User talk:Black Lanner

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Welcome, Black Lanner, to BattleTechWiki!

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Again, welcome to Sarna's BattleTechWiki!

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-- New user message (talk) 00:12, 10 December 2021 (EST)

Hiya

Thanks for registering - also also kudos for your level-headed reaction to a situation bordering on an edit war in what I believe was your first contribution. I hold the BT community at large in high esteem, and situations like this reaffirm my feelings. So thank you for engaging with the community and not just stepping back and throwing a tantrum - that's the perfect attitude for Sarna! :)

As for the matter at hand, unless Dmon beats me to it I'll take a closer look and give an opinion. Frabby (talk) 04:45, 10 December 2021 (EST)

I appreciate it. Thank you for the kind words.

Black Lanner (talk) 15:47, 11 December 2021 (EST)Black Lanner

Edits to MW5: BattleMechs Page

Hi Black Lanner, have you had a chance to look over my reply to you on the other page? I'd like to see how we can best proceed. -Csdavis715 (talk) 06:45, 15 December 2021 (EST)

Sorry, I haven't had time. I'm going back to school to change careers, and this last week was finals.My initial thoughts are refining what is already here. Ultimately, the "Final Form" should include the important information for the average reader, to decide what variants are best for their needs. So, you may be right, that we may need to breakdown the weapon section by location (Left Arm/ Left Torso/ Head/ Center Torso/ Right Torso/ Right Arm) and what Size and Type of weapon slots, but, how? Columns? Can we get a "Test Page" that we can all mess with and vote on, before having a mod change it over? I'm still very new to contributing, not entirely sure what is the best way forward. --Black Lanner (talk) 20:12, 15 December 2021 (EST)

I think info that would be useful, but isn't present yet, is 1) Hardpoint sizes, 2) Hardpoint locations (arms vs torso... which arm/torso doesn't matter), and 3) upgrade slots. The issue is having room for everything. Check out the equipment link: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/MechWarrior_5:_Mercenaries/Equipment. I think if we created a subheader for each Mech like they do each weapon in the Contents, then we can save 1-2 columns (name and tonnage). That should hopefully open up some horizontal room for us to add columns for the more detailed hardpoint information (which we could probably find a way to put in a single column) and for the upgrade slots. What do you think? --Csdavis715 (talk) 00:19, 16 December 2021 (EST)

I think I came up with a way to fit in the free tonnage column you suggested. Actually the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having it. So, if we combine the armor and structure columns into one but have them on separate rows (which we have room for because the weapons hardpoints will now take up to 3 rows), then we can make a column titled "Free Tons" and list 2 figures: one for the space based on the default chassis, and then another based on max armor. Since we already list max armor possible, there's some correlation there. Let me know what you think. Then we can put off redesigning the table for now. --Csdavis715 (talk) 09:49, 19 December 2021 (EST)

So, I should have some time next week to work on the page, after Tuesday or so. I have a game going right now, specifically to find as many designs as possible and collect this data. Thinking about the location listing I think you are right, Arm/ST/CT/Head. Subheader is an excellent idea. Also, I think that instead of adding production dates for 'Mechs that are available at the start of the game, we just put "From Start" to avoid confusion. Also, your point about the Stock Free Tonnage vs. the Maxed Armor Free Tonnage is another excellent point, and should not be difficult to add, I'll just have to remember to check it, in my game, before I start stripping 'Mechs too much, lol. --Black Lanner (talk) 23:08, 19 December 2021 (EST)

I'm glad we're in agreement with Free Tons. Actually, I have a couple of reference sheets prepared by other users to pull numbers from. That should save a lot of time, then you're welcome to fill out the rest. Let me adjust the table first so the formatting works out. Just to be clear on a couple of things, because I can't tell from your last response if we're in agreement: I want to put off on the subheader initially while I see how everything fits. If it looks like we can get most of it in fine, then the subheaders just add a flood of lines at the top of the page and it may look strange in the browser. Also can we put off on hardpoint locations until we have the rest up? I'm not sure yet how I feel about breaking down the locations beyond 2 categories. The only reason why I specified arm vs torso is because that's all that matters in the game when you play, with the readouts and reticles on your screen. As I keep saying, there's so much info we could list, at some point we have to just prioritize. I'm not sure how I feel about "From Start." What's the confusion you're speaking of? I think all players know that the game starts in 3015. The page is specifically for MW5 content, and I don't think there are people who will believe all these mechs suddenly came off the line at the same time in 3015. They just need to click on the links for each mech to see the history. By the way, the previous header was "In-Game Appearance Date," which I changed to "Available" just to make the column narrower. But I can revert it or put something else if more clarity is needed. p.s. no rush to do any of this. I think we are both relatively preoccupied this week. --Csdavis715 (talk) 23:48, 19 December 2021 (EST)

Evening to the both of you, in order to make sure you two are heading in the right direction with your tables I took a look at your light mech table and did a few minor adjustments to it. To break down what I did I'll start with the sorting. I added "data sorting types" to each of the columns to allow for better sorting of the data contained, I made certain columns unsortable, I specified the sort order of the "source" column (by adding a "data-sort-value" to each row), I made the (renamed) "Availability" column sort correctly by date (seems to work no matter where you put the month thankfully), finally I removed the "extra" rows that you had that made sorting give extra blank rows. Additionally I added padding and styling to make the table more presentable (for example there is now mouse over highlighting of rows). Feel free to use what I did with your Light Mechs table on that page and the autocannons table on this page here to your other work in the future. The only thing I would advise of with future tables is try not to use style="width=#px" on tables in any sort of case, the correct way to specify width is style="max-width:#em". Em units (vice px) are good because they increase in size along with the zoom setting. Max-width is better than using breaks in headers, because header breaks annoy people using screen readers due to the pauses. Max-width also allows tables to shrink to fit in smaller tablet and phone screens. Additionally not only does width=# get ignored in tables in HTML5 style=width:#em doesn't narrow further in any circumstance, and so its use should be avoided. --Deadfire (talk) 01:11, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Hi Deadfire, thank you so much for creating the new table for which we can now copy and apply to the other 'Mech classes. I admit I was a bit stuck with the WikiText formatting; a couple weeks ago I tried to input what I learned into the existing code and nothing was happening. Anyway, before we spend countless hours changing everything I did a test of the new content with the Commando. Let me know how you think it looks.--Csdavis715 (talk) 05:34, 20 December 2021 (EST)

