BattleTechWiki talk:Project Spacecraft

Here to help

Morning, Peregry: let me know what areas you want me to assist you on. Think of me as your guide to the technical aspects of getting things to work here and get the project going. The better you describe the intent or the problem, they better I can assist. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 13:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, right now I'm still gathering thoughts on stuff. Random aside: should this talk page be tied to the Project page? --Peregry 14:18, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, it should. I'll fix it. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 17:40, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
On another matter, you might want to finish firming up the project page, so it appears to be ready with the tools needed. For example, you still have a lot of redlinks on the project page. Sometimes, as the project lead -especially at the beginning- you don't wait for consensus, you just do it. I'd be happy to build the tags for you, but I'd like you to provide a project icon (such as used by Template:WikiProject Biographies.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 20:32, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I think I got the tags built. I'm working on the project icon and banner still, gotta figure out something good. I'm leaning towards a McKenna silhouette, thought I'm not sure how to add it to the tag. --Peregry 23:12, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
LOL. I was looking at it too, and can't figure out how I did it, just last summer. Once you find and upload your icon, let me know. We'll get Ebakunin to help us. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 01:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Dropship Categories

Alright, so I was thinking that we need to add category tags to the various dropships. Minimally I think we should by ship type (Spheroid or Aerodyne) and by role (Assault, Aerospace Carrier, Mech Carrier, etc). I just wanted people's thoughts on which categories should be used/added for these. --Peregry 19:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

What about Tech base? (Clan or Inner Sphere) --Greyhind 07:09, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Ack, yeah, definitely that. That's why I threw this up here, just in case I was forgetting anything obvious. --Peregry 13:55, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Unifying Templates

I haven't taken a good look at the Warship and Jumpship templates, but I quite familiar with the Dropship one. One thing that I think needs to be done it unify all the entries to use the same style of entry. I am partial to how I do it (see any dropship entry from TRO 3057 to see my style of infobox entry); however, I'm open for others' opinions on the matter. --Peregry 19:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Warship Images

Originally posted to Cyc's talk page

I noticed that you seemed to be the one who uploaded most of the warship images. I was wondering what the logic was for labeling the TRO:3057 warships as "Clan Refit" and the TRO:2750 "Star League Era." I know that TRO:3057 seems to treat the art used in that book as what the warships always looked like. Do you know of anywhere that cites the TRO:3057 designs as "clan refit?" --Peregry 14:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually TPTB indicate both are valid art and that the 3057 images are late SLDF refits, its like the Unseen and Project Phoenix images here, same designs just reworked art. I'm digging through the CBT forums but everybody agrees its a mess. Cyc 00:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I was looking through it from that thread you linked me and some threads linked to it. It seems there's two camps on it: those who prefer the 2750 designs and those who prefer the 3057. We should definitely try and not take sides... perhaps we should label the 2750 art as "Early Star League" and the 3057 as "Late Star League" or something instead of Clan refits (as there's art that apparently portrays ComGuard ships using the 3057 art). --Peregry 00:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Originally posted to Peregry's talk page

Still digging, but for starters [1] Cyc 00:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, definitely an interesting read. I'm surprised people are so passionate about it. --Peregry 00:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Further Discussion/Information

I'd like to come to a consensus on how we label these. Unless there comes a statement from an official source saying which ones are suppose to be the canon images, and even then, I'd like to see the "non-canon" artwork still available--Peregry 03:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC) simply for posterity.

