Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

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1302 days, 1 hours, 41 minutes ago

Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5:

The editors are using this thread to document their changes. In addition, if someone sees documentation that is in error, missing information, or could use some help, please feel free to post that information here.

Part 4 of this thread (http://planets.nu/#/activity/2311539) has become unavailable due to system problems, so it's time to roll over to a new thread. Please use this thread and not the old one.

Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this thread (http://planets.nu/#/activity/1715309, http://planets.nu/#/activity/1810471 and http://planets.nu/#/activity/1997960) were retired due to excessive length.

1302 days, 1 hours, 40 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Overall status (TTBOMK):

With the exception of the race pages, most of the Classic and Standard games should be documented. The Campaign pages are still in need of more information.

The overall organization needs some additional work, as some of the pages are a bit difficult to locate. A dynamic Table of Contents would help move this task forward, but we have yet to get "buy-in" from the Developers.

There still remain many special cases that are not documented. In addition, there are a lot of low-level details (formulae) that still need to be documented.

1302 days, 0 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Can Empire LDSFs, SDSFs, and NFCs enter a debris disk without being destroyed? Thanks.

1301 days, 23 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Luck,

> Can Empire LDSFs, SDSFs, and NFCs enter a debris disk without being destroyed?

Sometimes. It depends on whether or not it gets hit by the debris.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/adv-debris-disk-defense

1301 days, 17 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Ah, brilliant. I thought I was looking at the Nu docs but I was looking at the wiki. The wiki isn't clear on the subject, but the page you linked is perfectly clear. Thanks.

1301 days, 17 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Luck,

> The wiki isn't clear on the subject, but the page you linked is perfectly clear.

That's why I provided the link containing the information.

Planets.nu doesn't run a WIKI. There are some players who run an off-site (unofficial) WIKI, but they don't appear to have kept it up to date.

With the new documentation project, I don't believe that WIKI is very useful for documentation any more. Perhaps it has some other uses.

1301 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Indeed. The wiki has been falling more and more out of date/sync.

It has grown to be exceptionally messy, and I have not been able to get around to maintaining it lately.

1301 days, 17 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Copy that.

1299 days, 9 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

small correction on http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/fight-or-fail

When a player is killed off, they still retain ownership of their planets.

1299 days, 9 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Got it. Odd; could have sworn I'd fixed that.

1299 days, 7 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Just a quick query about the rob mission and a popper set to POP.

Just had an instance of an out of fuel D19b set to trg and PE set arrive somehow at the point of an MCBR. Didn't go pop as was not cloaked.

I expected a tow so put the D19b on POP.

Next turn it was towed and I did not receive a "you have been boarded" message and it had popped with a message of an exploding MBCR (pity it was not a tow to a wolf pack!).

Not sure if he towed with no board mission or not. But I am right that a popper set to pop will explode if boarded and taken no matter what? Friendly codes are not changed after you take a ship. Possibly worth a note in the documentation but I am not sure where?

1299 days, 2 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It will pop no matter what. It can get stolen before the pop in which case the pirate will get the pbp for popping it and take reduced damage. But at least he wont get the ship.

1299 days, 0 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

I started work on the Badges page. I believe the format looks right. I hope to have some time this weekend to fill it out.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/Badges

I think this should be linked in from the Leaderboard and from the Officer Page description.

1298 days, 17 hours, 26 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Is someone working on the Difficulty modifier page?

My working theory is:

Difficulty = 0.5 + (2.5/121) * (sum of player contributions / number of players)

But I've not tested it yet.

1298 days, 17 hours, 20 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Whisperer
>ARGHHH. I just found out that the badges have different requirements for different races. I need to figure out how to display this information clearly.

Be careful - the targets might change before the Award system goes live.

1298 days, 14 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I just found out that the badges have different requirements for different races. I need to figure out how to display this information clearly.

I think I found a better format. It's in Level 1 (all races have the same requirements). I'll be putting it into Level 2 now.

1298 days, 13 hours, 49 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Difficulty modifier:

Difficulty = 0.5 + (2.5/121) * (sum of player contributions / number of player slots). Rounded down to two decimal places.

The formula above seems to be fairly accurate, but I can't be 100%. I have tested it against 8 starting games.

Note 1: If you are joining as say a Lizard, and your Lizard is your highest officer, it uses your Lizard rank. If you have an officer more than ONE rank higher, it uses the higher rank-1 level. (Not TWO). I'm 95% sure of this.

Note 2: If a player joins a game and then resigns, the difficulty increases according to the first player, but doesn't drop back to where it was. 100% sure of that. If a replacement player then steps in ... really not sure. I think maybe it keeps the original player, but this needs multiple testers to establish.

Note 3: It should be noted that testing this formula is extremely difficult! The difficulty modifier is generated at the start of the game, but I had to look up the current rank of each player to calculate their contribution. I couldn't find a way to see their rank on a given day. It is possible (and likely) that some players had increased in rank since they started the sector. I used brand new sectors to test the formula to try eliminate this issue, but even then if they are playing in other sectors they may have had promotions since joining the unstarted game.

This would lead to a slightly increased calculated difficulty modifier, compared to the listed one. I found this sort of discrepancy in two sectors.

So given that I am 90% sure of the formula, and I am not sure anyone can prove it 100%, is this good enough to put it into the documentation with caveats?

Assuming the formula is correct, I have calculated the following.

all x Midshipmen = 0.5
all x Ensign = 0.52
all x Sub-Lt = 0.58
all x Lt = 0.69
all x Lt-Cmdr = 0.83
all x Cmdr = 1.02
all x Capt = 1.244
all x Commodore = 1.51
all x R-Adm = 1.82
all x Adm = 2.17
all x Fl-Adm = 2.57
all x Emp = 3

As you can see higher ranks add significantly more than lower ranks.

So for players making new games, using the new 0.5/0.75/1/1.25/1.5 Award thresholds, they need the following info:

DM 0.75: Min rank= Lt-Cmdr (Or realistically 70% Lt, plus 30% of Lt-Cmdr+)
DM 1.0: Min rank= Cmdr
DM 1.25: Min rank= Commodore (Or realistically 90% Captain and 10% Commodore+)
DM 1.5: Min rank= Commodore
DM 1.75: Min rank= Rear-Admiral

1298 days, 13 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I think you're probably close, @Singularity. The strange distribution of numbers indicates a high probability of rounding errors -- perhaps it's eleven positions but divided by twelve, for example.

Remember too that Supreme Commander outranks Fleet Admiral and is one (or two) ranks below Emperor.

1298 days, 13 hours, 29 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk

In the posting
http://planets.nu/#/post/new-release-campaign-mode-upgrades-improved-performance

Joshua said:
"The difficulty rating is a value between 0.5 and 3 and will be multiplied by the normal achievements earned. Higher ranks are rated exponentially more difficult. For example a Lieutenant is weighted at rank 3 * 3 = 9 a captain is valued at 25 and an emperor at 121 in their affect on this multiplier. A game of all Emperors would have a rating of 3 and be worth 6X more achievement than an all beginner game at 0.5 difficulty."

From that we have extrpolated the table:
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/difficulty-modifier

Rank Contribution
Midshipman 0
Ensign 1
Sub-Lieutenant 4
Lieutenant 9
Lieutenant Commander 16
Commander 25
Captain 36
Commodore 49
Rear Admiral 64
Admiral 81
Fleet Admiral 100
Emperor 121

Given the data points Joshua gave, and my math today, the table looks correct. I don't see that Supreme Commander gets any more weighting than a Fleet Admiral. Maybe it should be around 110 points. /shrug

1298 days, 13 hours, 27 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hmm note Joshua said Captain = 25. I think he meant Commander. Otherwise it is consistent.

1298 days, 13 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Either that or Joshua himself is mistaken about some aspects. Hm. Examination of MvM games should provide an ideal test bed.

1298 days, 12 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Singularity,

> From that we have extrapolated

I just put that table in today. I think it would be great to add the DM equivalent for all players to that table. Are you up to that, or would you prefer I do it? Most people hate working with tables in raw HTML.

1298 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> the targets might change before the Award system goes live

I expect that only the rank information will change. The requirements were probably arrived at through a statistical analysis of several hundred games, and is unlikely to change.

1298 days, 11 hours, 3 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Whisperer I'm fine working with html tables, but I'm away this weekend.

If you get time would you do it please? If not I will on Monday.

1298 days, 11 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I think I found a better format. It's in Level 1 (all races have the same requirements). I'll be putting it into Level 2 now.

Level 2 is now fully populated, and the rest has the new structure, but the requirements information is bad.

Opinions please.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/Badges

1298 days, 10 hours, 59 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk
>The strange distribution of numbers indicates a high probability of rounding errors -- perhaps it's eleven positions but divided by twelve, for example.

I had some sectors where the math was correct 100% of the time, and some sectors where it was slightly wrong. I think the slight error was players getting promotions since the sector started.

I am 99% sure about the formula, but not about how replacement players work.

It worked on games with as few as 7 players, and as many as 30.

1298 days, 10 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> If you get time would you do it please?

Done.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/difficulty-modifier

1298 days, 10 hours, 52 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Whisperer
>Opinions please

I like the graphics and the text, but I think the tables are getting too large. Do the numbers of planets / ships / starbases really matter in the documentation when players can see it in game and on their officer page?

I was also wondering if a development tree might be a better way to graphically represent this. The main branch being progress up the levels, and the side branches being extra awards you can pick up along the way.

Just brainstorming.

1298 days, 10 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm.

My first reaction, @Whisperer, is that this doesn't need detailed documentation. The necessary information is available by hover-text on a player's officer pages.

Having said that, a catalogue of the medals and _basic_ requirements makes for a useful on-the-fly reference, and a table of those awards absolutely required for promotion -- accompanied by their full requirements -- would be very handy.

I am sorry to have not weighed in earlier, when you were busily working at the task. It is unpleasant to be told when deep in a job that it may be unnecessary, and I do apologize.

1298 days, 10 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> development tree
Interesting idea, @Singularity. I wonder if you could find an example somewhere; what you envision may be very little like I imagine.

Oh: Replacements don't impact Difficulty at all, as I understand it.

1298 days, 10 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I was also wondering if a development tree might be a better way to graphically represent this

I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

> I think the tables are getting too large

The page is at ~26KB. I don't remember if the page limit is 32K or 64K, but I expect I'll find out before this project is done. If I can't find a better way to present the Requirements information, this will probably have to be split up into 3 or 4 pages.

Hmmm. I wonder if I can rotate the headings. That would greatly simplify the tables.

> The necessary information is available by hover-text on a player's officer pages.

Yes, but it's scattered over eleven pages. This puts them all in one place, so that the requirements of various races can be compared, if someone wants to do so.

> I am sorry to have not weighed in earlier

Not a problem. No need to apologize for having a Real Life.

1298 days, 10 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Singularity,

> I think the slight error was players getting promotions since the sector started.

I think the player rank at time of signup is used, not at time of game start. I know that's when the rank check is done, and it would make sense to update the rank/DM pool at that time.

1298 days, 7 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Information contained at; http://planets.nu/#/start/upgrade

I realize you can't edit it, but is it correct in regards to non-premium get only 3 public games? Thought it was 4.

Holiday mode is correct in Documentation if I recall correctly, so could be removed from here as it is non-premium feature as well.

___

For the following two pages;

http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/leaderboard
http://help.planets.nu/leaderboard

http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/site-game-list
http://help.planets.nu/site-game-list

Suggest adding that you have to be Premium at the time invitations are sent out for the Championship to be eligible to play in the Championship.

Noticed Leaderboard one says 'Approximately every six months' and then 'A Championship Match is held every 6-8 months'.

1297 days, 10 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I now have a denser version of the information (see the Level 2 table). The CSS still needs a bit of work, but it's readable and understandable.

Other than the fact that it's too wide (I think I can fix that), does it look better?

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/Badges

1296 days, 14 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The data is all in. I'll verify it tomorrow.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/Badges

1296 days, 9 hours, 59 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Wow, Whisperer, a lot of work. Thanks!
Much easier now to compare the different award prerequisites for the races.

1296 days, 9 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Awesome! Just that kind of overview I am missing!

WOW. Very good and timely achieved. Impressive progress.

May the Badge with you ;-)

1296 days, 2 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> We should document the page size limitation of 64K.

That appears to be gone now, as the Badges page is at 67K.

@Emork,

> Much easier now to compare the different award prerequisites for the races.

As you can see from the comments above, that was one of the primary reasons I created this page. The other is to make it easier to find rank requirements. As a side effect, players can now see all the badges in one place.

I'm still waiting for the developers to add this document to the list of "wide" documentation pages (like the race list), so it doesn't look as nice as it should. For a page that looks better, check out the static version (http://help.planets.nu/Badges).

Please remember that I haven't verified that the data I entered yesterday is correct. That won't happen until late tonight (about 12 hours from now). When that's done, I'll link it into the documents, and announce it in the Badges thread.

@Frostriese,

> Very good and timely

Thanks, but it wasn't as timely as I would have liked - the documentation should have been ready at feature release time. After more than a year, the Developers still have a problem communicating with the Editors :(

1296 days, 1 hours, 45 minutes ago

codo der dritte

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Would it be possible to install a search function in the "how to play" section?

1296 days, 1 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Would it be possible to install a search function in the "how to play" section?

http://help.planets.nu/

1296 days, 1 hours, 39 minutes ago

codo der dritte

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

if i enter "Badges" in that search i won't find your page.

1296 days, 0 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> if i enter "Badges" in that search i won't find your page.

It probably hasn't been indexed yet. I don't know how often the index runs, but you've just demonstrated that it's not real-time.

1294 days, 11 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

We need to know exactly how much "Supreme Commander" contributes to the Difficulty Modifier.

1293 days, 23 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> We need to know exactly how much "Supreme Commander" contributes to the Difficulty Modifier

This information was requested in the Badges thread (http://planets.nu/#/activity/2348732) and received no response.

I checked the Leaderboard (Top Officers), and found no players listed with the rank of Supreme Commander.

It is my belief that this is an honorary rank awarded to players who are in Championship games. Without input from the developers, we might be able to find this out by having Supreme Commanders join games, and watching the DM change.

1293 days, 23 hours, 4 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk
Could you make a 2 player game, join it as Colonies, and tell us the DM with just you in the game please?

1293 days, 22 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I don't count, mate; I'm a Fleet Admiral. But let's see what we get.

1293 days, 22 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

1.53

1293 days, 22 hours, 38 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

DM 1.53 in a 2 player game is the same as you being a Fleet Admiral.

What's weird, as @Whisperer pointed out, is that on the leaderboard you are listed as "Fleet Admiral" but in:

http://planets.nu/#/race/11/officers

you are listed as "Supreme Commander".

So... not sure whether Supreme Commander is worth 100 contribution towards DM or not. :/

1293 days, 22 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> 1.53

That's about right for a Fleet Admiral.

1293 days, 22 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> not sure whether Supreme Commander is worth 100 contribution towards DM or not

To find out, a Supreme Commander with a rank lower than Fleet Admiral would have to run the test.

1293 days, 12 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Try @Spectre - he joined as mercenary and AFAIK is promoted to Supreme Commander without being Fleet Admiral of the Robotic.

@Whisperer: great idea about put active theses badges as requirement for promotion!

1293 days, 11 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Joshua released an update to the ranking. I'm working on integrating these changes into the documentation. This is being done quickly, and it's possible that I'll miss, or mess up, some of it.

The leaderboard page is done.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/leaderboard

1293 days, 11 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Let me know when you're finished and I'll take a look. I may also integrate things into the ToC; I'll be in there late tonight.

1293 days, 11 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I've done as much as I can until the changes for Econ Master and Efficiency King are released in a new client. TTBOMK, all the other changes have been documented, except for the 3%/month achievement loss for inactivity, where your wordsmithing abilities would probably paint a brighter picture.

Did you get the update I PM'ed you this morning for DM? Was it OK?

1293 days, 10 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Aye; works nicely -- though, of course, we'll need to modify it again for Vice Admiral and Fleet Admiral once that change rolls out. Just goes to show, there's always something. :o)

I may drift in later and tune up the last few lines. Words aren't working properly for me today -- vexing.

1293 days, 1 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> We need to know exactly how much "Supreme Commander" contributes to the Difficulty Modifier.

Not any more. That's a dead rank, along with the other "honorary" ranks (Emperor retired and Supreme Commander defeated).

1293 days, 0 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

I went through the recent announcement again, and found/fixed a few entries in the Badges page. The warning paragraph at the top of the page should stay in until the two changed awards (L9/10, T20) are updated (the info isn't available yet).

Please feel free to review the wording (somehow, I don't think you'd like to review the tables ;) ).

1292 days, 23 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> we'll need to modify it again for Vice Admiral and Fleet Admiral once that change rolls out

Big Beefer provided the information, and the page has been updated.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/difficulty-modifier

1292 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

How odd -- that Admiral, Vice, and Fleet all rank the same. I'm sure that won't last.

Ah, well; that's what we're here for. It would be a shame if ever the game stopped evolving; we'd be out of a job.

OK; I'll take another look.

1292 days, 18 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"The remainder of this page is awaiting the arrival of six monkeys, who will bang randomly on keys until a finished masterpiece of documentation is spontaneously generated."

Heh. I'd forgotten that. :o)

1292 days, 18 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> I'd forgotten that

dashboard-advantages
land-disassemble
officer-homeworld

1292 days, 18 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I do like the one in Advantages. Some of that's yours, as I recall. :o)

Are we sure the Elite badges aren't ever awarded to replacements? I'd thought that was changed.

The tables, I think, could be narrowed a hair, but the effect wouldn't be enough to make it worthwhile. Unless we reverse them -- put the races on top and the badges on the side -- I don't see a way to make them fit.

Hm.

Would it be worth trying that? Unsure about coding sideways text in HTML for race names. Moderately sure I've seen it done, though it does seem like a lot of work.

There's a couple of minor typos, but while we're working on the data it's no time to bother with them. It's just commas anyway. I'll mention in the thread before I get digging into the prose, but tonight's not the night for it.

WRT (as you like to say) the Difficulty Modifier: I like how you explain it in terms of a life-cycle. Solid.

Looks like Supreme Commander will continue having a persistence beyond its demise, the which too is fine by me. Effectively, then, getting into a Championship is equivalent to being "frocked" Admiral, and that's good enough for me.

1292 days, 18 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Verified that there's still exhaustive research to be done on Colonize, so the tale of "Omelet" can remain. Minor modification, but military cargo percentages need verification as does Supplies and Colonist conversion.

1292 days, 18 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> Are we sure the Elite badges aren't ever awarded to replacements? I'd thought that was changed.

That's what it was changed to.

> The tables, I think, could be narrowed a hair

Not a problem. I asked BB to add Badges to the list of wide pages. He said it's done, waiting for the next Client release.

