[Mobius]

Its just standard wiki template...

Ok...you're the Wiki Warrior here...

[NGTM-1R]

I agree with AA... custom ship database is about CUSTOM SHIPS FOR MODDERS. If you don't put that ship for free use, then it's has no place in the list in the first place.

Keep hte camapaings out of it. Just put in "modeled by X for Z camapign" and provide a link. No more is needed.

This is outright, blatant stupidity.

The customs ships database is a direct outgrowth of the campaigns one. It always has been. I should know, I started the damn thing with the Kato, the Derelict retextures, and the TBP shiplist. If anything should be kept out of the database, it should be those ships which have never been used in a campaign!

[Akalabeth Angel]

This is outright, blatant stupidity.

The customs ships database is a direct outgrowth of the campaigns one. It always has been. I should know, I started the damn thing with the Kato, the Derelict retextures, and the TBP shiplist. If anything should be kept out of the database, it should be those ships which have never been used in a campaign!

        And that makes sense how exactly? Not everyone who makes ships is a FREDder or even involved in another project. How is a person's ship going to get used if no one knows about it? People are always asking on the forums for ships when they can just look at the wiki and find whatever they want on there first. In updating the ship database I found a lot of ships that aren't in any MOD and I never had a clue even existed because no one's ever used them. If you keep those ships off the list then you only ensure that no one ever uses them. Which quite honestly is a huge, stupid waste.


Remember, it's:

Mod Database -> Ships

not

Mod Database -> Ships used in a released campaign

 

            I don't even agree with throwing the Derelict or Inferno logo all over each ship's webpage quite honestly. Not unless someone plans to make a logo for each campaign. But then again I don't have a vested interest in any campaign, the work I've done on it is for the sake of the modder and the visitor and because I want some comprehensive ship list. Because I as a modder want to go to one page, and look at all the ships to either draw upon for my own campaign, just to look at ships, or use as artistic reference, or any number of things, or to just archive all the work that people have done for this game.

             Seriously. Someone pours hours worth of work into a model and into textures and it's already completely unappreciated because no one's ever used the thing, and you think that work they've done should be further disregarded and unappreciated by shovelling it under the rug and keeping it off the webpage?? Now that's "stupidity" imo. And if that's a prevailing attitude on this board, people should stop wondering why someone like aldo would delete a bunch of allegedly finished models rather than releasing them to the unappreciative masses.


       

[TopAce]

While as a FREDder, I would support NGTM's idea, I would still recommend two separate categories. One named "User-made ships used in a campaign," the other "User-made ships not used in any campaigns"? We could have these as two subcategories of "User-made Ships."

That, I think, would be a compromise. Either way, all models would qualify, and still you will be able to find out which ships were used in which campaigns.

Seriously. Someone pours hours worth of work into a model and into textures and it's already completely unappreciated because no one's ever used the thing, and you think that work they've done should be further disregarded and unappreciated by shovelling it under the rug and keeping it off the webpage??

And what about those campaigns that were unappreciated because they didn't use multi-million-poly models with dozens of 16528x16528 textures on it? You can compare how much effort it takes to make a model and make a campaign, and decide for yourself if those are the modders that are unappreciated or the FREDders. This door swings both ways.

As for the logo thing, I would use a generic "This is not canon" flag on it, and let the Wiki-surfer see which campaigns use the given model, like having a "Campaigns that use this ship" section. (The xxx Techroom Description is not sufficient in this regard, because if my campaign takes place in the FreeSpace universe, and the tech info given by the modder fit my ideas for the campaign, my campaign will not be credited.)

After some time of reconsideration, I would support havng logos (or templates) for total conversions that say "This ship does not belong to the FreeSpace universe."