I finished formatting the tables for the Medium, Heavy, and Assault 'Mechs. I think we have enough to do updating the Free Tons and Weapons Hardpoints columns. Black Lanner: I'm not sure I understand how to best identify whether the hardpoints are on the arms or torso. I'm looking at what you did for the Firestarter heros and 1) the additional text requires more brainstorming on how to make it look clear and presentable, and 2) these 2 'Mechs are easy because how the hardpoints are grouped in the same areas. I would hate to try to type in the assault 'Mechs! Would it be alright with you if we focused on the hardpoint sizes for now while we brainstorm and discuss the arms vs torso issue? --Csdavis715 (talk) 00:56, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Hey, Csdavis715, yeah, I meant it as a test run, see how it looked on different chassis. I was going to pull it out, but got side tracked. I'll get it reverted now. I know you wanted to round off the available tonnage, and I mostly agree. Is that something we can look at later? right now, it is easiest for me to put out what the numbers are, to the 2nd decimal place. The reason is, that some chassis need to shave off a bit of armor or at max armor, are close enough to the next half ton that it might as well be there. I'm trying to consider what the average player would find as an acceptable cut off... maybey .40 tons? Not sure. Black Lanner (talk) 15:37, 22 December 2021 (EST)BlackLanner

I actually think it's better to put the exact tonnage number as you're doing and let the player decide for themselves. So keep doing what you're doing. Also, I've always been adding comments for each edit in the Summary textbox just to keep everyone informed of what's being done to the page without having to examine the code. If I'm testing something I will mention it here- maybe you can do the same for clarity. Good job. --Csdavis715 (talk) 22:04, 22 December 2021 (EST)

So, Upgrade Slots... if we put them under "Special", it will give every chassis an entry, without making the table too wide. any other ideas on this? I think I'll add them and see how it looks. Edit: The 5T Zeus wasn't on the list, but I added it. Edit: Lights and all but 28 Assaults are done... how do you think it looks? Black Lanner (talk) 00:39, 25 December 2021 (EST)

Hey man, Merry Christmas. Ok so 2 things: 1) the Special column has so far referred to equipment that physically comes with the default chassis. I know a lot of mechs will end up being blank there but I don't see a problem with that. Upgrade slots thus refers to something else entirely, and might even confuse people who are just playing the Core version of the game. We could rename the column to something more generic like "Other," but just seeing "Upgrade Slots" every line makes the text a bit thick on the page. 2) The Special equipment was listed in alphabetical order. If you're experimenting with the spacing, the issue here is that A) we look less organized when there's less consistency with how the info is listed, and B) as soon as we change information in other columns, we risk changing the width and formatting again for the Special column. Once we have all the hardpoints listed, we should have some extra lines in that column to play with that might make it easier to format using breaks. I feel somewhat strongly about leaving Upgrade Slots out for now and figuring it out later, once we have all the rest of the hardpoint and free tons information listed on the page. I'm actually not sure it's relevant anymore, once I realized with only a few exceptions all mechs have between 6-8 slots. You could make a comment on the Discussion page to get feedback from other users if you want. --Csdavis715 (talk) 13:13, 25 December 2021 (EST)

Merry Christmas! So I completely forgot that the upgrade system was part of Heros DLC...I'll get new column set up, give me a bit to transfer over the information. As far as the changes with putting JJs first and with a line break, I think it still fits, as long as JJs are consistently first, and have their own line break. Of the items that fall under "Special" JJs take up the most space and cause the width to be obnoxiously obvious when so many entries are blank. Edit: where is the discussion page? I found it once, but I can't seem to get back to it. Black Lanner (talk) 22:00, 25 December 2021 (EST)Black Lanner

I don't know if you remember, but I added the Upgrade Slots column in the beginning as a test but removed it because it made all the text really cramped. Unfortunately it seems like there's no way to extend the width of the table. If we add anything next, I think it should be the arms/torso hardpoints indicators we talked about. As I said, once I found out the vast majority of mechs had 6-8 upgrade slots, listing this became somewhat pointless for me. So I now feel strongly against having it included at this time, but if you want to find a way to add it, I won't fight ya. The Discussion tab is at the top of the page, next to Edit and History.(https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Talk:MechWarrior_5:_Mercenaries/BattleMechs) --Csdavis715 (talk) 22:44, 25 December 2021 (EST)

Hey man, good work adding all the 'Mech data in. Unfortunately, I'm not really getting much joy out of this collaboration so I think I'm going to step back and let you finish what you want. We have different ideas of what the page should look like; I'm sensing you want to pack it full of info like an Excel spreadsheet, but I think there's a such thing as too much text, and if it's not easy on the eyes then info actually gets harder to find. If I catch something minor that needs fixing I might do an edit, but yea, it's not my page to control, so you don't have to check in with me anymore. Good luck. --Csdavis715 (talk) 19:35, 26 December 2021 (EST)