1292 days, 17 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Excellent! Then all that's left for me to say is:
Well done, sir!

1292 days, 2 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> He said it's done, waiting for the next Client release

The client was released with updated Badge requirements information, but the update for the badges documentation page didn't go out :(

I send a CONTACT message asking about it.

1292 days, 2 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

I was just reviewing the "minefields" page, to verify that the information provided by Martinr (http://planets.nu/#/activity/2361855) was all in the documentation (it was), and found some comments that I believe are out of date.

Could you please review your comments at the top of the document to be sure that they're all current?

Thanks.

1292 days, 0 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> There's a couple of minor typos

Go ahead and fix them. I've got some real work (I get paid for it) to do today, and probably won't have time for any more Planets.nu documentation today.

1291 days, 23 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I shall do so, and instantly.

1291 days, 22 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. Well, it seems that the "widescreen" version of the Badges page was successfully implemented -- until I had the gall to edit it. :o)

Several innocent commas were, unfortunately, harmed during the editing process, and I've added the word "public". A couple of very minor typos were fixed and I inserted a sentence about Diplomatic Planets for clarification. I'm not entirely certain about that last and am desirous of your opinion.

I mention this not to brag about my comma placement skills but rather to emphasize how very little I needed to do. Again: Well done, sir.

1291 days, 22 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> I've added the word "public".

Good catch, but you left it out of levels 1-4. I added it to those levels, and added the 8-player requirement to all levels.

I think we can call this page done.

1291 days, 21 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> it seems that the "widescreen" version of the Badges page was successfully implemented -- until I had the gall to edit it.

It turns out that the back-end is case insensitive (as per Big Beefer). Right now, if you request the "Badges" page, it will show up in normal mode, but if you request the "badges" page, the same data will show up in wide mode. BB has put together a fix for this, and it will be going out soon.

I just documented the case issue in the AdminInterface page.

1290 days, 21 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Question on propriety:

I host a copy of "The Art Of War" on my blog page. It's my own personal paraphrase of the Giles translation, clarified for idiom, and it's a work in progress -- as I gain insight into a passage, I add notes and alter language to match.

I know that re-writing Sun Tzu is an exercise in extreme arrogance -- but others have done it, and in my opinion not so well, since they either wrote as strategists or as translators and never as both. Even Giles... well, that's a discussion for somewhere else. At any rate, since very few of us read ancient Chinese in the original idiom, I don't feel it to be very much an overstep to attempt a modern paraphrase.

But my question is: Is this a sufficiently useful document to add it to the links in the Documentation? Or is it merely an exercise in arrogance and, potentially, self-aggrandizement?

https://gnerphk.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/the-art-of-war-by-sun-tzu-based-on-the-giles-translation/

1290 days, 20 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I find the use of self aggrandizement to be self aggrandizing. :P

1290 days, 20 hours, 56 minutes ago

redphoenixchaos

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I would say the answer depends on it you intend to include other essential works of strategy as well. If you only include Sun Tzu's work, I believe you would be missing other critical pieces of literature which have significantly added as much if not more to the modern understanding of strategy.

For example, I think it would be extreme arrogance and self-aggrandizement to ONLY include "The Art of War." If, however, you included other works (i.e. "On War" from Clausewitz), it would not only add more helpful and critical documentation to the link but also give a more complete "illustration" of modern day strategy (however one would define it to themselves).

My two cents for what they are worth.

V/R,
RPC

1290 days, 20 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> Is this a sufficiently useful document to add it to the links in the Documentation?

The original Giles translation is no longer covered by British Copyright, so your annotated version isn't a Copyright violation.

I think that it would be fine to post a link to your annotated version, IF there's also a link to a free copy of the Giles translation alongside it. To me, the issue is Conflict of Interest.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Sunzi-ebook/dp/B0084B050M/

1290 days, 18 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Aye; well, I don't aim to write more general strategy guides for here, though I do have two more in sketch form for the Magazine. Once they're complete, collating a list of them would serve that end -- Koski on strategic diplomacy, DTolman on "30 minutes or less", maybe one or two other general articles.

With regard to Clausewitz: Red, I think it's possible that you're just being greedy. :o)

But I can also host the preface to Clausewitz (as opposed to the eleven-volume work, not all of which has been translated for me), "The Prince", Sun Bin's work "On War", Mahan on force projection perhaps, Musashi's "Book of Five Rings" -- This is all doable. I've got the preface to Walden and a speech of Crichton's as well, since they're both very useful as public references, and since (best as I can tell) both are in the public domain. Is there anything else I ought to add?

With regard to a potential conflict of interest: As I'm getting paid neither for the blog nor for the documentation, I see little chance of any interest at all, much less a potential conflict between two interests. :o)

1290 days, 17 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. Apparently, there's no English translation of Musashi in the public domain in the United States. Can anyone find for me a Kanji text?

This is turning into a major project. On the plus side, it's going to be both fun and useful.

1287 days, 16 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@whisperer i'd like to add another bug to the fuel estimation errors page. i am towing a ship that is being repaired via supplies. the deduction of these supplies is not factored into the client's calculation of the towing ship's fuel use. according to host order, step 35 is repair and step 36 is towing ships move. the fuel calculation of the towing ship is using the current combined mass, not the mass after repair.

1287 days, 16 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Some aspects of the game use pre-turn mass numbers.

1287 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

it's still a bug and should be noted appropriately. i'm not arguing it needs to be fixed anytime soon but this is the place to suggest documentation changes.

1287 days, 16 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Jellyfishspam,

Good catch. I knew about that error, but it somehow fell off the list.

Fixed. Thanks.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/FuelEstimateErrors

1286 days, 4 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

How to play section is not accessible currently.

Are you editing it?

1286 days, 2 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr,

It works for me. Please try again.

FYI, editing a page will not make it unavailable.

1286 days, 2 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Not working for me. Control + F5 no better.

Also turned the computer off.

OK will see if it rectifies by itself.

1286 days, 1 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I've tried several pages under How To Play, and they all work for me, with the exception of the Badges page (I contacted the admins about that one).

As an alternative, please try http://help.planets.nu/

1286 days, 1 hours, 20 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Difficulty modifier

It is now using highest previous rank

1286 days, 1 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Singularity,

> Difficulty modifier
> It is now using highest previous rank

Yes. This is the way it's documented. It's also what was described by either Joshua or Big Beefer in one of the recent Badge threads.

http://help.planets.nu/difficulty-modifier

The dynamic page isn't appearing right now. I'm beginning to see the problem Martinr (above) has. This is a system issue, not an issue with the actual documentation.

1281 days, 22 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It appears that when Ship Abilities were split off from the main abilities page, the ownership of the child pages was never updated. I'm working on this.

1281 days, 21 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The basic starship abilities have been completed. Moving to the Campaign starship abilities.

@Gnerphk,

In the Glory Devices page, it states that Radiation Shielding was developed to protect against the Glory Devices, but in the Radiation Shielding page, it says that Radiation Shielding provides no protection against Glory Devices.

Could you please look into this inconsistency?

1280 days, 9 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"Undocumented Feature" or bug?

Onalosman has been trying to deploy a minefield from INSIDE a debris disk. He refers Iron Lady Frigate involved in the incident is fuelled, has torps onboard, mission set to lay mines, FC mda, and then minefield wasn't deployed. He even tried in two consecutive turns. No minefield.

Interestingly, no torps were wasted.

It seems the chief engineer of that Iron Lady is way clever than his commanding officer: Did you say "launch all mines" inside the debris disk, Sir? With due respect Skipper, do you know what could happen if we throw our mines with all these stones dancing around? Aye, Sir, explosions, I see you got it...

As far as I know this behaviour isn't documented in the debris disk page, it says the debris disk "eats" mines overlapping the disk, so the expected behaviour if you deploy your mines from inside the debris is no minefield and torps wasted, but Onalosman confirms no torps were harmed in two consecutive turns.

1280 days, 8 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. Good catch.

Tentatively, I'll pencil it into the documentation and see that it's verified by independent testing. Thanks for mentioning it, mate!

1279 days, 13 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Suggestion: http://help.planets.nu/short-range-fighters

And, http://help.planets.nu/adv-build-fighters

Lacks the ally aspect of 'lfm' info found at: http://help.planets.nu/friendly-codes

And Rebel aspect probably could be worked in or linked to, whatever works.

1278 days, 20 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Glyn - At first glance, I'm not certain that it ought to be repeated in all three, as it's rather cornercase. Perhaps under the advantage page, but I'm not sure even then.

Rebels can use LFM, mind.

1278 days, 16 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Is it known how "Top 3 Finish" badges are interpreted for team games? If you have 6 teams of 2, are the 6 Top 3 Finishers or just 3? If the latter, do the winning two get Top 3 Finish badges even if one of them is not the 2nd or 3rd place by planet count? Thanks.

1278 days, 16 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Luck,

> Is it known how "Top 3 Finish" badges are interpreted for team games?

It has not been made clear in the information Joshua and BB released to the Public, and, TTBOMK, the Editors have received no additional information.

1278 days, 15 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The Top 3 and Top 5 awards look purely at your finishing rank. It is possible to get a Top 3 and not win the game, and vice versa. It is the same for team games, the 3 with the most planets will get the award.

1278 days, 0 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Big+Beefer,

Thank you for the information. It has been added to the documentation.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/Badges

1277 days, 23 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Looks good. You might want to take a look at the end game award descriptions. I updated those a bit ago to clarify the conditions needed to earn them. Also, I dropped the references to military score games. While we awarded badges for those games from the past, they're not really relevant to current games since that setting is not used.

1276 days, 1 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Big+Beefer,

> I dropped the references to military score games

For the documentation, it's very useful if players can use the information to verify their badges. For this reason, the documentation should contain ALL the information, both for current and historical game styles. I do not believe it would be a good idea to remove references to Military Score games from the documentation.

1275 days, 22 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Big+Beefer,

I was adding notes to the Badges page to clarify the various End Game badge award conditions, and received the following error:

Data too long for column 'Data' at row 1 at GeoTools.DataAccess.DataAccess.ExecuteNonQuery() at GeoTools.DataAccess.DataAccess.Insert(BaseObject obj) at PlanetsAPI.AdminActions.savedoc(Account account, Int64 languageid, String key, String title, String data) in c:\dev\PlanetsAPI\v2\AdminActions.cs:line 161

Apparently I hit the maximum size for the page. Could you please clarify that limit? I know it's >64KB, as we've been past that for some time.

Is there any way to enlarge that limit a bit?

1275 days, 20 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The latest (saved) version of the badges pages was about 700 chars under the 64K limit, so it makes sense you bumped into it trying to add more. But I went ahead and expanded the storage limit for the doc fields, so you shouldn't have any more problems with it.

1275 days, 16 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Big+Beefer,

> The latest (saved) version of the badges pages was about 700 chars under the 64K limit

Interesting. When I put it into NotePad and saved it, it was over 70KB. I guess this could be LF - CR/LF translations.

A few notes were added to clarify the requirements for the End Game badges. I believe it now gives full information on when the badges are awarded.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/Badges

1275 days, 16 hours, 31 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Talk in a recent thread has necessitated I ask a question regarding which hull functions work with no fuel.

I know the following work:
* Alchemy (all forms)
* Glory Device (also all forms)
* Planet Immunity
* Ramscooop

I am not so sure about the following:
* Radiation Shielding
* Command Ship

And... I am quite sure that functions not listed do not work with no fuel present.

Reference: http://planets.nu/#/activity/2392283

1275 days, 15 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@CSY,

> Radiation Shielding

IIRC, Radiation Shielding is an inherent property of the ship. I expect it would work without fuel.

> Command Ship

Which function?

1275 days, 15 hours, 9 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

>Radiation Shielding
I also had a feeling Radiation Shielding would still work with no fuel, but I am not certain.

>Command Ship
Iron Lady Command Ship

1275 days, 14 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@CSY,

The out-of-fuel page has been updated with the information you provided.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/out-of-fuel

1275 days, 12 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> The out-of-fuel page has been updated with the information you provided.

I also added Partial Planet Immunity (http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/adv-partial-planet-immunity).

If anyone can verify that Radiation Shielding (http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/radiation-shielding) works with no fuel it would be useful.

Also, it would be useful to know which, if any, of the abilities of a Command Ship (http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/command-ship) work without fuel.

1275 days, 12 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Big+Beefer,

I believe that the ship list (http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/racesheet) needs to be updated. The SSD should have Planet Immunity added.

Thanks.

1275 days, 11 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Good catch. Updated.

1275 days, 10 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Command ship does not work without fuel. I remember there was some testing done a while back and it was confirmed. Radiation shielding does work without fuel.

1275 days, 2 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Big+Beefer,

Thanks you for the quick update.

@Siggi,

Thank you for the new information. It has been added to the out-of-fuel page.

1274 days, 8 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Homeworld distribution on the map

I was just wondering how the homeworlds are distributed on the map of a game I am in. I did not see the info in the game description text and the codes in the settings are not self-explanatory. So I started three private games to decipher the code and here is the result:

hwdistribution: 1 random spaced
hwdistribution: 2 circular
hwdistribution: 3 left and right

Maybe that would be helpful information for the doc

1274 days, 0 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Where is the Documentation on waypoint headings being visible to enemies? Either it needs adding or made easier to locate.

1273 days, 11 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Minor suggestion:

http://help.planets.nu/host-order
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/host-order

Step 87, "Send Player to Player Messages", should say something more along "Send messages to players without Open Communication"

Or '...players without Ambassador'.

1273 days, 4 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Apologies for delay; vacation.

@Glyn: There have been some changes to this, and personally I'm awaiting the next one before I document. Yes, messages presently are transferred here in the Host, but there's no restriction intrinsic to the process that they _must_ be immediately transferred to players with other diplomatic settings.

My anticipation, based on a VERY old tasks list, is that a player-selectable option may be introduced to opt to revert to the original style of diplomatic messaging, to wit: at the end of every turn. Given the present "Lone Wolf" or "Knight Mode" player preference trend (odd though I find it), such an alteration seems not at all unlikely.

As such, no alteration to Host Order is required; if I'm right, it may even be counterproductive.

On the other hand, the Diplomacy and Message documentation could take some clarification on the subject. If there's bad weather, unpleasant relatives to be avoided, or unexpected downtime, I may get to it sometime in the next couple of weeks; otherwise, if you'd be willing to remind me with a message in early March, this is something I'd like to do.

1271 days, 20 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Strangelove007,

> Homeworld distribution on the map

Documentation updated.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/customization

1270 days, 16 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

As I understand things from the posts in the applicable threads, "Top 3" has nothing whatsoever to do with game format. It's simply the top 3 players period. Win, place, and show -- and everyone else just finishes.

I believe it's possible, in a "Teams of 3" game, for one team to earn a "Win" medal and three other players in separate teams to each get "Top 3" places. It would be an extremely odd result, but I think it's a possible one.

1270 days, 16 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> "Top 3" has nothing whatsoever to do with game format

Big Beefer recently clarified that this is the top three (or five) players by planet count, even for a Military Score game.

> I believe it's possible ...

I believe you are correct. I also believe that the notes recently added to the badges page reflect that possibility, although it's not explicitly stated. Please feel free to update the wording to clarify this, if you wish.

1270 days, 15 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Nope; you've got it marked down fine, mate. Perhaps I misresponded somewhere.

1268 days, 18 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I just updated the Arctic Colonies advantage, adding a link to the climate page, and adding that the colonists don't increase in number.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/adv-arctic-colonies

1264 days, 1 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The documentation inconsistency of "defense posts" vs. "defense outposts" has been resolved. I just changed all the instances of "defense outposts" to "defense posts". This removes a potential source of confusion.

In the process, I also corrected numerous small issues with the various pages I had to work on. The largest of those issues was the structure decay rate. TTBOMK, they are all consistent now (1 structure per turn decay when inadequate colonists, 3 structures per turn decay when no colonists).

1263 days, 21 hours, 18 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I could have sworn your structures were subject to the FULL decay rate if you were underpopulated. However, if a certain structure count is over the limit by less than the decay rate, then you simply lose the excess structures. This decay rate applied, whether colonists were present or not.

It does not help that the decay rate was adjusted TWICE during December 2013 (assuming the change was not retroactive). Originally, this setting was ONE. Games that were made in between December 13 and December 21 had a decay setting of FIVE. Games made after December 21 have the current decay setting of THREE.

1263 days, 20 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@CSY,

Thanks. With all those changes, I'll have to test, and see what the current reality is.

I believe the pages that contain the structure decay information are: climate, colonist-clans, defense-outposts, factories, Overpopulation and planetary-structure-building.

1263 days, 13 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> With all those changes, we should test, and see what the current reality is.

I have verified that the structure decay rate for mines and factories is 3 per turn, and I assume that the rate for defense posts is also 3.

1263 days, 4 hours, 50 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Good to hear. You can check an individual game's decay rate by going to the settings and look for: structuredecayrate

1256 days, 17 hours, 42 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://planets.nu/#/activity/2426628

Effect of damage to starbases. Doesn't seem to be documented anywhere?

1256 days, 17 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I did a quick search and only found this;

http://help.planets.nu/starbase-commands

"Orders
Repair Base: The starbase will repair damage previously done to it by enemy starships at a rate of 5% per turn."

This was brought up last year in an older Doc Edit thread, so it may just be misplaced or removed since then.
____

Tangent suggestion:
http://help.planets.nu/starbase-defense-and-fighters

Maybe mention order fighters are destroyed in (defense post generated ones vs starbase fighters).

1256 days, 13 hours, 17 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I've started working on a Ship vs Planet and Ship vs Starbase page. Should have a draft up on Monday.

1255 days, 23 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Singularity: Be very careful about taking too much from Jan's "Master At Arms"; it's copyrighted content.

I'm very anxious to see your drafts, sir. Could I impose on you for a private preview?

1255 days, 19 hours, 34 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@G I'm doing my own research, not using copyrighted materials.

Preview - sure.

1255 days, 18 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Feel free to use anything of mine, mate.

1253 days, 20 hours, 55 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Do we have a better name for the starbases built in radiation halos? I feel we need one.

The starbases on planetoids are officially called "Mining Stations". Normal starbases have no specific name, but don't really need one beyond "Starbase".

The documentation skirts round the lack of a name in several places with "special starbases" and "these starbases" which I find an inadequate.

They are superior to normal startbases and "special" can mean in a positive or negative way.

So, what about:
Hardened Starbases
Enhanced Starbases
Shielded Starbase
Radiation Shielded Starbases
Halo Starbase

Ideas?

1253 days, 19 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I'd have just called it a Heavy Starbase and be done with it, but Shielded, Hardened, or Halo/Radiation Halo would also make sense.

We do not have an official name, however.

1253 days, 18 hours, 58 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Heavy starbase is also nice. I'll await other suggestions if anyone else would like to suggest something better.

