Explaining Game Concepts in FO (submit entries here)

eleazar · **Posted:** Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:03 pm

Geoff recently added the capacity to add arbitrary entries to the in-game 'Pedia. This should prove very useful in explaining the game to players, since

As i see it, articles in "Game Concepts" should be short, concise, narrowly focused on a single topic. The sort of thing a player would turn to for the answer to a single question. Most importantly they should cover the topics that most often confuse new players.

That's where you come in. Please help us write these articles. You can post them in this thread.

Some Examples:
:arrow:

In eng_stringtable.txt

Code:

PEACE_TEXT
Peace is the diplomatic state between empires in which they mutually agree not to attack each other's ships or planets, not to obstruct eachother's fleet resupply or resource exchange, and not to impede colonization.

GROWTH_FOCUS_TEXT
'''The Growth Focus represents a focus on exporting rare materials and substances that aid the population growth of a certain species. Is only available in certain situations: on some homeworlds, and on planets with growth specials.  A planet focused on Growth increases the max Population only of other planets connected to it by supply lines.  A Homeworld focused on Growth only helps other planets of the same species.  Growth Special planets focused on growth, only help a single classification of species, for instance some only help Organic Species.'''

ORGANIC_SPECIES_TEXT
'''Organic species are more or less, 'life as we know it'.  These species max population can be increased when their connected homeworld focuses on Growth, or when when an Organic Growth Special is colonized, and focused on Growth.  Organic Growth specials are marked with a little green 'O' in the corner.'''

in encyclopedia.txt

Code:

Article
    name = "PEACE_TITLE"
    category = "CATEGORY_GAME_CONCEPTS"
    short_description = "DIPLOMACY_ARTICLE_SHORT_DESC"
    description = "PEACE_TEXT"
    icon = "icons/peace.png"

Article
    name = "GROWTH_FOCUS_TITLE"
    category = "CATEGORY_GAME_CONCEPTS"
    short_description = "GROWTH_ARTICLE_SHORT_DESC"
    description = "GROWTH_FOCUS_TEXT"
    icon = "icons/focus/growth.png"

Article
    name = "ORGANIC_SPECIES_TITLE"
    category = "CATEGORY_GAME_CONCEPTS"
    short_description = "SPECIES_ARTICLE_SHORT_DESC"
    description = "ORGANIC_SPECIES_TEXT"
    icon = "icons/species/human.png"

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Thu Jul 19, 2012 8:00 pm

Note that there can be other categories besides "Game Concepts".

(I point this out since it seems unlikely that I semi-arbitrarily chose the sole custom category that is ever to be needed. Also, it's previously happened that the initial example I used ("shared_macros.txt") is the only instance of something that is being used, despite others being possible to add.)

Also note that links to other articles can be added in encyclopedia text, in the manner of

Code:

[[encyclopedia GROWTH_FOCUS_TITLE]]

This includes the ability to make an article that is mostly or just a series of links to other articles, like a non-autogenerated category index page that doesn't appear on the list of categories.

eleazar · **Posted:** Thu Jul 19, 2012 8:20 pm

Geoff the Medio wrote:

Also note that links to other articles can be added in encyclopedia text...

Cool hyperlinks.

Can i link to other parts of the 'Pedia, like a special or a building description?

EDIT:
Also feel free to request topics for inclusion in the game concepts section. From the inside it is not so easy to see what might be confusing to new players or those who don't closely follow development.

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Thu Jul 19, 2012 8:30 pm

eleazar wrote:

Can i link to other parts of the 'Pedia, like a special or a building desription?

I think you're supposed to be able to, but it doesn't appear to be working right now... [[species SP_HUMAN]] just inserts the stringtable lookup for SP_HUMAN, without making a link.

Edit: Actually, it is working, but just doesn't make a link if the link text is the last thing in the string. Add a few spaces or a . after and that will probably fix it.

eleazar · **Posted:** Thu Jul 19, 2012 10:05 pm

Geoff the Medio wrote:

[[species SP_HUMAN]]

What determines exactly what the bold part needs to be?

"[[ship_parts CO_OUTPOST_POD]]" for instance doesn't work.

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 5:20 am

eleazar wrote:

What determines exactly what the bold part needs to be?

The set of usable tags in stringtable entires includes:

encyclopedia
predefinedshipdesign
tech
buildingtype
special
shiphull
shippart
species

There are actually a few other tags the system uses, but they only really work for game-generated text, as they refer to in-game objects, empires, or ship designs by ID number, which there's no way to specify in an encyclopedia stringtable entry.

Rogor · **Joined:** Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:25 pm **Posts:** 37

As a new player, I have some suggestions for expanding those entries in the encyclopedia :

- There is no mention of the encyclopedia in the quick play guide. Personally, it took me some time to realize that I could in fact use this windows to search for information (and Eleazar had to point out to me the Game Concept category).

