User talk:BrokenMnemonic

Archive - 2012

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Individual Ships

Added this to Frabby's talk page but wanted to be sure you saw it.

ETA: Those rulership succession boxes are a really good idea, btw. I'm trying to think what the greatest number of changes a ship has been through that we can identify. 3 is pretty common, particularly for WOB ships and maybe some of the Clan ships. Is there a ship with a name that's changed 4 times? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 12:36, 26 December 2012 (PST)

OK. Sounds like you've got it. Just add that to the create a warship article, please, so others can see how to do it. And to answer your question, I'm not aware of any ships that have changed hands 4 times, but that doesn't mean there won't be any in the future. Maybe you can start with 3 entries and add more as options?--Mbear^(talk) 04:15, 27 December 2012 (PST)

It would be easy enough to set up a template with ten variable fields to track up to ten different name changes, and thereby have an info box that can list all of the previous names a ship has had up to the current name, if that would be a useful thing to have in addition to the succession template? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 03:31, 31 December 2012 (PST)

Honestly I have no opinion at this time. WarShips aren't my thing. If I see something that I'm not sure of, I'll let you know. :)--Mbear^(talk) 07:19, 2 January 2013 (PST)

Planet and Star Infoboxes

Hy BM, i hope your stard in the new year was well, thanks for the formating on the various planet pages, i know i forgot to add some planetary flags to the infobox. I think circa 50% on the planet pages have now there missing infobox, oh and thanks for helping to add some to articles i missed, greetings.--Doneve (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2013 (PST)

Hy Doneve, my year's been fair to middling so far - I'm helping run a convention that'll be held in mid-May, so I've been feeling a little stretched by that, and it's nice to be able to do some quiet editing on Sarna as a way of relaxing.

I'm happy to be able to help with the planet infoboxes - I did a few while I was updating the planetary histories, and I know how much of a pain they can be. With so many update needed tags for Objectives: Free Worlds League, I'm debating buying a copy of that too so that I can pitch in a bit more. I hope you had a good new year? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 12:12, 9 January 2013 (PST)

ETA: Looking at some of the planetary infoboxes, I think we could do with the infobox not stretching images to a width of 225 pixels if they're already narrower than that - some of the planets, like Denbar, are suffering from very bloated flags now. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 12:21, 9 January 2013 (PST)

At first i know the planetary flag problem, i want to upload some new in smaller size, and fix the infoboxes. Hmm, the stard in new year was very busy, my cousin from Canada and eight from our family visit us and stay for view days by us, some trouble was programm , what a conventions is that, have you a date for me, and on wish location (city) stard the convention, i have from April to June holidays, and i don't know howe i fill my time in this months .--Doneve (talk) 12:32, 9 January 2013 (PST)

I've asked Mbear about the infoboxes, as I remember Rev used to ask him about infoboxes a lot - I hope he can help. It's way outside my experience...

I'm not sure I could survive having 8 family members visit at once! It was hectic enough when there were 6-7 of us at my parents this year. It was nice in some ways to come back to my house for the New Year and enjoy a little quiet. Are you enjoying having the house back to just you and your family now?

The convention I'm helping to run is Vidukon, a convention about fan-vidding - making music videos about tv shows and films. It's only a little con - the last one 2 years ago had about 35 people at it, and so far we've got about 12 registered for this year - but it's in Cardiff, which is close to where I live, and because the organisers needed help, I ended up joining the convention committee as Treasurer to help run things. I'm also the TechMonkey - I'm responsible for making sure the sound works, getting all the vids into a format that will play, establishing what format we want them in, that sort of thing. I'm trying to make a vid for the Premieres show on the Saturday, but it's going slowly...

This is the vid I made for the last show - although the comedy part of the horror comedy theme didn't really come through on the day BrokenMnemonic (talk) 12:45, 9 January 2013 (PST)

Ha ha ha, i know what you mean, i love also when the house is quiete, oh and thanks for the con infos.--Doneve (talk) 12:55, 9 January 2013 (PST)

I'm feeling the flags in the infoboxes! Good work! ClanWolverine101 (talk) 14:43, 9 January 2013 (PST)

Thank you It's nice to get a chance to help Doneve out - normally, it's the other way around! BrokenMnemonic (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2013 (PST)

That's what Doneve does! ClanWolverine101 (talk) 07:22, 10 January 2013 (PST)