@Big+Beefer Are you ok with us making up a formal name for the docs? Or do you want to name it yourself / leave it undefined?

1253 days, 18 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I've got no better ideas than above, but I think the main starbase page should have links to the pages where the other starbases are defined.

1253 days, 17 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Singularity: Joshua framed them as 'special' and 'specialized'...

http://planets.nu/documentation/star-clusters

http://planets.nu/documentation/debris-disks

Also said 'heavy shielding' of the radiation halo starbases. Robots can't build them, so I vote 'Shielded Starbase'... plus then you recall it relates to radiation easier.

Good catch btw.

1253 days, 15 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. OK; I got it:
"Special Snowflake Starbases"

:o)

According to doc SOP, we're required to follow the lead of the Dev Team, so if Beefer of Joshua gives us a name, that's the name we go with. Otherwise, we use what we use.

1253 days, 8 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Looking through the default config I note some of these fixed variables are not so fixed :-).

Ion storm numbers are not always 4, scan range etc can be adjusted in all games.

Cloak costing no fuel has a few campaign ships to add to the list.

And possibly a few more.

Is this one of the pages you cannot adjust?

1253 days, 2 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

That page can be fixed. I'll look at it later today (I hope).

1251 days, 16 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

This is in relation to; http://help.planets.nu/officer-homeworld

Suggest new article for; "Campaign Resources"

Many pages refer to "Campaign Resources"... such as;

http://help.planets.nu/difficulty-modifier

...and a great many of the Advantages in the form of, "and can be researched with Campaign resources"

Joshua has just referred to them as resources, the community has mostly used 'campaign resources' in the past. I haven't seen one of the 'earned resources' emails in a long time, so I'd also take a look at what wording is used in them too.

I'd stick with capitalizing both words... or maybe not a bad time to reconsider the name, perhaps 'Officer Resources'... or 'Unlock Stuff Resources', whatever floats yer boats.

1251 days, 16 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Definitely "Campaign Resources" at present. As I understand it, there's still some minor tweaks planned.

1248 days, 1 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

After noticing an error in a player's Tenacity rating, I added a paragraph to the Aging section of the Tenacity page. Details are in the comments.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/tenacity

1248 days, 1 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I think we should preserve links to Luck's comics in the documentation. Could we add a section on "Other Player Contributions". This would be similar to the Guides section.

Ideas?

1247 days, 21 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Jeez. Ya know, @Whisperer, that's a concept that troubles me more than somewhat.

You're right; there should be an archive with easy access. Since there's no stickys here in the Feed, and since we have the power in the documentation, that seems to be a solid choice.

But it's really not what the "How To Play" section was designed to do.

At the moment, I'm militantly ambivalent on the subject. Give me a bit to get used to the idea and... well, and I'll still probably be opposed; let's face it: I'm hopelessly inflexible about some things. But hey; it's worth a try.

1247 days, 21 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> there should be an archive with easy access

That's what I was asking about.

> that's a concept that troubles me more than somewhat

I'm not happy with it either, but I'm less happy with this good information rolling off the bottom of the news feed, becoming lost.

> it's really not what the "How To Play" section was designed to do

Agreed. I'm thinking that it should be there, until we can find a better place. I look at this as the best choice we have, but neither of them are all that good.

It is my hope that, as this collection grows (which I expect it to), the Admins will see the need and provide us with a way to split it off.

1246 days, 17 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I looked at that page (http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/default-config) and found a LOT of format errors.

I've finished reformatting the page. I may have added some typos. If anyone notices any, please inform us.

1246 days, 17 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Impressive. I'll take a quick look.

1246 days, 15 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. What would you say to us adding BLOCKQUOTEs for the commentary texts? Mostly I like this, but it's kinda wall of text. Can't concentrate well enough to proof but that could just be me -- last scraps of fever and fatigue.

Also: Finding it difficult to access the Combat Planet thingie, for obvious reasons.

Working some more on the Annotated Host here at home. I think, now we've seen some of the egregious holes plugged, that it might be more useful than harmful. What's your thought on that, @Whisperer?

1246 days, 0 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> What would you say to us adding BLOCKQUOTEs for the commentary texts?

I think I can do this with a STYLE section at the top of the page.

> Combat Planet thingie

???

> Working some more on the Annotated Host

The more that the players can find on the Host process, the better.

1246 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> What would you say to us adding BLOCKQUOTEs for the commentary texts?

Done.

1243 days, 16 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Rules doc page modified per admin request:
- Oxford Comma added to text of Rule 1 for clarity.
- Reporting procedure text modified and streamlined. It was clunky; my bad.
- Contact link made live; site documentation on "Contact" now has a parallel link but is not exclusive.
- Feed topic removal referenced.

@Whisperer: I like it much better. Thanks. I'll start working on typos again -- and yes, there are a few, but some of these are probably a lot older than your recent intervention. Not all your fault, mate. :o)

1243 days, 12 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> Reporting procedure text modified and streamlined

It looks good. I assume they provided exact text.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/rules

1243 days, 12 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Say rather "precise guidance".

1243 days, 12 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> I'll start working on typos again -- and yes, there are a few

I'm not surprised. I was concentrating on formatting and uniformity. I'm guessing that they're split about 50/50 (new/old typos).

If you could add a meaningful paragraph to each H2 section, I'd appreciate it (I never ran a VGAP3 Host). That would keep me from having to add a STYLE block for the H2 tag. The problem is that there's no vertical space between the H2 and H3 headers, and I don't like the way it looks.

1243 days, 11 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Oh, I'd meant it to mean that it's going to be an ongoing project. I'll tag in when I'm editing and back out when I'm finished.

Hm. Perhaps just adding an HR tag. It's archaic but useful.

1243 days, 11 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Perhaps just adding an HR tag

Please don't do that. The STYLE change is simple, and I believe it will look better.

1243 days, 11 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Well -- I've tried a BR; if you prefer it back the way it was or some other way, feel free. STYLE is rather more than I care to indulge in.

I'm done for the night, I think.

1243 days, 3 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I couldn't get the STYLE to work properly. I'll look at it again latter, after I finish waking up.

1243 days, 2 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Style fixed for H2 tag.

For formatting that effects the entire document, I prefer to use a STYLE tag at the top of the document. This makes it easier to change later, without going through the whole document looking for the tags that need to be changed. It also makes it obvious that special formatting has been applied to the document (most have no need for this), and that extra care should be taken to keep from messing up the formatting.

1242 days, 23 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> People are wondering if in the above two scenarios, if they can be scooped

I saw this in the original thread (http://planets.nu/#/activity/2451849).

Good question. I don't have time to do a test. If someone posts a verified answer, the documentation should be updated.

> I suggest tacking on "or minescooped."

It would be in error then. Only the owner of a minefield can scoop it. Diplomacy has nothing to do with scooping.

1242 days, 23 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

MSC being a parallel thing of minesweeping, probably just keep minescoop information together at the bottom as it currently is, rather than tacking it on like I suggested... which would avoid adding the redundant information.

It is one of the classic common questions though, how to minescoop Robot mines to take advantage of the 4x lay bonus... already covered at the end as Whisperer referenced.

1242 days, 23 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I assume its as its a function of minesweeping it will not work in an ion storm as minesweeping does not work.

1242 days, 22 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr: I think that as well, but better safe than sorry.

1242 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The only aspect of this that I haven't tested recently has been fighter-scooping by the Colonies. Aside from that, scooping follows sweeping.

I recall a glitchy period a while back where scooping actually worked sometimes around ion storms. My belief is that ion storm locations were being misreported on the map rather than that there was an alteration in the logic. This would have been 2-3 years ago, and the game is one of those that's been lost -- too bad, since I won -- came in second, I think -- alongside my Lizard ally.

1242 days, 7 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

OK I have just set up a private game to check out the scooping minefields in an ion storm. Would have finished last night but host stalled.

Sent 2 pairs of Cobols in search of ion storms.

First attempt minefield centre was just covered by the ion storm and I then put my ship on scoop. The ion storm moved further over the minefield centre and it scooped up some mines. In the turns following with the ion storm covering most of the minefield it stopped.

This was repeated with another Cobol in another ion storm and happened again.

Ion storm was shown to be over the centre of the minefield. I then set the ship to sweep and scooped up some mines. The following turn it did not work.

Admin can have a look at http://planets.nu/#/sector/173706 if need be.

Looks like it has one turn of the ion storm being over the minefield centre before it becomes unsweepable.

Or the centre and edge of the ion storm are not exactly where they are.

1242 days, 3 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr,

> Looks like it has one turn of the ion storm being over the minefield centre before it becomes unsweepable.

That COULD be because it's your minefield and the most recent scan is recent enough, but I think it could also be a bug.

At this point, we don't really know whether or not Ion Storms are supposed to keep minefields from being scooped, although the indication is that they are.

We'll wait for the Developers to get back to you on this. I hope you used the CONTACT button to notify them of the issue and request clarification.

1242 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I have sent a contact now.

1241 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

You can still scoop your mines, even if they are otherwise hidden by an ion storm. I looked at your test game, Martinr and it seemed that all worked as expected unless I missed something. After scooping the first time, the ship's mission and/or FC weren't set to scoop on subsequent turns, so that's why it didn't happen.

1241 days, 12 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Big+Beefer,

Thank you for the information.

I assume that what "really" happens is that the minefield communicates with the owner, even through the noise of the Ion Storm, and allows itself to be scooped. Other races can't scan the minefield, and see the encrypted communications as noise.

1240 days, 9 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/cloak
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/cloak

"starship with Advanced Cloaking does not use fuel while cloaking."

Suggestion: Exchange out 'use' for 'consume.'

Or 'burn' like in;

http://help.planets.nu/advanced-cloak
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/advanced-cloak

1240 days, 2 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Glyn,

> Suggestion: Exchange out 'use' for 'consume.'

Done in both the Cloak and Advanced Cloak pages.

1240 days, 2 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The "Guide to Identification of Farming Games" has now been released. It contains information that's not in my previous post about farming games (http://planets.nu/#/activity/2431723). It also contains explanations as to what can be done with the parameters, which explains why I consider them to be indicative of farming.

This guide still needs a little work (mainly links added), but I believe it covers the majority of what it needs to. Comments are welcome, preferably in PM.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/g-game-farming

As a guide, this document expresses opinion.

The next guide I'll be working on is a guide to creating custom games.

1238 days, 20 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

From http://planets.nu/#/activity/2459230

Where is the bonus for a right-hand ship with a left-hand carrier documented? IIRC, you were handling the combat docs.

1238 days, 6 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Not sure that it can be found; unfortunately, I lack the time to go through it all at present. My advice is to leave it for now since the docs do reference Master At Arms as well as the Planets Mag guides on the subject. This would be unnecessary if How To Play were complete; for it to become complete would require a great deal of time and attention, and I lack both at present.

Great care will need to be taken if a detailed description of these phenomena is attempted; quantifying the hit-recharge and the combat mass equations is problematic due to the non-random combat table combined with unforeseen interactions. In my opinion, they are best expressed from results rather than derived.

My next scheduled task is the Annotated Host. Once that is complete I'll devote some time to these questions.

1233 days, 12 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Ion Storms of equal power don't merge I've read... were gonna have a hard time testing that... (blank stare in Big Beefers direction)... so something to keep an eye out for.

1233 days, 3 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/friendly-codes
http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/friendly-codes

Suggest capitalizing 'full alliance' under LFM, as has been adopted elsewhere in Documentation.

Suggest dropping 'case' for 'capitalization', and 'bear' for 'keep' in the following sentence; "Bear in mind that any case combination of these codes will have the desired effect"

Suggest dropping the repetitive superfluous, "Use of this Friendly Code".

Entire page should get an overhaul with a focus on minimalism to better serve as a quick lookup for FCs in general.
_______

http://help.planets.nu/gather-missions
http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/gather-missions

"The planet must either be unowned, or owned by the player controlling the starship or a full ally"

Suggest improving it to something along the lines of ; "The planet/planetoid must either be unowned, or owned by the player controlling the starship or a Full Alliance mode ally."

However I'm not convinced you don't have to match FC for Full Alliance planets... yeah it works for 'LFM', but not Beam Up missions;

http://planets.nu/discussion/beam-up-fuel-from-allied-planets

I recall Big Beefer clearing this up recently... I don't recall with much certainty but I thought he re-iterated you have to match FCs.

1233 days, 3 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/super-refit
http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/super-refit

"so if a starship build uses the refitting starship's parts, the Super Refit mission will not take place."

Suggest that this aspect of a queued ship build 'hogging' parts could be communicated better.

1233 days, 2 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/short-range-fighters
http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/short-range-fighters

Suggest capitalizing 'friendly codes' link.

Suggest in addition to, "A starbase can hold up to 60 fighters", mention special starbases for radiation halos hold 80 fighters and Mining stations hold 20 fighters.

Suggest turning "Build Fighters" into a link to; http://help.planets.nu/adv-build-fighters

Suggest mentioning Defense Posts contributing to amount of fighters, or at least link to here; http://help.planets.nu/defense-outposts-details

____

http://help.planets.nu/adv-build-fighters
http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/adv-build-fighters

Suggest mentioning that Rebel ships with fighter bays automatically convert resources into fighters without the Mission or FC set to do so.

1233 days, 2 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Traveling now but reading what you've written it mostly seems reasonable.

I do like the phrase "bear in mind" as more expressive in certain situations, but of course without investing more time and tech than is available I can't speak to the specific.

1233 days, 1 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk: Apparently translators can handle some idioms!

Should have known Germans would have a single word for, 'bear/keep in mind'... berücksichtigen!

1233 days, 1 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I love German. They can pretty much combine a long string of any words into one and it's automatically considered a proper word. Farfegnugen, done! (Yes I know it's not that simple, but as an American it seems like it)

1233 days, 0 hours, 23 minutes ago

qinic

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

No it actually is that simple :)

1232 days, 22 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I was looking over the information on massive meteor impacts, and it seems to be generally missing specific information on the outcome for the planet inhabitants. Donovan's has a pretty good page on it, so this is not critical... but I wasn't sure if that information aligns with Nu.

I just experienced one on a well established world and had the following occur (for what it matters):

92.25% loss of colonists (49% loss in happiness)
76% loss of natives (19% loss in happiness)
80% reduction in max mines allowed
50% reduction i max factories allowed
70% reduction in defense posts allowed

Donovan's claims an almost completely random outcome (0-100%) on all factors... is this true here?

1232 days, 22 hours, 23 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It is perfectly possible that the damage is all random like in VGA Planets 3.

For another example: http://planets.nu/#/sector/42792
Lizards - turns 23-24

Granted, the planet had no mines to lose at the time of impact... but the colonist loss is extremely smaller.

1232 days, 22 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Interesting. If this occurred in the Die Hard Team game could you provide the planetary ID so that we can help investigate this matter more fully?

DB

1232 days, 21 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Lord+Pollax,

> I was looking over the information on massive meteor impacts, and it seems to be generally missing specific information on the outcome for the planet inhabitants.

That's because we don't know what the outcome is. If players would PM the details to me, I could put it together and analyze it.

> Donovan's has a pretty good page on it, so this is not critical... but I wasn't sure if that information aligns with Nu.

I expect that Planets.nu results would be similar, but it's impossible to know unless one of the Developers speaks up, or we analyze a lot of data.

1232 days, 21 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Why I'm touched with your concerns! Your race's generosity in this game has already been outstanding, and the receipts for your charitable tax deductions of ships to the Homeless Crystal Crewmen Fund are in the Galactic Mail Service. Your team's giving nature surely is worthy of a badge of some kind.

Our "Donation Webs" will be accepting aid for this hapless world 24/7; just drive right in and let me know where you would like your donation receipt sent. Homeworld and phone number required, no Post Office boxes allowed.

100% of all donated ships will go to benefiting those poor suffering survivors**. Don't wait... drive in now before taxes are due and apply those gifts to 2015.

**Increasing my happiness increases the likelihood of me aiding those poor wretches, whether they be in this game or any other game. So you can contribute to their aid no matter what game they are in. What a country!

1232 days, 11 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> Would you happen to know where the bonus for a right-hand ship with a left-hand carrier documented can be found in the documentation?

I added it to the Combat Basics page.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/combat-basics

> Suggest mentioning that Rebel ships with fighter bays automatically convert resources into fighters without the Mission or FC set to do so.

I believe that would fit better in the Rebel race description page. The various advantages shouldn't be different for one race vs. another. Of course, it's also possible that an enhanced version of the build fighters advantage is a better choice.

> Ion Storms of equal power don't merge I've read

Link please. We probably won't actually do anything about this until we get around to writing a page that covers ion storm details, as it's such a rare occurrence.

> Entire page should get an overhaul with a focus on minimalism to better serve as a quick lookup for FCs in general.

I don't agree. In many cases, this is the only place where the FCs are discussed in detail.

> I'm not convinced you don't have to match FC

For the vast majority of the documentation (everything except the Guides), we try our best to document FACT, not belief. If you can show us FACT, we'll pay attention to it. A sector link, along with player and turn will do, unless we can find an experienced Planets.nu player to verify it.

1231 days, 3 hours, 30 minutes ago

meteor

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

On the "General Information" page, "Scripts and plugins" is mentioned but the hyperlink is not set.

1231 days, 3 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

That's correct, @Meteor. The pages were due to be placed under construction a while back, but somehow they stalled out. I believe that neither @Whisperer nor myself has the requisite expertise.

1231 days, 3 hours, 17 minutes ago

meteor

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Sorry, I don't understand.
I'm not talking about any content of the page.
Just that the link in the "directory" page "General information" is not actually set to the existing sub-page.
I thought that you could set hyperlinks?

1231 days, 3 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

We can. Apologies; misunderstood your question.

1228 days, 22 hours, 25 minutes ago

the green knight

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

In the race description and the advantages of the Fascists it says that pillage takes 20% of the population, but it does bit more +20 clans of colonists +100 clans of natives. This information is available, but not so easy to find for a first time fascist player. Could you update the advantage description?

1228 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@The Green Knight
Done. Thanks for pointing it out.

1224 days, 4 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

From http://planets.nu/#/activity/2485608 (because this discussion belongs here):

> this is the sort of thing we should comment.

I've been trying to do that, but I'm human, and sometimes miss one.

> good to mention that it's a difference from the original game

It's in the VGAP differences page. In fact, there was a link there, but, for some reason, it didn't function any more.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/VGAP-3-differences

1224 days, 3 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I updated the OP to have valid links to the old threads. They're no longer accessible by the Activity path, and need to be accessed through the Discussion path.

1223 days, 2 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I've put together a list of the various videos from the two Planets.nu Conferences in Europe. Where should these be posted?