- Maybe adding a "return to index" button in the window would allow an easier navigation ?

- Grouping all the "XXX Focus" articles in one article, "Focus", that would link to all the kind of focus.

- Grouping all the species type articles in one article also

- Having one article about the Production model and one about the Research model (with the limit of PP and RP spend by turn, so the need to do several things in parallel). Just copying those parts from the quick play guide can be enough, but I think this is an uncommon model so it needs to be explained.

- In a production entry we should add the difference between the 2 multipliers in the production queue. I don't even think that I saw a mention of that in the quick play guide.

eleazar · **Posted:** Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:07 pm

Rogor wrote:

- There is no mention of the encyclopedia in the quick play guide.

Added.

Rogor wrote:

- Maybe adding a "return to index" button in the window would allow an easier navigation ?

It has too many buttons already. I've recommended a redesign.

Rogor wrote:

- Grouping all the "XXX Focus" articles in one article, "Focus", that would link to all the kind of focus.

- Grouping all the species type articles in one article also

I'd rather see another step in the hierarchy of the 'Pedia, though possibly not until the navigation is improved.

Rogor wrote:

- Having one article about the Production model and one about the Research model (with the limit of PP and RP spend by turn, so the need to do several things in parallel). Just copying those parts from the quick play guide can be enough, but I think this is an uncommon model so it needs to be explained.

That's where you or other FreeOrion fans like you come it. There's a lot of content in the quick play guide that would work in the 'Pedia with a little adjustment.
Preparing new articles for the 'Pedia (and other documentation) just takes time, but not too much technical knowledge of FreeOrion.

Rogor wrote:

- In a production entry we should add the difference between the 2 multipliers in the production queue. I don't even think that I saw a mention of that in the quick play guide.

Hopefully that complication will be revamped soonish.

yandonman · **Joined:** Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:32 am **Posts:** 419

FleetUpkeep entry.

eleazar · **Posted:** Sun Dec 02, 2012 1:40 am

yandonman wrote:

FleetUpkeep entry.

Thanks,
revision 5496

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Sun Dec 02, 2012 6:42 pm

eleazar wrote:

yandonman wrote:

FleetUpkeep entry.

Thanks,
revision 5496

This is misleading or confusing:

FLEET_UPKEEP_TEXT wrote:

'The cost of a fleet is more than the sum of the cost of its ships due to the oporational costs associated with managing multiple ships. When building a new ship, an additional 5% of the original hull cost times the number of ships in the fleet is added to the hull cost.

What is "the fleet"? I'd think it meant a batch production, but it's really the total number of ships an empire owns. Also, it wasn't intended that every hull have the same additional cost, or even that every hull have this additional cost, although that likely could be the case for v0.4.2.

yandonman · **Joined:** Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:32 am **Posts:** 419

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fleet

Quote:

fleet 1 (flt)
n.
1. A number of warships operating together under one command.
2. A group of vessels or vehicles, such as taxicabs or fishing boats, owned or operated as a unit.

The 2nd sentence's "the fleet" could be replaced with "your fleet" or "the player's fleet" to make it more clear the scope of the command that defines the set of ships. Would that clarify it sufficiently for the player reading the entry?

I, too, can envision changes to this mechanism (species traits [Logistically Inclined: -1% fleet upkeep, Organic Fleet Handlers: -1% fleet upkeep for Organic ships], research [Fleet Logistics: -1% fleet upkeep, etc]), so instead of handling all possibilities, I just made it accurate as of the current build.

I'll say this for its current form though:
* It's simple
* It's seemingly effective at keeping ship counts per empire in the 300 ship range for long games
* It prevents oddities like "Why does a small ship cost more than a fractal ship?"

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Sun Dec 02, 2012 8:05 pm

yandonman wrote:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fleet

Quote:

fleet 1 (flt)
n.
1. A number of warships operating together under one command.
2. A group of vessels or vehicles, such as taxicabs or fishing boats, owned or operated as a unit.

The 2nd sentence's "the fleet" could be replaced with "your fleet" or "the player's fleet" to make it more clear the scope of the command that defines the set of ships. Would that clarify it sufficiently for the player reading the entry?

The dictionary definition of fleet is irrelevant because FreeOrion has a specific game concept known as a "fleet" which is a grouping of specific ships at a particular location that can be ordered to move as a single unit.

em3 · **Joined:** Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:51 pm **Posts:** 264

When building a new ship, an additional 5% of the original hull cost times the number of ships in the fleets owned by the empire is added to the hull cost.

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:04 am

Or "When producing new ships, hull costs increase by 5% for each ship already owned by the empire."

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Explaining Game Concepts in FO (submit entries here)

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