Planet InfoBox

Copied from my talk page Mbear, as the resident expert on infobox construction, is there any way to amend the Template:InfoBoxPlanetStandard template so that if the image is already less than 225 pixels in width, it isn't increased automatically to a width of 225 pixels? Some of the info boxes (like Denbar) are suffering from image bloat because the long, think planetary flags are being scaled up dramatically... BrokenMnemonic (talk) 12:27, 9 January 2013 (PST)

I don't know off the top of my head. Let me look into it.--Mbear^(talk) 04:17, 10 January 2013 (PST)

Updated the InfoboxPlanetStandard to include a new paramater: imagewidth. If you have an image less than 225px, you can enter the width in pixels on this line to show image w/o scaling. Leaving line blank will assume width of 225px.--Mbear^(talk) 04:31, 10 January 2013 (PST)

New Syrtis

Hy BM, have this award from me , for your great New Syrtis article update, this article is a template for me, how must a planet article must look, great work.--Doneve (talk) 08:30, 18 January 2013 (PST)

Hy Doneve Thank you, that's very kind! I'm lucky, there was a lot of detail available on New Syrtis in the two handbooks, and it played a pretty prominant role in the Davion Civil War and some other events. It was more fun than some other planet articles I've written It's got me thinking about expanding the Federated Suns history article (if there is one) because I'm finding the different Marches and their ruling families rather interesting. Did you know that the Princes of the Draconis March Principality, based out of their Capital of Tancredi IV, were named Kerensky, up until the last elderly Kerensky was replaced by Laura Davion? Or that the original family that held the title of Prince of the Terran March Principality were killed by a Terran Hegemony raid on Royalston, and replaced for a couple of generations by the Rhostov family? It's not something I've really read up on before, but I'm finding it all rather interesting, and the Civil War covers a lot of planets... you know how much I like expanding planet articles. And it's set in the Age of War, which I'm finding increasingly intersting...

Anyway, I'm rambling. Thanks again for the award! I shall update my awards board now... BrokenMnemonic (talk)

Individual Warship articles: Categories

Hi BrokenMnemonic, finally got some time to look into your articles and there's two points I'd like to raise with you:
1. WarShips aren't JumpShips as far as categorization is concerned. The five major categories for individual hulls are WarShip, JumpShip, DropShip, Small Craft, and Installation. In this sense, JumpShips are (only) civilian JumpShip designs with a standard KF core; WarShips don't fall into the JumpShip category.
2. Please add the appropriate category (e.g. [[Category:Individual Destroyers]]) to articles where the ship's type is known. Similarly and on top of this, please add the appropriate category (e.g. [[Category:Individual Suffren-class vessels]]) to articles where the class is known. In this way, I'd like to mirror the categories tree established for classes. Frabby (talk) 11:51, 19 January 2013 (PST)

1 - Done.

2 - Done.

A couple of things came out of my categorisation spree earlier that you may wish to take a view on.

• Not all WarShip types are categorised - the Volga, Potemkin and Faslane were all missing classes. I used the definitions within the WarShip classifications page to categorise them as a transport, a cruiser and a Yard-Ship respectively, but you may wish to correct that if I got it wrong.
• You may wish to choose to have light and heavy cruiser become subcategories of the cruiser category; looking at the classifications page, some of the lightest cruisers are described as heavy cruisers, while some cruisers such as the Potemkin are either simply described as "cruiser" or a weird subdivision such as "transport cruiser." When it comes to describing vessels narratively, the writers often seem to simply use "cruiser" - the SLS Havana is an example of that. This might require tagging a lot of vessels as both a cruiser and a subdivision, or you could take the view that cruiser is used when that's the only description and is a less accurate category to be improved if information is available.

You've not commented on whether the names of the Minotaur and Lakshmi are correct or not, so I've assumed for now that they are, and added the Minotaur to the Aegis page as the SLS Minotaur, rather than as the THS Minotaur quoted on the CGL forum review. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 03:03, 20 January 2013 (PST)

You rule, man! Thanks! The Cruiser designation is sort of a catch-all designation really, and WarShip classification is wonky anyways. I wouldn't want to categorize beyond Cruiser, especially given that the Cruiser sub-classes typically have only a handful classes in them and thus aren't worth differentiating anyways (heavy, light, battle, troop, pursuit cruisers and maybe a couple more; not aware of any particular class referred to as "transport cruiser" though - the Potemkin is called a "troop cruiser"). Similarly, I feel we don't need categories for YardShips or transport WarShips. But it doesn't hurt either. Nothing to "correct" here.