1222 days, 4 hours, 4 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Referencing the meteor discussion from roughly two weeks ago:

I endured another massive meteor, this time in one of my single-player levels. Here are the losses this time:
* 65% of the colonists died (happiness dropped by 69%)
* 25% of the natives died (happiness dropped by 64%)
* Roughly 10% of the factories were destroyed (only 10 were installed at the time)
* I had no mines or defense posts to lose, so I could not calculate those

1222 days, 3 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@CSY,

I believe that the only good way I'll get the amount and quality of information needed to analyze this is to "scrape" the site. This would involve downloading the full history of ALL the games, which will consume a LOT of time and bandwidth. As I believe this is already being done by another player, I'll contact them to see if that information could be made available to me.

1222 days, 2 hours, 46 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Agreed. That is an extremely tall order even with the assistance of Nu Replayer and ZIP archives.

Yet, it has been several months since the last update. There are still a few bugs that need fixed before I can release it.

1221 days, 21 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Suggestion: Create a spot for an explanation of the Score score. I see it is called 'Raw Score' here; http://help.planets.nu/scoreboard

Classic Score might be better name, as it is NOT raw data at all, but a pointless relic summation of raw data... that makes it processed by definition.

1221 days, 21 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I might just change it to Score. My note on the three pages that reference the subject tell me there's a query outstanding on whether Score is to become a valuable metric; my message log shows a response noted as "wait and see".

So detailed documentation, if desired, will wait for that. Minor changes to the extant text will be considered.

1221 days, 21 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk: It would be nice if Big Beefer just got rid of it... tossed it into the VGAP3 differences file to be forgotten.

1221 days, 19 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It would be improper for me to express agreement with your opinion, Glyn. Outside my wheelhouse, so to speak. :-)

1221 days, 1 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

OK: I've decided that we need to adopt a couple of new working definitions. This is my proposal:

"Bug" should be used only to refer to known but uncorrected situations where unforeseen consequences can create an advantage. Deliberately using a "Bug" for gain is considered (by us, at least) to be an "Exploit", and therefore against the rules.

"Glitch" is non-pejorative, and refers to anything that either doesn't impact game results or cannot (so far as we can tell) be easily used for personal gain.

"Suspected Bug", "Complex Interaction", or other lesser term should be used in any case where the unintended consequence is officially permitted. "Glitch" can be used in this situation, but it's imprecise and should be avoided.

Reasoning: Once upon a time, the term "Gentleman" referred to a male individual who, by virtue of birth, was not required to perform any form of labor to earn a living. While originally only the landed nobility was truly gentility, the term was eventually expanded to include hereditary lords-of-the-manor, and then extended to cover anyone with inherited money and a large house. Sometime in the late Victorian age, it became a descriptor for anyone with the manners of a gentleman, and now it is used only as a compliment. The language already having a superfluity of compliments, the word "gentleman" has been transformed from a useful descriptor into something almost meaningless.

Continuing from this point, it seems worthwhile to use specific meaning where practicable to any standard descriptor. Where ambiguity exists but can be corrected, it is often useful to standardize by fiat. This is the intention.

Open for comments.

1221 days, 1 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

What about:

"Feature" This is sometimes called a bug by certain people but as it happens in a set way all the time it is intended and not a bug. It may be illogical or work in a different way to other certain criteria but as it happens under set conditions it is a feature and not a bug.

Eg it is documented in racekill that the less than 1% military score does not cause the ships to be removed. I think this should be documented as a feature as it happens all of the time and seems to be designed this way. I think its been proved by gifting a ship to a previously open dead race that took it above the 1% and the ships were removed. But that is from memory of a forum post and I have not seen it myself.

1221 days, 0 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Heh. "Undocumented Feature" is a good term, with a long and glorious history in software development. I like it.

On a related note: The "Dead" mechanism has now been documented and linked in. There are some interactions that have not been fully researched, at least not by me; the act of dying, after all, is a difficult one to put through repeated and exhaustive testing.

Any discussion on the issue would be welcome.

1220 days, 23 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> "Undocumented Feature" is a good term

No. It's a cop-out. It exists because of people without the courage to say that something is a bug.

> Any discussion on the issue would be welcome

Have you tried the training games? The higher level games are more than willing to kill you.

1220 days, 6 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Have non-interceptable waypoints been documented yet?

http://markdepot.com/intercept.html

Ongoing discussion: http://planets.nu/#/activity/2494452

1220 days, 5 hours, 59 minutes ago

ficklid

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

With respect to cloning, I could not find this info in the documentation: In order to clone a ship its speed must be set to a speed higher than warp 0. When set to warp 0 cloning will not happen.

1220 days, 5 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

i'm not aware of that being a requirement to clone. i'll admit to not having clone in a long time but as far as i know, the only thing that happens with regard to speed is that it is reset to 0 after cloning happens. perhaps that is what you are referring to?

that piece is documented here: http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/adv-clone-starships

1220 days, 5 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

>Ficklid

To clone you do not need a warp speed greater than 0 to clone a ship. Any speed will do. I have just gone through a number of my games and found a ship at 0 warp the turn it was cloned.

What happens is if a ship is successfully cloned then the cloning ship warp is set to zero.

1220 days, 5 hours, 7 minutes ago

ficklid

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Odd. I was trying to clone a ship in a game and nothing would work until I changed the speed from warp 0 to warp 9. That is the only parameter I changed. After the clone the speed is reset to 0, and I would have to change the speed to warp 9 again to allow cloning to occur. This is in a standard game. I would test it again, but we are too close to the ship limit to miss a build.

1220 days, 4 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

are you sure you had enough mc and minerals on the planet to clone? remember that it takes twice the mc for the build - this includes cost of engines and weapons as well.

1220 days, 4 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Here is my game.

http://planets.nu/#/sector/82000

Player A turn 19 / 20

FCC arrived by towed MCBR. I did not change the warp and it cloned the next turn.

This was a team game before the ship limit was reached.

1220 days, 3 hours, 10 minutes ago

ficklid

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Yes, I had far more of everything than I needed. No idea what is happening. I've decided to try it again and set warp to 0. Let's see if it clones this time. Nothing else is changed from last turns cloning except speed. In the interest of Planets.nu! :)

1220 days, 2 hours, 58 minutes ago

ficklid

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr: I had a look at your game and it sure seemed to work for you. It'll take 58 hours to see it happen in my game but you must be correct!

1220 days, 2 hours, 56 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Speaking of FCC...

@Ficklid: Is the ship you are trying to clone an FCC? If so, how much fuel does it have?

1220 days, 2 hours, 24 minutes ago

ficklid

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Challengespaceyard: Nope, it is a D7 Coldpain Class Cruiser with 107 KT fuel.

1220 days, 2 hours, 20 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Okay... something definitely does not sound right with respect to logic.

That being said, I have read from Host 3.22 patch notes that the presence of a FCC with at least 50kT fuel and warp factor zero STOPS the cloning process dead. I do not know if this still holds true to Planets Nu...

1220 days, 2 hours, 16 minutes ago

ficklid

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

That's interesting. As I am playing the Borg, it could be the reason. I have FCCs at every base to chunnel things around. I'll move it this turn and see what happens.

1220 days, 1 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Personally, out of superstition, I always set the speed to 0. No ship that moves should be able to clone. More particularly, it should also have its waypoint set to itself.

The presence of an active Chunnel can indeed interfere with cloning. It should not interfere with the cloning of a vessel that fails to move. And yet, I have seen reports that it will. Given the nature of the checks in Host, it wouldn't surprise me to learn either that a ship under tow can be cloned (warp 0) or that a ship near an active Chunnel cannot. My understanding of the intent is that neither should be the case -- but reality doesn't always follow intent.

1220 days, 1 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

There appear to be a LOT of unknowns about EXACTLY what's needed for a successful clone. I'd like to suggest that a private test game is required to determine what the REAL needs are. It's possible that certain special ships (like the FireCloud) might have special requirements. We KNOW that at least one ship can't be cloned (one of the Emperor ships, but I don't remember which one).

1220 days, 1 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Heh. Did it; wrote the article. Several times, in fact.

As a starter, I'd recommend everyone that's curious and interested in the actual answers to read the cloning articles out on Planets Mag, as well as Host Order of Shipbuilding. There's also a documentation page each on cloning and advanced cloning.

Then and only then is it worthwhile to start up test games to try and break it.

Glitches once discovered and confirmed should be formally compiled and forwarded either (1) to me for collating, or (2) to Management using the Contact link.

I'm tied up just now, so I won't be participating in the test. Typing is far too difficult with all these knots in the way.

1220 days, 1 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

PS: Remember that Classic cloning was deliberately changed about 2 years ago for games going forward from that date. Cloning has different timing in PQ versus PBP, but that should have little practical impact; Advanced Cloning behaves, as I recall, very strangely under PBP and probably ought not to be attempted in that system. Finally, Cloning and Advanced Cloning activate in two different phases of the Host; it's not merely a subphase difference.

Don't bother testing AC under PBP unless you feel suicidal already.

1219 days, 15 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Wow. My eyes hurt a little.

Let's go with a severely muted background instead. Black would be my preference.

Definitely a positive addition, though. Illustrates the four cardinal points nicely.

1219 days, 15 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The different colors mean different things. I can decrease their brightness quite a bit though, especially the red and white. I don't think the green and yellow are all that bad.

1219 days, 14 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It's just the contrast. Red and green are opposites, and they clash badly.

Heh. Here's me talking about muted colors, and yet my favorite shirts are either plaid flannel or loud Hawaiians that look like they were handwoven -- by parrots.

1219 days, 14 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

OK. How about if I change the red to black?

1219 days, 14 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Then I would say the image is striking and informative.

Thanks, mate. It's solid.

1219 days, 14 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Done.

1219 days, 14 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Cool. I like it.

I've run across several unofficial names for those four cardinal HYP points in the guides. One that stuck with me is one I've also seen in fiction: "Smuggler's Points".

Usually, I like to leave it in the hands of Management whether to make names official. I dunno -- do you think it would be proper for us to so designate them?

Also, and probably equally important: What do you think of the name? They're also the four "Cardinal Points", which has the benefit of being descriptive as well as memorable.

1219 days, 13 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> do you think it would be proper for us to so designate them?

No. Those four points are yellow because HYP ships don't get drawn to the planet if the jump ends there, by Warp2+ ships do.

1219 days, 13 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Certainly that's why they're yellow -- it's the perfect way to highlight them.

I was just debating a little story color. Adding some of that IS in our mandate, but I dunno -- most of the editing we've had to do to the old documents has involved cutting out the distracting stuff, in large part because it's never but never consistent from page to page.

1219 days, 13 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I was just debating a little story color.

I think that would detract from the primary reason for the different color.

1219 days, 13 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Mh. Sometimes I hate it when you're right.

OK; I'll reserve that sort of thing for its proper place.

1219 days, 12 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"race-feds" is open for comment as a replacement for "feds". Non-general discussion should be reserved for comments on the page proper. Please do not perform major edits without discussion.

As is customary with high-traffic pages, please remember to name and date-tag both at the top while editing and sign all discussion text. I'll presume any comments without a signature are mine to do with as my iron whim dictates.

1219 days, 12 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> "Undocumented Feature" is a good term
>> No. It's a cop-out. It exists because of people without the courage to say that something is a bug.

While it is unarguably, unashamedly, and even (sometimes) proudly a cop-out, I would say rather that the term is useful for those cases where it is either impolite, improper, or impracticable to treat the unintended consequences as something to be fixed. Instead, if applied rigorously -- and rigor here is vital to utility -- it can be a useful descriptor for any effect that is either beneficial or of arguable utility that was initially introduced by a non-intentional complex interaction. Likewise, the phrase can be used to convey an official management dictum that an honest bug is not to be addressed for reasons of policy (regardless of the validity of such policy).

This latter use of the term is one that I personally find somewhat odious, and yet it remains valid -- "valid" here relying on the condition that an idea, understood by all parties, is unambiguously conveyed by the term.

1219 days, 12 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

Perhaps what you say is correct, but we're documenting these features, so they're not undocumented. I would accept "glitch", but not "undocumented feature".

1219 days, 12 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. You, sir, are semantically correct -- and semantics, in documentation, is all-important.

I grant your point.

1219 days, 12 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I'll have a look at the new format for the Feds page when I get up in the morning.

I'm rather curious what you're still doing up at 0330 EDT. Those are strange hours, even for a writer. I thought 0030 PDT was bad enough :)

1219 days, 11 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

When the words flow, I write them. When they do not, I might nap a bit. From time to time. :o)

1218 days, 22 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hell, I don't care, @Glyn. Go ahead and sue Joshua. Just make sure your real name appears on the complaint, will you? There'll be ten thousand genius-level intellects out for your blood. :o)

With specific regard to the Loki description: I'll take a look at the wording. Currently elbow-deep in three other fairly major projects, though, so it'll take some time.

1218 days, 22 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

My copyright is active on external documents, mostly at the Planets Magazine. Copyright on this documentation is complex, and very little is my intellectual property.

I think your final statement is incorrect, though. I believe that, even if I attempt to defuse arguments and pay you compliments, you will always do your best to point out what you feel to be BS. I believe this because I've long tried to do just that, including in the non-topical copyright discussions. I do fail sometimes, alas.

Now -- my time today is valuable, and this portion of this conversation is eating up too much. I wish you health and long life.

1218 days, 22 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk: Nope... I don't start shit, I finish it.

1218 days, 22 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Please do.

1218 days, 22 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Raceguides structure has been somewhat fleshed out. There are still some holes; I find it hard to believe, for example, that there is no modern guide to playing the Rebels or the Empire.

(It's relatively easy for me to believe that there is no modern guide to winning with the Robots. Step 1 of "How To Win" is very probably "Don't play the Robots." But I could be wrong.)

1218 days, 19 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> "race-feds" is open for comment as a replacement for "feds".

1. I believe it should have the ENTIRE ship list, both Base and Campaign.

2. I believe it should have a table of race advantages, again, both
Base and Campaign.

3. Some of it looks to me to be more like a Guide than Documentation.

1218 days, 19 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> Raceguides structure has been somewhat fleshed out

I have SERIOUS problems with including a single link to PlanetsMag for each race. The links should be to individual guides.

Also, if a guide is in more than one location, the earliest posting should be linked to. Unfortunately, many of the guides on PlanetsMag are from Donovans. In those instances, the Donovans links should be used, not the PlanetsMag links.

The Federation guidesis an example of what I believe would work well.

1218 days, 18 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I'm working on it, mate. Collating individual guides is taking me some time, especially since so very many of them are valueless -- or non-race-specific.

All I've done so far is flesh out some of the structure. But the job is far from finished. :o)

1218 days, 18 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

RE: "race-feds" -

(1) I know you do. We've had this discussion before, though, and the decision then was no more than two representative ships. It aids clarity and avoids wall-of-text.

(2) I'd made a deliberate choice to avoid including Campaign or even Standard advantages. Unless we maintain parallel pages on Standard vs. Classic races, adding data to a simple overview until it becomes comprehensive will end up being both overwhelming and confusing. Trust me; I've got versions of "comprehensive" and others that include both Classic and Standard. The Empire in particular gets extremely messy with that last; I got so lost in the caveats that eventually I just abandoned the whole thing.

My intention instead was to perhaps include a sublink to individual tables of advantages, ones taken right from the Ship List.

There is a way to include Standard variations, mind; I've worked that bit out and we can test it on Birds. Fascists and Empire will require a bit more effort, though.

(3) I've cut out the majority of the color and boiled it down as far as I could manage. To what in particular do you object? "Path to victory"? Perhaps once there's a parallel example up, my intent with that subsection might become more clear -- I'll work on Rebels next.

1218 days, 18 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"g-roleplay" is up finally; I've been working on it off and on for a long long time. It started out as eleven separate documents but I like this version better. Any thoughts?

PS: This is a chunk of the Race Pages project that I've hacked off in order to make the whole thing a little more accessible. I've got over fifty pages of content here, and reducing the size is pretty needful.

1218 days, 15 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> "race-feds" is open for comment as a replacement for "feds".

I merged your words into my structure. The result can be found here:

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/feds-test

1218 days, 15 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> "g-roleplay" is up finally

It looks fairly good. I'd like to suggest that it be linked in under "Other Guides" instead of sitting there by itself.

1218 days, 13 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> "g-roleplay"

Aye; I agree. But I thought I'd let it sit up top where, even though nobody's likely to see it, it's slightly more apparent than buried under "Other Guides", alone and unremarked.

> "feds-test"

While I do approve of the icon in the top left, the massive stack of tables below combined with the list of links, some of which are inapplicable in most formats -- of these I cannot approve. Far too massive for utility, yet insufficiently comprehensive for true reference.

I've gone back and forth over the question of in-line links, and I've concluded that, so long as they don't interrupt the flow of linear text but are scattered uniformly through a singular descriptive paragraph, they can be handy as well as not distracting. They are never ideal, but here they combine density of information with moderate readability.

But these articles are foundational. While it would be a disgrace to leave them as they are, I cannot see the table or list.

The icon, though -- yes. That will work.

---

Given that the tables are absent, still we could create a subpage for each race containing all the information in both the Advantages list (sorted for Classic, Standard, and Campaign) and the full ship list. Alternately, we could simply link back to the master Ship List, but then we face the slight difficulty that it's non-indexed.

Even with that, we have the puzzle to solve of how to indicate Standard versus Classic setup. I'm knocking together the Fascist model as well as Rebel and Bird; those should give us a bit of an idea. Fortunately, I've preserved some of my Fascist experiments of days long gone; one of those has decent text flow.

1218 days, 12 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. You might be right about the subjective nature of the "As a result, many experienced Fed commanders rely on diplomatic and trade opportunities to provide them with a path to victory."

I'm going to set it up side by side with a few others and see what should best be done. We can't lose the content; it's important to convey that carriers can defeat battleships and that starbases can take on anything. How you go about winning is the key to figuring which race to choose.

Downside is, I have very little idea how the Robots go about winning.

1218 days, 12 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I have very little idea how the Robots go about winning

You could ask one of the Robot Admirals.

1218 days, 12 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Thing is, there aren't all that many of them left.

I'll have to watch someone pull it off sometime. Meanwhile, I'll throw something in about "decisiveness" and "proactive minefields". Never know; if I put correct words in the proper order, it may even turn out to be meaningful advice, and my reputation will be improved thereby.

1218 days, 10 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. Empire has historically had the ability to fool enemy Bioscanners -- all but the Rebels. Oddly, this is an undocumented ability. We should do something about that -- but I'm tired.

1218 days, 4 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> How you go about winning is the key to figuring which race to choose.

Yes, but that sort of thing has historically gone in the guides. Perhaps a link in each race page to the race selection guide would do the job.

> I'll throw something in about "decisiveness" and "proactive minefields".

For the Robots, more so than any of the other races, it's all about the supporting economy and large numbers of starbases with builds (at least in Classic - probably in Standard as well). As a Replacement Robot player in Classic games, I've managed to revive the economy and build starbases, which was enough to stop the inroads of higher ranked players (Crystals both times). A better Robot player then myself, working from the start of a game, could probably win high-rank games that way.

