Author Topic: Mind if i ,,steal" something  (Read 8160 times)

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Offline wardog300k

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Mind if i ,,steal" something
I officialy suck at making ship descriptions,so may i ,,steal" tech description of the Anemoi for my logistics ship?
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Offline procdrone

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
Oh my god, call the network police, we have a burglar here!
--Did it! It's RELEASED! VeniceMirror Thread--

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
He's running away! Quick, shoot him in the back!

.... too soon?

 
 

Offline wardog300k

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
And so i escaped the pursuit...Let the GTL Glorius rise and crush the shivans!
Crush the NTF-Conflict Zone
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Set free from the GTVA-Liberation Wars On Delay

 

Offline The E

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
I'm a bit puzzled as to why you'd outright take our tech descriptions when you could just as well ask us for advice on how to make your own text better.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline wardog300k

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
Cause Anemoi's description is good.And the Glorius was supposed to be the same thing,GTMv Krom used as a logistics ship.However after opening it in the FRED,textures were all over the screen which crashed it.Now i replaced Krom with Kadmos and it works relatively well.

This is what my description usually looks like:

The Raynor is our most powerful destroyer.More than a match for shivan destroyers.There are only three Raynor class warships,but we expect to have more than two dozen by end of the 2407.
Crush the NTF-Conflict Zone
One last war, one last hope, one last survival-Final Destination On Delay
Set free from the GTVA-Liberation Wars On Delay

 

Offline The E

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
Yeah, OK, but isn't it better to learn how to write your own descriptions rather than rely on someone else having written one that you like?

You have to understand, while I (and the BP team in general) have no issues if you take models or textures or table entries from us, I (and this is just me personally, this is not an official statement from the BP team) have a big issue with anyone just straight up taking our writing. It's the one thing I feel is truly original and distinct about BP, and while I have no issue with others taking our writing or our plot ideas and remixing them into something new, just straight copying with no additional creativity is ... disappointing.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline procdrone

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
Yeah, OK, but isn't it better to learn how to write your own descriptions rather than rely on someone else having written one that you like?

You have to understand, while I (and the BP team in general) have no issues if you take models or textures or table entries from us, I (and this is just me personally, this is not an official statement from the BP team) have a big issue with anyone just straight up taking our writing. It's the one thing I feel is truly original and distinct about BP, and while I have no issue with others taking our writing or our plot ideas and remixing them into something new, just straight copying with no additional creativity is ... disappointing.

So many truth in there. If you don't try, try and try, you will eventually end up like me, having to beg for others help with english before making anything release-worthy.
--Did it! It's RELEASED! VeniceMirror Thread--

 

Offline wardog300k

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
Well,i don't really know what Anemoi does,the Glorius however is a large freighter,medical/science corvette with AWACS capabilities and three huge system annihilating beams.And it seems quite original,i have never saw a ship like it in any of the mods ever.

Before when the Glorius was actually the Krom,it was a large freighter only,with strong defenses(lots of rapid lasers and flak guns)but with poor armor(70.000 hitpoints)so it was quite different from what Anemoi is according to the wiki.
Crush the NTF-Conflict Zone
One last war, one last hope, one last survival-Final Destination On Delay
Set free from the GTVA-Liberation Wars On Delay

 

Offline The E

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
Wait, you don't know what an Anemoi does (which is mentioned in its tech description) and you still want to use its description to fit a completely different ship?

Look, given that this ship of yours will fill a completely different role in your backstory than the Anemoi does in ours, wouldn't it be a good idea to write an original description for it? One that explains (or at least hints at) the ship's capabilities and mission profile? Way I see it, Tech descriptions are a great way to provide incidental detail about your ships and the universe you want to create.
In the tech description for this thing, you could for example mention the following:
-Why does this ship exist?
-What does it do?
-Have they been instrumental in doing something in the backstory of your campaign?

Take a look at the descriptions of naval ship classes on Wikipedia, like this one. While an FS tech description should be shorter than an article like that, they can give you a good hint about the tone and language you should use.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
In addition to what The E pointed out, you can add any number of fluff details to the tech descriptions, like what corporation manufactures the ship, when was it introduced or commissioned, how many of its class have been built, and possibly what conflicts or operations it has so far participated, how many crew it has, technological details like jump range, time for independent operations without resupply, that kind of stuff.

If you have a bunch of ships that shares some design features, it might make sense to say they were produced by the same corporation, for example.

This kind of thing probably works as a pretty good world-building exercise, too. Once you're done, you should have a bunch of history for your world, a vague image of the economical vista, and other such things that you can use in other parts of your story and even to drive a plot point somewhere. Maybe some declining ship manufacturer is putting up a covert operation by mercenaries to hit a shipyard to sabotage another corporation's ship building progress. Maybe some particular ship turned out to be a failure in what it was designed to do, but found an unexpected niche that still made it a valuable asset for the faction that uses it.

