[headdie]

tl;dr **** it what do I care

why are you arguing the toss then?  you manually check and rebuild the ship anyway? fine, ignore the flags and do as you do anyway no one is stopping you.

also I for one have used the supplied table often in the past and while some are badly borked many just need a few seconds to fix.  Not to mention that tables was used as an example, it could also be missing textures or as you say a host of other stuff, what it does provide is information, that while non specific, does warn novice modders and modders looking for something quick to use that this ship needs work to get it usable and where is the problem with that?

you want a detailed breakdown of each and every model's faults? go through each one and write up a detailed report in the relevant ship page, but right now we are discussing an at a glance guide to each ship which means it needs to be kept as stupid simple to understand as possible.

[Droid803]

But hey.. your world sounds cool too... you know, with the way that you don't trust anyone to do anything as bug-free as you...

When did I ever say that I trusted myself?
I don't trust anything...because experience proves that it just trusting something to be problem free just leads to debugging nightmares oh god the debugging nightmares.

Even when I am doing FS-like flight mods I still basically re-do the entire table, or at least check every line of it to make sure it's in working order, followed by a bunch of tweaking to make sure everything has some semblance of balancing...

I'm paranoid, okay? because I still have those nightmares.

tl;dr **** it what do I care

why are you arguing the toss then?  you manually check and rebuild the ship anyway? fine, ignore the flags and do as you do anyway no one is stopping you.

also I for one have used the supplied table often in the past and while some are badly borked many just need a few seconds to fix.  Not to mention that tables was used as an example, it could also be missing textures or as you say a host of other stuff, what it does provide is information, that while non specific, does warn novice modders and modders looking for something quick to use that this ship needs work to get it usable and where is the problem with that?

you want a detailed breakdown of each and every model's faults? go through each one and write up a detailed report in the relevant ship page, but right now we are discussing an at a glance guide to each ship which means it needs to be kept as stupid simple to understand as possible.

I don't know. A stupid at-a-glance thing seems like it would be entirely misleading, and encourage laziness.

That is bad, when modding one must have CONSTANT VIGILANCE and FREAK OUT AT EVERYTHING THAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.
Even then you'll still run face-first into horrors beyond imagine.
The unholy bastard spawn of codethulu and we who know not where we are treading.

...im scared to sleep alone...

[mjn.mixael]

right now we are discussing an at a glance guide to each ship which means it needs to be kept as stupid simple to understand as possible.

Quote'd for truth.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE" is something the modder is responsible for, not the Wiki. The Wiki is responsible for accurate information.. of which these tags would provide with efficiency.

[Droid803]

Sure I guess...that works.

[Black Wolf]

OK, I've done all the preliminary work and (barely) started adding icons. I'm under no illusions about how big of a job this is going to be, and I'll do it myself eventually, but the more the merrier. I've added a couple more icons, but they all have templates, so they're easy to add. The only slightly complex one is the "Incomplete" Icon - following Droid's... rather unusual issues with the wiki, I've added the capability to link to a separate page and explain why a mod is "Incomplete" using the following syntax:

Code: [Select]

{{RI|Ship=SHIP NAME HERE}}
Just remember to add the relevant mod and explanation to that page.

[EDIT] Simplified the {{RI}} template.

[Black Wolf]

OK, so progress is moving along, but very slowly. Hopefully, this will speed things along.

Welcome new editors!

The Freespace wiki is currently in the process of adjusting the User-made Ships page with a series of icons, designed to give an "at-a-glance" idea of the quality and modernity of a model to speed up the process of choosing high quality, SCP compatible mods for use in new campaigns. The process isn't complicated, but there are a lot of mods on the page, so we're looking for volunteers to help out. It's not hard, and we're not expecting a big commitment of time. All we're asking is that everyone do a few, maybe five to ten ships each. This shouldn't take long, probably only ten minutes or so, but if thirty or forty people get involved, we can have this whole project knocked over in no time. Of course, people who want to do more are welcome to do so.

OK, so how do I help out?

It's really easy.

Step 1 - If you're not already, sign up as an editor on the Freespace Wiki.

Step 2 - Head to the User-made Ships page, and check out the work that's already been done.

Step 3 - Choose a few ships, click on edit and, following the established systems, start applying icons. It's all in plain text with some wikicode, but the templates are very easy to figure out.

Step 4 - If you included any "Incomplete" tags, edit the Reasons page to include details on what was missing.

And you're done. See, wasn't that easy?

Possible Questions

What do the icons mean?
There's an explanation of each icon at the top of the page. Mostly they're self explanatory, but just in case:

H = HTL. Use this for ships that exceed retail polycount capabilities. It's not meant to distinguish between very high poly models like the Blizzard and regular high poly models like Selkie.
U = UV Mapped. Most fighters and most modern capships don't use tiled mapping, and so they'd get this tag. There are hybrids, but as a general rule if any part of the ship has been UVed, it will probably get this tag.
N = Normal Maps. Pretty straightforward, if the DL (the one linked on the wiki) includes normal maps, it gets this tag.
C = Cockpit. Any ship that has a modelled cockpit. This is in a different colour because there are a few ships (like the Stentor) that have cockpits while no other part of the ship has been upgraded for HTL. So while the model will exceed retail capabilities, it doesn't really deserve a full "H" tag.
I = Incomplete. Use this if the ship is missing something or in some way unusable - most commonly, this one will apply to ships released without table files, but sometimes things like MoI are missing too.