Individual WarShips

I recently embarked on a project to create article for every individual WarShip. I envision this being a long process and began the first part of the first phase by creating articles for the modern Kurita WarShips. Many of these vessels have a brief synopsis in the article for the WarShip class they belong to, but, given the role WarShips play in the Jihad, I don't think this is going to be sufficient to tell their stories. I've had indications from other editors who are unsure that this is the right way to go, so I'm kicking off the discussion. Your thoughts? --Scaletail 14:19, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. In my opinion, there are too many ships we're never going to have much information on. This means we'll have a couple of hundred stub articles with nothing but the class of the ship, and maybe what faction used it. IMHO, that doesn't benefit the site. The little blurbs under the Warship class articles are more than sufficient for 98% of the Warships. ClanWolverine101 15:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with ,ClanWolverine101, There simply not enough information on majority of the Warships for each any everyone them to have its own article. This is similar situation to the Notable Pilots. If there not alot info on them person, it shouldn't be posted seperately. This similar. What little information there has been posted on Warships, i've been listed is brief mentions in the Named Ships of the Class section of the Warship articles. Warships, like the example of the Invisible Truth, which have been featured in Novels, has more information detailing the ship thats not found in normal warship profiles in TROs. If a ship has done something extensively fluff on the ship from novels. then it should get a Individual article. Thats My Two Credits. -- Wrangler 16:45, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
True! I put up the Invisible Truth article, and I consider it a rare exception. Maybe there are others, but not many. ClanWolverine101 18:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Okay. I should be able to collect info on the individual WarShips. The text will just be added to the entry for each WarShip within the existing articles. Reversing what I did in 5...4.... --Scaletail 00:39, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Not every ship needs a full history, but I think we should list as many of them as we can by type. Warships are not like regular units in that way and we can still have important notes if needed. There is plenty of information available Post-Jihad / War of Reaving. I'm just waiting for the moritorium to get started.--Fatebringer 13:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I added information as I stumbled across it in Jihad books, so the coverage may be a bit inconsistent. --Scaletail 01:05, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

CSV v. CSS

I have noticed that individual ComStar WarShips are inconsistently labeled. We use both CSS and CSV (presumably ComStar Ship and Vessel, respectively). The problem is that official sources themselves use both. For the sake of consistency, I think we should pick one and stick with it. Any thoughts on which one it should be? --Scaletail 01:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to add further pain, the ComStar WarShips in Twilight of the Clans used ISS. Normally I'd say we go with newest sources which would be Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, but then we still have the confusion between Clan Steel Viper's ships which also use CSV. Cyc
Some random thoughts, I suspect that designation "ISS" used in the Twilight series was a temporary rechristening for those ships to act as part of the new Star League. Why? The most likely meaning of "ISS" is "Inner Sphere Ship." I'd be inclined to say to use "CSS" as it seems the most appropriate and does not have overlap with the Viper's designation. --Peregry 19:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree. I think "CSS" would be less confusing for all. --Scaletail 19:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Spacecraft Thrust Values...

One of the things that differs between the spacecraft and vehicle infoboxes is how the movement speed is given. In most mech and vehicle articles, it's given in KPH, an actual measure of speed, rather than in Battletech movement. On spacecraft articles we give the value in game values. While the TROs for most spacecraft do not give these values, the conversion is well known as 1 point is equal to .5 g last I heard. So this brings up my first question: should we convert spacecraft velocities from game movement values to actual values?

Should we decide yes on this it is easy enough to remedy, merely time consuming, but it leads to another question, what value to use? Keep in mind, the values are not a top speed, but rather of acceleration. The simplest would be to put it in the value of a g. For the record, g is the acceleration due to gravity at the surface of the Earth: 9.8 meters per second per second. Of course, since the value of g is known, we could instead convert all the way the meters per second per second in the infobox, giving a number more similar to the values used on other entries (though in meters per second per second rather than KPH).

To use an example, a ship with a 3/5 Safe Trust/Max Trust would change to either 1.5 g /2.5 g or 14.7 m/s/s / 24.5 m/s/s.

My opinion is that converting away from the game values is probably a good idea, as it holds in line with the rest of the wiki. I think the best value to use for this is the g, due to the conversion being simplest (1 = .5 g), and the most useful from a fluff perspective as Battletech ships maintain gravity either via rotational gravity decks or by constant acceleration at, well, 1 g.

