User:Cache

Awards Board

Retired Awards Board

Profile

I have been enjoying the BattleTech universe since the around 1990. I own the sorely outdated Brian's Cache website and am an administrator over at Lords of the Battlefield. This wiki has been incredibly useful for me for years now and it is about time that I contribute. Though I'm not much on writing articles, I will be focused mainly on cleaning up what is here (grammar and format) and uploading new or higher resolution picture replacements. My BattleTech library is extensive so if you have any requests, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Personal Projects

"As at (year)..."

Noticed while correcting "The Wars of Reaving", there are hundreds of instances of "as at" being used instead of "as of" (i.e. American English). This is going to be more difficult to correct because of how the search function works.

Search for "as at"

Image Upgrades

Technical Readout: 3025/Revised (ASFs in work)

Technical Readout: 3026

Technical Readout: 3039

Technical Readout: 3050/Revised/Upgrade (Upgrade SL ASFs C/W)

Technical Readout: 3055/Revised/Upgrade (ASFs INW)

Technical Readout: 3075 (Inner Sphere & Clan BA INW)

Technical Readout: Prototypes (Aerospace units C/W)

Battle Armor Equipment (images from various sources)

Classic BattleTech Companion

Tukayyid

Masters and Minions: The StarCorps Dossiers (Personalities, logos, flags)

Technical Readout: 2750 (complete)

Technical Readout: 3057/Revised(complete)

Technical Readout: 3058/Upgrade(complete)

Technical Readout: 3060(complete)

Technical Readout: 3067, including cover art and info on CGL reprint (complete)

Technical Readout: Project Phoenix (complete)

Era Digest: Golden Century (complete)

Experimental Technical Readout: ComStar,'Mechs only (complete)

Experimental Technical Readout: Primitives, Volume 3,'Mechs only (complete)

Experimental Technical Readout: Steiner,'Mechs only (complete)

Historical: Brush Wars (Personalities) (complete)

Mercenaries Supplemental (color plate unit logos) (complete)

Mercenaries Supplemental II (color plate unit logos) (complete)

Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents (complete)

Planetary Images

• Mine the Turning Points and Touring the Stars (series) for planetary maps, flags, and orbital views. (Plus unit logos and other images, where appropriate.)
• Consistent file name formats allow for alphabetization when viewed in image categories:

Planet Name Planetary Map.png

Planet Name Flag.png

Planet Name Orbital View.jpg

• User:Cache/Planetary Images

Unit Logos

I will be trying to add consistency to the way unit logos are presented. Issues I have seen are:

• A new style logo has been uploaded in place of the old. I don't think this is right. Units with different styles of logos throughout the years should have a gallery showcasing the history of them. This includes faction logos. The Clans, for example, have plain, jeweled, and marbled logos, not to mention the battle-damaged logos of the Jihad era.
• Duplicate unit logos have been uploaded, and added to different articles. Updating one obviously does not update the duplicate. These need to be found and corrected.
• I believe units with no logo image of their own should display the logo of their parent unit, when available, rather than the faction logo. For example: The 59th Cobra Guards (perma-link, possibly outdated) should display the Gamma Galaxy logo, not the Clan Cobra Logo. (Currently there are over 20 CCC sub-units displaying the CCC logo. That seems like a lot when at most it should be Galaxies and Keshiks.)
• Is it "unit logo", "unit crest", or "unit insignia"? I'll probably never get to the bottom of this one, but I'm putting it out there.

File name format (tentative):

• PNG file with transparent background (where appropriate) preferred.
• Mark end of file names with "logo" (for consistency with Category:Unit Logo Gallery)
• Make file names alpha-numeric for grouping in image categories. (note: This will not sort Greek lettering properly.)
• Mark Brigade logos with hyphen (-Brigade) to keep them at top of the alphabet.

