Welcome to Her Majesty's Sequined Service. Agent 711, your next mission will
involve...
The James Fond Plug-in is designed to combine irreverent humor and satire with
a series of interesting and challenging missions. A total of 59 missions have been written.
Seven missions are repeating missions, and all others are involved in the story line which continually takes twists and turns. The James Fond Plug-in is rich in tactical ideas (i.e.
new weapons and ships). To make life interesting, most of the new toys are for the bad
guys, and it is your job as agent 711 to outwit your better equipped opponents. See the
Features section for details.
Many Honors, Thanks, and Accolades To...
My illustrious beta-testing crew, Steve Skahill (Steven_Skahill@compuserve.com)
and Briccarello Paolo (paolo.briccarello@cselt.it) who went above and beyond the call
of duty by not only testing the new missions for version 3.0, but back-testing all the old
missions and pointing out numerous typos and inconsistencies. The high quality (if I do
say so myself :-) ) of this plug-in is due in large part to their friendly nitpicking.
Thanks guys!
System Requirements
The James Fond Plug-in is designed to run with EV 1.0.5. If you have that
version or higher, you should have no trouble. James Fond is not a large plug-in,
so you should not have to give EV much additional memory for it to run.
Features
A complete listing of resources used is given at the end of this document for the
purposes of catching conflicts with other plug-ins. Two major governments are created
by this plug-in, two worlds are created and one existing world is changed. (The world
affected will be obvious.) There are 25 enemy ship designs (32 designs total), and 19 new weapons. I have taken pity on poor Mr. Fond and made two of the new weapons available
in the form on four new outfits, just to even the odds up a bit.
Other features include, but are not limited to, six new fleets, 27 new personalities,
three new governments and four new systems (one system is obvious, the others will be
revealed at a later time.)
James Fond 1.1 and 2.1 Users
You should have no difficulty using version 3.0, since it picks up where version 2.1
leaves off. You may want to run the new bit clearing missions first, just to be safe.
Difficulty
I have tested and completed every mission, and some of them were nail-biters even for
me, and I wrote them! Fortunately, a well stocked Kestrel is adequate for every mission,
though a more powerful ship would definitely be more comfortable. True daredevils may
want to try their luck in a Corvette. Good luck.
Compatibility
James Fond works unobtrusively with standard EV. As for other plug-ins, I made an
effort to select unused resource ID numbers, but this was not possible for every resource.
Since we're all adults here (or at least most of us), I'm not going to tell you which plug-ins
you can and can't use. Your best strategy is to get a copy of EV Plug-in Auditor and see
if there are any conflicts. Even if there are, they might be minor enough that you can live
with them. Make backups of your pilot files to be safe. You should be doing that anyway.
:-)
A Word About Mission Bits
If you know what mission bits are, skip to the next paragraph. If not, read on. Think
of a mission bit as a flag on a mailbox. This flag can either be up (set) or down (clear).
The status of a mission bit has different meanings to different people. When you go to
mail a letter, you set the mission bit on your mailbox. To you, a set mission bit means
that you have outgoing mail, and that the mailman hasn't shown up. When the mailman
sees that the mission bit on your mailbox is set, he collects your outgoing mail, delivers
any incoming mail, and clears the mission bit. A clear mission bit tells you that the mailman
has been to your mailbox, and you can pick up your incoming mail. Now imagine that
a local prankster is running around the neighborhood, setting and clearing mission bits willy
nilly on everyone's mailboxes. You mission bit might get cleared when it is supposed to be
set, and the mailman won't collect your outgoing mail. These types of conflicts also occur
when multiple plug-ins are used on the same pilot file.
I would like very much for you to be able to use any pilot file regardless of its past history
with other plug-ins. I would also like you to be able to use the same pilot file with other
plug-ins once your are finished with this plug-in, if that is your choice. To that end,
I have written The J.F. Bit Clearer. This handy plug-in has 54 missions, each of which
clears a mission bit used by James Fond. Missions are available at the mission computer
only for bits that are already set, and merely require taking off and landing. If you want to restore your James Fond mission bits to a virginal state, just put The J.F. Bit Clearer in the plug-ins folder, and complete all the missions that appear. (If, after completing all currently available missions, you plan to run any future missions I write, clearing the bits would force you to start over.)
Getting Started
This part is easy. If your pilot file has only been used with standard EV, just drop the
James Fond plug-in into your plug-ins folder, launch EV, and go to the nearest mission
computer. If the purity of your mission bits is suspect, use The J.F. Bit Clearer first. Note
that if you inadvertently place both plug-ins in the plug-in folder, the bit clearing missions
will override the James Fond missions. Unless you want to clear bits, this will be an
annoyance, and you will yank The J.F. Bit Clearer out of that folder. Yes, I designed it that
way, because I care. :-)
For the most part, version 3.0 is robust in its handling of your legal status. If your
record on New Britain is less than stellar, the introductory missions will handle it. There is
one limitation, however. If you have dominated New Britain, you must release it before
using this plug-in. If you don't, you won't be offered anything after the second mission!
If you feel that you are being unjustly ignored for a mission, make sure that you have
a legal status of Decent Individual or higher in whatever system you are concerned about.
Agent 711 is supposed to set an example, after all. ;-)
I Need Help!!!
Please see the included Troubleshooting and SPOILER files.
Version History
James Fond 3.0
- Major release, eight new missions and other features.
- New and improved documentation, especially troubleshooting and spoiler files.
- Updated ship graphics to EV 1.0.5.
- Fixed legal status problems with SPATULA government resource.
- Fixed inconsistencies in existing personalities.
- Added a few new personalities and fleets.
- Fixed innumerable little bugs in mission texts.
James Fond 2.1
- Clarified ambiguous mission summary for "Octosushi II".
- Fixed legal record bug in "The Spy Who Shoved Me II".
James Fond 2.0
- Major release, has many new features.
- Fixed a minor legal status bug in the recruitment mission.
- Decent Individual or better legal status required for most missions.
J.F. Bit Clearer 3.0
- Major release, added new missions to clear bits used in James Fond 3.0.
- Fixed a bunch of really annoying little errors in mission bit numbers
in mission texts that I have absolutely no idea how they got there in
the first place, honest! ;-)
J.F. Bit Clearer 2.1
- Now only shows missions for bits that are set.
(Thanks to Josh Fishman, jmf9936@is4.nyu.edu!)
J.F. Bit Clearer 2.0
- Major release, has new bit clearing missions.
James Fond 1.1
- Fixed a bug causing a SPATULA ship to be on sale at Palshife.
- Fixed a number of typos and misspellings in mission texts.
- Rewrote a few unclear mission texts.
J.F. Bit Clearer 1.1
- Fixed some numbering discrepancies between mission names and descriptions.
James Fond 1.0
- Original release version.
J.F. Bit Clearer 1.0
- Ditto.
Contacting the Author
If you have any comments, suggestions, or bug reports, I can be reached at mbernhardt@hotmail.com.
