VGAP3 wiki

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2998 days, 21 hours, 51 minutes ago

VGAP3 wiki

I don't know if this interests anyone, but I've noticed that there doesn't seem to be any VGAP3 wiki. There does exist one for VGAP4, but not 3.0.

There are plenty of excellent references and guides online, but many of them were written a long time ago, and do not provide the capacity for collaboration and correction that wikis offer. I think there could be a demand for it.

So, I started one and have been keeping some notes and ideas in it. If anyone is interested, feel free to visit http://www.vgaplanets.org/. I don't have much experience administering a wiki, so if this takes off, I'll probably need help. Contact me if you're interested.

It might be a little pretentious of me to grab the .org domain, but it was irresistible. :D

Go nuts!

2998 days, 21 hours, 23 minutes ago

james t. plagerism

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Well done. I've signed up, I'll contribute some stuff later on.

You may want to talk to ][avok regarding his opinion on transcribing a large portion of Donovan's into the wiki, since Donovan's functions as the de facto VGAP3 reference right now.

Also keep in mind that both THost, nuHost and PHost are all legitimately "VGA Planets v3", so some way will have to be found to balance documentation between them all. THost and nuHost should be close to identical, but with some differences remaining. PHost's additional features are generally well documented already on phost.de, so there's less pressure to document that side of things initially.

2998 days, 19 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Great idea rbos. I fully support it! Will post a public message to help spread the word. Vgaplanets.org is a perfect place for that. Good job scooping that up.

2998 days, 18 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Great idea, this might even end up taking the place of the "How to Play" Section. Personally, I would rather see the Nu team improving the software rather than documenting the changes.

Is the intent of the wiki to be a documentation of all VGAP3.0 or just nuHost? Or initially nuHost and then the rest of VGAP3.0? My 2 cents... it should be dedicated to Nu first. Since this is intending to be a pay for play product... without proper documentation it will not be able to attract any sort of following, much less a following willing to drop change for a 20 year old game.

And there's been so many changes that are Nu specific, player IDs, database transactions, The time machine, and so forth that do not exist in any other VGA Planets like client or host. These are features that either didn't exist / weren't important (from a user standpoint) even 6 months ago and they haven't made it to the documentation on this site yet.

Plus Phost and Thost have their own docs.

2998 days, 18 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Hey, cool. I didn't expect that kind of exposure so fast.

I hope that someone finds it useful. I have no wish to supplant Donovan's (excellent) resource, but I think it's incomplete, lacking things like more in-depth tactical and strategy ideas, and guides, no matter how well written, suffer from not being able to be contributed to. So I think a wiki could fill a good niche in between the straight facts (as Donovan's presents) and the single-POV guides.

2998 days, 17 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Thanks for this. I took a quick look at it and learned something new already. Congratulations!

2998 days, 16 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

A very good step - I'll do my best to contribute useful stuff

2998 days, 14 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

@rbos:

I started a bit.
I filled this article with life:
http://vgaplanets.org/index.php/Disguising_Ship_Movement
and wanted to upload a screenshot (just a cutout) from VGAPlanets.NU to show the problem.

The Wiki doesn't allow uploads atm. Is this by intention or just a default that you didn't change yet?
I can understand if you don't want to allow it - I'll update the article then.

2998 days, 13 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Nice, singing up too.

2998 days, 9 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Thank you for creating this rbos! I've already enjoyed learning from the 'Hostile Planets' article! I have been using the vga planets calculator for months and somehow missed that growth table down below...drats!

Anyway, thanks again!

2998 days, 9 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

I think the wiki is configured to allow edits without being logged in.

See:
http://vgaplanets.org/index.php/Special:RecentChanges

2998 days, 8 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

I hate stealing other peoples articles and then not giving them credit. Especially for the race guides, ecoomic strategies etc... people need to make sure they give proper credit. (I haven't yet on the Colonies article.. and that was about 20 minutes of Copy/Paste.)

2998 days, 6 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Guys, I have a proposition, since most content is added by you guys on the new wiki.

Let's try to keep a proper and complete English there. TW means something only if you know it is a Transwarp Drive. Also "torp" is fine, but "torpedo" is even better. Also, please use the wiki as a wiki -> give links to relevant topics "[[torpedo]]" instead of "torp".

2998 days, 6 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Heh, I guess you were editing the stuff I put in the Colonies guide. Good suggestion, I'll keep that in mind for the future. =)

2998 days, 6 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

He Veldan!
You copied 95% of my article for Rebels in the Colonies guide! Shame on you! ;-)

2998 days, 6 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Isn't plagiarism the sincerest form of flattery?

I liked your format. Plus, I was going to work on it more today while doing some improvement projects at home.

2998 days, 4 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Excellent idea Rbos! I think Vesuvius has the right of it - well written and easy to read content is key.

Incidently, there is a VGA planets 3.x wiki here: http://www.planetmaker.de/vgap/wiki/ but it looks like it was last updated early 2009 and the usability isn't quite there.

I'm sure the Nu community can do a better job!

AA

2998 days, 3 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

I don't mind public edits without creating an account. But spambots will probably be a problem eventually, so I'd probably best get on that.

Enabled image uploads.

At some point we'll have to standardize things like tables, article headings and so on, but we can impose editorial standards later once we have an idea of what it should look like. Some really good ideas so far.

2997 days, 21 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Speaking of that anyone got any style guides that would help me with basic text formatting and so forth. I've just started using wiki's at work so I know some basic stuff, but I'd like to do more with formatting. Specific things I'm looking for;

How to justify text (left, right center)
Commands on how to bold text
I've seen people use =, ==, and === to create different header types, what are my other options?
How do I force a new line in? I tried {\n} but I just made that up from what I know from scripting perl.