The Ryuken regiments became the first exception to this because of their hyphenated names. To keep the brigade logo at the top of the alphabet, a double hyphen was used. (Ryuken--Brigade logo.png)

• For historical logos, add date (year) after "logo"
• For consistency, add affiliation (not command) to file names when they are are included in the related article name.
• Add zero prefixes on numbers pending on the number of digits in all related units. ("01" when related units use double digits, "001" when triple)
• When factions have changed, use the original faction under which the unit was created. (Be sure all applicable factions are included in the category listing.)
• Examples:

Arturan Guards 17th logo.png

Alshain Regulars -Brigade logo.png

Alshain Regulars 06th logo.png

Arkab Legion -Bridade logo 2765.png

Crucis March Militia New Avalon logo.png

Army 09th (ComStar) logo.png

Division 012th (ComStar) logo.png

Division 388th (ComStar) logo.png

Division 08th (Word of Blake) logo.png

Shadow Division 45th logo.png

Galaxy Alpha (Clan Ghost Bear) logo.png

Galaxy Omega Provisional (Clan Nova Cat) logo.png

Banshee Stables logo.png

Start at the top—Category:Military Organizations (Alliance Military Corps)

Regional Maps

Review and improve regional maps, being sure they are taken from canon sources and have proper attribution.
See: BattleTechWiki:Project Planets/Planet Overhaul/Faction Map Gallery
(Calderon Protectorate complete. Use as example for image size and naming.)

Misc

• Review Field Manuals, scenario books, etc. for original appearances of 'Mechs.
• Fill out image summary info for Mercenary's Handbook Gallery
• Galleries (category) in general.
• Revise formatting of ToC's as encountered to more closely match their respective sources. (Bullets are horribly overused, especially considering there is only one type.)

FM:FedSuns

Lostech

TRO2750

TRO:3058

TRO:3058U

Masters and Minions

FM:CrCl

The Fall of Terra

RS3075u

• Change variant names of units to match official record sheets/MUL (as encountered)
• TCI Model Sets article needs images.
• Review Esparza's image uploads for duplicates with existing images and complete image summary info.
• Capitalize "Pilots" in the titles of all sub-categories of Category:Notable MechWarriors and Pilots and update all corresponding pilot articles. (A through R complete.)
• Add current articles to Notables categories. Found in TRO:3025, TRO:3039, TRO:3050U, TRO:3055U, TRO:3058U, TRO:3075, TRO:SW, TRO:Jihad, and the Rec Guides (A through R complete with "Capitalize" task. New 'Mechs/Pilots need research.)

Reference Errors (complete)

Pages with reference errors.

I took this one on because it looked relatively simple. It would be time consuming but could be completed one page at a time, or, preferably, in chunks. There were over 500 pages with reference errors when I began. Now there are only a handful of user pages, which I'm not going to touch. What kind of reference errors did I fix? I would guess over 90% were copy/paste errors . A new map comes out and someone adds ownership data for the year that map represents. It would be crazy for them to type the reference every time, as that data would cover hundreds of planets, thus, hundreds of pages. So they copy and paste the reference. Problem is, there's a typo in the reference. Now this typo is repeated for the hundreds of pages that were edited. This is where the "Show preview" button is your friend. At the beginning of a mass edit, preview and scroll down to the references section. Make sure no big, ugly, red errors pop up. Correct them if they do. Then copy/paste the correct references.

Another, now terribly familiar, mass reference error is due to overuse of the <ref name=X> </ref> tags. This happens when the same page is cited multiple times, using the same RefName but a different description each time. If you're going to cite multiple sections on a page, only once each, just use the <ref> </ref> tags. Again, the "Show preview" button is your friend.

A third error that I saw pretty often was careless deletion. Editors delete portions of content that contain the initial <ref name="RefName"> </ref> tags and do not add them back to the remaining content. This leaves orphaned <ref name="RefName"/> tags that don't know where they belong. Again, please use the "Show preview" button when editing.

Don't know what I'm going on about with those last two? Please read the Help page, Detailed References section.

"The" Wars of Reaving (complete)

Wars of Reaving is an event. The Wars of Reaving and The Wars of Reaving Supplemental are products. I inspected all links to "Wars of Reaving" to ensure proper usage, adding "The" where necessary, and corrected dozens of bibliography and reference issues along the way.

Often-Used Resources

• Policy:Manual of Style
• Policy:Images
• Gallery of New Files
• Wanted Files/Redlinks
• Images Missing Copyright Information
• Sources Under Moratorium
• Sources Needing Updates
• Deletion Candidates
• BattleTechWiki:Project GameRules
• Not used often but still useful templates:

Template:Otheruses

Template:Deletion (Move files rather than deleting old when uploading new file types.)

• References for books with new cover artwork/branding with a reprint TRO3055U, TRO3060, TRO3067
• "Comment out" rather than delete empty sections:

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==Notes==

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