[NGTM-1R]

        And that makes sense how exactly? Not everyone who makes ships is a FREDder or even involved in another project. How is a person's ship going to get used if no one knows about it? People are always asking on the forums for ships when they can just look at the wiki and find whatever they want on there first. In updating the ship database I found a lot of ships that aren't in any MOD and I never had a clue even existed because no one's ever used them. If you keep those ships off the list then you only ensure that no one ever uses them. Which quite honestly is a huge, stupid waste.

Quite simple.

This is, over all, a player's reference. We cover some other things at a basic level, and there's some indepth discussion surrounding FRED and its uses, but this is still a player's reference, not a modder's or campaign designer's or whatever. If you want to get your ship out there and used, that's your job. The wiki's job is to provide accurate and useful information to people who play the game.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.

[Akalabeth Angel]

While as a FREDder, I would support NGTM's idea, I would still recommend two separate categories. One named "User-made ships used in a campaign," the other "User-made ships not used in any campaigns"? We could have these as two subcategories of "User-made Ships."

That, I think, would be a compromise. Either way, all models would qualify, and still you will be able to find out which ships were used in which campaigns.

          Quite honestly what's the point of that?
          So not only is it more complicated, by having two categories, but now someone will have to check every new mod that comes out and transfer ships from the "not been used" to the "been used" category? Really, that's a completely needless complication.

And what about those campaigns that were unappreciated because they didn't use multi-million-poly models with dozens of 16528x16528 textures on it? You can compare how much effort it takes to make a model and make a campaign, and decide for yourself if those are the modders that are unappreciated or the FREDders. This door swings both ways.

          Someone's appreciation or lack thereof of a campaign is their perogative, and completely irrelevant to the issue. At least with the ship MODs, anything listed on the page has been released. The same could NOT be said of many of the campaigns. But I don't have a problem with that at all.
          

          My point is that, I don't care if a model's been in a MOD or not and I don't care if a campaign has new models or is just new mission files. Hell I don't even care if a campaign's been released yet or if it's still being worked on. All models, and all campaigns should be judged and respected equally on the Wiki. It is after all, the Freespace Wiki. Not the BWO wiki, not the Fate of the Galaxy Wiki or the Inferno Wiki or even the Casualties of War wiki.

          Someone should be able to click on Mod Database, then click on the ships, and find all the ships that have been made, used or not used. Similarily, they should click on the Campaigns section and find all the campaigns that are made (or in progress, apparently). End of story. So if people want to find ships for their campaign, they go to ships, if they want to find campaigns to play, they go there, if they need new music, they head to that section, etcetera.  It's that simple.

          If people want to play favourites, play favourites on your MOD's page and no where else.
          And hell if people ARE really insistent on "only if the model's been in a released MOD" then I'll take every ship that hasn't been, throw them into a couple random piece of **** missions, call it a campaign, and leave the ships right where they are because who gives a damn.

Quite simple.

This is, over all, a player's reference. We cover some other things at a basic level, and there's some indepth discussion surrounding FRED and its uses, but this is still a player's reference, not a modder's or campaign designer's or whatever. If you want to get your ship out there and used, that's your job. The wiki's job is to provide accurate and useful information to people who play the game.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.

         Says who? You? I'm a player, and it's interesting to me. Hell I was interested just adding all these ships to the webpage, nevermind blowing them up in some person's campaign.
         It's the "MOD Database", a database of freespace MODs. Simple.

         Why don't we even quote the Wiki?

"This page is under construction. It will list ships, effects, models, templates, and anything else related to current mods and/or the modding of Freespace 2: Open.

         Notice, anything else related to . . . modding of Freespace 2: Open.
         Creating a ship, is modding Freespace Open. Creating an Effect is modding Freespace open. There's no requirement to have it in a campaign.

[Wanderer]

If some one had bothered to check majority of the 'Derelict' pages regarding to ships are actually about certain 'special' ship and its appearances in the derelict campaign - not about the ship class. Like the previously stated SD Nyarlathotep.

As for ship classes they could go to sort of structure described earlier

User-made ships
   User made ships appearing in campaigns
      User made ships appearing in Inferno / Inferno R1 ships
      ... (same for BP)
      ...
   User made ships appearing in total conversions
      TBP Ships
     ...