Anything of the like would be helpful.

2997 days, 21 hours, 38 minutes ago

james t. plagerism

RE: VGAP3 wiki

The Wikipedia cheat sheet is a good place to start for basic commands:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet

2997 days, 17 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Please watch the (for example) Rebels Site, for a structure, which is the same for every race.

I'm doing the Fascist now and could need help by a native speaker later ;)

2997 days, 16 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Hi Madinson,

Just looking at the Rebel site compared with the rest - I would suggest that as a Wiki that entire ship lists are more appropriate than 'only the most useful ships'. How do other people feel about it?

AA

2997 days, 16 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

@Madinson, Sirius113:
Good articles for Fascists and Birds !

@AndroidAndy:
yes - the complete shiplist for every race makes sense.
I just wanted to emphasize the usefulness of those ships that I picked compared to the rest.

Perhaps we should continue discussing in the wiki to make the context to the topics more obvious.

2997 days, 16 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

@Veldan:
for a comprehensive guide for writing wiki-articles just click on the "MediaWiki"-Icon (bottom-right every wiki-article)

2997 days, 14 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

madinson, I've gone through your Fascist page and revised for English usage as best I can. I tried not to change any meaning. Please check and let me know here if you are unhappy with anything or I misunderstood what you were saying. If it's okay with you, I'll come back every few days to work over any new stuff you've added.

2997 days, 9 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

thanks @androidandy for the corrections. It would take a few days until I can make those "big" fascist area smaller. Some parts are just copied at the moment, I will change this!

http://vgaplanets.org/index.php/Fascists

I did a structure now, integrated at point 3 Ships - 3.1 Most useful ships. Maybe thats a good structure for all races:

3.1Most useful ships

4 Alliances
5 Strategies
- 5.1Tip1
- 5.2Tip 2
- 5.3Tip 3
- 5.4Tip 4
6Special mission 1
7Special mission 2

2997 days, 9 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

@kwesy: ty

@madinson:
i've used a similar approach
But some things are not that easy.
For example, should i explain Super Spy on the Bird page?
On an extra page?
Alliances: should i describe them on this page? If we do it like that, we will have to write advantages of an alliance on 2 pages.

2997 days, 9 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Thanks Kwesy;

As you can see the Colonial page is no longer a blatant rip-off of the rebel page. =)

We're still at the point of discussing big topics for the overall site... perhaps we should discuss site layout on the main page? There's lots of good ideas from the different race pages that I've been consolidating into the Colonies guide. It started with the Rebels as the base, I included quite a few ideas from the Birds page, stole the ship listing table, some formatting and so forth. Just trying to make the Colonies a fusion of all the good ideas I see from everyone else. The red column for fuel doesn't show up well it needs to be changed.

2997 days, 9 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

@Sirius: I think a separate wiki entry for most missions would be appropriate.

Actually on that point, @Madinson, there is already a Glory Device page up which has a lot of the same content thats now on the main page.

Cheers

AA

2997 days, 8 hours, 49 minutes ago

james t. plagerism

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Generally speaking, err on the side of more entries. You can have a very brief (1-line) summary of something but link to the main article for a full explanation. For example on the Birds page, you should mention Super Spy as their special ability, and a short description of what it is ("ability to gather detailed information about a planet, and possibly control the friendly code"), but link to the Super Spy article for all the full details of what it does and how it works.

2997 days, 5 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

I added a proposed template for race pages, "fill in the blanks" sort of thing. If anyone has anything to add to it, feel free. Once it's more or less finalized one of us can go through and standardize the race pages.

2997 days, 5 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

@rbos:
I suggest that the template is setup in a proper "wiki-style":
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Templates

Then it's easier to use the template, i.e. include it rather than copy&paste it.

2997 days, 3 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Templates are a good idea, though it looks like they're designed to stick small widgets into pages rather than template an entire page. :/ I'll keep reading.

2991 days, 22 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

"I don't know if this interests anyone, but I've noticed that there doesn't seem to be any VGAP3 wiki"

That is old men secrets :)
That shall die with us!

2991 days, 22 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

"I've taught you everything you know .. but I haven't taught you everything I know."

2988 days, 17 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

Wiki site is coming along, but more people to populate and discuss would be excellent!

2904 days, 19 hours, 40 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

For those interested, I've created a proper race template, and have started to standardize the race pages a little. I'll probably do a ship template in the next few days.

http://vgaplanets.org/index.php/Template:Player_Race
http://vgaplanets.org/index.php/The_Solar_Federation

Things are looking pretty good!

Some help creating an Empire page would be good.

2903 days, 17 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

I tried to open the wiki page, but my browser couldn't find the server.

EDIT: Nevermind, it was the www. -part which had to be omitted!

2897 days, 18 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: VGAP3 wiki

I added a "ship" template (very basic) and stuffed in pages for all the ships with a skeleton template in there. To generate a ship data page complete with ship data and a ready-to-upload image slot:

{{Ship
|ShipName=D19b Nefarious Class Destroyer
|Races=
|Comments=
|Notes=
}}

http://vgaplanets.org/index.php/D19b_Nefarious_Class_Destroyer

I also created dead simple templates for inserting ship data into existing page:

{{ShipTableHeader}}
{{ShipLineByName|name=Outrider Class Scout}}
{{ShipLineByName|name=Nocturne Class Destroyer}}
{{ShipTableEnd}}

will create a nice pretty table with all the data for those ships, extensible with new data in the future (like Nu addons).

2429 days, 8 hours, 28 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: VGAP3 wiki

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