--Peregry 04:04, 7 March 2012 (PST)

Peregry, I absolutely agree with you that the articles should represent the in-universe attributes for spacecraft rather than game values. Would you please cite the source for the 1 pt = 0.5 g? I'd rather it come from a rulesbook than a PTB if we can, even if it's an outdated book.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 09:02, 7 March 2012 (PST)
Strategic Operations pg 36 discusses safe thrust values for crews and gives G values of safe thrust after the actual Trust point values. The G value is .5 G per thrust point. Again, on pg 63 this value is used for converting a station keeping drive from G to TP, then again on pg 76 it's used in an example. I can't find anywhere it's explicitly stated, at least in Strategic Operations, but it's definitely the accepted value. --Peregry 19:43, 29 March 2012 (PDT)
Further citation: Total Warfare pg 80 remarks that in order to hover over a planet's surface "The unit

must spend 2 Thrust Points each turn to off set gravity." If 2 Thrust points = 1 G, then 1 Thrust point = .5 G. ;) --Peregry 19:54, 29 March 2012 (PDT)

And everything that falls under this project's purview has been converted from Thrust points to g that I could find. Work was slow, what can I say? ;) --Peregry 02:06, 30 March 2012 (PDT)

Revamp

The Project Spacecraft must become a overall revamp, any ideas how we handle this?.--Doneve (talk) 20:13, 20 February 2015 (PST)

Ship article names

(copied over from User:BrokenMnemonic's talk page)

Hi BM, I have decided I want to go over all ship class article and individual ship articles and make the following change: Ship class articles should be disambiguated (where necessary) by stating it is a class, e.g. move Achilles (DropShip) to Achilles (DropShip class). In turn, this will allow individual vessels of unclear type to have their type in the name (e.g. moving Alpha (Vessel) to Alpha (DropShip) to clarify that while we don't know its exact class, we do know it is a DropShip and not a JumpShip or small craft). I think this will make our life much easier and also provide for clearer article headers.

However, I dimly remember that we had this discussion in the past. Did we? Because I cannot find it. But if I didn't implement this naming scheme earlier already perhaps there were good arguments against it that I have since forgotten. So - is there any reason why I shouldn't do this? Frabby (talk) 01:09, 31 July 2015 (PDT)