As for The Theseus Knot, I have the print edition of the Weapons Free anthology before me and am working it down story by story. Theseus Knot is upcoming. Reading it over, I gather the SLS Minotaur is a refitted Aegis and the FSS Klingenthal a new Congress. No quick ID of the Lakshmi beyond that it was the former command of the Minotaur's CO, i.e. apparently a SLS ship. Frabby (talk) 03:58, 20 January 2013 (PST)

OK, the system is working so far. Davion and Lola class vessels are going to be a pain, because they consist of discrete blocks (I and II for the Davion, I, II and III for the Lola) in article terms, but the texts often don't specify which block a ship came from - that's a problem with ships like the FSS Charles Davion.

The system is allowing for ships that we weren't previously tracking to be loaded into the wiki, though. A case in point is the FSS Lucien Davion, which couldn't be easily recorded before because it had no class information - the same goes for the SLS Havana and the SLS Dularam. It's a little bit of a pain to have to pipe the ship names so that they show up in the correct format, but considerably less of a pain now than it used to be, where I was having to pipe in the name of the class and the sub-link to the Named Vessels section to link to a ship name accurately.

It's also making the WarShip class articles look a little tidier, in my opinion - you can see the difference if you look at something like the Com Guard subsection of the Essex page compared to the other subsections. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 05:16, 21 January 2013 (PST)

Ship name prefixes

Looking at The Theseus Knot article, I feel we should probably create a summary list page for Naval prefixes in BattleTech with redirects in place for individual prefixes (THS, SLS, FSS, et al - btw if CSV is ComStar, what prefix do the Steel Vipers use?). Obviously, the aim would be to link [[FSS]] [[Klingenthal]]. Oh, and we should definitely add a redirect to [[Klingenthal]] from [[FSS Klingenthal]], just to make sure every possible way to write the ship name is covered. "We" being "you" these days, I have to admit. I'd like to help more, but on top of all my workload my entire family save myself is violently ill right now...

Oh, and by the way: Is there an accurate technical/naval term for these prefixes? Frabby (talk) 13:34, 31 January 2013 (PST)

A summary list for prefixes is probably a very good idea. I've a feeling that there are a couple of potential duplicates out there (and I'm kicking myself that I missed the FSS Klingenthal redirect).

I'm not aware of a specific naval term for prefixes - everything I've read simply refers to it as the ship prefix. Although I notice that I've been a little sloppy in some of the articles - there are conventions for using prefixes, such as not putting "The" before a ship with a prefix when you start paragraphs... e.g. "The HMS Warspite was a Royal Navy ship of the line..." is wrong, it should be "HMS Warspite was a ..."

It's also not considered correct to keep using the prefix after the first mention of a ship - and that's something I keep forgetting. So, in an article on the Warspite, it would be "HMS Warspite" the first time, and simply Warspite throughout the rest of an article.

If a ship is from a nation that doesn't use prefixes, then you normally spell out the name of the nation on the first use, e.g. "The Swiss corvette Jungfrau..."

Just to complicate matters regarding ComStar, from what I can see in sources like Twilight of the Clans, during the reign of the Second Star League, ComStar used ISS - which I'm guessing means "Inner Sphere Ship" - rather than CSV (ComStar Vessel). Although finding occasions where the abbreviations are spelt out is rather tricky. Regarding the Steel Vipers, the abbreviation I've seen used is CStV and then the ship name, but that's from existing articles here. FM: Warden Clans makes no mention of the prefix, nor does FM: Updates. Historical: Op Klondike doesn't use any prefixes at all (and I really must sit down and datamine that sourcebook for shipnames, it's an untapped goldmine of detail at the moment). The original Objective Raids makes no mention of WarShips. Wars of Reaving makes no mention I can see, either. Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents confirms the prefixes for some of the Clans - CIH for the Hellions, CJF for the Falcons, although I notice it doesn't confirm anything for the Hell's Horses. I think we may be looking at a case of the prefixes having been conjured up by fandom in a lot of cases. Hmm. I may Ask The Writers if they could clarify prefixes in use. I did notice some oddities - for example, Capellan WarShips use the prefix CCS, but their DropShips use the prefix CCSS.

