Neale: He does PDF for the realative security. That is a document must SFBers would like to have.


But do let it out!

By Neale Davidson (Vance) on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 03:36 pm: Edit

Lawrence - I would, but it was a trade. This paycheck went to my middle daughter's birthday, so nothing extra for me. Just got to wait a couple of weeks, that's all.

Loren - Let's see, ruining a working relationship with SVC or become popular with a bunch of anonymous interenet people... tough choice! :P

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Neale: You'd be surprised how many people will take the second choice. After all, there is only one SVC, whereas the Internet potentially includes everyone on the planet.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 04:01 pm: Edit

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Quote:

And since I don't own FC yet (on the to-do list, but very hard to justify with no local payers), can someone shoot me a copy of the Kirov's SSD to look at?

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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 04:31 pm: Edit

I do PDFs because they're just so darned easy.

If Neale wants to do a Kirov he needs to start with a miniature and the grayscale and then check the SSD to see what the bumps are.

By Neale Davidson (Vance) on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 05:04 pm: Edit

I've got the mini for the Kirov. Going from the mini, I've got the same basic layout as the Connie, minus two decks and , of course, with the broad and 'flat' warp pylons. (The aft phaser mounts are on /some/ of my connie minis, but I've got so many from different sources, I wouldn't know which I could cite)

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 09:38 pm: Edit

Beware the "minus two decks" part.

My view is that the aft hull of the BC mini is flatter than it wants to be, due to shrinking during mastering and casting. Other than the obvious difference of the nacelle struts, it is the same aft hull shape as the classic Constitution class CA.

Note the cover art for FedCom and GURPS-PD.

By Neale Davidson (Vance) on Tuesday, June 06, 2006 - 09:40 pm: Edit

DjDood - Shape, yes, but what I'm referring two are the two small 'phaser mounts' ahead of the rear observation dome above the shuttle bay.

And, the minus two decks is in the pylon, not the secondary hull, and is pretty consistant with every pic that I could scrounge up.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, June 07, 2006 - 01:21 am: Edit

Gotcha. Just checking.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 06:53 pm: Edit

Neale, let's talk up here since this is the product we're in fact working on.

Assuming you can provide drawings in a format which prints well (and a lot of formats that look spiffy on web sites will not work in high-end printing) we just need to define what would be there for each ship class/sub-type. Here are my thoughts, and I'm sure that this is not enough data.

length, width, height in meters (scale from the miniatures?)

List of weapons (get this from each SSD)

Number of other equipment items (tractors, shuttles, transporters) get from SSD.

Crew size (see crew units which are in ten-man increments and pick something within 3 or 4 either way.

Crew breakdown (most of that data doesn't exist, scaling it from the little published info could get sticky, but if the expected customers is going to expect to see this, we have to do it.)

List of ship names (this data exists) and hull numbers (also exists), may have to be formatted.

Thumbnail history of each ship (we have some of this data BUT I do NOT want to lock in the rest of it). that is, I do NOT want to make up a couple of lines about every single ship name and find out later I can't use a ship in a scenario because the throwaway line in LFSS says that it was in the other end of the galaxy that week.

electrical power, deadweight tons, and so forth (can be generated from gurps 3 data tables). Basically, we have a list done by Aaron Hendricks which translates "SSD Box" into "so many tons, so many kilowatts" and you just do a spreadsheet and add up the stuff.

Deck Plans: We have these for a very few ships, might do deck plans for one ship per book? I don't want to ask Nick Blank to suddenly do 300 sets of ship plans. He'd cry, then have a heart attack. Or maybe have a heart attack and if he survives then cry.

Generic design history extrapolated from color text in SFB R-sections.

What else?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 07:05 pm: Edit

Another thing to consider is just what a given presentation would look like. Say we took one page for design history and some throwaway history about various ships, then a page for your three-views, a page for ship names and also the design specs (size, megawatts, deadweight tons, number of each kind of thing), then took a page for each variant (ship names, drawing showing the changes externally), we would have a way to calculate the number of pages per item. (Note, we may have to exclude the FJ ships due to contracts, although maybe I can work around that). So let's say that we need 3 pages per class plus 1 page (or part of a page) per variant.

BB 3+3, DN 3+5, DNL 3+4, DNW 3, BC 3+5, CA 3+13, CF 3+2, CS 2, GSC 3+3, NCA 3+11, CL 3+9, NCL 3+14, HDW 3+1, DW 3+9, DD 3+8, FFB 3+4, FF 3+12, POL 3+5, Tug 3+5. Ok, that adds up to

56+ somewhere between 113 and say 56.

I can tell you that 144 and 160 are nice sizes for books, so that would give us a guide. Take 56 pages for base hull types and then use another 88 pages for general history and a few pages of variants for each class. Sometimes three variants would fit on a page, sometimes not, but we could look at see how many pages we have and adjust. We don't have to have a specific signature size due to our print on demand system.

By Neale Davidson (Vance) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 07:28 pm: Edit

>> length, width, height in meters (scale from the miniatures?)

I would probably use a 'standard' drawing from each mini, but keep components fairly consistant. (Some minis have the same engines, for instance, but vary a little depending on the specific mold). I did this for my FASA friends already, so it's no big deal.

