Archive through June 27, 2013
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E INPUT:
F&E Proposals Forum:
F&E Electronic Economic Spreadsheet:
Archive through June 27, 2013
Quote:As soon as all players say "end turn", that turn's data would become read-only, but there would be no limits to the amount of future turns you could fill out, though if you don't have as much money as you thought you were going to, you may have to make a lot of changes to stay within your new budget.
That's fine - but make sure you allow entries in the current turn for income and expenses that allow for corrections. I can't count the number of times I've found errors in prior turns that need to be propagated forward.
Quote:Are other players allowed to see your sheet now?
Yes, and always have been. There's very little in the way of secret information in F&E, and usually that's just during combat where it is decided, recorded, and then revealed quickly.
Quote:This could eventually grow into a tool to track an F&E game online, much like cyberboard or VASSAL, though that'll be a ways down the road and surely not considered much initially when trying to get *something* working.
I just remembered that there's a very active F&E online engine that is being produced for use using the SFBOL client. I can't remember who is working on it, but if someone here can remind us then Eric can contact the developers. It may be that this econ sheet would be very useful for the F&EOL that's being developed.
Hopefully I can build something that doesn't allow those errors to happen, that isn't a good thing for an opponent to find out on you, especially if you make lots of them (accidental.... or not) 
The online game, from what I've seen, isn't in a compatible format as to what I'm doing. I code in .NET, not java, and wouldn't be much help to them. Plus, the way SFBOL is designed I'd rather not work on it anyway.
I think I could probably write an F&E game, but it would require more time than I could spare, and more dedication than my life would allow. I've thought about it a few times, but I just don't know the rules well enough to do it. There are so many "(See 440.0)" type references it'd drive me nuts to try to code it
I took an existing battle spreadsheet and did a whole slew of very minor updates to it and came up with this:
New Battle Sheet
I had planned on doing more, just didn't get around to it, but it seems usuable so far. I can try to add any input.
Oh, it tracks fractions, so a .5 fighter could, very very rarely, make a point of damage difference. Seems stupid when you use a computer/calculator to drop them completely, and SVC said in CL31 page 87 "...Steve Cole has come to realize that sophisticated F&E players are capable of dealing with simple fractions."
Oh, and though I posted it somewhere else, I wrote a dice roller that uses atmospheric interference as a RNG instead of a computer (I pull #s from random.org instead of generating them myself). Its simple now, but I'm working on a version that lets you save games, have logins, save distribution lists, and comment multiple rolls. You can use it at
Dice Roller
Oh, and that "bits left" thing at the bottom is how many rolls or something I get per day for free from random.org. I think its 150,000 or so, so I shouldn't run out anytime soon.
Oh, and I bought 1die6.com and onediesix.com to host the die roller when I release the updates soon.
MP, on your sheet, where we have the #, would it be possible for those to be a drop down menu to choose up to the max allowed? Also could it keep track of how many hulls you built of say the FF's so that when you go to build another variant FF hull the max allowed wouldn't exceed the remaining number of hulls?
Any feedback on the progress of this project?
If you mean my stuff, no. I haven't touched the excel sheet, nor the dice roller (which does still work) in quite a while. Just wasn't much interest in either.
I didn't do much on the online economy form, well, sorta. I did the online SIT thing, which was a requirement before I could get started on the economy. Then I just started writing a computer based version of F&E instead, and like the other projects a lack of interest saw me move on to other stuff.
Are you sure it's a lack of interest, Eric?
Well it was 4 months since somebody posted, so yeah, pretty sure.
But I know you and Ken are interested. Heck, if it wasn't for you two I never would have done the map tool I already did, nor would I have done the online SIT, or worked on the computer version of F&E at all.
I have to admit that I've not been posting much for a while, but I'm still interested, if that helps.
I am interested, it's just that life is getting in the way of gaming.
I have been working on getting Omega 5 into the database so an assessment can be made to generate the counter values.
"the database"?
I think any official assessment has been stated to not be happening until after a lot of other stuff happens first (ME TO come to mind for a start).
Well SVC wanted me to contact him next week about my SIT (before that, it was "after origins", then, "after we recover from origins"), so it is possible that if SVC wants to adopt my SIT, and have me finish that up, I could start working on F&E stuff far more.
Right now I'm tinkering with converting 5th Frontier War to a computer, though project creep with Pocket Empires and Imperial Squadrons may end up killing it.
The question of Eric's SIT is complex on many levels and is going to take a LOT of discussion among staff and management.
