I'd be willing to take another crack at it with a higher-contrast font and a purpose-built background image. I used the turret ship because it was there and didn't already have stuff drawn on it, although the turret ships are also fun. I would welcome additional source graphics of any sort (best would be to just post them here if possible so all interested parties can try their hand). I'd rather have a gif or png than a jpg for this (although jpg would work).

I would take a shot with the Starline images except for the blue background, do you have one with a white background? Are there enough Starline images for the overall project?

It is kinda annoying to make the SSDs in my mockup because, since I didn't have SSD loading code, I didn't bother with an SSD builder either. I have to define all the box positions in the source code (there's a place where the SSD definition loader would connect, but there just isn't one and it seemed like wasted effort since whatever data format I picked probably wouldn't have matched whatever SFBOL actually uses). But if we need more than one or two ships to prove the concept I'll do that too, not a ton of code to write.

Glad the health bar is popular. It arose from a discussion with Josh (GFB) as he was poking holes in the concept.

I don't think automatically placing the summary boxes on the SSD is workable because the software doesn't know where things like engines and weapon mounts are on the background image. The best you could do would be general guidelines like "rear firing weapons and engines at the back, forward firing weapons at the front, everything else in the middle" which would be wrong as often as it would be right. What we might want though, would be a "snap to grid" system to allow the boxes to be placed without pixel-perfect accuracy with the mouse, speeding up the process (I don't remember, SFBOL might already have this). I still think it should be possible to load an old-style definition and use it to pre-generate the summary boxes, so all that's needed is a new background image and actually placing the boxes.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, September 05, 2012 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Just personally I like the FC color coding and think it would help the game a lot, but that's one I'll leave up to you guys.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 03:02 am: Edit

At some point can we get a new discussion thread going for the project?

While chat rooms are an option, I think it would be better to have a record of whatever is discussed so that volunteers dont waste there time duplicating somebody elses work.

Im trying to get started on a list of what ships I think the ongoing campaigns need converted right away, but I dont want to clutter up this discussion on the SSD format with lists of ships.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 03:50 pm: Edit

And yet, Dale, you ARE poking the bear. There is not anything I can do but offer to help Paul, but we do need to see progress start soon and get moving very quickly. I really see no reason for your post, certainly not for posting the same thing a second time. Anguish isn't helping Paul or anyone else, and both Paul and I know how everyone feels. There is more than enough time to get a good amount of progress made, but then again, so much time has already been wasted.

And let's remember something. SVC is NOT the problem. SVC is the one buying you all as much time has he can.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 04:19 pm: Edit

The great physic Carnac holds an envelope to his magnificent turbaned forehead. He closes his eyes and reaches deep into the paranormal world with his mystical intellect. The answer to the question inside this envelope is "The SFB Online client SSD issues." He takes the envelope from his forehead, brings it to eye level and opens the envelope. He blow air into one end of the envelope and the paper gently falls out into his hand. He unfolds the paper and reads aloud the question written on the paper. "What is very likely the topic on tonight's episode of Talkshoe?"

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 04:29 pm: Edit

Jack D: You have your topic. Use it wisely.

Carnac holds the envelope to his forehead and says: "A complete waste of time that does not help and actually slows things down and makes things worse."

Then he reads the contents which says "What is every second spent on Talkshoe complaining that ADB wants to impose a deadline for the conversions to make serious progress."

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 04:59 pm: Edit

I agree completly with that O Mighty Carnac.

Since Paul has to be the one to program the tool the volunteers are going to use and he's said already his time is very limited I think we have no more time for debate.

Save your skills from debate club for version 4.0, assuming this crisis is resolved in time.

My suggestion is to not offer more unacceptable alternatives to what ADB wants.

I would like to hear when Paul will have the new SSD tool ready, and the tutorial showing the volunteers how to use it. Serious progress is not possible without both those items.

And serious progress is the only thing that can save SFBOL and its 200 subscribers, debate wont save anything we know what ADB expects the new SSD's to look like its up to Paul to program that code into his software.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Anybody know how many non-TC ships are actually ON sfbol?

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 05:29 pm: Edit

Mighty Carnac and all others who are talking about the next generation of SSDs on SFBOL need to move to this topic: Third Generation Ship Descriptions project ( http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/messages/12031/31039.html?1346963152 ).

Otherwise Mighty Carnac might be seeing a #8 Griswold cast-iron frying pan in someone's future ...