> Empire has historically had the ability to fool enemy Bioscanners

That sounds like it should be documented as part of the Dark Sense advantage, but doesn't need a mission to trigger. The alternative would be to add another race advantage, which will take coordination with Joshua.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/adv-dark-sense

> I thought I'd let it sit up top where, it's slightly more apparent than buried under "Other Guides", alone and unremarked.

It wouldn't be alone. The Farming Guide is there, waiting to be replaced by the Game Customization Guide. Also, some of Stefan's documents should be linked from there (at least his movement and ion storm pages, and possibly others).

Perhaps there should be an indication on the Guides page of how many links were in the lower level.

In any case, there is no precedent of directly linking a guide to the top-level guide page, and I don't believe the role-play page is adequately important to create such a precedent.

1218 days, 3 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

WRT test pages for Feds:

> Far too massive for utility, yet insufficiently comprehensive for true reference.

I can see that this might be true of the ship tables. Moving them to a sub-page (e.g. fed-ships) would be fine. Linking into the racelist page would be OK if we could go to the appropriate point within it, but we can't.

For the advantages, I believe they should ALL have links on the race page (my page was missing some of the Campaign advantages). I can see three reasonable ways to do this.

1. List them all in tables/lists. The advantages could also be described in the text, but it wouldn't be necessary to hit them all.

2. Have in-line links for all the Base advantages, and tables for the Standard and Campaign advantages.

3. Have in-line links for the Base and Standard advantages, and a table for the Campaign advantages.

Of the above, I think #2 would be best, but I can accept any of them.

1217 days, 23 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. Let me sit on this for a bit while I'm adapting my text to the new (transient) format. There's three or four options here that seem valid. If we can't agree, we can put up a few side-by-side and ask people.

My gut has me going with 3 right now, with the possibility of instead using a sub-page for Campaign that's more of a guide. I've got something for Fascists that I've been working on that may illustrate this -- but there's a ton left to do between this point and that. My texts don't fit the format quite perfectly, so some adaptation is required.

Roleplay: Yeah; you're right. I was initially tempted to host it elsewhere so it got some reads, but it really belongs here instead.

A richer version of this document, extending more than a dozen pages, is what I would have gone with for the ideal Campaign race pages. There is certainly a difference between d7b Fascists and Sabre Fascists.

1217 days, 22 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> My gut has me going with 3 right now

OK. The hard part with #2 and #3 will be to get ALL of the Classic and Standard advantages into the flow of the words, without having it jump all over.

> a sub-page for Campaign

I'd like to see this at the end of the Classic/Standard page first, with a Campaign link at the top. This will tell us whether or not it's too long.

> more of a guide
> There is certainly a difference between d7b Fascists and Sabre Fascists

We decided long ago that guides have their place, and it's not in the main documentation space. I think putting some Campaign-level guides up in the Guides section, even if they're only a page long, would be good. Breaking your 12-page doc up into the 11 races would give a long page per race. I think that would work well.

WRT Guides, I've stated in another thread that I'd like to see more guides that cover one aspect of a race. This both gives us more guides, and makes it less of an investment to write. Campaign is a very broad aspect of any race, as there are both the choices and the execution to deal with, but I think it can be done.

1217 days, 22 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I think you probably can see why this has been taking so long. There is so very much content to sift through, and the end result has got to be tiny. I'm still unhappy with about half the opening paragraphs, and the "Path To Victory" for a couple has been giving me fits.

But I do think it essential. The races were each designed with methods for capturing worlds, and if we decline to mention them on the theory that new players should figure things out for themselves, we've simultaneously disadvantaged them while overburdening them with reams of (to them) useless dreck.

In a technical sense, you are certainly correct: "Guides" is the proper place for advice. But the dividing line is that it be subjective, and there is nothing subjective about the observation that both a Gorbie and a SSD have the capacity to capture enemy worlds without a ship loss being likely.

1217 days, 22 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I'm still unhappy with about half the opening paragraphs

Perhaps I can help you with the ideas. PM/Email them to me and I'll send some comments your way.

> But the dividing line is that it be subjective

Fair enough. As long as the line is known (and documented?), and we keep the pieces in their correct bin, I've got no problem with it.

1217 days, 21 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It's not the ideas, or I'd have done that a while ago. It's the editing, the trimming down -- and that's a bit too much like trimming down a bit of myself for me to be comfortable sharing the task. I do appreciate the offer, though.

As far as the lines go: It's often the exceptions that define them, I've noticed. From a purely literal perspective, it's a failure of incomplete description, but sometimes we run into the map paradox: that the more correct a map becomes, the closer it becomes to the original, until eventually there is no discernable difference, and the map therefore becomes useless.

Here, we don't have the line drawn perfectly, but it nevertheless seems clear to me: Anything subjective ("You should--" or "I think--") belongs in a guide.

Anaconda's guide to Glory Devices ( http://www.planetsmagazine.com/races/klingons/klingonguides/absolution-gap-frequently-asked-questions-about-glory-devices/ ) contains a perfect example. He states unequivocally that poppers should never be used to clear Amorphs from worlds in order to get the supplies/money. My personal experience is that it's occasionally the correct tactical and strategic choice to do just that -- but that the question is a complex one, and the correct answer is complicated further by the advent of the NuQueue and the relative position of the Ship Limit.

In the Fascist race page, therefore, I'll likely stick to the precise, that the d19b is a useful ship due to its Glory Device. The most subjective I'll get is to say that it's the key to the Fascist war machine. It might even be worth mentioning (though probably elsewhere) that Birds and Lizards especially fear this vessel, and that Privateers certainly don't love it. It could further be mentioned that in addition to Amorph conversion it works as a guided missile, a time bomb, or on sentry mode.

But nowhere except in a Guide would I ever state my position on its proper purpose with regard to Amorph natives.

1217 days, 12 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hrrm. Right; bear with me here -- I'm "thinking aloud" in "writing".

So most races are identical in Standard and Classic. The Empire picks up a couple of lovely bonuses, the Birds get an extra Super Spy level, and the Fascists get fast beams. Is there anything else I'm missing?

My present thought is that, for those three, I'll include a postscript paragraph with live links for the changes. It'll be something like this:
"In Standard games, the Bird Men also automatically gain the Super Spy Advanced ability. The Super Spy mission will now automatically generate an additional report on starbases. Information will be returned on fighters, defenses, damage, tech levels, and on any ship being built."

So I know we no longer have to pay for Fast Beams; there was a huge stink about that. I'm fairly sure we have to activate the hulls and advantages, but I don't remember for sure, and some of the News has been superseded. Anyone know absolutely?

1217 days, 5 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> The Empire picks up a couple of lovely bonuses, the Birds get an extra Super Spy level, and the Fascists get fast beams. Is there anything else I'm missing?

Not that I'm aware of, but this is, of course, subject to change. There's a small section on Standard in the advantages page.

http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/dashboard-advantages

WRT "a couple of lovely bonuses", that page only shows Fighter Transfer for the EE.

> I'll include a postscript paragraph with live links for the changes.

I believe it should also mention that these are optional in Custom games, without enabling the full array of Campaign features.

> I'm fairly sure we have to activate the hulls and advantages

I don't believe it needs to be done for Standard games (there are no hull changes for Standard), but it DOES need to be done for Campaign games.

1217 days, 1 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> RE Empire: The Aries. Major change there

I though that was Campaign-only for the EE. It's not available in Standard, is it?

1217 days, 0 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I'm fairly confident.

1217 days, 0 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

I'd like to suggest that you verify the status of the Aries for the EE in Standard games. I have no recollection of that being mentioned.

What I've found is this:

http://planets.nu/post/new-release-campaign-mode-upgrades-improved-performance

The above adds it as a Campaign ship.

1217 days, 0 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Yes it does, but the later release is the one that I was thinking of, the one that opened the other advantages.

Should be easy enough to figure out.

1217 days, 0 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> the later release is the one that I was thinking of

This one?

http://planets.nu/post/campaign-mode-changes-birds-ee-lizards

1216 days, 23 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hrm. I'd have to agree.

Though, strictly speaking, it's more pertinent to have BB and Joshua maintain such a list... one that we call the "Change Log". Nobody's touched it since July of '15.

1216 days, 23 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Have verified the Standard advantages are common to all accounts. I knew it already, but it's good to have the text in front of me.

1216 days, 23 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I'd have to agree.

Look at the bottom of this page:

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/AdminInterface

I need to add the MvM announcements, and the older announcements, but it has most of the critical stuff already.

1216 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Good.

We are missing some of the minor in-line announcements made under Beefer's player ID rather than by News. I wonder if there's a coder who could mine out all of BB's sacred utterances...

1216 days, 22 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> We are missing some of the minor in-line announcements made under Beefer's player ID

Joshua's as well. I think there are a few others that occasionally made semi-official statements pre-BB, but I don't know who they are.

1216 days, 20 hours, 40 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I need to add the older announcements

Done. Please feel free to remove any unnecessary entries.

1216 days, 1 hours, 27 minutes ago

ficklid

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Earlier in this thread I thought I found a documentation lacking situation regarding cloning. I thought you had to set the speed of the ship to be cloned to a speed higher than Warp 0. It seems that is not the case. As Challengspaceyard commented:

"That being said, I have read from Host 3.22 patch notes that the presence of an orbiting FCC with at least 50kT fuel and warp factor zero STOPS the cloning process dead for that ENTIRE starbase. I do not know if this still holds true to Planets Nu..."

So ... I DID have a FFC there with more than 50KT of fuel at Warp 0. I moved it and the cloning occurred normally at Warp 0. I still don't recall anything about that in the documentation, but I was wrong once before! :P

Perhaps some further testing is in order ...

1216 days, 1 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Some is ongoing. Unfortunately, that's rather a difficult situation to set up for pure testing except in a game designed specifically for that purpose. Lots of work for a very tiny answer -- and over a question that has been suggested but not confirmed. (I've got a list of about 80 of those questions, and I'm testing one at a time.)

Perhaps some of our Cyborg veterans will have some insight?

1215 days, 8 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/links
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/links

Suggest including Olegbolegs "Planets Chat"; http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=#planets
___

http://help.planets.nu/leaderboard
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/leaderboard

http://help.planets.nu/tenacity
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/tenacity

Mentions but doesn't explain Experience points, also not explained or mentioned anywhere else.

___

http://help.planets.nu/happiness
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/happiness

"Being in a Nebula will increase native happiness recovery."

Dissimilar explanation than exists in Nebula documentation, and stated as; "The Nebula Bonus is 5 if the planet is in a nebula and has less than 50 light-years visibility." in http://help.planets.nu/taxes-details .

----

"but can be negative"

Really old info, but supposedly as low as -400; http://planets.nu/discussion/happiness

He is still active in case if you wish to know if he went even more into the negative; http://play.planets.nu/#/account/donaldworrell

___

http://help.planets.nu/nebulas
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/nebulas

"All native life on planets inside a nebula with visibility less than 50ly may be taxed higher than the normal rate before becoming angry. Since these natives have never seen the stars the arrival of aliens causes the entire population to go into a religious fervor."

This is old original Documentation and should be researched.

Stated as; "The Nebula Bonus is 5 if the planet is in a nebula and has less than 50 light-years visibility." in http://help.planets.nu/taxes-details .
---------
"Ramscoop does not work (if ending movement inside a nebula)."

Suggest instead; 'Ramscoop doesn't produce fuel if ending movement inside a Nebula.'

1214 days, 17 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Looks like FoF now trumps Dead (for living players) so it's just the other mechanism that gets confusing.

1214 days, 16 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> FoF now trumps Dead

:)

1214 days, 15 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Added Ion Pulse to list of items with an unknown position in the Host Order. I believe it would have to be after #8.

1214 days, 11 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Ion Pulse happens concurrently with Super Spy.

1214 days, 8 hours, 7 minutes ago

erku

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Just so you guys won't do this completely thanklessly ;)
You are doing an outstanding job!

Thank you very much for the great work you are doing on the documentation.

1214 days, 3 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://planets.nu/documentation/leaderboard/details

The above link has the information on Experience needing to be added to Documentation.
____

http://help.planets.nu/win-conditions
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/win-conditions

"Planetoids do not coult as planets for win conditions."

'count'

1214 days, 3 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Ion Pulse happens concurrently with Super Spy.

Host order updated.

1214 days, 3 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> information on Experience

The Experience value is no longer used anywhere. The next editor who goes through pages with references to Experience should remove them (comment them out).

1214 days, 3 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/win-conditions
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/win-conditions

"Note: As Planetoids do not coult as planets for win conditions, maps that have Debris Disks will have less than the normal 500 planets (each debris disk replaces one planet) so the win conditions may be slightly lower. Example: 40% may end up being 198 or 199 planets."

Also 'count' again.

Since also Fixed Turn, Diplomatic Victory, and Total Planets don't count planetoids, mention this note at the very top, not underneath each condition... also planetoids don't count toward Military score I believe.
....

You should capitalize 'Military score' consistently.
.....

"This win condition is most often used in Championship battles. "

Where it means 50% of the planets...
.....

Is it 'Victory Conditions' or 'Win Conditions', choose one to be consistent... also capitalize consistently. I sugget using 'Win Conditions' due to game descriptions using that term.
.....

The complexity of Diplomatic Planets countdowns isn't addressed, you need to explain that whomever starts a countdown last, takes precedent.
.....

'Fixed Turn' also not capitalized consistently.

1214 days, 3 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

No time to be complete.
(1) Thanks, @Erku!
(2) Sometimes, the inconsistencies are deliberate. There is an effort to avoid wall-of-text bureaucratese. Nevertheless, there does exist an ongoing schedule for proofreading, and two of the suggested items are upcoming.

1214 days, 2 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/win-conditions
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/win-conditions

"Different games of Planets "

Suggest calling it games of Nu Planets...

And also 'All Planets' win condition is absent. And Total Planets is always 50% of planets.

1214 days, 2 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> 'All Planets' win condition is absent

I made mention of that in http://planets.nu/#/activity/2505531 about 20 minutes prior to your post. There's no need for you to repeat to us what we've already noted.

1213 days, 17 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/minesweeping gives me an error, should it? Does it produce an error to others?

1213 days, 17 hours, 10 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

That link does not exist. Can you link the referring page?

1213 days, 17 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/minesweeping gives me an error, should it?

Yes it should. That information was rolled into the minefields page a while ago. I thought that all the links to minesweeping (and a few others) had been updated with the new link.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/minefields

1213 days, 17 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The referring page is: http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/beam-weapons

I was looking for how many mines different beam types can handle.

1213 days, 16 hours, 56 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I can not seem to figure out how to jump to an anchor from another page.

There is also a page called "mine-fields". That is the page that has been outdated, correct?

1213 days, 15 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I can not seem to figure out how to jump to an anchor from another page.

That can't be done in the static pages. It might work in the static pages (help.planets.nu), but I haven't tested it.

> There is also a page called "mine-fields". That is the page that has been outdated, correct?

That page should also have been rolled into the new minefields page.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/minefields

1213 days, 8 hours, 13 minutes ago

the green knight

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Just found a typo in the how to section on debris disks:

'Starships can not be towed into or through a debris disk. The tow lock is disrupted as the towing starship enters the field stopping both sarsthips.'

Otherwise very clear section. Thanks.

1212 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/hyperjumping
http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/hyperjumping

Doesn't clearly communicate HYPjumpers will slide after a hyperjump even at Warp1... should phrase it better so it is clear no matter what, it slides in the 'box' if it Hyperjumps into them.

Doesn't mention warp speed reset to Warp0 after hyperjump (and this is why you don't slide in the four outermost points FYI).

Doesn't mention if insufficient fuel, will then move normally... although client does indicate that well enough.

(Also one difference between VGAP3 and at .Nu is the waypoint is NOT reset after jumping. Not sure if added to differences file.)

1212 days, 23 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/warp-wells
http://play.planets.nu/#/howtoplay/warp-wells

"Any ship that ends its turn within 3 light years of a planet"

THIS is when you should mention if travelling at Warp2+, not at the bottom as an exception.

People do NOT read entire articles, they read until they have the info they need... that is why an essay sums up everything in the first paragraph and again in the last... even professors don't read the garbage inbetween.

"A ship that is hyperjumping is still affected by warp wells, unless it ends at exactly 3 LY from the planet (the yellow squares in the image)."

Except you just told them warp1 is safe.

1212 days, 23 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

So you can Super Refit Gunboats to restore the lost long-range fighters, I don't care where you document it... but having seen the question arise three times over the years... lets avoid a fourth.

1212 days, 22 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/squadron
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/squadron

Noticed on the http://help.planets.nu the Google search shows Squadron as;

"Squadron - Introduction to Planets.nu
help.planets.nu/squadron
The Squadron advantage (usually paired with the Elusive advantage), indicates that a ship is actually a squadron ofr long-range fighters. The number of fighters .."

"Introduction to Planets.nu" can be removed from the file.

Also a typo, 'wqhile'.

Makes sense to add the super-refit/restore-lost-gunboats info here..e

And maybe here too;

http://help.planets.nu/super-refit
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/super-refit

1212 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Squadron and Super Refit have been updated and now reference each other. I saw "Introduction to Planets.nu" nowhere in the internal contents of the Squadron page.

1210 days, 23 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

I made some minor updates to the Tim Continuum page. You might want to review them.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/Tim-Continuum

1210 days, 15 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Some new Cyborg Guides have been linked in.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/g-cyborg

1210 days, 12 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

I think we could use a Guide for Mentors. I've heard that you have a set of messages, and BB posted a set that he uses (from late October - http://planets.nu/_library/2015/10/mentorposts.txt). There's also Dotman's information.

Is there any chance that you could put all that information together, and generate a guide?

1210 days, 11 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I just went through about 50 pages of the TALK feed (back to mid-October), and found 2 new game announcements from BB that were added to the list. I'll probably keep going, as I'm also finding a few interesting posts from him that I need to check the documentation about.

1210 days, 2 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> That's a ton of work.

That's just the start. It's generating even more work, as we're finding useful information to integrate into the documentation.

----------------

Are you willing to tackle the Mentor's Guide? Having not been in an MvM game, I don't believe I'm qualified.

1210 days, 2 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I'll put some thought into it. The present resources are already highly valuable.

1210 days, 2 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> The present resources are already highly valuable.

Yes they are, but if they could be merged into a single document for the Mentors, I think we'll get more Mentor volunteers.

Also, I think we need an FAQ for Midshipmen. I can do that (eventually), and it will take some of the load off the Mentors.

From what I saw going through the TALK feed, about 70-90% of Big Beefer's posts are to MvM games. If we can free up some of his time, maybe we can get our goodies (bug fixes and upgrades) sooner. Both of the above documents will help to save his time.