I am FAR from comfortable with any non-ADB document being treated as official, and no document containing ADB MSC/SIT data should ever be made public due to copyright. (If it is, make it go away and never post it.) I need to get the staff to explain to me what's so cool about Eric's that it needs to be made THE official one and the one that ADB has spent a ton of work on needs to be thrown away. I am just VERY uncomfortable with it. I do NOT have the time to compare every cell of a spreadsheet with thousands of lines to see if Eric made a mistake (and don't know Eric well enough to take it as gospel; I only trust a handful of people that far) and I'm VERY VERY VERY uncomfortable with any SIT I did not check becoming "real". It's WAY easier for me to do it than to check it.
There is also the question of escort costs. We're weeks or months from a final decision on moving to that sliding scale concept and it seems that any new SIT should wait for that decision.
THAT said, an economic spreadsheet is far less troublesome and might be a place to start seeing what Eric can do.
All excellent points. And you have great points on your ADB Philosophy thread as well. I thought we'd get to this next week, but now is fine too.
Let me clarify and mention a few things:
#1. When I said a "team" to edit, that would have been a team of *YOUR* choosing. If you didn't want a team, just you, or any other individual, that is completely doable. ANY change, made by ANY person, would be documented. You could click on a ship and see every change ever made to it, throughout history.
#2. If people don't like a searchable online, sort-enabled SIT, on any given day they can download a PDF of the data, that has a version # on each page, and formatted just like the PDF SITs are now. So if they want the "old way", it would still be available, and the data would always be updated.
#3. If you look at all my anal and annoying updates in the SIT threads, it is pretty obvious I have a desire for the data to be accurate and consistent. I would validate data numerous times before saying its good to go. I've done data migrations of millions of "objects" in various enterprise environments and nothing less than 100% accuracy to me is acceptable.
#4. Based on your issues with your tablet, and other pains I've seen you suffer with computers, I know how computers, and technology, can be frustrating. That being said, any system I make will be extremely easy to use and update and can make any recommended changes. Probably even easier than excel (though I'm a HUGE fan of excel for data manipulation), and you don't have to worry about formatting as its done automatically.
#5. None of the work done on the SITs is "thrown away", not in any sense of the word. Instead, all that work is just migrated over to a more digital medium. No work is "lost" in any way, and the online SIT could not be done without their hard work over the years.
#6. Doing something like changing escort costs is far easier with my system, than the PDFs or even excel. With 2 clicks, I can see all 86 of the ships with escort factors, and can quickly change each. Or, for a mass change like this, I can do a simple search/replace in a database and knock out that entire change in a minute or two.
#7. An economic spreadsheet is completely dependent upon the SITs, as are many potential F&E utilities. Without it, I can't enumerate what can be built, do any automatic construction/repair/etc calculations, look at various limits of what can be made, etc, etc. Basically you gotta have a data SIT, to do your economy each turn.
#8. Want to change a unit? Click in a search field and it comes right up. You can see every attribute, not just the stuff in the SIT now. Plus, I can even link to the rules if desired and show all the pertinent rules fro that unit. I can also merge the data with SFB style data, so while you click on a Fed CA, it shows you every refit, how many shield boxes, etc, and can help considerably when comparing units.
#9. The SITs as they are now, actually don't have anywhere near all the data you may want on a particular ship. Its obvious why, a page is only so wide. But having little details like the rescue tug ship size, if the ship can send its fighters forward, defensive pin ability, etc, within the SIT, would be a huge benefit to anybody playing. And believe it or not, by inserting these items into a database I've found a lot of missing tidbits of information on various units that should could be clarified.
#10. The online SIT would give various abilities to really help with future F&E stuff. For example, you can see all the CWs from every race on a single page. You can sort by any criteria. You can filter by any criteria. Compare various ships. Create new playtest ships that aren't shown normally (I have Omega/LMC hypothetical stuff in there now, if you unselect "published"). You can have the system create the counter or you, saving you time in illustrator or whatever you use. The system can draw counter sheets you can send to a printers. You could have alternate silhouette graphics, showing the (IMO) neato damaged detailed ones, or just a single color like the published counters. You can show only ships that came out or were available in certain years, allowing easier development of alternate era scenarios. Really, the additional capabilities that simply don't exist now easily are limitless. With all this data, a computer version of F&E would actually become a much more viable option.
#11. And finally, if you don't want this to go any further its fine by me, no hard feelings. I made the site as I needed it for when I was playing F&E using Cyberboard. I got tired of going through PDFs, and got tired of having to search the rules for every reference to rule X that applied to ship A, plus I was thinking about a more helpful economy form and maybe other utilities based on it. So I made it, thought it was neat, my opponent agreed, and after a few comments on here I sent the link to a few staffers, who also agreed, and here we are. So, in short, you won't hurt my feelings saying "kill it with fire", but knowing either way would be nice. I am volunteering to do this, if ADB wants me, if not, I have lots of interests ;)
And if you just don't trust me, but want to see this move forward and know a developer you do trust, I'd be fine sending all the data/code to them instead.
