David,
That is an interesting mid-term solution. Is this what you are thinking that it should look like?

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Wednesday, September 05, 2012 - 09:22 pm: Edit

Cool Paul, thats it, almost exactly.

You didn't display numbers in each of the groups; I think just because this was a quick mock up.

Perhaps the tracks could show the highest undamaged rating in the proper spot.

Weapons may need to be labeled like "Disr A,B" for example. Perhaps the individual weapon identifiers could show up as a hovering tool tip instead.

I dont know SVCs opinion, but most of the table on the rleft should a) be in other windows or b) is not necessary during gameplay. There is no reason to refer to refit BPV during a game (or it is reasonable to ask players to look in their printed annex or rule book). The tournament SSDs don't currently include any of that stuff.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Wednesday, September 05, 2012 - 09:25 pm: Edit

And, of course, you could shade boxed using the FC colors.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, September 05, 2012 - 09:28 pm: Edit

That one is NOT acceptable to ADB. It is no better than what we have now. Any time spent doing that would be wasted.

And time is not infinite. We really need to see progress by the end of the month and most of the conversions by the end of the year.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Wednesday, September 05, 2012 - 10:05 pm: Edit

Steve,
I did not think it would be. But I wanted to make sure that you saw what David's vision was. I understand that it needs to be summary boxes as your example showed. And I think that is the way to go. But to me, the one thing that really needs to be worked on is how to handle refits. Because unlike the Fed Com, Star Fleet Battles has all kind of refits and the ship definitions need to offer this has it has in the past.

In the past, this has been done via different mechanisms from marking boxes as destroyed (like the ADD on the D7), converting boxes (like the Wing Phaser-2s to Phaser-1s on the K-refit). These two techniques should work. The only time that it would have a problem is if only part of a group of boxes from the printed SSD gets converted.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, September 05, 2012 - 10:24 pm: Edit

Paul: No harm in trying everything.

Refits, sigh, yeah, I heard that word once and never recovered. The Lyrans will be problems. Could always just do separate refitted/unrefitted "cards".

As before, if I can help (as opposed to making it harder) do let me know.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 12:30 am: Edit

I don't see refits being that big of a deal. The current defs already know which boxes are part of which refit.

If you use my system, a system that is added to an existing summary group in a refit will automatically be in that box group, problem solved. If a system in a refit defines a new summary box, then that summary box has to be defined and positioned, but then if the refit is not present, the summary box just doesn't display. So again, no big deal.

Refits that change but do not add or remove systems, like the Klingon phaser upgrades or the Hydran refits that change their gatling arcs, would have each version of the system defined in one refit or the other. The summary box for the version of the system that is missing would not display.

Based on what I know about current SFBOL defs, this is not that different from the way it works now. The need to display "blackened" versions of missing boxes goes away. The new system is actually potentially simpler.

I think doing every possible refit as a different SSD is the wrong approach - instead of one Fed CA, we end up with at least six. We would have ten thousand ships. The key to making this work in a timeframe acceptable to ADB is reusing as much of the old content as possible (everything except the SSD graphic, ideally).

Although, there may be some complex kinds of refits that have changes that are just too extensive. Those should probably be done as separate SSDs.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 12:43 am: Edit

In most cases you can just do the refitted ship and dial back the numbers for pre-refits.

But in a few cases, that's icky. Lyran side phaser-3s become phaser-1s so you might have an unrefitted ship that has side phaser-1s marked 0/0. Fed labs sometimes become AWRs so you might have a CA that is Lab 8/8 AWR 0/0 and a CA+ that is Lab 4/4 AWR 4/4.

The ticking time clock is to remove the generation 2s, not replace them. You can take as long as you want to replace them. But they really should all go away by the end of the year. (Don't take that as a fatal deadline. We'll talk about how fast things are going in a month and see how it goes. If you're replacing 12 ships a month we may let all the second generation expire to encourage you to get busy doing more conversions. If you're doing 200 per month we may let you run the project out.

Maybe what you need to do is let each player who uses non-TCs vote on the 20 ships he wants done first. Tabulate the votes and do whatever got the top scores. If one of your 20 votes was for the Klingon D5, when it's done, you get notified to go re-program that vote to some new ship (if you want). You may find out that nobody ever used an ISC FF-Scout and it may never get any votes and hence won't be missed if it is never upgraded. Just a thought. I can imagine vote-trading chat rooms where you agree to vote for three of your opponents most critical ships just to keep your campaign going.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 08:41 am: Edit

SVC's your voting idea might be workable in some respects. I do know that it's semi impractical in others. I know when I did gen2 defs I would do the basic ship and then as many of the minor changes needed for variants so I would have them done. Doing Klingon F5D but not F5S isn't very practical in the long term. Especially when we have to add in Refits.

I would suggest the vote applies to an Empires Hull types.

IE: I want Fed DD's I would vote that way. The DDF would be enough of a change that it could go with its own vote since it would need a completely "new" background image.

By Andrew J. Koch (Droid) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 09:26 am: Edit

Well at least Dave knows Steve's opinion now!

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 01:23 pm: Edit

The voting process is not required.
3rd Gen SSd is going to happen, period.