Anyway, I must go to bed, but thanks for the detail on the Lakshmi, I'll get that updated tomorrow, and I hope you and your family get well soon. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 14:06, 31 January 2013 (PST)

Started a thread on the BT forum to get some community input. There's a few issues already (CSV; CDS/DSS; CGB/CGBS). Let's see if more pop up; I intend to post one summary question to the writers eventually to clear up all questionable or unclear results raised in the thread. Frabby (talk) 14:01, 15 February 2013 (PST)

Hy BM, iam done with ca. 90% of the individul vessel name links on the WarShip pages, but i don't add links to the Clan Steel Viper vessels, i don't know which prefix we use for the Steel Vipers, i datamine my sourcebooks and hope i can found any info.--Doneve (talk) 07:00, 27 February 2013 (PST)

Hy Doneve, according to Wars of Reaving the Steel Vipers used CSV, just like ComStar, so that's what I've been using in all the articles dealing with Steel Viper ships. I'm still working my way through Warden Clans adding ships, though - I've still got Crusader Clans to go, and I need to finish up with a few other books. There are a lot of WarShips out there, aren't there? At this rate, I think we'll soon know what a large proportion of Kerensky's exodus fleet was by ship class. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 07:06, 27 February 2013 (PST)

Ah, ok thanks for the info.--Doneve (talk) 07:18, 27 February 2013 (PST)

Great work, both of you! Every day I'm amazed at all you have done. Sometime, I'll have to go though a lot of my larger articles, like the Clan Coyote page, and the Smoke Jaguar/Mongoose Absorption. From my earliest BT recollections of The Periphery and onward, I loved space battles, so I made sure to pay attention to them in my articles, with all ship names present. And now, because of you guy's diligent work, I'll get to go through those articles and link the names of each vessel to articles that explain more of their history in depth. That's great, and I hope you guys are honored for your endeavors. --Rebs (talk) 11:48, 28 February 2013 (PST)

New Planet overhaul member

Hy BM, hope all is well with you, we have a new planet overhaul member, please take a look on his talk page User talk:SnagaDance, i think he can help us with the planet map problem, greetings.--Doneve (talk) 08:09, 5 February 2013 (PST)

Harira/Hahira

(copied over from Mbear's talk page)

Saw you deleted Harira, with a note that it was a misspelling for Hahira. Where did that notion come from? Because I'm working on a BC story set partly on Harira, where it is spelled thusly. Frabby (talk) 12:13, 6 February 2013 (PST)

You'd have to ask BrokenMnemonic. He put it up for deletion originally. I just hit the delete button.

(diff) 03:29, March 21, 2012 . . BrokenMnemonic (Talk | contribs | block) (5,132 bytes) (Added deletion request template - entry is a duplicate, based on the mis-spelling of Hahira as Harira)

Sorry!--Mbear^(talk) 04:04, 7 February 2013 (PST)

Hi Frabby. Sorry for the delay in responding - I've been rather ill this week, which has stopped me from getting much of anything done.

I marked Harira for deletion as a duplicate entry based on the following:

- Harira and Hahira shared co-ordinates, making it likely that they were being confused with each other

- The auto-generated nearest neighbours map for Harira showed it to be in the same location as the planet Hahira in maps from Era Report: 2750, Handbook: House Davion, Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1 and the Map of the Inner Sphere 3130 all show the planet in that location as being named Hahira, not Harira.

- I couldn't find a planet named Harira in any of the electronic BattleTech sourcebooks I have (although I'm not a BC subscriber)

- I couldn't find a planet named Harira in any of Volt or Bad Syntax's mapping information, which is based on even more sources than the ones I own

- There was no entry on Sarna for Hahira, despite it being an established BT world on maps going back to FASA days

Based on those points and the number of previous instances like this where it turned out to be an error in the original information imported from the Inner Sphere mapping site that first established the basis for the planet articles here, it seemed likely that the IS mapping project has misnamed the world, and Sarna had simply imported erroneous data. One of the first things I was involved with here was nailing down exactly this sort of issue with Revanche over the names of worlds like Gillfillan's Gold - originally on here as Gilfillian's Gold, Jordan Wais - imported onto Sarna as Jordan, and Quiberas, which was missing completely and had been replaced on here with Wais.

