Updating the Wiki

[Diazo]

Alright.

I've gotten far enough along in my revamp of the wiki that I'm going to start a thread for it.

I'll keep this first post updating on my progress and questions I have.

Did not work using this post, see my last post for the latest questions and comments.

Questions/comments/thoughts?

[Commiesalami]

You can find images for all the ships in the AIWar/RuntimeData/Images/Ships

If the ship is from an expansion ship then the directory is /RuntimeData/Expansions/[# of expansion (1-3)]/images

[Diazo]

Hence my asking where to find them.

Either I'm blind or they are named something weird.

Was able to find the others without issue, so I'm looking in the right place.

D.

[orzelek]

I found the rotter - it's a Spire ship in expansion 3.
Armor Booster needs to have some tricky name... can't find it also.

[Minotaar]

It's the shield booster in expansion 1. Seriously, what did you expect it to be? 
Would love contribute to the wiki at some point, but completely lack wiki skills. Will try and develop those, we have the beginnings of something awesome here, and I would definitely love a reference like this when starting out. 

[PokerChen]

Well, the system ship-names in ObjectType (column A) from ReferenceWindowBalanceStatisticsExport.csv should apply across most of the ships. I did a short bash script to scan for the existance of folders, and the only ship-of-note that was out-of-whack was the Nanoswarms:

Neinzul Youngling Nanoswarm == YounglingNanoswarm (csv) == YounglingMimic (image)

So after handling the mimics manually, you should be able to chain-copy and rename the 1.png inside all those folders systematically before uploading them to the wiki assuming the wiki accepts multi-file uploads.

 = = =
Actually, I just did it and placed all of the 1.pngs as $ObjectType.png in four folders according to which expansion they're from.  Left out the mark II-IV copies for now, although there's still duplicates in terms of Flying Fortresses and Core ships. Would it be useful in a zip? (oh wait are there licenses for spire-ship pngs? I know the others are definitely free, many of them from Tyrian 2K, etc.)

[Diazo]

That will be really handy actually.

Could you send the zip to my diazo {at} hotmail.com address please?

(I am assuming you don't have wiki access, if you do just uploading them would work also.)


As for anyone who wants to contribute, the pages as I make them as lacking the notes on how to use and counter the ships.

Those descriptions are going to come from threads in the Strategy Section of the forum.

The one for fleet ships here and the one for golems here.

Go ahead and post in those threads, or start a new one for another type of ship (starships, spireships, etc.) and someone with wiki access will come along and add the descriptions from those threads into the wiki. (Well, eventually, I have a lot of pages to make still.)

Or if it's a correction/tweak or something specific to the wiki, go ahead and post it in this thread and it will get taken care of.

Note that the earlier you can point out any errors to me the better, that way I'm not making the same errors on the new pages as I make them.

D.

[PokerChen]

Just received the email for wiki-update, but I've already sent you a zip - to test the account, I went ahead and added the Armor rotter and the Armor Booster images - spire ships have much bigger pngs than most other sprites. ^^

The zip contents should be enough to do the non-Neiznul ships (they had some problem in the zipping), the golems, and etc.

[Diazo]

Alright. I see the zip file so I'll take a look.

And yes, that Armor Rotter sprite is really different.

I'm going to compare it to how it looks in game and see how close it is. I want the pictures on the wiki to reflect how they are rendered in game and it looks like something different is being done with the transparency settings of the .png.

D.

edit: Done the C's on the Fleet Ships, making good progress.

[PokerChen]

Well, if no one has any problems with the descriptions in the Fleet threads and Golem threads - I'm going to start importing the descriptions.

I'm seeing two ways in which differences of opinion can be held. Personally, I'll draft it in the form below:
(Forum member 1): (Advice 1)
(Forum member 2): (Advice 2)

Or, if people prefer - It can be:
Pros/Good uses.
(Pieces of advice)
Cons/Problems.
(Pieces of advice)
= = =
EDIT: For now, since there are few descriptions for the basic triangle fleet - I'll start with them. Please see their wiki pages if you would like input.
 

[PokerChen]

Finished some introductory descriptions on the triangle ships.

[Diazo]

Finished some introductory descriptions on the triangle ships.

That looks exactly like what I was envisioning.

I don't want the descriptions on these pages to get any longer then that, these ship detail pages are for players to look at and go "here is this ships statistics and what it does".

"How to use this ship" is not something I think should be on these pages.

Once everything is said and done, there is going to be a strategy section of the wiki where more involved and complex uses of the ship can go. I have not even started on that however, I'm still just getting started on the reference section of the wiki.

D.

[Hearteater]

Why would you separate that information though?  I can see putting detailed strategy stuff toward the bottom, with the brief intro unit paragraph at the top.  But it seems silly to make two pages for each ship, or make a giant strategy page for all the ships when someone will rarely care about strategy for all ships at once.  If I open on of the ship type pages, I kinda want everything to be right there.

[Diazo]

Erm, looks like I need to clarify.

Strategies that relate to this unit alone can go on the unit page, such as the comment on the Missile Frigate page about kiting. Or for Zenith Autobombs or Neinzul Youngling ships, the "assist space dock and FRD it into the system I want to attack" would also be something I'd expect to see on these ship pages.

When I talk about strategy stuff being in a different section, I'm talking about stuff that needs other ship types to work. IE: How to defend a wormhole. I don't want to see a comment about how to use a Missile Frigate as part of a wormhole defence setup because that is now part of a larger strategy that requires other ship types present to work.

My intent with these unit pages is for someone to go "Oh, I just got this unit from an ARS, what does it do?" or "The AI has this unit I've never seen before in the next system I need to attack, how do I destroy it?" and open the page up and find that out. I don't want to see pages and pages of discussion about the ship and how it's used in the bigger picture, that's what the strategy section will be for.

[Hearteater]

I don't see how you could avoid mentioning key strategies with a ship, especially on something like warp point defense.  You could link from the ship's page to the details of the strategy, but the ship's page should mention such a strategy exists so someone just reading that page actually knows to go check out said strategy.