As pages can belong to multiple categories that should work just fine (all could be in 'user made ships' in addition to any relevant category related to the ship). And in any case data regarding the retail FreeSpace campaign must take precedence to everything else. Also any data regarding to total conversions should take precedence to anything else except retail FreeSpace 2 ships. So if some one would make a retexture of TBP freighter and use it in FreeSpace campaign the info about the retexture would be in the TBP freighter's page.

Also 'simple' reskins or direct table edits could just have a redirect page pointing to the actual ship and then the actual ship page (like GTC Leviathan) could have additional section at the end of the page about the reskins/table edits and their usage in campaigns.  

And i would like to keep the TBP (and other total conversion) ships & pages marked as belonging to that setting.

[TopAce]

Quite honestly what's the point of that?

You're the one that is complaining about individual mods that are not used in a campaign, saying that it is disrespectful for the modders. If you don't like the compromise, I'm fine with it. Sooner of later, we will have to split the "User-made Ships" category, because there will be so many mods in there in the future that it will be hard to find what you are looking for.

It is after all, the Freespace Wiki. Not the BWO wiki, not the Fate of the Galaxy Wiki or the Inferno Wiki or even the Casualties of War wiki.

There is nothing to prevent other modders from adding entries only relevant to their campaigns. Makes of the mods that you are mentioning put some effort to add their ships to the Wiki, and this is what differentiates them from makes of other mods. There is nothing that prevents "makers of other mods" from using the Wiki.

All models, and all campaigns should be judged and respected equally on the Wiki.

I don't see why you think it's not the case.

[Akalabeth Angel]

If some one had bothered to check majority of the 'Derelict' pages regarding to ships are actually about certain 'special' ship and its appearances in the derelict campaign - not about the ship class. Like the previously stated SD Nyarlathotep.

As for ship classes they could go to sort of structure described earlier

User-made ships
   User made ships appearing in campaigns
      User made ships appearing in Inferno / Inferno R1 ships
      ... (same for BP)
      ...
   User made ships appearing in total conversions
      TBP Ships
     ...

          Are you referring to the gray alphabetical pages here or to another as of yet un-made page?
          I can see adding a new page off the top of the main shiplists which lists campaigns in alphabetical order and lists the ships featured therein. And then if that's what interests people they can head there and look to see what's going on. Though that would likely require alternate pages for different ships, because it would be wierd to click on a ship from Campaign X and get the ship but with the statistics and description from Campaign Y.

You're the one that is complaining about individual mods that are not used in a campaign, saying that it is disrespectful for the modders. If you don't like the compromise, I'm fine with it. Sooner of later, we will have to split the "User-made Ships" category, because there will be so many mods in there in the future that it will be hard to find what you are looking for.

      Wrong, I'm saying it's disrespectful to treat someone's efforts that aren't featured in a campaign less than someone's efforts that are.
      That's why I treated everything on an equal footing regardless of what wizbang campaign it was released in or how crappy the model looked. All I disagree with is the suggestion notion that ships not in a campaign should somehow be treated any different than ships that are a campaign. Whenever I finish adding the ships to the wiki, I plan to do a page with "ships by race" as well. If people want a "ships by campaign" page that wouldn't be much of a problem either. I don't have a problem with listing them in that fashion, but there should be one page with all the MODs on it. All the MODs related to a specific genre that is. TBP, FotG, WC etcetera should be separate because people are not going to typically mix them.

[Wanderer]

The 'gray alphabetical pages' (category pages).

In this method you wouldnt even need to make a page with campaigns listed in it as the wiki would do that as category page anyway. In any case if ship is used in multiple mods there could be redirect page(s) for the set mod pointing to the proper section in the ship page (and that ship page could have sections for each mod in which the ship appears).