What do the strange codes mean?
The wiki uses templates to simplify the process of adding the same wikicode over and over again, designated by text in twinned curly brackets {{like this}}. The templates we use here are very straightforward - two letters, the first designating colour, the second designating the letter on the icon. Thus {{WU}} will give you , a White U, {{BC}} will give you , a blue C.

Why is {{RI}} different?
The incomplete tag is a bit different because it includes a link to an explanation of what was missing and (occasionally) how to fix it. The syntax is very straightforward however:

Code: [Select]

{{RI|Ship=SHIP NAME HERE}}
Make sure you use exactly the same ship name on both the template on the User-made Ships page and the heading on the Reasons page, or it won't work properly.

Anything I need to watch out for?[/i]
The only thing to note is that accuracy is pretty important on things like this. Sometimes it's obvious from a ships picture whether it's been, for example, tile mapped or UV Mapped, but it's not always obvious if it has, for example, normal mapping, or exceeds retail polygon limits. If you're unsure, download the ship and check.

[bigchunk1]

I think it's important to organise the modding board too. Sorry please don't hurt me!   

[Kromaatikse]

Should there be a tag for ships which *are* retail compatible and complete?  That might make it easier to tell when those ships have been checked, if they don't use UV mapping.

[z64555]

I think it's important to organise the modding board too. Sorry please don't hurt me!   

How do you think it should be organized?

[bigchunk1]

How do you think it should be organized?

It's funny you should ask that.

[MatthTheGeek]

Aren't we running in circles here ? This thread here is supposed to take care of the issue that led you to make that other thread there...

[Scourge of Ages]

Question: To qualify for the "cockpit" tag, a ship must have a separate cockpit pof file and it must be linked in the .tbm, correct?

Additional: How do we decide if a model is high-poly or not? Is there a poly count feature in PCS2, or do we just estimate? nvm, found it. And how does one with no modeling experience determine if something is indeed UV mapped? (example: GTF Raziel)

[Droid803]

Cockpit tag should mean modelled internal cockpit that can be used with "show ship", or an external cockpit POF.

Also it seems like a lot of things are only missing table files (because, I guess, many modders agree with me that if you're modding you should be able to make your own table files). I propose we make it something like {YI} (yellow I?) for just missing (or faulty!) table file. Then the Reasons page would be far less cluttered. Yes I'm still on about that, because I still don't see that as incomplete... There's never a reason to include a "how to fix" for a missing table file, so linking to the reasons page is kind of redundant (plus it'd save everyone some work)

Also, FYI, all of Taristin's Lizards/BekTah had some weird POF shield collision/smoothing bugs. I had to reconvert all of them for DE. If you get them from DE they *should* be bug-free, but I can't vouch for the original models. Might want to note that on the Reasons page. Same with a bunch of Aldo's models that were put through with the Max converter (the Selkie, amongst a few others). I'll see if I can come up with a list of assets with non-obvious conversion-based issues.

[Talon 1024]

I just added some badges to the Vasudan fighters

[bigchunk1]

Aren't we running in circles here ? This thread here is supposed to take care of the issue that led you to make that other thread there...

I've never heard a good argument against doing both.

[mjn.mixael]

No one's stopping you from trying to create a thread on the modding board... My time will be spent on the Wiki because it's far more versatile than a thread post that only you can update. Also, the modding board already has like 8 stickied topics that my eyes naturally ignore now.

Regardless, there's no reason to debate that issue in this thread. This thread is about a Wiki formatting method that is now in-progress. Just because it's being worked on doesn't mean you can't make your thread either.

[bigchunk1]

There was a miscommunication about the issue I brought up. I have clarified it in the relavent thread and will no longer post about it here.

[Beskargam]

ok I am doing the Lethe to the Agias in fighter craft for now. will do more tomorrow. Somebody might wanna check a few of these to make sure I did them correctly. Also not sure about incompletes and missing table files.

the link to the EAF Styx (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/EAF_Styx) for download and following that takes me to media fire and the file has been deleted

same with the FTF Mig (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/FTF_Mig)

also for some of these files, what would I need to do so I can download just the one model and its parts, instead of a "pack" of models? What I mean is do I make a media fire account or something and link the separated files to the wiki pages?

Also there doesn't seem to be a page for the shivan corvete Armaros featured in the ED modpack :Edit: looks like several other ships from that modpack are missing, including the Atlantis (cruiser), Barbados (Corvette), Evander (Bomber), Khalan (Bomber), Krios (Fighter), and the Sol jump gate.

Edit: what do I need to know about creating a page for these?

[Scourge of Ages]

Hi again, I think the second part of my question got lost up there, so I'll ask again:

What exactly makes a ship qualify for HTL status? Total number of polies, I would guess, right? How many is enough to qualify it?
And how can somebody without modeling experience tell for certain if a ship is UV mapped or not?

[Beskargam]

What I was told when I got IRC and asked was that if the texture repeats itself it is tile mapped. I've been downloading the files and checking for the textures as well.