1210 days, 2 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Concur. It would be of use to both the players and to Beefer to formulate these documents. Moreover, I think we would see a gain in new player retention if they were well-written.

My time, however, is very restricted at present, and this sort of guide demands a good writer at his best, not me in my spare minutes here and there.

1210 days, 1 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> My time, however, is very restricted at present, and this sort of guide demands a good writer at his best, not me in my spare minutes here and there.

For the Guide, I agree. I believe I can do the FAQ in my spare minutes, then go over it in detail, including organization, when complete.

1207 days, 12 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I believe I can do the FAQ in my spare minutes

I've started. Comments are welcome.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/MvM-FAQ

1207 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes ago

qinic

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hi @Whisperer,
the section about the no attacking, just to be complete you might want to add that you need Primary Enemy or Kill mission set.

In the messaging section is a typo, thye should say type

Also got a question of Diplomacy settings as the Documentation does not explicitly specify this. I assume Share Intel includes safe passage, does it?

1207 days, 6 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It mentions under Share Intel that it dues include safe passage.

1207 days, 6 hours, 25 minutes ago

qinic

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hi @MartinR,
I was looking at
http://planets.nu/documentation/alliances
Is that the wrong page or am I blind I don't see this in the Share intel section.
Cheers
Qinic

1207 days, 5 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/alliances-and-diplomacy

The most up to date info is in /howtoplay section.

1207 days, 5 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Sorry that's the new How to play section.

Anything with a white background I believe is the old documentation.

The Documenters can explain why you get to a different how to play section.

Possibly because you are using the old interface?

1207 days, 4 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Possibly because you are using the old interface?

Search engines often send users to the old documentation. I've asked the Admins to put a message at the top of those docs to point the user to the new docs, but it hasn't been done yet.

1207 days, 4 hours, 21 minutes ago

qinic

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

yes search engine was the problem, I do use the new interface but when looking for info I rely on google
Cheers for that

Maybe the old section should have an auto redirect

1207 days, 3 hours, 40 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Maybe the old section should have an auto redirect

The old documentation (there are several "old" sections that are accessible) is being kept around for historical reference. We still find an occasional bit of information in the old documentation that got dropped when we changed format.

At this time, we believe a redirection to be unwise.

1207 days, 1 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Painful, really. I go there all the time.

But a note at the top? Very solid idea; very useful.

1206 days, 9 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Suggestion: An article on ghost ships.

Also: I've said it at least once already, mention that the radiation halo boundary and crew death estimation the client gives are NOT exact.

Cue Furey with the equation to determine if you will be inside it.

1206 days, 8 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Basic info on ghost ships is available in the Stellar Cartography article. Given the present setup in gameplay, that might be a bit over-simple; on the other hand, a decent percentage of games here don't have star clusters.

Gradually, info on map modification will morph so it's reachable in an instinctive way from both game design and from starship navigation.

1206 days, 1 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> An article on ghost ships.

If ever created, it would be relatively short. Honestly, there's not all that much to say about them in the documentation. On the other hand, if someone were to write a Guide on how to use them, we'd be glad to Host it.

At this time, it's not on my "must have" list. I owe BB a Guide and a few pages, and I'd really like to integrate the newly available messages (BB says the templates are in the JavaScript now) into the messages page.

1205 days, 14 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Oh and Martinr was curious if Friendly Code 'nbr' works when towing ghost ships.

1205 days, 9 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/cloak-intercept
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/cloak-intercept

Why rename Cloaked Intercept, 20+ years after being named, to 'Cloak Intercept'?!?!? Now it sounds too much like 'Cloak and Intercept'.

If this was just an error, because no one would on purpose rename something to be more confusing... the term is also named wrong in all other documents.

It needs a better name anyhow, might as well see what community thinks...

1205 days, 9 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/kill-mission
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/kill-mission

"Any fuelled starship whose mission is set to Kill will automatically attempt to engage any starship or planet controlled by another player."

Even cloaked ones?

1205 days, 9 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/kill-mission
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/kill-mission

Suggest tacking on the exclamation point like displayed in the Client.

1205 days, 9 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Glyn

Does it matter?

If the player does not know a ship is at the same point does it matter?

Fair enough you would prefer everything to be on every page but I think the documenters may have not enough time to include every exception on every page.

You could add several links to ever page zipping from one section to another. Which would confuse more than inform.

The documenter's have limited time and are in fact playing games.

And you have a lot of free time and are not playing games and going through all the documentation pointing out improvements.

I think what would be beneficial to the documenting team if you made a list of the mistakes and release them slowly.

Noting which ones were changed before adding to the pile.

I would find it a bit demoralising myself when you are trying to work, play games and in my free time update documentation if there was not a long stream of error pointed out to me day on day.

Point out an error, give time for it to be changed and then add another.

Thanks to the documenting team for keeping up the good work.

1205 days, 3 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

I think the MvM FAQ is finished. Opinions?

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/MvM-FAQ

1205 days, 3 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> It needs a better name anyhow, might as well see what community thinks

No. We try to use the names from the game. If we accidentally use the wrong term, it will be caught in routing editing, as Gnerphk mentioned above.

If the developers change the name, we'll update the documentation.

1204 days, 17 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I agree with one point: It's a glorious thing that there's more than myself and @Whisperer editing the documentation. The job doesn't exactly pay, and every time I get grief over it I'm less inclined to contribute in the future.

Every time someone berates me, rather than give in to my violent internal reaction, I ignore the person. I haven't beat anyone up since an unfortunate incident in third grade; it's been a valuable life lesson, and I like to think I've done more good than harm as a result.

My (nonexistent) paycheck here is insufficient to compensate me for hostility.

Signing off again; advance discussion of my upcoming projects will be in the backup location pending fumigation of the Feed. Anyone who needs an update beyond that should message me.

1204 days, 16 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"Cloak Intercept" was intentional, as was the redaction of the ! from "Kill!" Both were discussed at length long ago.

1204 days, 16 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

(Likewise "Torpedoes" rather than "Torpedos" and "Gaurdian". It's a bit silly, but we do take these things seriously.)

1204 days, 4 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I added a table to the Out of Fuel page that lists the number of KT-LY a starship can travel with various engine/speed combinations.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/out-of-fuel

1204 days, 3 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Solid. Closing explanatory sentence of what a KT-LY is may be handy; likewise, we've got an error under "Planet Immunity" above. Shall you or shall I?

1203 days, 4 hours, 50 minutes ago

goog

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I just learned that to minescoop, you need to be inside the minefield, and being within normal miensweep range doesn't count. I see this information on donovan's older site, but not on the new help docs. Could we get this updated if it is still relevant?
Thanks
http://help.planets.nu/minefields << see section on minescooping.

http://www.donovansvgap.com/help/minesweep.htm
To scoop up a minefield a ship has to be INSIDE the minefield, simply being within normal sweeping range is not enough.

1203 days, 4 hours, 39 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Mine scooping fixed. Thanks.

1203 days, 4 hours, 37 minutes ago

goog

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Thanks, fix a minor typo while you may still have the window open?
A starmust must be inside a minefield to scoop mines from it.

>>
A starship must be inside a minefield to scoop mines from it.

1203 days, 4 hours, 30 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Oops. Somehow, I typed 'must' twice. Fixed as well.

1203 days, 3 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

At least you weren't decanting. It's merely documentation.

Glad you're here, CSY.

1203 days, 2 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I typed 'must' twice.

More must is good. It makes more wine :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Must

1203 days, 2 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. I've been reviewing taxes and natives (taxes-details), and I believe I've found a factual error: When taxing, one can continue to reduce population happiness well below 30%.

I've done this recently in the Capricorn War, in an attempt to eliminate natives on vulnerable worlds. (I'd hate the Cyborg to get tempted to invade, after all, and it's not as though I need the income.)

Review and discussion, gentlemen?

1203 days, 2 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Happiness is reduced to below 30% by taxing down to 30% (31%? I don't recall), then bumping the tax rate to 100%. I recently used this (http://planets.nu/#/sector/147504) to mostly depopulate a world (P185) that I knew would be taken over by an enemy. The native population dropped from >13M to ~3M in 10 turns with two cycles of Civil War. I had just started a third cycle when the planet was taken over.

1203 days, 2 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

OK; that's confirmation from a second direct (reliable) source. I'll modify.

1203 days, 2 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

In the above game, I started the native population reduction at about turn 95. This same taxing method can be used on Colonists to increase the rate of native depopulation.

To get below about -65% requires something other than taxes (Pillage, Plunder or Combat).

1203 days, 1 hours, 50 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

As far as I know, the 31% (30%?) happiness requirement to ATTEMPT to tax does not apply to colonists, only natives.

1203 days, 1 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

OK. The prose has been adjusted to more correctly reflect the actual results of taxation.

(There were also a couple of typos, which is the reason I was in here in the first place. Sad but true, that's what I spend most of my editing time doing. Even sadder is, almost half of the typos are always mine.)

EDIT: "tyops"

1203 days, 1 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> the 31% (30%?) happiness requirement to ATTEMPT to tax does NOT apply to colonists

I just checked this in a training game. I set the tax to 100%, which dropped the happiness to 24%, then set the tax to 50%, but the happiness increased.

Colonists won't pay taxes if they're <30% (est.) either.

1203 days, 1 hours, 29 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

True, colonists do not pay taxes if they are 30% happiness or less at ANY point of the turn.

I still remember reading from somewhere that, even with zero income, you could still decrease colonist (but not native) happiness. It has been quite some time ago, so I will need to look back.

1203 days, 1 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It's worth testing, though perhaps not in the War.

1203 days, 1 hours, 20 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I looked back into one of my finished games (#61571), and it appears that I was "safe" with my intentional civil war (taxed to 31%, then killed off the only clan) to force my enemy to use Super Spy Deluxe elsewhere.

1202 days, 22 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Whisperer - are you currently editing MvM?

1202 days, 22 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> are you currently editing MvM?

No. Working RL job.

1202 days, 18 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

(No longer providing HOWTOPLAY links.)

http://help.planets.nu/star-clusters

Doesn't mention hyperjumping through radiation halo effects crew as if travelling normally like it does in; http://help.planets.nu/hyperjumping

1202 days, 17 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

But I _LIKE_ HowToPlay links.

Yep. There was discussion over that. The rule is to avoid distraction in top-level or concentrated articles, and to inform wherever practicable on the lowest levels.

Ideally, details exist in one location and one location only. Reality, however, only rarely conforms to the ideal. For this, we have discussions, usually during drafting.

I tend to archive these locally (for certain pages) since it's been agreed that archiving the discussions in the articles has been deemed suboptimal.

My notes on this article show this detail present despite a contrary conclusion in the discussion. Not entirely sure what to do about that.

1202 days, 16 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Google search of Documentation for 'Premium' only returns the following four articles/links:

http://help.planets.nu/site-upgrade

"Player attrition is the deadliest foe faced by this site. It's inevitable; over time, a certain percentage of our players will leave through either disaffection or disinterest, and some of us will face real-life events that leave us without the time or ability to indulge in the game. That's just life, and it's understandable."

Unnecessarily discouraging for an article about buying Premium membership and for recruiting friends. If a paid employee wrote this for my product... they wouldn't be a paid employee anymore.

http://help.planets.nu/leaderboard

"If a player does not log in and has been out of premium for 90 days, their historical achievement points will decrease at the rate of 3% per month."

'Premium membership' or at least capitalized 'Premium' like in; http://help.planets.nu/VGAP-3-differences

http://help.planets.nu/holiday-mode

The word 'Premium' isn't in the article, probably in the html document and should be removed.
___________________

http://help.planets.nu/leaderboard

"In addition, the winner of the Championship match will receive a Free Lifetime Registered Membership here at Planets.nu."

This is the only time member/membership has been capitalized... and only time referred to as 'registered'.

1202 days, 16 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

<--- Unpaid.

1202 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

[̲̅$̲̅(̲̅ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°̲̅)̲̅$̲̅]

1202 days, 15 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

That's Canadian money. Everybody in the US knows it's worthless :)

1202 days, 9 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Now, now. Canadian money runs this site -- it's got to be worth something.

Besides, from what I hear about election politics, half this country may end up moving away come November. It would make more sense for them to vote, but expecting sense from the public...

1201 days, 13 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

http://planets.nu/#/activity/2530174

Is there anything we can do (possibly on the introduction page) to address any of the issues brought up in that thread?

1201 days, 13 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Not so much, no.

Look, the thing is, we're still working on completing the documentation proper. What we've had was a first draft; we've nearly got it knocked into shape now as beta-grade. Once all the rough edges are filed down and the corners nicely rounded, we can worry about whether it's worth putting things into a different order to streamline access.

However: In several of the instances mentioned in that thread (I won't say "all"), the individual with the problem never looked in the documentation at all. It's not like we keep our work a secret; there's this thread, for one thing, plus regular discussions all over the Feed that mention the documentation.

I submit that these difficulties may be, by definition, quite beyond our power to aid.

---

Having said that, I believe we can improve access in a couple of ways, to wit:

- Advantages are not, strictly speaking, a child of Dashboard. That's a secondary access point to them designed for ease of reference in-game. Unfortunately, the primary access point, in the "About The Site" documentation, is one that's ill-frequented.

Medium-term, therefore, we should leave Advantages where it is. Long-term, however, we should envision a documentation access point which covers game joining and variations; Advantages are natural children of such a point.

Since we cannot introduce this now without restructuring the entire project -- one that's quite functional as-is -- I believe this should be left until such time as it naturally approaches solution, likely through expansion of the introductory Guides selection. As it happens, my work with the Race pages will lead into something of this nature.

- The archaic documentation, as you suggested earlier, needs -- demands -- modification thus: A link to the modern (current) documentation should appear at the top of every page over on the old site.

- A better structure specifically for game creation - something more streamlined - should exist. Again, this should be incorporated alongside the Guide suggested in the first item.

---

Aside from the second item -- not within our purview, alas -- these suggestions are strictly long-term projects because instituting them would disturb the overall structure, perhaps greatly, at a time when substantial alterations are already ongoing.

1201 days, 0 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Oh. My. God.

I am NOT maintaining that. *shudder*

...hmm.

I do see potential.

This is an extremely useful idea. And there ought to be an easy way to auto-build it on a regular basis. I wonder if we could set up a widget on-site.

@Big_Beefer -- you watching? What do you think?

1201 days, 0 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> there ought to be an easy way to auto-build it on a regular basis

I don't think so. I had to remove a LOT of pages, and I think there may still be some bad (orphaned or WIP) pages in the list.

1201 days, 0 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Yeah; tags are probably the way to go.

Test vs Production: Concur, and if this were a high-end professional project I'd insist. Frankly, the amount of work in here -- not just you and me, but Dotman, CSY, the other editors -- it's a monumental task, book-length.

Hm. I wonder what printing costs would be like.

1201 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

With tags, and the pages in flat files, I could toss together a bash script to do this. Unfortunately, the Host is a Windows system, and the pages are in a DB.

1200 days, 23 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

We all have our talents.

I figure this is something Beefer could probably throw together, but we'll likely need to add tags manually if he does. Still, I'm willing; as I do the document review, a simple descriptive tag would be an easy add.

Not doing it twice, though, so I'll wait for him before even thinking about starting.

1200 days, 23 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> a simple descriptive tag would be an easy add

Also a tag like "production=yes" in a comment.

1200 days, 23 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I wonder what printing costs would be like.

I don't know, but if this had been a billable project, it would have cost them upwards of $100K for what's been done.

1200 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I'll wait for him before even thinking about starting.

I think the easiest way would be to add a pair of fields to the form. If he does this, he might add the width setting that I asked for.

1200 days, 22 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

While putting together the Index page, I found a few pages that I believe can be deleted:

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/ship-abilities (replaced with "dashboard-advantages")
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/dead-mines (data already in "minefields")
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/g-choose-race (orphaned)
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/adv-fighter-mine-sweep (duplicate)
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/cloak-mission (orphaned)

Should I start this process?

1200 days, 22 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

wait a bit before doing that -- no time, but one of these rings a bell

1200 days, 19 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Minor changes to Host Order:

1. Added KillRace (FoF)
2. Reworded Superspy Deluxe line for completeness and clarity
3. Changed "fcode" to "Friendly Code"

1200 days, 17 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/ion-storms

"When an Ion Disturbance reaches Class-4, the force of the storm overcomes the inertia of the starship and starts to drag it off course. The starship moves in the direction of the Ion Disturbance, at 75% of the speed of the Ion Disturbance. This movement is in addition to, but before, any speed/vector the starship may have set."

Suggest being more clear that your waypoint endpoint is also effected... and that using Intercept mission is one method of arriving at correct destination.

1200 days, 17 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It's quite clear:

> This movement is in addition to, but before, any speed/vector the starship may have set.

The use of Intercept is a tactic, and belongs in a guide.

1200 days, 17 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Aye; that's the guidelines.

We could (speaking hypothetically, mind) stress that the waypoint moves except where it's irrelevant or fixed (chunnel or Intercept), but that's an awful lot of information in one lump. Thing is, in addition to the subjective, we're also supposed to keep things as simple as practicable. And this is a lesson that usually only needs to be learned once.

It's a judgment call, but I'm fairly confident in this one.

1200 days, 16 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> in addition to the subjective, we're also supposed to keep things as simple as practicable

Agreed. That's why we have Details pages for some pages, and are working on, or considering, others.

Ion Storms needs a detailed page with the equations, and any other information that's too detailed for the main page.

1200 days, 16 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Ehhh... Not sure I'm capable of providing some of the info, mate. Especially not with the "cloudy" or "complex" storms; they do NOT behave as I anticipate.

But if you're up for it, I'll help as I'm able.

That reminds me: My information is that star clusters come in four colors (like dragons, color-coded for your convenience). Here at Nu, I've only ever seen white. Is that the new version of Stellar Cartog?

1200 days, 15 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I've seen yellow and red ones.

1200 days, 15 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I've only ever seen white.

White, Yellow, Red and Blue (almost white).

1200 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Not sure I'm capable of providing some of the info, mate. Especially not with the "cloudy" or "complex" storms; they do NOT behave as I anticipate.

Please feel free to email me what you have. I'll put it into the queue. I would start with normal Ion Storms, then have a section on Cloudy Ion Storms. I hope they're similar enough to not need a different page.

1200 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The game set up documentation seems indicates you can change the mineral densities.

It is mentioned in the Game set up optimisation.

>Neutronium Level ( neutroniumlevel parameter) — This is the average amount of Neutronium in the cluster being created. This value must be between 0.1 and 3.0 with a default of 1.6.
>• Duranium Level ( duraniumlevel parameter) — This is the average amount of Duranium in the cluster being created. This value must be between 0.1 and 3.0 with a default of 1.0.
>• Tritanium Level ( namtritaniumlevele parameter) — This is the average amount of Tritanium in the cluster being created. This value must be between 0.1 and 3.0 with a default of 1.2.
>• Molybdenum Level ( molybdenumlevel parameter) — This is the average amount of Molybdenum in the cluster being created. This value must be between 0.1 and 3.0 with a default of 0.8.

