(542.34) ON-MAP SURVEY: Survey ships can conduct survey missions on the map itself instead of only in the off map region, but this is by an entirely different method than off map survey. This can be in the territory of the owning empire, captured territory, or (with permission of an ally) allied territory. [In which case, the EPs do not go to the treasury unless the survey ship is connected to the main grid. They would have to be transported from the nearest allied base.] To conduct an on-map survey, the survey ship must move (by Operational Movement only) to a hex which does not contain a planet, base, or colony. It must take no other function for one entire game turn, at the end of which (in the Economic Phase of the next player turn) the player receives one EP (subject to a percentage reduction by Economic Exhaustion). No more than one survey ship may survey a given hex in a given turn. If the survey ship (or its fighters/PFs) participates in combat (even against a raider or pirate) no EPs are gained from the survey. No hex may be surveyed more often than once every five turns. The Romulans cannot conduct on-map surveying of “the new provinces” (603.15) until they have been explored.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 27, 2022 - 10:22 pm: Edit

(542.34) ENQUÊTE SUR CARTE : Les navires d'enquête peuvent mener des missions d'enquête sur la carte elle-même au lieu de seulement dans la région hors carte, mais c'est par une méthode entièrement différente de l'enquête hors carte. Cela peut être sur le territoire de l'empire propriétaire, un territoire capturé ou (avec la permission d'un allié) un territoire allié. [Dans ce cas, les EP ne vont pas au trésor sauf si le navire hydrographique est connecté au réseau principal. Ils devraient être transportés depuis la base alliée la plus proche.] Pour effectuer une étude sur carte, le navire d'étude doit se déplacer (par mouvement opérationnel uniquement) vers un hex qui ne contient pas de planète, de base ou de colonie. Il ne doit prendre aucune autre fonction pendant un tour de jeu entier, à la fin duquel (dans la phase économique du tour suivant du joueur) le joueur reçoit un PE (sous réserve d'un pourcentage de réduction par épuisement économique). Pas plus d'un navire hydrographique ne peut inspecter un hex donné dans un tour donné. Si le navire de prospection (ou ses chasseurs/PF) participe au combat (même contre un raider ou un pirate), aucun EP n'est gagné lors de la prospection. Aucun hex ne peut être inspecté plus d'une fois tous les cinq tours. Les Romuliens ne peuvent pas effectuer d'arpentage sur carte des "nouvelles provinces" (603.15) tant qu'elles n'ont pas été explorées.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 27, 2022 - 10:23 pm: Edit

(542.34) ON-MAP SURVEY: Survey ships can conduct survey missions on the map itself instead of just in the off-map region, but this is by an entirely different method than off-map survey . This can be on the owning empire's territory, a captured territory, or (with an ally's permission) an allied territory. [In this case, EPs do not go to the hoard unless the Survey Vessel is connected to the mainline. They should be transported from the nearest friendly base.] To conduct a map survey, the survey ship must move (by operational movement only) to a hex that does not contain a planet, base or colony. He must take no other function for an entire game turn, at the end of which (in the economy phase of the player's next turn) the player receives one SP (subject to a percentage reduction by economic exhaustion). No more than one Survey Vessel may survey a given hex in a given turn. If the survey ship (or its fighters/SPs) participates in combat (even against a raider or pirate), no EP is gained while surveying. No hex may be inspected more than once every five turns. Romulans may not map survey "new provinces" (603.15) until they have been explored.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 07:21 am: Edit

The above is from GoogleTranslate and is not bad. I was thinking of doing Fed Commander rulebooks in French and German. Thoughts?

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 09:27 am: Edit

You'd still likely need to have someone proof-read the results, if only to clean up things like EP/PE confusion.

But that still beats paying for translations and putting it together in the first place. If you can find volunteer reviewers, it sounds like something that is worth at least trying.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 10:38 am: Edit

So did you go from English to French back to English as the trial above?

BTW I like 'Romuliens'

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 11:47 am: Edit

If it brings in net new revenue for products that have already been developed it sounds like a win. In addition to any translation costs, you may need to consider repagination and possible management of A4 paper inventory. Typically German would be about 15% longer than English, with French somewhat less than that.

And as I imagine you've already considered, you'd probably want to first target the languages that have the largest untapped sales potential. For companies that create a full internationalization program, they often see non-English revenue at more than half of total revenue. Not sure if that would be true in the game space?

How many pages/words would be translated?

--Mike

By Philippe Le Bas (Phil76) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 12:07 pm: Edit

The translation is really approximative and may lead to rules misunderstandings.

For example, here the survey ship is tranlated into : navire d'enquête, navire d'étude ou navire hydrographique which could be source of errors. I would have translated it "Navire d'exploration"

Another example, EP are translated to EP and PE, the right translation would be PE (Points Economiques)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 12:51 pm: Edit

One question might be how to translate the names of the various empires themselves.

Some of them have French and German titles listed on those respective language editions of Memory Alpha, but I'm not sure if those terms were coined pre- or post-1979. (As it happens, the Klingon realm is referred to on the German version of MA as a "Reich", whereas the Romulans are noted as running a "Sternenimperium"...)

Plus, there are certain "TV empires" which, in English, have to have specific terms used in the SFU: "Kzinti" in singular and "Kzintis" in plural, for example. How might such obligations carry over to French or German translations, so as to maintain the necessary distance from other IPs' iterations of said species?

For that matter, did Taldren ever release French and/or German versions of the first two-and-a-half Starfleet Command PC games? If so, would any translations they might have coined for the Lyrans, Hydrans, or ISC - for terms such as "plasmatic pulsar device" or "Inter-Stellar Concordium" be usable here, or no?

Fortunately, that still leaves plenty of SFU-native empires which can be translated at ADB's discretion. Might I suggest "La République Fédérale d'Aurore" and "Die Bundesrepublik Aurora" as two such possibilities?

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 01:35 pm: Edit

My wife leads a team of translators who work on projects all over the world. Those translators use tools like Google Translate but inevitably those tools are not perfect and so there is always still "human" work involved to proof read it.

I think she gets projects done pretty inexpensively and they pay by the word. I think the range is 5-10 cents per word to give you an idea.

Hope that helps!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 01:41 pm: Edit

Human work costs money. Google is free. Unproven markets are not worth investing the kind of money real human translators charge. As a marketing test it seems plausible but I have more projects than time and you guys have poo pooed this one to death so never mind.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 28, 2022 - 05:25 pm: Edit

A typical page of rules is 950 words. At 10 cents a word that is ($47-)$95 per page. A typical rulebook is 72 pages. That means ($3500-)$7,000 to do a rulebook. That kind of money doesn't grow on trees and cannot be invested in an unproven market.

By Philippe Le Bas (Phil76) on Friday, July 29, 2022 - 03:06 am: Edit

Problems with translation is that F&E has many abbreviations and terms that, if translated, complicate play between english speaker and others.

Example an FRD would be "Quai de réparation de flotte" thus QRF, a carrier is a Porte Avion and PA instead of CV. A Fast-Cruiser is a Croiseur Rapide, meaning the F mark on the counter says nothing.

I have translated basic F&E rules completely (F&E 2010) and these were the most difficult things : before translating you have to decide which terms will not be translated. From my above example, french players would know what is a CV, so a decision could be to not translate this one.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, July 29, 2022 - 11:31 am: Edit

Another technique is to build a glossary with the english and target language terms. Then one can acquaint readers with both.

Unless one plans to translate an entire game ecosystem (maps, counters, expansion modules, play aids, magazines, etc) there most likely needs to be a tether back to the original english terms.

--Mike