Hi Frabby,
We haven't had this exact conversation, but we've had a similar one a couple of times - you've mentioned in the past wanting to have ships where we don't know the class but know the type listed with the type in brackets after the name - so the article on the WarShip FSS Alpha of unknown type would become Alpha (WarShip), but the issue was that it would lead to confusion with the articles describing the classes of ships at the moment, which for disambiguation purposes also include the ship type in the title in most cases. So, Alpha (WarShip) would look like an article about a complete class of WarShips in the same fashion as the existing articles about ships like the York (WarShip) and Leviathan (WarShip) are already about classes, rather than individual vessels.
Changing the articles about the various ship classes to specify (WarShip class) rather than simply (WarShip) would remove that problem and allow for the various individual ships to use the type term in brackets, but it does throw up a second problem: it would generate a lot of double redirects here on Sarna. Particularly when you think that I've already spread detail about WarShip conflicts around hundreds of planet articles and existing individual ship articles. BobTheZombie could end up spending the next month editing articles to remove the resulting double redirects.
I'd suggest the following counter-proposal: don't rename the class articles to use the term (DropShip class), (JumpShip class) or (WarShip class), but rather, for those individual ships where we know the type but not the class, change the content in the brackets from (Vessel) to (Individual DropShip), (Individual JumpShip) or (Individual WarShip). That would have three benefits: it would generate far fewer redirects, it would preserve the precedent of class articles being a higher level of article than individual ship articles, and it would have the content in brackets emphasise that the article is specifically about an individual ship, rather than generating potential confusion for people who've already used Sarna in the past and will already have the association between (DropShip), (WarShip) and (JumpShip) as referring to the class articles. I'd rather change what's new and being implemented/generated rather than change what's already been established for years, from a procedural viewpoint - it tends in my experience to be a cleaner process with less confusion for established readers/writers. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 01:44, 31 July 2015 (PDT)
I think the underlying problem is that the current article names are unclear. I like your proposal about spelling out Alpha (individual DropShip) and would adopt that.
But otherwise, I have to say I disagree with your counter-proposal. We seem to agree that there is an issue here we have to adress. And I'd like to properly adress the problem at its root - which, for me, is the ambigous naming scheme we've been using for ships. And if you believe users already have an association with the current system then that's all the more reason for me to implement the change.
This wasn't an issue initially, when individual ships were simply listed on the ship class article, but we should have seen this coming when we decided to go for individual ship articles (a move I still wholeheartedly support). In my opinion, we should implement a new scheme sooner rather than later, and at this point in time it's a bit of work but still possible. Even the double redirects aren't much of a problem because they work and will bring users to the correct page right away while we're working down the list of double redirects behind the scenes.
I don't see how the proposed change could create more redirects than the current system (I'm not proposing a name change for un-ambiguous article names such as Sovetskii Soyuz or Kwaidan, only for those who have a bracketed clarification in the name already). Finally, I understand your procedural argument but disagree with it; I believe in the long run it will be less work to implement a better system, rather than to apply the proverbial patches which may be few now but will stack up over time if the core problem isn't resolved. Frabby (talk) 02:38, 31 July 2015 (PDT)
Hi guys, I don't mean to intrude, but do we have a list or database of dropships and capital ships with their corresponding faction and class (whether known or not)? It might be easier to determine our direction if we have an overview of our current data and a roadmap of where we want to be?-Volt (talk) 03:24, 31 July 2015 (PDT)
There isn't anything quite like that, but having done a quick check, we currently have:
  • 90 articles on DropShip classes, roughly 1/4 of which have a disambiguation clarifier in brackets after the name
  • 489 articles on individual DropShips
  • 19 articles on JumpShip classes, roughly 1/5 of which have a clarifier
  • 222 articles on individual JumpShips
  • 87 articles on WarShip classes, roughly 1/3 of which have a clarifier
  • 779 articles on individual WarShips
Of the individual ship articles, I'm not sure how many have a clarifier, or how many articles we have on individual ships with no class or individual ships with no known type. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 04:09, 31 July 2015 (PDT)
That still looks like a manageable workload to correct. And I'd even be willing to do all that work by myself, just to have it done correctly.
As for Volt's question, personally I think sorting ships by faction is somewhere between pointless and outright misleading. Anyways, we're sorting by means of Categories here on Sarna, with the following pages/subpages structure:
Any suggestions how to improve that? It feels a bit unwieldy, but it does the trick imho and I don't see a better way. I hate articles with arbitrarily sorted lists of things that have their own article; that's what categories are for after all. Frabby (talk) 05:23, 31 July 2015 (PDT)
I like the way the individual ship categories are arranged, but then I'm biased - I created the categories. I think that, at the top level, we have to have categories for individual DropShips, JumpShips and WarShips because every ship should have at least one of those categories. I believe it makes sense to have a category for individual ships of each class, because it answers the question "how many individual ships of type X do we know about?". I like the WarShip classification category too, partly because there are a number of WarShips where we have no class but the text refers to them by classification, calling them destroyers, battleships, et al. While there are a lot of categories, it actually feels like they represent a reasonable minimum.
I'm not certain that we need a category for Space Station classes, but that could be because we don't have many space stations in play - from what I remember, there are the Snowden mining stations/habitats, recharge stations, and the two kinds of defence station (I want to say Bastion and Palisade?). With so few, I'm tempted to say that rather than a category, we should have a single article.
Why do we have seperate categories for armed and unarmed JumpShips? There are less than 20 different classes, and what is the definition of "armed"? It feels like an artificial distinction that I've evidently missed in canon. I'm also not sure why JumpShip classes fitted with Lithium-Fusion batteries need a seperate category - there isn't a corresponding category for WarShips with LF batteries, for example.
For the DropShips, I can understand having categories for Spheroid/Aerodyne, and for Civilian/Military. Other than that, I'm uncertain what categories (if any) are needed. I'm willing to be convinced that Pocket WarShip should exist as a distinct category, and possibly Assault DropShip. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 10:11, 31 July 2015 (PDT)

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