You don't need to restrict yourself in a bullet point list either. It might be a good place to get started, but if you use the same list for all ship descriptions, you might end up with something like Dwarf Fortress item descriptions which are procedurally generated and all have pretty much the same form factor.
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 

Offline wardog300k

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
The Raynor is one of the most powerful warships in the current service,designated in 2397 after the battle of Ikeya to replace older Leander destroyer.During the battle,fatal error of the Leander-class destroyer lent to destruction of half the fleet.Raynor is an improvement of the Leander's hull,with better armor and weaponry.Raynor can challenge even the most powerful shivan destroyers and survive the engagement.

There,a new Raynor description.

Glorius logistics vessels are the newest class of support vessels commissioned by the GTVA. These mammoth ships serve as an all-around support ship, combining freight hauling capabilities with field repair stations,science laboratories and medical facilities. They are an indispensable asset to long-range battlegroups that are expected to undergo long-term operations far from friendly outposts.In addition to this equipment the Glorius also carries three experimental long range subsystem disruption beams.

And new Glorius description.
Crush the NTF-Conflict Zone
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Set free from the GTVA-Liberation Wars On Delay

 

Offline The E

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
The Raynor is one of the most powerful warships in the current service,designated in 2397 after the battle of Ikeya to replace older Leander destroyer.During the battle,fatal error of the Leander-class destroyer lent to destruction of half the fleet.Raynor is an improvement of the Leander's hull,with better armor and weaponry.Raynor can challenge even the most powerful shivan destroyers and survive the engagement.

There,a new Raynor description.

Glorius logistics vessels are the newest class of support vessels commissioned by the GTVA. These mammoth ships serve as an all-around support ship, combining freight hauling capabilities with field repair stations,science laboratories and medical facilities. They are an indispensable asset to long-range battlegroups that are expected to undergo long-term operations far from friendly outposts.In addition to this equipment the Glorius also carries three experimental long range subsystem disruption beams.

And new Glorius description.

These are better. They can still use improvement, but that's why you keep writing and writing and writing. Allow me to give you my take on the Raynor, based on yours:

"The Raynor class is the most powerful Destroyer class currently in service. It was quickly designed and ordered in 2397 after the Battle of Ikeya, where enemy forces exploited previously unknown flaws in the Leander class' hull design, which directly led to the destruction of half the fleet deployed in that battle. The Raynor not only fixes those flaws, but improves on the Leander's weapons mix and armor design, and simulations indicate that it will be able for this ship to engage and destroy any shivan ship we have so far encountered."

And my take on the Glorius:

"Glorius class logistics vessels are the newest class of support vessel in the GTVA fleet. These mammoth ships are intended as all-around support ships, combining massive cargo holds, field repair stations, science labs and medical facilities. They are currently deployed with long-range battlegroups operating far away from the GTVA's fixed logistics net, and have significantly increased the range of these fleets and the time they can stay in the field. While their weapons mix is limited and largely defensive, this class was fitted with experimental long-range subsystem disruption beams. It is hoped that these will increase the class' survivability, should an enemy manage to find and engage these vessels."
« Last Edit: April 14, 2015, 07:32:47 am by The E »
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

  • The Academic
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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
There's some parts there that are rather difficult to parse. As far as formatting goes, always use a space after a comma or full stop.


"The Raynor is one of the most powerful warships in the current service, [space here] designated [or designed?] in 2397 after the battle of Ikeya to replace [the] older Leander destroyer."

If you mean that the Raynor is supposed to replace the Leander as an entire ship class, then you need the definite article there, otherwise it might seem that the GTVA designated (or designed?) the Raynor (as in a single ship) to replace a single Leander-class destroyer...

Named battles are generally treated as proper nouns, as in the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of Britain. Similarly here it should probably be "the Battle of Ikeya", if you refer to a specific, historically decisive engagement.

"During the battle, [the or a?] fatal error [flaw?] of the [a?] Leander-class destroyer lent [led?] to destruction of half the fleet."


Does this mean that there was a fatal flaw in the Leander-class design in which case you would say "...the fatal flaw of the Leander-class destroyer..."?

Or that a single Leander-class destroyer committed a fatal error in the course of the battle, in which case it should be "During the battle, a fatal error of a Leander-class destroyer..."

But if it was an error by the ship's captain, that wouldn't require a commission of a new ship class, so I'm assuming that the former is the intended case.



Moving on, did you intend to use the word "lent" as in "contributed to"? Or did you mean to use the word "led" as in there was a direct causal relationship between the error, and the heavy losses suffered?


Also, what does the destruction of "half the fleet" refer to? Did GTVA suddenly lose the entire half of all its deployed ships? Or did it lose all the Leander-class destroyers?

Or did you mean that the GTVA lost half the ships deployed in that particular engagement, the Battle of Ikeya? That makes more sense but it may be better to just say "...contributed to heavy losses in the battle".

"[The] Raynor is an improvement of the Leander's hull, with better armor and weaponry."

This actually sounds more like a refit than a complete new ship class to me. Did they scrap or decommission the existing Leanders, or refit them to the new Raynor-specification? Was there a substantial change in the hull configuration?

In that case, new ships could be referred to as the Raynor class, while the Leander-class ships with upgraded armour and weapons could be referred to as Leander refits, for example.