[Mobius]

While as a FREDder, I would support NGTM's idea, I would still recommend two separate categories. One named "User-made ships used in a campaign," the other "User-made ships not used in any campaigns"? We could have these as two subcategories of "User-made Ships."

How can you manage that? As you can see people add stuff regarding WIP campaigns on the Wiki(and they have the right to do it). Many ships we have never seen in a campaign will be considered as "User-made ships used in a campaign" because they're used in the WIPs. The different categories will be messed up.

[Goober5000]

This is, over all, a player's reference.

No, it's a community reference.  And some people in the community are campaign designers.  It's useful to know what sorts of ships are available -- provided they're in a usable format.  Many times somebody has created a list of available ship mods, only for that list to quickly become useless once the author leaves the FS community.

Though, it might be helpful to set up project namespaces so that ship mods can be kept separate from user-made campaigns and so forth.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.

The SH Gargant has never been used in a campaign...

[DarthWang]

        And that makes sense how exactly? Not everyone who makes ships is a FREDder or even involved in another project. How is a person's ship going to get used if no one knows about it? People are always asking on the forums for ships when they can just look at the wiki and find whatever they want on there first. In updating the ship database I found a lot of ships that aren't in any MOD and I never had a clue even existed because no one's ever used them. If you keep those ships off the list then you only ensure that no one ever uses them. Which quite honestly is a huge, stupid waste.

Quite simple.

This is, over all, a player's reference. We cover some other things at a basic level, and there's some indepth discussion surrounding FRED and its uses, but this is still a player's reference, not a modder's or campaign designer's or whatever. If you want to get your ship out there and used, that's your job. The wiki's job is to provide accurate and useful information to people who play the game.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.

I've only experimented with modding and done some FREDding but never released anything, yet those things would be of interest to me.

I want a page of the AJ Akrotiri, TSJ Icanus, SSJ Gigas, SH Gargant, etc.

[Droid803]

AJ Akrotiri is already there, under ACa Akrotiri. Its a carrier.

The Ancient Juggernaut is the AJ Androgeos.

[TrashMan]

Quite simple.

This is, over all, a player's reference. We cover some other things at a basic level, and there's some indepth discussion surrounding FRED and its uses, but this is still a player's reference, not a modder's or campaign designer's or whatever. If you want to get your ship out there and used, that's your job. The wiki's job is to provide accurate and useful information to people who play the game.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.

Utter, total, complete, 11000% BULL****.

Why the hell do you want to make a difference between ships used in a campaign and those that weren't used in a campaign? It's not like that will influence someones decision to use ship X in his campaign. Or is it a ego thing..Your ships have been used by a campaign so they HAVE to be marked differently so people would know just how much better they are?
Get off your high horse.

The wiki is a depository of information, mostly used by modders. Especially since it's in the MOD database section. So the simple rule is KISS. Keep it simple. No dividing into unnecessary categories.

Just have a list of all ships and you cna mention where it was used in the ships description or the notes (Made by X for Y).

[Akalabeth Angel]

     Anyway, on a related topic, I have some more time to do some contributions to the Wiki. I don't know how to get ships under any cateogry other than User-made ships, so, someone will either have to fix it or tell me what I'm doing wrong at some point haha.

[Mobius]

Utter, total, complete, 11000% BULL****.

Why the hell do you want to make a difference between ships used in a campaign and those that weren't used in a campaign? It's not like that will influence someones decision to use ship X in his campaign. Or is it a ego thing..Your ships have been used by a campaign so they HAVE to be marked differently so people would know just how much better they are?
Get off your high horse.

Ships used in custom campaigns have their importance. Other ships are relased hoping that *someone* will use them. A ship with an interesting background, a tech description(many ships released in little packages don't have one) and a solid connection to other ships and plots appreciated by the community is, IMO, much more important than "phantom" ships. They have a "curriculum" and the Wiki should focus on it...

[NGTM-1R]

Utter, total, complete, 11000% BULL****.