If you want the URL again to take a look and click on some of the options, just let me know and I'll email it to you.
I don't specifically know any developers (but I probably talk to one every week without knowing that the SFU player I am talking to is a developer). Point being there isn't anyone I trust more than you and you are more or less a total stranger.
I don't want anyone editing the SIT but me and I'm still dubious over the whole thing. But I'll talk to the staff when they're done with current stuff.
At least I'm grasping one point; this is far more akin to SFBOL than to Ryan's OB document.
Quick notes
1. I'd want nobody editing it except me, at least for now.
2. Interesting, workable but only one issue.
3. The problem is that anybody can talk that game and it still means ADB checking every cell. Is that time better spent on a new product? (Yes)
4. The guy who sold me something I really hate said the same thing, almost word for word.
5. Again, it has to be checked. Perhaps release it a small amount at a time, but again, design time is limited, F&E gets only so much, and the time is better spent on new products. New products make money; this isn't monetizable.
6. Sigh, new skills I have to learn. Actually a major drawback.
7. Yuck. Tons and tons of work up front.
8. You are creating a monster. I run in fear.
9. Correction, **I** created a monster.
10. The mind boggles, but I really do NOT want it doing counters, not for me, not for anyone.p.
11. I appreciate that. The problem is still how much of my time gets sucked into something that makes no money.
Thinking about the two issues.
A subscription service , split the monetary, role in the online play, wpporkable.
Checking is the killer. Not doing it is bad, but there may be another way.
I would pay for a subscription service for this type of tool.
My original question stemmed largely on what's the status of the new and improved econ spreadsheet. Not sure how a SIT database got in the fray here.
Because Randy, to get a new and improved economy form or spreadsheet, you simply *must* have SIT data in order to plug in data. Otherwise the amount of time you'd still be wasting every turn looking up obscure rules in a huge pack of F&E rules would still be sucking up most of your time.
It's pretty easy to look up eco costs and such on the online SIT on these forums. I certainly don't spend a lot of time looking up obscure rules to do eco phases.
Well I sure did, and even finding what all I could produce by year was a bit of a pain. Sure, you can do it, but I didn't have much of that memorized nor was I used to looking it up that way. Plus, playing multiple races at once wasn't real easy either. I'm sure its even harder for folks that have to ignore some lines as they aren't using some game modules and stuff. Plus, you have to look it up at all, which isn't necessary.
If I enter turn 10 and race federation, wouldn't it be easier to automatically populate, and show a dropdown of all the hulls each item can be converted/substituted for, rather than having to go through multiple multi-page PDFs doing searches?
Heck, wouldn't it be nice to know that you have 6 heavy carriers, 4 mediums, and 1 light, and 15 heavy escorts and 8 light in your fleet, when determining what all you need? There are *many* things that could be done to speed up F&E, MANY, but they would require many rules and SIT items be in a data format a computer could interpret for you.
I'm curious what percentage of players use vassal/cyberboard and online utilities, over what percentage still use the good old map/pen/paper. To me, playing F&E without a computer seems mind numbing.
I have to agree with Richard...it's pretty easy to lookup the SITs with the PDF versions.
In my experience, if you looking up SITs while you are doing your econ form, then you haven't done your homework ahead of time.
That being said, I am right in front of the "cheerleaders" who want to see electronic F&E tools.
SVC seems to have made it very clear that it is not possible to do that, for various reasons.
Yes, F&E is a HUGE game. To the extent that I find it very cumbersome to play without Cyberboard. But then, that's the way most wargames are.
You might want to adopt the strategy of developing the tools you propose, THEN show them to SVC, fully baked, with a humdinger of an explanation of how he can make money off of it. I'll be happy to playtest, because I know you develop some high quality stuff.
Clearly SVC has been burned before by the "pie in the sky" "flash in a pan" types of promises, which is why I suggest creating the stuff and THEN proposing it. You, Ken, and I all have our own databases/systems, that I know of, although I would dare to say that my skills pale in comparison to either of you two. But, do you know what I'm saying?
I have a rough database system myself, but it's for SFB damage allocation, not F&E.
Could have easily added F&E stats to it at the time, but I needed the damage allocation, not F&E stats, and I was determined to avoid creeping featurism. Alas, my windows programming skills are zip, so although written in C++ it is entirely in text mode.
Tracks all the battleforces in an SFB scenario and all the ships in a battleforce (for damage allocation, only).
Still, I ponder expanding it to F&E functionality.
I'd rather people ask first and develop second. I'd rather be disappointed by something never finished than have some huge things dumped on my desk in a form that tries to hijack hundreds of hours of my time.