There are a lot of examples of this in both real life as well as fiction - one of the most famous in latter category being the USS Constitution refit class of the Star Trek fame (the NCC 1701-A was originally a Constitution-class starship, and was later upgraded to Constitution-class refit configuration).


"These mammoth ships [plural] serve as an all-around support ship [singular]"

should be

"These mammoth ships serve as all-around support ships" or "This mammoth ship class serves as an all-around support ship".

"They are an indispensable asset to long-range battlegroups that are [can be omitted] expected to undergo long-term operations far from friendly outposts."



You clearly have a vision of what you want to say, but in many of these cases, imprecise use of language leads to either confusion about what exactly you mean, or just makes the text longer than it needs to be. The versions The E posted have a much smoother flow about them, and you'll note that they have also fixed the ambiguity in the places I pointed out.

This is something that will only get better by constant practice, both writing and reading. So, keep at it, and don't get discouraged. Always revise your text a few times after you've written it. Right after you've written something, it may seem right to you as your brain still remembers the "mode of thought" it had when you wrote it, but if you wait a few hours or days even, problems in the text may become obvious.

If you can find someone to go through your text and point out the problematic parts, you can figure out better ways of saying what you mean. Just don't rely too much on them posting correction suggestions - you should come up with solutions yourself, otherwise you will keep making similar mistakes.


What I and The E have posted here shouldn't necessarily be taken as direct suggestions, but rather examples to compare your text to. You should write with your own flair, just make sure the text has correct grammar, spelling, and it's not ambiguous or confusing to read.

EDIT: Formatting and stuff about the Raynors, Leanders and refits
« Last Edit: April 14, 2015, 07:42:19 am by Herra Tohtori »
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 

Offline wardog300k

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
1.Designed to replace entire ship class
2.Fatal error of one of three destroyers,the error was in ships systems which led to the explosion of a reactor after a few hits at it and destruction of the destroyer as well as few ships around it,which was too great loss that hostile(Liberation army,how i call 'em)easily outnumbered remaining forces and took down half of the attacking fleet before they escaped.
3.These mammoth ship serve as an all-around support ship and ...asset to long-range battlegroups that are expected... are from the Anemoi's description,i did not change anything in that part.

For these ships i'll use The E's versions,and i'll do everything i can to update other ship's descriptions.
Crush the NTF-Conflict Zone
One last war, one last hope, one last survival-Final Destination On Delay
Set free from the GTVA-Liberation Wars On Delay

 

Offline Haji

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
I don't know how large your project is, but many mods on this site are being done by teams. Have you considered looking for someone to simply take over the writing altogether?

As for writing the description, here are some of my tips. Don't make the sentences too short. Remember, dots make you pause in your reading, if you have too many pauses, it seriously interrupts the "flow" of reading. Similarly, after you write the text, go over it several times and see if there are any place that due to wording or structure make a reader slow down or even stop. Those are the places you have to work on the most. Last but not least, if you see a problem with the flow of the text, consider putting information itself in a different order. For example, the beginning of your description of Raynor could be changed to something like this:

"The Battle of Ikeya in 2397 was one of the most one sided defeats in the GTVA's history, made possible by previously undetected construction flaws in the Leander class destroyers. The need to correct flaws those resulted in a new, larger and more powerful warship, designated as the Raynor class."

The description above gives less details than yours, but in my opinion it has better flow. Sometimes trying to give too much back story too quickly can actually be a bad course of action.

This of course is based solely on my opinion, and as I haven't released any mods (nor have I written for one) you should probably take it with a grain of salt. At the same time, everyone has their own writing style and it's up to you to decide which one will suit you best.

 

Offline wardog300k

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
My mod,Final Destination is quite large,and possibly the largest campaign ever released.
,,Full Fight",consisting of all four acts+single missions+mini campaign will be around 100 missions,possibly beyond.
Right now everything is done by myself(FREDing,story-ing,writing,most modeling...)and right now i don't need help,if someone is willing to assist i'll accept their offer.

Too short sentences are really a problem now,but i'm clearing them.
Crush the NTF-Conflict Zone
One last war, one last hope, one last survival-Final Destination On Delay
Set free from the GTVA-Liberation Wars On Delay

 

Offline The Dagger

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Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
I'll say it out right: you should probably try to focus on something with a much smaller scope.
If you really want to keep working on your current project, you should try to have episodic releases (maybe 10 missions chunks could work?). Having a 100 mission campaign as a first project is the way to failure, frustration and quitting. I admire your passion but don't throw your time away. Believe me, this community has seen lots of enthusiastic modders get too ambitious and disappear without releasing anything. I don't want to loose potential talent. Getting smaller things out to the public, to receive praise and criticism will get you better at it and keep you motivated.
Also, a 100+ missions campaign, even if it is great, is probably going to outlive it's welcome. And I'm not even addressing the fact that using retail assets (both the retail exe and retail-grade assets) will certainly not help to get people to play your mod.

 
Re: Mind if i ,,steal" something
I agree, small, episodic releases is probably the best way to remain motivated throughout the project, as well as receiving feedback on your story & gameplay model as you go on, and would possibly get people interested in your project, and more readily help you as you go along.