Why the hell do you want to make a difference between ships used in a campaign and those that weren't used in a campaign? It's not like that will influence someones decision to use ship X in his campaign. Or is it a ego thing..Your ships have been used by a campaign so they HAVE to be marked differently so people would know just how much better they are?
Get off your high horse.

The wiki is a depository of information, mostly used by modders. Especially since it's in the MOD database section. So the simple rule is KISS. Keep it simple. No dividing into unnecessary categories.

Just have a list of all ships and you cna mention where it was used in the ships description or the notes (Made by X for Y).

I'm curious why you felt the the need to add your thoughts considering that we've already decided it was not the best idea.

As for the reason, there are plenty of them, including the interest to people playing the game as opposed to modding, and the interest of the modders themselves. A ship that's never been used in a released campaign may well be more desireable to someone then one that has, so their campaign looks and feels more unique...or it may be an indication that something is broken about it and so you should be prepared to fix/modify/steer clear if you intend to use it. Segregating the entries into used and unused makes sense.

...and how the hell do you know it's mostly used by modders? Considering modders almost certainly constitute a minority of the community, it almost has to be the reverse. The modding material on the wiki is among the least-updated articles and this whole section is almost entirely new, which I can't imagine would be the case if it were used mostly by modders of the game.

I also find the ego comment hilarous. I've never released a working ship model and I don't pretend that I'm likely to ever do so. Point of fact, I've only ever released a couple of dumps, and one of those was a remake of someone else's stuff, while the other apparently had serious conversion errors and was never heard from again. (Stupid C4D, stupid texturing...) You have, and as I recall, a decent number of them remain unused. Is this about your ego?

[TrashMan]

Ships used in custom campaigns have their importance. Other ships are relased hoping that *someone* will use them. A ship with an interesting background, a tech description(many ships released in little packages don't have one) and a solid connection to other ships and plots appreciated by the community is, IMO, much more important than "phantom" ships. They have a "curriculum" and the Wiki should focus on it...

They are not.
the Wiki should not focus on campaign in the ships section. It's there to give information on various ships. In which campaigns it features can be mentioned within the specific description. It doesn't need any extra markers or categories.

And what if a ship has a done description and background? What are the chances they will be compatible with MY campaign? Assuming I even want to keep the description, instead of writing my own.

The Mod database is gonna be browsed mostly by the modders and campaign makers. And even if I were not a campaign maker/modder, I'd hate any useless divisions. Information databases should be kept as simple as possible.

As for the modder approach to the database, people generally look for ships that FIT their story or their idea. Weather it has been used before or not is unlikely to affect their decisions, especially since being a campaign is no guarantee of quality or good design.
Searching for ships for you campaign is thus a visual job, where the one who searches will go trough as many craft as he can to find those he deems best. introducing different divisions and categories just out of some fit is bad, bad decision.

I also find the ego comment hilarous. I've never released a working ship model and I don't pretend that I'm likely to ever do so. Point of fact, I've only ever released a couple of dumps, and one of those was a remake of someone else's stuff, while the other apparently had serious conversion errors and was never heard from again. (Stupid C4D, stupid texturing...) You have, and as I recall, a decent number of them remain unused. Is this about your ego?

No. You don't know me very well, do you?
I've never kept anything back (to be a secreat exclusive), but rather released everything (well, almost. I have a easter egg or two, but they are not serious ships anyway). Weather or not someone will use them is up to them.
I know people have been asking me for permissions to use ships in their campaign (I should really put that statement of free use back into my siggy), but to be honest I have no idea which ships and for what campaign. I don't keep track of those things really, since I don't really care.

[General Battuta]

All ships should be available to view on the wiki.

Ships that appeared in a campaign should have a line of text or a banner indicating that they 'appeared in Inferno/Blue Planet/Derelict' whatever.

Users and modders alike are interested to see what campaigns a ship has appeared in -- perhaps so they can track them down and play with them.