>> List of weapons (get this from each SSD)

I certainly don't mind doing this, but I don't have all the SSDs (something I'm sure can be easily remedied). The only real trick is chosing /which/ SSD. FC varies a bit from SFB at times - even on the Connie.

>> Crew breakdown (most of that data doesn't exist, scaling it from the little published info could get sticky, but if the expected customers is going to expect to see this, we have to do it.)

I think the 'officer', 'crew', and 'marine' designations would likely be enough. More specifics wouldn't make sense anyway. One ship may, for various reasons, have 420 guys onboard, another in the same class may have 432.

>> List of ship names (this data exists) and hull numbers (also exists), may have to be formatted.

I've pulled down a lot of that already. I'll send you a PDF with some roughs I did in FJ:TM style.

>> Thumbnail history of each ship (we have some of this data BUT I do NOT want to lock in the rest of it).

This is one thing the LUG/Decipher crew did right. Rather than have historical details on each ship, you instead have a section that highlights the dramatic moments each ship has gone through. That means a LOT of ships won't have a thumbnail history, but they wouldn't need one.

>> electrical power, deadweight tons, and so forth (can be generated from gurps 3 data tables).

Well, FJ made figuring out DW for each major ship class pretty simple for the Feddies. I also have notes someplace about the actual output of the PB32s and the impulse engines from TOS based on dialog and FJ's numbers. I'm not sure how Gurps vehicles work with it, but that's something I'll have to snag.

Deck Plans: Tougher call, since, for the 'saucer' ships, that's a large part of each ship that's nearly identical across many classes. Very repetitive. The other question is /use/. Seperate plans for each popular class may make more sense.

And, of course, certain things not yet defined (such as the physical size of a drone itself) would have to be.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 07:48 pm: Edit

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Quote:

List of weapons (get this from each SSD)

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By Neale Davidson (Vance) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 07:50 pm: Edit

Crawford: A spreadsheet page that details class (CA), class name (Constitution), and basic layout? Should be pretty easy once each ship is sorted.

By Sean Bartholome (Kana) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 08:26 pm: Edit

I guess another question to ask, is this more a SFB, FC, or PD product, or a combination of all 3? Or is it just going to be SFU specific?

By Mike Novean (Blackdice) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 10:52 pm: Edit

SVC,

I've been thinking about trying my hand at deck plans.

I've been in contact with Nick to see how he works through the process of creation.

Right now just looking for a few more pieces of information before starting some work.

1. What vector formats can you work with? I will be using AutoCad to create the deck plan and need to be certain that I can translate the files to a usable format.

2. Trying to find a miniature that would be fairly easy as a first project and that you would want to see done.

3. Needing some hard data about room/equipment size / SSD box size to work from. I know this is available just need the data to reference after getting the scale of the ship worked out.

Mike

By Neale Davidson (Vance) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 11:01 pm: Edit

Re COFFEE TABLE BOOK:
Interesting idea, and there could be an amazing group of internals "The Art of Star Fleet Battles"... but, I have serious doubts that it will sell enough with the dramatic cost involved. (Oversized book, all glossy, all color)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 11:52 pm: Edit

Mike Novean: SVC needs a file format that Freehand can open. He needs to be able to do small edits himself (it's too much work to send files back and forth just for the wrong type of door on deck two bathrooms).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 11:54 pm: Edit

Neale: The idea behind this book is to do for the SFU what "Jane's Fighting Ships" does for the real world Navy. Hence, "Leanna's Fighting Starships".

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 10:01 am: Edit

That is why Nick uses that program he uses. It can (with some effort) be moved into Freehand. No matter what anyone does or how beautiful it is, if I can't move it into Freehand I cannot use it.

This is an SFU product, but I'm thinking we might include for each class (and variant) a "sidebar" showing the counter for each of the games and a note or two about what that ship does it each game.

By Mike Novean (Blackdice) on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 10:41 am: Edit

Can you read encapsulated post-script files with freehand (eps files)?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 10:54 am: Edit

I dunno. Go draw something with five or six objects (circles, squares, color bars) and email it to me and I'll let you know if I can edit it.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 11:30 am: Edit

SVC
Unless Freehand has changed considerably from the version I use (Version 10) you won't be able to change anything on an EPS (encapsulated post script) file.

Freehand and Adobe Illustrator are vector based programs and can only edit the objects in a file if it is in their respective formats. Now Freehand can open an Illustrator documents and work on objects and vice versa. But once they are exported into another format (EPS, GIF, TIFF, JPG) they become static and can only be edited to some degree in Photoship-but only in the same way as a photograph can. It turns the vector graphic into a bit map.

If Neale's program can export to an Adobe Illustrator document then you're probably okay.

If all you want to do is put stuff down on TOP of Neale's drawing you're alright.

regards
Stacy

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 11:43 am: Edit

My vrsion of Freehand MX can open Autocad *.dxf files. It would be interesting to know if they can be edited in Freehand.

SVC: If you open the "Open" dialog box and click the drop down list called "File Types" it will list what FH can open but that doesn't mean you can edit them. *.eps is also on the list but as Stacy says it won't edit that file type.

Stacy: What State ar you from?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 11:50 am: Edit

I use 'editable eps' for all my Fed commander files. They're EPS but I can edit them.