Reading it would seem to indicate you may be able to change it when you create a game yourself.

But I think it is just randomised.

Maybe add a comment saying that this value is randomised when the game is created and the average value is the default value?

1200 days, 5 hours, 58 minutes ago

borgg

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

One question: how I could have found this thread? But this "forum" (i would not call it that way) is not very well structured. I just saw it popping up under "latests". Hitting to "forums" i get several "main" nodes. But below that each thread is just listed without any headlines. This is a very untypical forum style.

(Thanks for forwarding my question from FAQ to this place here @MartinR)

1200 days, 3 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> how I could have found this thread?

There are three ways to find it.

1. It pops up from time to time. This is the best/easiest way to find it.

2. Bookmark it. This would need to be changed from time to time, as we start a new thread when the old one passes about 500 posts.

3. Select "HOW TO PLAY" from the top menu, then select "About The Documentation" at the end of the article, and "Documentation Details" at the end of that article. In the "Relevant Threads" section, we list all the Editing threads.

1200 days, 3 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Maybe add a comment saying that this value is randomised when the game is created and the average value is the default value?

While we strongly believe that to be the case, we haven't verified it to be so. That verification will be a very time consuming process, and I don't believe anyone has taken it on yet.

1200 days, 3 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Or just add these values are randomised when the game is created and cannot be changed by a person creating a private / interest game?

Or possibly remove it from the customisation section as it is random and not customisable by a non admin creating a game?

1200 days, 3 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Yeah; frankly, I think the way to go there is just ask Beefer. Down side is, from a practical standpoint it will be very hard to tell.

Hmm. One of our player-coders could probably datamine finished games or something and give us some answers. LOTS of number-crunching, though, and the counts are increased artificially by meteor strikes.

1200 days, 2 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Thing is, @MartinR, while we suspect that to be the case, it's almost impossible for us to verify it at the levels required for inclusion in the Documentation. We have tough standards that we need to meet.

If you can put it into a guide, we can host that and link it in. If you want to write an article for the Planets Mag or something, we can deal with that too. But we don't do subjective in the Docs.

Having said that: Thanks for posting it here. We're insane detail-oriented people; we'll keep worrying at it until we get something. :o)

1200 days, 2 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> One of our player-coders could probably datamine finished games or something and give us some answers

I believe there are two phases to this. The first phase would be to determine what, if any, correlation exists between the values set in the game creation screen and the settings of the built game. This would require generating a rather large number of private games, then deleting them.

The second phase would determine the correlation between the settings of the built game (and possibly the game generation settings) and the mineral content of planets when first encountered. If the game generation settings aren't being used, system-generated games can be used.

> the counts are increased artificially by meteor strikes

Yes, but I don't think it's enough to matter. The majority of the planets will have been colonized within the first 20-30 turns, which is too early for a huge effect. The number of planets found in those early turns should be enough for our purposes. Planets with massive meteor strikes would, of course, have to be ignored.

1200 days, 2 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Based on conversation in http://planets.nu/#/activity/2531969, would it be useful to write a Guide on FoF Tactics?

1200 days, 2 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Not yet. Especially as compared to non-FoF, the tactics of this are still in their infancy.

Case in point: PQ (vs. PBP) long-term use strategies are still the subject of great debate. One of the big FoF PQ tactics (especially in melees) is to play "Risk", eliminating players only when the queue is properly controlled. This can't be properly discussed without a PQ framework to discuss it in, and we still don't have enough confirmed results to publish a PQ strategy guide.

And that's the thing: Planets are only HALF the game.

Upshot: First, we should create a PQ guide -- but we can't without a lot more experience with the system, plus discussion to go with it.

1200 days, 2 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Especially as compared to non-FoF, the tactics of this are still in their infancy.

Sorry. I was referring to something for the player being killed (terminal end-game tactics).

1200 days, 2 hours, 15 minutes ago

borgg

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I cannot understand why it would be necessary to setup lots of games to analyze that. Cant not someone just look into the source-code of the setup routine?

In what language its written? If someone can provide me the code I can do it myself. Host routine and client stuff might be more complicated. But I cant believe the universe creator is that much piece of magic.

1200 days, 2 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Clarke's Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Clarke's Second Law: (probably apocryphal) Any insufficiently documented code is indistinguishable from magic spaghetti.

Short version: We ask Beefer.

1200 days, 2 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Clarke's Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I like the corollary to that:

Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

1200 days, 2 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Or simply the documenter's are unpaid volunteers with no access to the host code.

Admin needs to provide the information.

Or it is done indirectly as in most cases by evidence from completed games and evidence from other contributors.

1200 days, 2 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Cant not someone just look into the source-code of the universe mastering routine?

That source is "closed", and only a very few people have access to it. None of those people are the Documentation Editors.

> In what language its written?

The Host code is probably written in C#.

1200 days, 1 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

>> In what language its written?

>The Host code is probably written in C#.

Or Loagaeth.

1200 days, 1 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I thought it was all on punched cards.

Powered by Hamsters.

:-)

1200 days, 1 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN3tLnlixkY

Check out the sticker at 2:27

1200 days, 1 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> punched cards

Please don't bring up those memories. 12-5-8 I still remember some of the codes 11-5-8

1198 days, 3 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Minor update to the Scripts and Plugins page.

http://planets.nu/#/activity/2344164

1192 days, 1 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I couldn't find anything in the host order about when ion storms grow or shrink or change in intensity.

So say I have a ship that is 4 light years behind a class 4 ion storm. The storm is in the weakening phase, so odds are that its diameter will likely increase in size. I would like to know when does the storm grow in size-- before or after movement?

If the storm grows by 10 light years this turn, will it increase in size, and then drag my ship along even though it is presently outside the storm? Or will the storm move away from my ship, then grow, and leave my ship untouched?

From the docs Ion storms:
Move
Join
Decloak ships
Damage ships
Drag ships
New storms formed
Affect minefields

1191 days, 22 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Jason+Wiliams,

> I couldn't find anything in the host order about when ion storms grow or shrink or change in intensity.

That's because we're not sure exactly when it happens. This information appears to not have been known for VGAP3 either, as I can't find the requested information in either Donovans (http://www.donovansvgap.com/help/ionstorms.htm) or Stefan's Ion Storm page (http://www.phost.de/~stefan/ion.html).

> So say I have a ship that is 4 light years behind a class 4 ion storm. The storm is in the weakening phase, so odds are that its diameter will likely increase in size. I would like to know when does the storm grow in size-- before or after movement?

That would be good information to have. If you find out, we'd like to know.

I have added this to the list of missing items in the Host Order page.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/host-order

1191 days, 22 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

My belief is that it's all done as a single step. However, it's possible that ion storm changes take place during initial Host.

Fairly sure this has been tested somewhere, and that the answers can be found by digging through old games. It's been such a long time, though -- and my private notes are far from exhaustive.

My impression, though, is that changes take place pre-move.

1191 days, 1 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/command-ship

Doesn't mention it requires fuel, which it does according to Joshua; http://planets.nu/discussion/need-some-clarification-regarding-the-iron-lady-command

____

http://help.planets.nu/fuel

"Starships without fuel cannot perform most missions, including cloak."

http://help.planets.nu/out-of-fuel

"Fueless starships usually are unable to perform any of the special abilities of that starship, such as Terraforming or the Loki's Tachyon Device. A fuelless starship can perform the following actions:"

(Fix typo; fuelless)

These two documents do not adequately explain which functions do not work without fuel and it utterly inexcusable to remain so.

1190 days, 23 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Out Of Fuel is one of nearly a hundred topics on the list for revision pending further information.

Fortunately, I owe nobody any excuses or even explanations. The preceding is in part a courtesy and in part a "BIOYA". "Utterly inexcusable"?! What, are you paying me now? Shove it, bub; I'm working hard enough here considering.

"Fuelless" is not a typo.

1190 days, 22 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk: "I owe nobody any excuses or even explanations"

No one has ever said or implied you do. And I've stated multiple times I don't want to hear either.

Something being 'inexcusable' tends to imply that one doesn't want to hear excuses... thus your response is illogical.

" 'Fuelless' is not a typo."

Didn't say it was... I quoted the passage with the typo and showed the correct spelling.

"I'm working hard enough here "

I will gladly take on Documentation Editing duties to lighten your load... all I need to hear is your approval.

1190 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

http://help.planets.nu/adv-improved-desert-habitation

Suggestion: Add the following link; http://planets.nu/_library/2013/10/crysgrowth.html

1190 days, 15 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> do not adequately explain which functions do not work without fuel

The list of tasks (missions and FC actions) that work properly without fuel should be in the "out-of-fuel" page (it is). It's a shorter list, and changes less frequently. It should be obvious that anything not on the list of "it works" doesn't work.

The "fuel" page should link to the "out-of-fuel" page (it does).

> command-ship

That's a Campaign advantage. Players at that level should know to check the "out-of-fuel" page for verification. Right now, our focus is on documentation of Classic and Standard games, with a few minutes here and there spent on the more advanced features.

> adv-improved-desert-habitation

See above. I believe the formula is in the Happiness Details page. If not, it should be.

> I will gladly take on Documentation Editing duties

Not if I have anything to say about it. In addition to your numerous mental and emotional limitations (the enumeration of which you falsely claim to be a Rule 1 violation), your requests for changes show that you'd like to see much more information on each page, including the information that we're currently linking to from other pages. That one trait would make the documentation non-maintainable in a matter of months.

One of the Cardinal Rules of good documentation is that a specific piece of information should be in as few locations as possible, preferably only one (we're not there yet). The reason for this is that it makes the documentation more maintainable, while still providing the user with the required information (possibly with an extra click or two). This is a MUCH better state than having to update the same information in multiple locations, which tends to cause some of them to be missed.

1190 days, 14 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"Yeah. I don't know which is worse - watch him slowly rumble towards you like a prostate cancer or him appearing suddenly out of nowhere like a severe stroke."
- Hugh Abbott (about Malcolm Tucker)

1189 days, 23 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Meteor,

I'll have a look at that page, but Gnerphk is the expert here. After a quick glance, I can see that there are several changes needed.

1189 days, 22 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I'll have a look at that page, but Gnerphk is the expert here.

I went through both the PBP page and the Starship Limit page, and fixed what I thought needed to be fixed.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/priority-build-points
http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/ship-limit

In both pages, it's mentioned that PBPs start being consumed when the number of ships is within 50 of the limit. Is it within 50 or within 10%? This question would need to be answered by someone who's been in a custom PBP game with a non-standard ship limit.

In any case, these pages are ready for Gnerphk to do a quick check to make sure I didn't mangle it too badly.

1189 days, 21 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Looking now. There is in fact a little mangling going on, but only in the sense of doing laundry by hand.

(No; I really don't know. I was just making a pun badly. Only about a third awake.)

1189 days, 21 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

My notes show that 20 is safe. Builds happen at greater than 20. We shall, therefore, ignore the thread until a Host change has been confirmed.

1189 days, 21 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I'm actually thinking that the Ship Limit page should be completely rewritten in order to have it be valid for both PQ and PBP. As it now stands, that page is a bit of a disaster, and it only gives information that's duplicated in the PBP system.

For now, I'm lifting it out of active documentation and placing a placeholder text followed by a comment block.

1189 days, 21 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> My notes show that 20 is safe. Builds happen at greater than 20.

OK. I'll change it from 20 to 21. The wording is now consistent with a single value, so that's all it takes to change the limit in the documentation.

> ignore the thread

When I checked the PBP document, there were some inconsistencies. These have been resolved.

> http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/ship-limit

This page shows that PBPs are used for cloning. Is that correct?

> There is in fact a little mangling going on, but only in the sense of doing laundry by hand.

Perhaps it's time for you to go to a Laundromat ;)

1189 days, 21 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I'm actually thinking that the Ship Limit page should be completely rewritten

Yes. Just describe the limit, and not how to build to/beyond it.

1189 days, 21 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Bodge job completed; looks good enough. I've also trimmed the referents somewhat, though ToC can use some revision as well. I'll save that for the next scheduled ToC update, which will probably take place in a few days.

1189 days, 20 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Siggi,

> Link to intercept attacks from this page seems to be broken.

Fixed.

1189 days, 19 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"Fueless starships"

Still not fixed...

1189 days, 19 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Bodge job completed; looks good enough.

I just made a few minor tweaks to the ship-limit page. I think we can put this set of pages to rest for now.

1189 days, 19 hours, 4 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Inconsistencies corrected for out-of-fuel

1189 days, 9 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr: http://planets.nu/discussion/another-tidbit-for-the-rule-writers-star-base-ion-shield

1189 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Glyn Its probably what I vaguely remembered.

MJS summarised that allies with both Starbase Ion Shield were protected.

But if you don't have it your ally does not help having it.

But what about share intel / safe passage?

Or players with it at a SB without it?

1189 days, 8 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr: If I provide those answers, Whisperer and Gnerphk will then on purpose exclude it from Documentation... and they already failed to include what MJS68508 discovered because once again, they didn't like him... that is why when he asked them to stop arguing they both told him they refuse to stop.

So Martinr, discover the truth about this for yourself, and report back... at the very least you'll learn if they have a petty grudge against you or not.

1189 days, 4 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr,

> I heard that it also protects Alliance members ships but am not sure.

Neither are we. This sort of research takes a LOT of time. As this is a Campaign advantage, its priority is lower than the main portion of the game (Classic and Standard), or the metagame (web interface outside of the game), but higher than the Championship games. We're trying to work out a way to test this sort of thing, but, once again, it takes time.

If someone were to provide us with a Sector number (recent is better), turn number and starbase ID (or ship ID or Planet ID, depending on the feature), we could quickly verify it and add the appropriate information to the documentation. We have time for this, but not for locating/recreating the event in question.

@Glyn,

Due to the relatively low reliability of the enhancement requests you provide, combined with the relatively low priority of the corrections you give us, we find that we must verify everything from you. This takes time ... time that we prefer to spend actually entering the enhancements and fixes that we know are correct.

If you were willing to provide the information above, the verification would be quick, and the appropriate changes would be entered, but you haven't done so yet.

What you provide is being recorded, and will be entered either after verification (enhancements) or when someone is working on the page (minor fixes and typos).

If you provide a correct change that has a significant impact (I haven't seen such from you for weeks), it will be entered quickly.

> failed to include what MJS68508 discovered

I'm not aware of anything that fits this description, and don't have the time to search for it right now.

--------------------

A note on time.

The Editors are not retired. We need to work to get paid, to have the resources (shelter, food, power and Internet connectivity) to continue this addiction we call Planets.nu. In addition, we all have real lives and families which take up variable (and sometimes unpredictable) amounts of time. Finally (actually, sometimes most important), we play a few games here. All this takes time. What little remains must be used in a way that provides the best improvement for the most users. This is why the prioritization scheme at the top of this post is used by both Gnerphk and myself.

I haven't communicated with CSY to determine how he prioritizes what he does, but I think it's similar, with a dose of "squeaky wheel" added in. I don't believe any of the other Editors are actively changing the documentation at this time.

1189 days, 3 hours, 15 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I am currently studying as an undergraduate, so finding time has been hard to work with. Thus, I have been just doing minor fixes lately. Managing a blitz tournament and polishing the upcoming Planets Nu Matchmaking Pool does not help.

I have been wanting to release the latter for quite some time to see how much interest I could gauge, but the leaking that has been occurring lately pretty much blocked release of the project because I quickly added in support for the mystery race.

1188 days, 22 hours, 20 minutes ago

singularity

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

For information - I've had several major projects dumped on me IRL. I expect to be busy for a couple more months.

After that I'll finish off ship vs planet (90% done) and the API pages (5% done) and then I'll help with testing. And I have 2-3 Nu apps to finish writing.

And after that I might (cross fingers) even start playing again..... /grin

1188 days, 3 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Combat mass seems tricky to explain ... searching in Donovans leads to this sentence:

The strength of the shields and the ship's armour is determined by the mass of the ship's hull. The mass of cargo, fuel, weapons and engines does not count toward stronger shields.

http://www.donovansvgap.com/help/combat.htm

1188 days, 3 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

How odd. I could swear there was a micro page on that. Let me check my notes when I get home.

This is one of the projects I'm currently engaged in recasting -- as well as Singularity (scroll up three). So it's not out of my way.

1188 days, 1 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> I could swear there was a micro page on that.

No micro-page needed, as a starship's combat mass is simple in Planets.nu.

Combat mass for a starship is the hull mass. There's also a bonus that is sometimes given to a starship on the right-hand side if there's a carrier on the left-hand side. Finally, there's a Fed combat-mass bonus. I know the right-hand side bonus is documented, and I thought the hull mass was as well. I'll check today.

There are the shield bonuses (Fed recovery and SSG strength), and the Lizard 150% damage, but they don't effect combat mass.

1188 days, 1 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> No micro-page needed, as a starship's combat mass is simple in Planets.nu.

It's simple, but referenced many places. Perhaps we should have a page for it :(

1187 days, 3 hours, 58 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Nicely done. I still have a few questions regarding the new micro-page.

1. I do know that there is a certain minimum mass required to be eligible for the +360kT mass bonus. I do not know if it at least 140kT, or over that amount...

2. In relation to the previous question, I also wonder if the Fed crew bonus (+50kT) allows a previously ineligible ship (example: Vendetta) to be eligible for the mass bonus... Same question goes for the mass bonus granted by Saber Shield Generator(s).

1187 days, 2 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@CSY,

Thanks for catching those errors. They've been fixed. I also added clarification to the Shield Generator advantage page (the engine of which ship? The ship in combat).

WRT mass bonuses (I assume you mean the right-hand side bonus against a carrier on the left-hand side - we need a name for that), the Master at Arms article (http://www.donovansvgap.com/info/master.htm) states that the Fed combat bonus doesn't count towards the 140kt. I assume the Shield Generator advantage is similar. I'll document it as being without, but if someone finds out differently, the documentation will be changed.

1187 days, 2 hours, 32 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Yes, you are correct to assume mass bonuses WRT the right-side.

1185 days, 0 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

All pages that mentioned Combat Mass are now linked to the new page.

1184 days, 23 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr,

I believe that you have just verified that a ship performing a Hyperjump acts just like any other Warp-0 ship with an Intercept mission.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/intercept-mission

Additionally, you've shown that the Hyperjump movement takes precedence over the Intercept movement. I believe that should be documented in the Hyperjump page.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/hyperjumping

Does this make sense to you?

1184 days, 23 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Whisperer,

I believe hyperjump and intercept can work together. I had a game (that I'm still active in) where a falcon appeared out of nowhere to land on some freighters and a cat's paw. It would up getting captured by the paw, but that's beside the point. Until the game completes though, I won't be able to view that player's logs and see how it worked, exactly.

