Wiki progress

[Nastyogre]

Tweaked MMM language and wording. Ok, I re-wrote alot of the page but the core is still there. I split things out into what "being active" means.

There really wasn't that much opinion in there MMM. Your grammar and spelling were ok, just a couple of things to fix.

I also started linking a few things. I noticed some pages have been created but they link to nothing. We want to make sure we don't have Orphan pages that are tough to find.

[Spork]

Do you folks have access to the "Orphaned Pages" list? Special Pages->Orphaned Pages

[Nastyogre]

What's the definition of an Orphaned page then?
The three remaining Orphaned pages do link to other pages... or they did. Let me check on that.

As an Aside I've started working on the Operations. Its slow going. I'm verifying every permutation on the op. Min or max BV, unit weight, unit types available, min speed, min Skillsum, number of units.
Once I've re-written it all, I'll come up with a standard format for the entry.

[Mentawl]

There are an awful lot of variables for each op

[Klingon]

(and i'm still struggling to find a way to explain min-maxing without one).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-maxing is a decent place to start. The problem you're running into, is the details of what is or isn't min-maxing is very much open to debate. Some players will call it good playing, others resent being subjected to it. The techniques applied by Khalcruth and Clayrock would be excellent examples of enthusiastic debate on the finer points.

On one level, it's simply focusing on what's important to you. On another level, it's disregarding what would be valid in-universe concerns, for mechanics that only take effect on gameplay.

[Klingon]

I added subfactions to the mechanics page, and it's no longer orphaned.

[Klingon]

The page for the link to LJP's terrains page can probably be deleted, but I don't have sysop privileges to do it. We already simply link to L:JP's page, so a wiki page with the link it immediately redundant.

[Spork]

The page for the link to LJP's terrains page can probably be deleted, but I don't have sysop privileges to do it. We already simply link to L:JP's page, so a wiki page with the link it immediately redundant.

Done.

Nastyogre, an orphaned page is one that doesn't have anything linking *to* it.

[Nastyogre]

There are an awful lot of variables for each op

Well, there have always been lots of variables. The mek/vehicle split doubles them potentially. Not entirely, BV ranges and spreads are the same. Movement and tonnage may be different.
The skillsums and rewards will be the same.

Its not so bad. Just fleshing it out it seems worse than it is. Remember several ops go away too. It won't be so bad.

[Klingon]

Last orphaned page can also be deleted. http://www.mekwars.org/mediawiki-1.20.2 ... efinitions



Reason: http://www.mekwars.org/mediawiki-1.20.2 ... p/Terrains is a duplicate of it, and is linked from the main page already.

(added the other orphan page, Factions, to the mechanisms list)

[Domenoth]

There are an awful lot of variables for each op

Well, there have always been lots of variables. The mek/vehicle split doubles them potentially. Not entirely, BV ranges and spreads are the same. Movement and tonnage may be different.
The skillsums and rewards will be the same.

Its not so bad. Just fleshing it out it seems worse than it is. Remember several ops go away too. It won't be so bad.

What's the definition of an Orphaned page then?
The three remaining Orphaned pages do link to other pages... or they did. Let me check on that.

As an Aside I've started working on the Operations. Its slow going. I'm verifying every permutation on the op. Min or max BV, unit weight, unit types available, min speed, min Skillsum, number of units.
Once I've re-written it all, I'll come up with a standard format for the entry.

Hey Nastyogre, in the interest of helping devote time where it is well spent, I wouldn't worry about doing anything like this for the ops. I believe I mentioned, I wrote a program that takes as its input the txt files that MekWars generates as the definitions for the ops (as in what I think MekWars actually loads when the server boots up). The program looks for useful-for-army-building settings in each file and generates a wiki page for each op. The process only takes about 20-30 seconds per op.

Once I get a zip of all the op files like Mentawl was gracious enough to provide once already (for the previous cycle though) I should be able to have all of the ops on the wiki in about an hour. And they will be straight out of the MekWars program with an absolute bare minimum human input (and therefore nearly 0% chance for human error).

No need for trial and error. No need for experimentation in your hangar assembling armies. The wiki will show how MekWars thinks the ops are set up (which is sometimes different than how the op was intended to be set up i.e. Tourny armies weren't intended to be able to defend Raids but as far as MekWars was concerned, they were able to).

Unless I'm mistaken, the txt files have to be present on the file-system when the MekWars server program is started/rebooted. This means they don't require any extra work to generate because if the server is functioning, that means there is a set of txt files already available. The only extra work is putting them in a zip and uploading them to dropbox.

If I'm mistaken about that Mentawl, let me know. I don't want to create any extra work for you. If you have to do anything more than pack the contents of the ops directory into a zip file and upload it to dropbox let me know and I'll rewrite my program so the information is inputted some other way (by hand for example, based on trial-and-error army building). We'll still end up with similarly formatted op pages (should make them easier to read), where human error is minimized though not eliminated

[Nastyogre]

Ok boys, cycle is started let's get this rolling again.
Pick something and let's get her done.