Jean
WebMom

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Counting fighters and shuttles, Vari, Frax, Old Galaxy Pirates, and other wierdness, I counted 3570 ± 210 SSDs in the Client.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 05:44 pm: Edit

Three and a half THOUSAND???

OMFG, what the frak have you guys been doing??? We need to NOT tell Leanna that or you'll lose them all tomorrow.

As it is, we're going to need to see at least 100 per month and accelerating, and starting with Feds and Klingons.

Fighters and shuttles can be last, just before TCs.

Wierdness, omega, old galaxy, and frax can be between those and the TCs. Let me think about this.

OMFG. Three and a half thousand. Jeez.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 06:09 pm: Edit

That's counting fighters and shuttles, though. Because fighters and shuttles don't support refits, there are a HUGE number of SSDs - there are, for instance, 5 A-6s, 6 F-14s, 5 F-18s, and who knows how many versions of Klingon fighters. I bet there are at least a hundred Klingon fighters (and most of them are duplicated for the Lyrans and Seltorians).

It also includes PFs: by my count, there are 21 PF versions for the Klingons alone.

There are many other units in the system that, while they have ship definitions, aren't really ships. Stuff like base augmentation modules, pods, freighter skids, etc etc. all have their own SSDs.

But yes, the goal was always to make the SFBOL library as complete as possible. It would have been really good to get the ship format right the first time.

There are only two ways to do something, "right" and "again" and this time there is an unusually large penalty for "again."

This is why I am so strongly in favor of reusing or automatically importing the existing definitions, with only new art being added. If changing the art and placing a dozen boxes is the only requirement then it's five minutes to convert an SSD. If everything has to be done from scratch then it's a massive, massive project that probably can't be done.

Also, if the art is deleted without deleting the remainder of the ship definition, then the part that ADB worries about goes away but the part that is needed for updating the SSD sticks around.

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

Are you so sure what part ADB is worried about?

We need to see 12 hull boxes turn in to a box that says "hull" next to a box that says "12".

Repeat for everything, except MAYBE weapons.

Adding the "background art" is not a major concern of mine. A plain ship outline is fine.

===========

How many SHIPS?

Not fighters, not PFs, not defsats, not mines, not drones, not monsters, but SHIPS?

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 06:26 pm: Edit

my point is that Talkshoe is a great time to have Paul Franz undivided attention, he seems to be to busy to be on the board much.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 06:45 pm: Edit

SVC: On the current SSDs, "art" includes all the SSD boxes and their labels. Deleting that art results in a "spreadsheet style" SSD (or a blank page with invisible boxes) that could still be imported into a new format but which can't itself be displayed.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 07:13 pm: Edit

William: you lost me somewhere around "art".

Just make it happen, and end up where we need to.

The details are only confusing me.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 07:43 pm: Edit

I oount 2600ish ships based on the ship list posted off the main page.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 07:56 pm: Edit

This list? Link: http://www.sfbonline.com/ships.jsp

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 08:31 pm: Edit

Ok, got a handle on that.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 08:39 pm: Edit

Shawn,

Thats the link I looked at. I assumed it was fairly up to date.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 09:04 pm: Edit

I think that list just covers the base ships and not the refits. I have no idea if it matches the SFB Online library lists or if it is up to date.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 09:13 pm: Edit

I suspect that 3500 is scarier than it deserves to be and that once you boil out the clutter and the tiny variations the number to be dealt with is very much smaller.

Once the D5 is done, every variant of the D5 is only a flick and a click away.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 12:37 am: Edit

Leanna is ok with the plan as it is. Get the first 3rd gens done this month, get a lot of ships --100 or more -- done every month after that. She agrees that 3500 without explanation would be a really scary number. She wants them gone ASAP and does ask that you guys remove anything you don't use.

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

"Three and a half THOUSAND???

OMFG, what the frak have you guys been doing???"

I'm a confused by this comment. The number of ships on SFBOL should match the number in the SSD books, right? I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I genuinely don't understand the problem.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 09:33 am: Edit

The printed SSDs get the advantage of having several refits or versions on one page. The SFB online definitions are separate upping the number. A fighter SSD is just a collection of check off boxes that can be used for multiple fighters on a printed SSD. With SFB online there is a separate definition for each version of the fighter. There are also some unpublished playtest ships that are in the SFB Online library and some some custom ships being used in player campaigns that are not in the ssd books.