@Mrklin,

You were the one driving that falcon when that happened. Can you explain what it was you did? I looked at that round 6 ways from Sunday, and I can't think of a planet it could have flown in from for the intercept. That was a pretty damn slick piece of navigation.

1184 days, 23 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I confirmed that Hyping ships moved before movement (its already in the host order).

So HYPing ships move, then normal movement.

I originally had a id 3 probe intercept a id 1 ship. Unless its reversed and the bit in the host order is wrong.

The hyping ship landed in deep space where it should have landed. It did not adjust its direction to land 300LY with a direct line to where the target ship had moved. So it did not alter its course to over shoot the target ship.

Even if it did intercept it can not shorten its jump range from 300LY (apart from the small adjustment for hitting a warp well).

1184 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Warp0 Intercepting is a bug that was removed by Tim W. but re-added in VGAP3 because of all the addons that were using it. You can read the VGAP3 changelog if you don't believe me... so this is a fact.

1184 days, 22 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Glyn What you describe is a feature not a bug.

Its a feature of the game that may be useful to some people to be aware of.

Usually you can only use warp 0 intercepts.

Now people know that Hyping intercept have some use as a game mechanic.

They cannot get your intended target with the intercept unless its within the 350LY jump target. But if the ship moves you can use it to track its movement.

It will not be useful in 99.99% of Hyping jumps. But its something to remember for the future.

1184 days, 21 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Martinr: IT IS LABELED AS A BUG BY THE GAMES CREATOR. Discussion OVER.

1184 days, 21 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

It's not labeled as a bug by Joshua.
And it's Joshuas game now.
Whine all you want.
Discussion over.

1184 days, 21 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Siggi: I'm not whining, I'm stating FACTS.

1184 days, 21 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

So am I.
If you want to be stuck in the past that's fine.

1184 days, 21 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Siggi: Stating facts about the past isn't being 'stuck in the past'.

1184 days, 21 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Well you're claiming it as a bug based on the past.
I'm claiming it's not on the present.
Last time there was a bug found in the intercept it was fixed quickly.
I remember it pretty clearly since I was the one who found it, tested it and verified. It was claimed to be a bug and fixed promptly.
You have brought up warp0 intercept being a bug before and it's still there.
Apparently Joshua disagrees with you.
Personally I don't really care :)

1184 days, 21 hours, 9 minutes ago

glyns alternate

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Siggi: Only the creator gets to determine if something is a bug... everyone else calling it a feature, and future programmers keeping it in... doesn't change how it came into existence.

Joshua removed and has left in things classified as bugs by Tim W.

Apparently you just like to argue.

1184 days, 21 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Just like you like to nitpick.
Warp0 intercept is a part of the game that's not going anywhere. Call it a bug if you like.
Call it a clown car for that matter.
It'll still be there.

1184 days, 20 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Siggi: Stating facts is nitpicking?

"Warp0 intercept is a part of the game that's not going anywhere"

Which is why I've asked it to be Documented in the past... it currently isn't.

And what makes you think I want it to go anywhere? I have never stated what my opinion on it was. I have only stated that Tim W. called it a bug, removed it from VGAP3, and later added it in and why he did so.

Joshua ended up with slightly old source code and why so many already removed bugs in VGAP3 were back in existence at Planets Nu. He could have easily ended up with the one where Warp0 was gone, and I bet you it would have remained so.

That is why "Firecloud-web-crash-Chunnel" still exists yet Joshua removed the 'other' one when it was used against him in a Sector.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

1184 days, 20 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The Documentation Team is officially adopting the technical descriptor "Clown Car".

That is all.

1184 days, 19 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

...no; that's not all. Just referenced my notes.

Formerly, I have it documented that Intercept was useless on HYP ships and deactivated after movement -- just before the Intercept movement phase. This appears to be a change in Host behavior.

I've cited several examples in detail; they appear to show this to be true. But the date on the notes is several years ago -- old client, I think. Since the Intercept mission went through a minor code change since, I think it's worth verifying whether this aspect of the alteration is deliberate.

Addendum: A "Clown Car" henceforth will be employed as a technical descriptor for any unusual or unexpected behavior possibly contradicting intent or description that has been deliberately and intentionally left in the game by the developers. This term will never be employed in documentation but may be used in internal comments and memos.

1184 days, 19 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> A "Clown Car" henceforth will be employed as a technical descriptor for any unusual or unexpected behavior

I believe the word "glitch" is a better fit. Sorry Siggi.

@Siggi,

> You have brought up warp0 intercept being a bug before and it's still there.

I remember something along those lines. He couldn't come up with a single valid reason for removing it. I still haven't seen a valid reason to remove it.

1184 days, 19 hours, 0 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Furthermore, whose to say there will not be an add-on taping into the intercept system sometime?

Very unlikely, granted, but you never know.

1184 days, 17 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"The Try to Intercept mission orders the ship to intercept ships by ID number. You can use list and view commands to find the ID number of the ship you wish to intercept. Your ship will follow the intercept target ship until your ship runs out of fuel, the target ship disappears behind a planet, or cloaks."

----
"Host 3.22.042

Changed: Ships with and intercept mission and a speed of 0 are allowed to intercept

The change in 39 to block this was a bad idea, it broke several add-on that use intercept with speed 0 as a targeting command system."

----
"Host 3.22.039

Fixed: Ships with and intercept mission and a speed of 0 have their missions reset to nothing"

----
"Host 3.22.036

Changed: HCONFIG Switch: "Allow VPA Extra Features", If this switch is on VPA players can use their extra features that host normally does not allow, like intercepting ships they can not see on their scanners"

----
"Host 3.22.030

Cheat Block: You can only intercept ships that are in scan range of your ship. You can not intercept ships you can not see."

Source: vgaplanets.com
__________

Warp0 Intercept means you could track ships to planets when normally you couldn't at warp 1 and higher, that is why it was removed (albeit by a roundabout method).

You are all talking about using the Intercept Mission and not moving, you aren't even talking about Warp0 Intercept!

I've explained this all before.

____

"To use the hyperdrive set the ship's waypoint to a point farther then 20 light years and set the friendly code to "HYP". The ship will jump about 350 light-years and burn 50 units of fuel. The ship will come out of hyperspace at speed zero and with no waypoint set. Ships in hyperspace avoid all minefields. The hyperdrive can not be used to escape a tow. This will not work if the ship is on an intercept mission. Hyperjump ships can not tow another during a hyper jump.

The ship must have its speed set to warp 1 or faster for the jump to take place."

Source: vgaplanets.com

HYPjumping ships aren't having any of their waypoints being reset, since it has been quite awhile since I notified via the CONTACT form, I'm ready to suggest that this be documented... specifically just on; http://help.planets.nu/VGAP-3-differences

I just successfully pulled off multiple Intercept-HYPjumps... so you might as well toss that onto; http://help.planets.nu/VGAP-3-differences

Also Intercept mission requires fuel to work BTW.

1184 days, 17 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Aside from a difference list, I'm completely unconcerned with TimHost documentation. Just saying for what it's worth.

I'm not sure, @Glyn, but are you saying that there's an exploit here _aside_ from that a warp-zero ship can track a standard vessel?

With regard to HYP and intercept: Hang on; we'll check.

1184 days, 16 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

> Warp0 Intercept means you could track ships to planets when normally you couldn't at warp 1 and higher, that is why it was removed

I don't believe that's the case. Please feel free to test this in a public game (or find it in a recently completed public game), and provide us with the sector number, starship ID and turn number. If what you say is true, it will be documented.

Please note that this requires two starships, one at Warp 0 and the other at Warp 1, starting at the same location, set to intercept the same starship. As you're claiming a difference, this is the best way to show that difference.

> I've explained this all before.

Obviously you've done so poorly, or failed to provide evidence, as only you see the problem.

> HYPjumping ships aren't having any of their waypoints being reset

The documentation doesn't say that the waypoint is reset, so that action is as expected, consistent with other ship movement, and properly documented.

> I'm ready to suggest that this be documented... specifically just on; http://help.planets.nu/VGAP-3-differences

For that, you'd have to demonstrate that the waypoint of Hyperjump ships is reset in VGAP (the latest version). A statement to this effect by a reputable player would also work.

> Also Intercept mission requires fuel to work

As Intercept isn't in the list of functions that work without fuel, that's as expected, and properly documented.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/out-of-fuel

1184 days, 16 hours, 2 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I could see documenting the intercept difference IF the limitation stayed in place. It was short-lived, and Host 3.22.047 has been out for a long time, now.

The only host site I know of that still offers Host 3.22.X games is Circus Maximus.

I did a quick poke through the game list. If a game is not a PHost-enhanced game, it is a Host 3.22.047 game, and not an older version.

I also remembered that waypoints used to be trimmed (to 170 LY) in VGA Planets. I have documented that in the differences page.

1184 days, 15 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Whisperer: "Please feel free to test this in a public game"

Clearly you are confused, seeing as you have said this. Are you now claiming you CAN'T Intercept ships that move to a planet? You must be confused about one of these topics.

"The documentation doesn't say that the waypoint is reset"

I never said that it did, I said that is how it is different than VGAP3, and why it should be documented in http://help.planets.nu/VGAP-3-differences , please pay attention.

"A statement to this effect by a reputable player would also work."

Then I guess that cuts you out of the loop in this discussion... at least you don't need to pay attention now, since you've demonstrated you can't, I guess it is for the best.

"properly documented"

I suspect you have an incorrect understanding of what those two words imply when used together;

The word 'intercept' is not found in; http://help.planets.nu/out-of-fuel

And the word 'fuel' is not found in; http://help.planets.nu/intercept-mission

Meanwhile articles such as http://help.planets.nu/advanced-cloak , are properly documented... "although they do require fuel in the tank in order for the cloak to function. "

This inconsistent manner of documentation is going to mislead people into thinking that if a missions Documentation page doesn't say it requires fuel, they will assume it doesn't.

Clearly you don't under the subtleties of documenting all relevant information in places where logically a reader would expect them.

1184 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

The page on the Lay Minefields mission needs a rewrite. I believe the Lay Web Mines mission page can be used as a template. Would you like to do it or should I?

1184 days, 12 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Wow. You had truly confused me there, @Whisperer. I could have sworn I was just there, and now it's somewhere else. :o)

It looks like someone started a rewrite; there's references to "squares" and no accompanying chart. This really isn't up to par, so please, go ahead.

For what it's worth: This page, like so very many others recently, doesn't match my notes at all. I'm beginning to suspect that someone's doing some meddling while highly intoxicated.

Gentle reminder: If you make any changes more major than a grammar or spelling change, sign and date your work in the comments.

1184 days, 12 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hm. Perhaps instead we could just get Beefer to roll the version back to the latest sensible page. I know when I first wrote this one it wasn't bad.

1184 days, 12 hours, 6 minutes ago

captain storm

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I have a different idea! Let's just bring all shipps to center of universe and blow everything up in all the started games, then start from scratch!

1184 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I just added four missions to the Out of Fuel page. These missions either explicitly stated in their documentation that they would operate with no fuel, or my testing showed that they require no fuel.

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/out-of-fuel

1184 days, 12 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

> Perhaps instead we could just get Beefer to roll the version back to the latest sensible page.

I'll figure it out ... tomorrow.

FYI, I just went through all the mission pages. Most of them now link to the Out of Fuel page. Those that don't have explicit fuel requirements (hyperjump and chunnel).

1184 days, 11 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Cool.

One of my next big projects will be a document review based on the Host Order; I expect that will catch the last of these, at least until something else changes.

1184 days, 3 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Glyn,

> Are you now claiming you CAN'T Intercept ships that move to a planet?

I made no claim. You did. Specifically, your claim was that the Intercept mission works differently at Warp 0 than at Warp 1. Please provide supporting evidence, as described above, for your claim. The same applies to your "differences" claim.

> This inconsistent manner of documentation

I believe that this has been corrected WRT the "out of fuel" condition.

As you were previously informed (about 6 days ago) in this thread:

> One of the Cardinal Rules of good documentation is that a specific piece of information should be in as few locations as possible, preferably only one (we're not there yet). The reason for this is that it makes the documentation more maintainable, while still providing the user with the required information (possibly with an extra click or two). This is a MUCH better state than having to update the same information in multiple locations, which tends to cause some of them to be missed.

We're slowly moving towards this goal.

> Then I guess that cuts you out of the loop in this discussion

I place the same requirement on what I find as I do on what you find. I have to see it happen in a game before I document it. This is part of the reason that so few of the Campaign abilities have detailed documentation.

1184 days, 2 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I commented out a recent unattributed change to the VGAP3 differences page. Could whoever made that change please put claim it as theirs?

http://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/VGAP-3-differences

1184 days, 2 hours, 6 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

I forgot to add credit for that change. My bad :/

I do remember my waypoints being trimmed back when I played a training VGAP3 game.

1184 days, 1 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

The page for the Mine Sweep mission has been updated. LOTS of duplicate information was removed.

1184 days, 1 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@CSY,

I thought it would be something like that, which is why it was commented out and not deleted.

Thanks.

1183 days, 20 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Did a minor test today to answer a question.
A Deth Specula Stealth *Will* recloak after killing a Loki as long as it doesn't take damage. Not sure whether it's worth noting in the description of the ship but should probably be squeezed somewhere into the documentation.

Test game http://planets.nu/#/sector/180619
Combat happens on turn 5.

1183 days, 19 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Cool.

I still don't have a clue how to put that in. :o\

1183 days, 18 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Got it. :o)

1183 days, 17 hours, 40 minutes ago

glyns alternate

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

"Whisperer: I made no claim. You did. Specifically, your claim was that the Intercept mission works differently"

Clearly you didn't even read a thing I've said.

1183 days, 17 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Hang on -- it _was_ confusing. At least, I was confused.

Granted, I was feverish, but usually when my brain goes fuzzy it just smells colors and the like. I concentrated quite hard and couldn't follow -- and then asked for a clarification. I just went back over it and I still don't follow what the problem is.

(Still slightly feverish, mind.)

So yeah -- please do explain. This one's had me confused for a while, apparently; I'd thought it was all about whether Tim or Joshua is the best "final authority".

1183 days, 16 hours, 46 minutes ago

glyns alternate

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk: I don't mind explaining for you... especially since it sounds like you are having a stroke or something if you smell colours.

I want everything Planets Nu differs from VGAP3 documented... So that VGAP3 players, from every Host version, get what the differences are since they last played VGAP3... such as NUK-Trap, since that question has in fact come up in the Activity Feed before;

http://planets.nu/discussion/nuk-trap-1
http://planets.nu/discussion/nuk-trap
http://planets.nu/discussion/nuk-trap-didnt-work
http://planets.nu/discussion/privateer-nuk-trap
http://planets.nu/discussion/can-someone-help-me-with-a-doubt-i-have-with-a-nuk-trap
http://planets.nu/discussion/it-seems-that-the-privateer-nuk-trap-does-not-function-in

And that DOESN'T count all the threads about the differences between VGAP3 and Planets Nu where the NUK-Trap aspect is asked/mentioned.

Now way later http://help.planets.nu/VGAP-3-differences was created, but instead of what I reccomended, only the LAST version of VGAP3 is being considered, even though Planets Nu isn't even based off the last version (but is almost matching it as Planets Nu bug fixes have been bringing it into line with the last version of VGAP3 slowly over the years).

You could easily just include the VGAP3 change log so that all the old VGAP3 players are brought up to date but even that wouldn't be exact. Unfortunately a couple of bug fixes Tim W. did that were re-done here weren't exactly done the same way.

There are things you can't do on the few remaining VGAP3 sites, but can in fact be done here even in Classic Sectors, example: firecloud-crash-chunnel
_____

I don't even mention half of the exceptions I have with Documentation, just ones that the majority would agree with me (and do despite your excuses).

You are using American spelling for one, but that isn't something the majority would care about... mainly because Americans are the majority.

Anyhow, I have zero interest in arguing with people that enjoy arguing.

1183 days, 16 hours, 28 minutes ago

glyns alternate

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Lets just leave it at agree to disagree, because I don't want to get waterboarded with excuses... I get enough of that by having women in my life thank you very much.

1183 days, 16 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Synesthesia, I'm told, is not an uncommon side effect to certain fevers. Lovecraft spent most of his life with low-grade fever. So I try to mine this for ideas; apparently, there's precedent. Ia, ia; Cthulu ftaghn.

I rather like the idea of us hosting a VGAP3 change log copy as well as linking it into the change doc. It's solid. I've long thought we ought to host a copy of the original TimHost documentation rather than depending on someone else for that. We'll need permission for both, but I think that's manageable.

From there, the differences between what you describe and what we aim at here seem to be mostly presentation.

So -- NUK-Trap, tow-drop Chunnel y/n, crash-Chunnel, and the HYP-intercept difference (which, apparently, has some new rather nebulous characteristics). Since we're unlikely to get all the differences precisely enumerated, it's smart to have a disclaimer that says "This list is in progress and may not include everything; keep checking". And, since the game keeps changing (all four of those things behave differently now than in Alpha Cluster), that disclaimer will stay up always.

Anything obvious I'm missing?

1183 days, 16 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Don't worry; any explanation I offer will be purely for posterity.

(And today, it's likely to smell green-ish. Not fresh-cut grass; more like somewhere between the taste of pistachio ice cream and the e-flat above middle c.)

1183 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

OK; here's an update. Note it's neither an explanation or an excuse.

("Remember - this is for posterity, so be honest: How do you feel?"
-Count Rugen)

The "Differences" page is presently on Version 28, and there's some new content scheduled for entry. It's not presently prepared for release; big project. It is more than two pages in length.

I've taken notes from your explanation and will compare that list with what's presently in the document once I'm more lucid. I know some things are already there, but the disclaimer and a few links will be helpful when we have the time.

1183 days, 14 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Glyn,

> Clearly you didn't even read a thing I've said.

What you "said" wasn't in the feed (there was no link to a sound file), so obviously I didn't read it.

What a strange statement for someone who claims to have the abilities to function as an Editor :rolleyes:

It should be noted that you STILL haven't provided any information on your warp0 claim.

1183 days, 14 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

@Gnerphk,

From the CSY post in http://planets.nu/discussion/nuk-trap-1

> NUK trap has been disabled since Host 3.22.027, as planets with zero defense posts cannot use NUK.

Other players say similar things in other posts.

Apparently this isn't a difference between VGAP and Planets.nu, and has no place in the Differences document.

Also, I added a disclaimer, which included a link to the VGAP3 Release Notes.

1183 days, 13 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Documentation Editing Thread, Part 5: The editors are...

Due to the length of this thread, we'd like to discontinue its use, and move to the Part 6 thread.

http://planets.nu/#/activity/2562131