It may be that I was wrong to mark it for deletion without specifically confirming it with the Writers over on the CGL library, but given that I couldn't find a single source anywhere to confirm that Harira existed while the planet Hahira was completely missing, I couldn't think of a way of asking for their opinion because I wasn't asking for an opinion on a contradiction within BT canon, I'd instead have been asking for an opinion on a contradiction solely within Sarna, which I don't think they'd comment on. It now sounds as if you've just turned up a contradiction between two canon sources, at which point it'd be worth asking the question over at CGL. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 23:09, 7 February 2013 (PST)

Well oookay... I may just drop the charges of High Treason then. ;)

It's apparently another case of a system name that got misspelt until the misspelling became canon (New Hati nee New Haiti being my favourite so far). The original Davion Housebook has the world down as "Harira", and that name is also used in the BC story The Bitter Taste of Hope which is partially set there. Of course there's the off chance that we're looking at two inhabited worlds in the same system. I have Asked the Writers. Frabby (talk) 00:58, 8 February 2013 (PST)

I also found Jacomarle and Jacomarie, the former being the name on maps and the latter found in-text in Historical: Brush Wars. In the new database I'm going to put both names, with the "newer" name in parenthesis. So New Vandenberg and New Vandenburg, Ingomish and Ingonish, etc... will be searchable. Do you guys know any more spelling mutations?-Volt (talk) 04:09, 8 February 2013 (PST)

There is Grumium and Gumium, the latter appearing in the NAIS Atlases and the former being used in every other source I have seen. BPSteiner (talk) 08:48, 27 February 2013 (PST)

GIS Maps

Hy BM, Volt bring me to this beautiful forum, (not Aris) i see you become a member yesterday on Aris :). This site is for maps take a look and you where surprised, her is the link [1], oh and please give me a response what you are think of the created maps by GIS software.--Doneve (talk) 09:46, 18 February 2013 (PST)

Hy Doneve I think I have an account with ourbattletech, although I've not used it for a while - I'll check when I get a quiet few minutes at work, because I think that's where I registered from. No Java at work though, which is why I think I've not used it much...

Aris looks useful too - I'm not sure I can contribute much, but it's already given me plenty to think about! BrokenMnemonic (talk) 10:47, 19 February 2013 (PST)

On the GIS front - it looks like a very sensible way of getting improved nearest neighbour maps on here, and perhaps larger maps too. I'm not sure how much we can do though - I think that Volt's spreadsheet holds the information that'd be needed, but we could certainly use the maps. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 10:47, 19 February 2013 (PST)

SnagaDance might be able to help you translate the data in my spreadsheet into the relevant maps. Doneve sent him a link to the files so he'd be able to work on those. Though, I'm working on an updated list. I have changes on the faction ownership, but the coordinates are unchanged.-Volt (talk) 17:45, 20 February 2013 (PST)

Did you see that they had enough space in Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 2 to give us a map of the complete Inner Sphere as at the end of the 1st Succession War? Ok, it's not a full set of maps from Handbook: House Kurita, but it's great to finally be getting some internal mapping detail on the Combine as at various milestones. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 00:08, 21 February 2013 (PST)

Yup, I've already inputted the data from the 2822 map on my list. I've overwritten some data that was found on the Handbook sectional maps like ownership of Herotitus and others. I need to see a Historical:Succession Wars for 2864 and 3030 maps, that would totally make my day.-Volt (talk) 03:11, 25 February 2013 (PST)

Herb's commented in at least one of the BattleChats about the possibility of an Era Digest: Succession Wars - given that the maps clearly exist, I'm thinking that would be our best bet for seeing them. Fingers crossed! BrokenMnemonic (talk) 04:46, 25 February 2013 (PST)

FSS Lucien Davion

Hy BM, please take a look on the FSS Lucien Davion page, i moved content from the Avalon warship page to the FSS Lucien, and noticed the ship was destroyed during the Reunification war, i don't want to mixed up the page, but i think i do it, argh argh, need help, thanks.--Doneve (talk) 12:44, 26 February 2013 (PST)

Hy Doneve,

Simple answer - there have been two ships named the FSS Lucien Davion. One was a ship destroyed in the Reunification War - we aren't told what class Admiral Vincent's ship was, which is annoying; then, at some point in the 31st century, the FedSuns/FedCom built an Avalon class ship and named it the FSS Lucien Davion as well. So, we need two entries - Lucien Davion (Vessel) for the first one, and Lucien Davion (Avalon) for the second. There's another out there like that - the Ark Royal. Oh, and the Titanic, which is even worse (both ships were Potemkins).BrokenMnemonic (talk) 12:48, 26 February 2013 (PST)

Thanks so much, i corrected my mess.--Doneve (talk) 12:59, 26 February 2013 (PST)

Not a problem :) I've found a few ships like this. It may be worth adding a note to each article explaining the existence of the other ship - the Davions really seem to like either naming their ships after planets, or naming them after famous Davions, and there are only so many of each... BrokenMnemonic (talk) 13:04, 26 February 2013 (PST)