[Domenoth]

Thanks to Spork, we now have wiki entries for all the standard ops each with a small set of details. These pages are entirely generated by the application I wrote, so I recommend against editing them directly. Instead, I'd suggest first seeing if it's possible for me to get whatever you want changed/added included in the output from my application. That way it can easily be added to all the operations rather than just the one you want to edit.

Having said that, there are a few things I noticed that I thought I added but didn't or didn't even think of but now realize would be really useful if included.

Specifically, I thought I added minimum total units per op, but it looks like I only have minimum units of each type. My bad on that one.

Next, I'd like to add pilot skill sum info as well. I didn't even think about that one until I saw Nastyogre mentioning it in the descriptions.

If you want to check out what I've done: feedback is welcome.

[Nastyogre]

very nice. I would like to see what you suggest and a standardization of the desctiptions. i.e. each facet is mentioned and each is mentioned in the same way and the same place within each description. We are close but not spot on.

Do capture and pillage still exist?

[Domenoth]

Do capture and pillage still exist?

What Spork sent over didn't have them. So I would say, no.

[Nastyogre]

I've begun updating the ops listings with the new info. I am done with Tutorials, all of the three standard ops, plus Kingslayer.

Have yet to do the ComStar ops, tourneys or super ops.

I will be reading the Op file for additional details as well. I will manually add in things like Payout, RP and other pertinent details. I will also be clarifying some things that could be better stated.

Klingon is reviewing my initial build table Excel to see if we can turn it into a worksheet. I will keep you updated.


Does anybody code well enough (and have the time) to re-create LJPs terrain atlas? I've thought perhaps we could generate the maps and perhaps post them into the wiki directly?
Thoughts?

[Jackal]

Maybe we can ask LJP either if he can update it or give us the code for the terrain atlas? It's a great resource when it's up-to-date.

[Nastyogre]

As I understand it, the Atlas is gone and is not recoverable. I think we have to re-create it from scratch.

[Nastyogre]

I will be reposting the operations with the most recent files this afternoon (done as soon as I am done with this post)

Next would be to look into the files and pull out the parts that Domenoth's extractor does not capture. Special things like skirmish needing 20 or 25% on each side to work, payouts in cbills and RP

I'll call the op listing good then.

I worked out how to get the buildtables into an excel and format things the way I want. Requires making buttons to execute custom sorting macros. The "quick sort" functions don't work the way I need them to.

After that, I think tackling the new player stuff is in order, along with terrain.

Jackal if you want to start going through the starter guide in the forum and extracting the valid info and making new pages that we can use for it, that would be a good place to start.
After we are done with the new player forum info, we can draw in the GIANT amount of info in the Fed Suns forums. I looked it over and its nuts how much a few of us produced.
Many pages worth of info in there.

When that is all done we will have Ops, Terrain, new Player and tactical info complete.

Left would be Strategic Play (the metagame that is the campaign) Economics of the Campaign and Faction Write ups though the build tables help with part of that.

Anybody wants to tackle something, pick it and get to work. Something is almost always better than nothing and we can always talk about tweaking something.

[Domenoth]

Next would be to look into the files and pull out the parts that Domenoth's extractor does not capture. Special things like skirmish needing 20 or 25% on each side to work, payouts in cbills and RP

The extractor is semi-configurable, so if you'd like, I can try flipping the switch so those values get included in the output. Suggestions on where in the layout they should go would be welcome.

If it's in the file, I should be able to extract it. Some things get left out of the op file if they are using what's considered the default. So the extractor has to be aware about what the default is if the op file leaves it out. That's the only thing I'd be concerned about--the extractor not having access to what the default is.

[Nastyogre]

Hmm, what if you extracted everything? Perhaps only leaving out the most obvious things that don't apply here? Like things that have to do with Protomechs. We could then post it to the Wiki, then edit out what we don't want.

I'm not too worried about defaults. We could add that sort of stuff manually if we wanted to.

Perhaps do that and we can take a look at the full output. If its too large to be dealt with we can pare it down.

Organization hmm:

Force Composition (This will need Sub-sections)

Operation Info (This will need sub-sections)

Rewards

Description: We should probably have something more descriptive than just the nuts and bolts.

[Tuco]

As I understand it, the Atlas is gone and is not recoverable. I think we have to re-create it from scratch.

http://www.maplib.net/atlas.php?id=1421

[Nastyogre]

Wow, now that is cool. Its only part of what existed before. Is LJP getting the rest up? Do we need to take it further? Are we going to host this so it is preserved?

[Tuco]

i do not know if this is an earlier version, or him starting to re-upload the files.

[Nastyogre]

Ogre will be patient.