Online! The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fleet Operations (Patch 3.

posted on August 25th, 2009, 1:46 am

Random suggestion, up for any discussion. What do you think about having the techtrees before the list of ships? Might make quick referencing easier in that order. But hey, it's almost 3 in the morning here. I'm tired and going to sleep.

posted on August 25th, 2009, 4:38 pm

So you think that having the technology trees before would make it easier to understand? I was never sure, as the unit overviews tell you what technologies from where need to be researched, and also the shipyard the vessels come from... while the tech trees tell you where the ships comes from, what research is needed for them etc... thus figuring out a pleasing order is a bit hard.

posted on August 25th, 2009, 5:25 pm

I agree.... Techtrees before so someone can click on a shi/station name and it would direct you there...

Can you also have station lists, you know... so I can quickly compare races  station values.


I was thinking of this configuration I attached...

Attachments

[The extension rtf has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]

posted on August 25th, 2009, 5:41 pm

Hmm, I had been thinking about adding a similar type of format, but I thought it'd be too redundant with what is currently in the tech tree and unit profiles. The tech trees have offense/defense/system and crew levels and costs for each station, as well as what ships are built and what they require to be built... and the unit profile has the research station name listed for the special research for each ship. Thus the only things left out are the universal upgrades and cloaking researches... station upgrades are discussed in the Basics section (they are all the same). Since cloaking will be changed in the next few patches, all that would be left to add would be the universal upgrades... which I will probably describe in the strategy sections, or maybe add a short blurb under the unit profile to cover the 1-2 stations in question.

Clicking on the station and ship name is a great idea Gamer, and in fact I had originally planned that the whole guide would have interlinking sections. Unfortunately, to my consternation, Word appears to have a limit on the amount of text linking (or at least manages it in a very screwy fashion) and I can't seem to get it to work consistently for the type of thing you have suggested  . If you know of a way to remedy this, by all means tell me as I was quite upset with the linking scheme available to me.

When this guide becomes a wiki (I have to do some thinking about that), that feature will most certainly be added in.

posted on August 25th, 2009, 5:49 pm

I'd go with techtree's at the end. Game manual's I've read in the past usually have a faction's techtree either after their units but before the next faction's, or have them after all units.

posted on August 25th, 2009, 6:12 pm

Hehe Tyler, that's the way it is now...  I guess we're right back at the beginning 

posted on August 26th, 2009, 3:52 pm

3.14 now also added to the download section

posted on August 26th, 2009, 3:56 pm

Thank you Doca

posted on August 26th, 2009, 4:01 pm

Hehe Tyler, that's the way it is now...

In that case, it's fine as it is.

posted on August 26th, 2009, 4:10 pm

Soooooooooooooo......

Any plans on new guide features?

posted on August 26th, 2009, 4:13 pm

Well, I will flesh out the Multiplayer Cooperative section more, but other than that I have no idea: do you have any ideas of new features?

I should mention that because 3.0.8 will be changing a lot of balancing, it will probably take me a long time to bring the guide back up to date (I'll have to change all the costs, some movement speeds and stats, not to mention actually making sure the described strategies are still solid... scary stuff  )

posted on August 26th, 2009, 4:42 pm

I was thinking... if you were to have your guide in an html document... you could do more text linking, put in some animations, and maybe even put in some videos of various maneuvers that people could use in their strategies...

posted on August 26th, 2009, 5:49 pm

Hmm, I have absolutely zero experience doing any of that--I wouldn't even know where to begin 

I'll try to learn (*cough* figure out who knows how to do that so they can teach me *cough*)

Videos of the maneuvers would be nice indeed: on that note I also need to find people who have video recording capabilities and a stable connection, that way I can get up some "how to" videos 

posted on August 26th, 2009, 7:25 pm

I know a little of html. i might be able to help a tiny bit.

posted on August 27th, 2009, 12:14 am

Coolio Once I get into the swing of things in university again I'll probably ask your help