Concentrate on the final version of 3rd Gen SSD for SVC's approval, then the volunteers can go to town making them with Paul delegating the volunteers accordingly.

If some one needs a particular ship for a campaign, they can make a request and the 1st volunteer ( or Paul can assign the volunteer ) to see that request and responds can make the SSD.

The voting process will only take precious time of which we have little of.

Cheers
Frank

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 05:48 pm: Edit

You guys have done three and a half thousand of the second generation? Well, that explains the panic over three months, but it also means that this mess is far worse than we ever imagined. I gotta be really careful about how I tell Leanna this or they'll all go away. Let me handle that but it's not going to be easy.

We need to see the process start this month and reach 100 per month. Given lots of minor variations, you can do that easy. I mean, five Klingon hulls would be one month's quota.

This order would work
Feds
Klingons
Romulans
generics
kzintis
gorns
tholians including neos
orions
hydrans
andros
lyrans
wyns
ISC
Frax
anything not specifically noted.
Omega, Magellanic, other non-Milky Way
fighters, shuttles
tournament ships

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 08:33 pm: Edit

Tournament ships to me means the sanctioned official SFB ones. Those can wait for the end.

Unsanctioned ones done by ADB can wait a while but if ever changed and sanctioned need to be 3rd Gen.

Tournament ships not done by ADB are not covered by the "get out of conversion free" card.

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 08:36 pm: Edit

Once SVC has approved the format for 3rd Gen SSD he wants, I am ready to start converting to them !

Thing is, I need some one to show me how to do it.


Cheers
Frank

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 09:12 pm: Edit

We need Paul to do the tools and then away it goes. I suspect that the finished tools and approved format are going to go hand in hand. Paul may not know until he gets into it what tools can be done and I won't know until she shows me something if I can sell it to the Board. Remember that while I am the only ADB voice to speak on the issue and I not the only one telling me what to say.

By John Smith (Johnsmith) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:23 am: Edit

Would we need to have an active SFBOL subscription to allow us to work on the defs?

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 02:42 am: Edit

In theory, No. I don't believe the current tools require a subscription. Though your guess is as good as mine on how to *use* those tools.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 05:47 am: Edit

John,
No. It does not require a subscription to create a definition. It would require one to test it.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 09:28 am: Edit

Ok, so when do we get started? Is the talking done yet, so we can start working?

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 12:28 pm: Edit

In my opinion the only talking that may still be needed is between Paul and ADB.

I wasnt able to stay for the whole talk shoe last night but my #1 question was going to be when will he be ready to get us started?

Has a final decision been reached on weapon boxes, are all weapons of one type and arc to be combined into one box?

For me to keep playing in the Canis Minor Campaign what I need is the ISC; CC, CA, CAT, CM, CL, CS, SR, DD, DDL, SC, FF, FFL and FLG.

As the years roll on I will need more but for Y166-168 this is all I need besides the general units like MB's, BS, BATS, and ground bases.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 12:33 pm: Edit

Thats only 4 different hull types and im happy to do them myself before moving onto do the units that other Admirals say they will need.

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:17 pm: Edit

I'm ready to start work any time.
Lets get this thing rolling !

Ahh, I do need to be taught how to though !

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 12:10 am: Edit

A problem that existed with even the 2nd gen SSDs would be nice to see resolved, here, if possible.

Specifically - it would be nice to have the ability to "modify" the SSD in-app before a game.

Specifically, for example, when you have XP-refits. (XR1.42) allows replacement of one APR or AWR with 2 XPRs. (XR3.12) allows replacement of pairs of phaser-3s with phaser-1Xs. And then, of course, there are the 1:1 replacements of systems with X-tech equivalents.

Effectively, there becomes a near infinite variety of different combinations possible from any SSD.

It would be nice if there was some way to "edit" the SSD before the mission to add or remove systems from it to account for this. With the gen 2 SSDs, that would actually be kinda tricky due to the need to position extra (or fewer) boxes and the like, but it seems like it could be pretty easy to do with the gen 3 SSDs.

So this format switch may actually (assuming the app is coded to allow for it) resolve an issue with the existing client and partial-X-refits.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 10:35 am: Edit

Xander,
This was an issue that Aaron and I were working on (i.e. partial X refits). But we never got around to it.

Now here is the issue with the ability to change SSDs in an uncontrolled manner (i.e. in the room upon loading the SSD) that is that there is no way to tell the other player that the SSD that they are seeing has been modified from the original. For the refits, you could tell due to the modification to the SSD. (i.e. certain boxes blacked out).

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 12:39 pm: Edit

Ok. I think I figured out how to do this with the least amount of work for SVC and hopefully minimizes the amount of work for everybody. It will take me a few days of work. (This is man-days not Calendar days).

1. We have SVC provide a number of template background images with no boxes drawn on them. For example, a Federation Cruiser, a Federation Destroyer, a Federation Frigate, a Federation New Cruiser. Since the background image used for the Federation CA and Federation CC can be the same.
2. Add the ability to "Import" the old definition so that:
   • All of the metadata information can be transferred
   • Energy Allocation can be transferred
   • Can easily add the boxes from the old generation of the SSD. (I am hoping to do a wizard style, prompting to position each type of box. My only concern is handling refits.)