move your Nova Files and Plug-ins to the Nova Data directory in the unzipped release.

Make sure you're using the Mac version of EV Nova. Windows EV Nova file formats are currently unsupported, so make sure your Nova files end with .ndat

cd NovaJS-0.1-alpha-js/
cp -r /path/to/EV\ Nova.app/Contents/Resources/Nova\ Files/ ./Nova\ Data/
mkdir ./Nova\ Data/Plug-ins/

You can add any plug-ins you like in the Plug-ins directory. Just make sure they're in the Mac format or the Nova Data .ndat format if you're using Windows / Linux.

Install packages with npm (note that this is different from the main branch, which uses yarn)

npm install

Build for release with

npm run build

Alternatively, build for development and debugging with

npm run build-debug

At this point, you can run NovaJS with

npm run run

You can also use

npm run watch

to compile incremental changed made to the browser's code, but you will still need to do a full npm run build-server and restart the server for changes to be applied to the server.

By default the JS release runs on port 8000 but can be changed by editing the port variable in settings/server.json. Assuming you installed on the machine you would like to play from, navigate to localhost:8000.

Deployment

Deployment for the js release is the same as installation, however, the port used for the server can be changed by editing the port variable in settings/server.json. For the main branch, build the docker container with yarn bazelisk build //nova:nova_image.tar and then deploy the docker container located at dist/bin/nova/nova_image.tar to whatever hosing service you want.

Contributing

Accepting PRs, but this project is still in early stages. Documentation is poor at best. See the issues tab for good first issues (although there might not be any at the moment).

Project Structure

The project is organized as a monorepo and has several subpackages:

• nova: The server, client, and engine for NovaJS.
• novaparse: Parses Nova Files and Plug-ins.
• novadatainterface: The interface implemented by novaparse and used by nova. It's a separate package because it made development easier while the project was using lerna to manage its monorepo, but it could perhaps be merged into nova (but this is low priority).
• nova_ecs: The Entity Component System used by NovaJS.

(Why does nova_ecs use snake case while the others don't? I don't actually know. I should change novaparse and novadatainterface into nova_parse and nova_data_interface)

Known Bugs

• Ship velocity scaling is wrong in that ships are far too fast. I think the scale should be 3/10 of what it currently is, but Nova gives a speed boost to the player when they're not playing in strict mode, so I don't know what the actual scale is. Perhaps the coordinate system needs to be redone so that no scaling is needed for non-player ships?
• Beam weapons do not clip after colliding with a target and instead pass through as if they did not collide (more of a feature that hasn't been implemented yet).
• Beam weapons seem to do too much damage.

Unsolved Multiplayer Questions

• How will mission strings that significantly change the universe work?
  • Put people in their respective system for every changed system? But then it's not multiplayer.
  • Put everyone in the same system, but make the planets different based on the state of the universe? But there are fleets...
  • Choose a system randomly and put everyone in it?
    • How do you detect which systems are actually just different instances of the same system (e.g. when you complete a certain storyline, certain systems of a specific government get annexed, but they'd need to remain not-taken-over for other players)?
  • This is probably the biggest proplem with multiplayer support, and I welcome any suggestions.
• How will dates work? Realtime is definitely a bad idea for timing missions since it takes time to read the dialogue. Maybe everyone just has a different date that changes normally (when you jump / land)?
• Will there be some form of chat, and if so, where will it be? Perhaps you need to hail other ships to talk to them? Perhaps it's just in the bottom left info area?
• How will hailing other ships be managed when the game can't just pause at any time?
• How will 2x speed work on a client basis? (It probably just won't and will be a server-configured option).
• How should pilot files be saved? How should deaths be handled?