Petition for tutorials forum

[joegrundman]

Instead of petitioning UBI for something, this is a petition to the splendid folks of SUBSIM management.

Despite the overwhelmingly fantastic experience that visiting Subsim provides (the best forum i've yet encountered in terms of informativeness, helpfulness and attitude) there is one area i feel could possibly be made even better.

I find searching for posts difficult, you get the terminology wrong and you fail to find it. It can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I think a seperate forum where each aspect of the game gets its own thread would be a great help and promote development of sustained ideas and less repetition.

This could include modding tutorials too.

It would mean that everything would be more easily findable and less likely to be lost in the depths of time.

If you agree, why not post an Aye, aye underneath?:up:

[Canovaro]

Aye,

Either this or a thread with links to the tutorials.
I myself am working on a printable handbook with all the tables and charts that are to be found or made of the tuts on this forum.


Joe is right, sometimes it's hard to find an old tutorial.

[SmokinTep]

You are right about the search function. You better get it right or you'll be weeding thru a bunch of stuff.

[Kingcobra24]

I take it you don't think the Community Manual is worth using?

http://www.mysh3.info/shiii/index.php?title=Main_Page

:lurk:

[joegrundman]

The community manual is worth using, but is very limited.

[danurve]

The community manual is worth using, but is very limited.

In what way do you see the CM as being very limited?
Explain that if you would please.

[joegrundman]

Sure.

The CM is excellent at achieving what it aims to achieve, which is to elaborate on the SH3 manual. In fact the first page of the CM says it better than I can: "This wiki is a community supported supplement to the Silent Hunter III user manual"

Look it is very good, but do you believe that it is the definitive guide to all there is to know about the game? It's an introduction that I along with many others found and still find useful but it does not go into much detail beyond the nuts and bolts.

That's not a bad thing! It's important and much needed as the original documentation is inadequate.

But if you are interested in playing at a deeper level, the CM does not represent the complete guide to all there is. For example, the CM only mentions one intercept pattern and the 3min15 rule. There is no elaboration on how to use sonar and radar in historical or effective methods, how to perform TMA, other methods of getting data than the 3min15 bearing plot method, collision course approaches, trigonometry, slide rules and whiz wheels, aspect ratios, turn counts, surfaced approaches and their relevance to you when targetting and when avoiding detection, and much, much, much more.

In general, i think a forum here dedicated to tutorials would become a virtual naval academy with different levels from beginner to advanced. Methods can be improved upon and developed by virtue of the fact that it is all there in one place.

As it is, there are a lot of parallel threads just drifiting around the ether here. I am constantly discovering fascinating articles written maybe two years ago or more, but i have to wonder how much more i am missing. If these were all in a forum together in appropriate sections, nothing would be that hard to find. It would be easier to contrast and compare different approaches to similar problems and so on...

[danurve]

No, it isn't an all there is to know. There is much beyond nuts and bolts and that, seems to be a changing area because of mods, tactics, and knowledge.
These things mentioned would be indeed worthy topics anchored in one way or another into the CM. You like many other players look for more information, or perhaps an elaboration of details or information about methods, tactics, and so on.
By design, the CM wiki can be ever-changing. Or, community supported.
Existing topics can be edited, corrected, edit-talk, watched, modified, interlinked, redirected, categorised, revised, heck create 4 or more headlines in a topic and the software automaticaly creates a table of contents for it. Images can even be uploaded and placed with topics.
The exact same thing can be said for a new topic.
But to elaborate a "page" could be done for a mod, topic or any subject and then categorised and listed easily, instanty becoming available by links or search. There is nothing set in stone, with the exception of a few protected pages. Otherwise the CM has the potential of being something of an unlimited resource. If, IF - that was indeed the case of a community effort then it would certainly free up the forums here for topics of disscusion wich the CM is not designed for.
The CM also has a Current events section, a community portal - somewhat of a sandbox for things needed, things done. Plus a decent search feature. And last but not least a recent changes feature, which a user track editing history as a whole instead of just a particular subject-topic. There are no ads, no pop-ups, and the site is paid for, for now.
I decided to restored the CM after it was down for months and months of neglect. The old sub-sim forum even had a sticky for it.
Whats the old saying; you can bring a horse to water but can't make them drink. Indeed. Since it's restoration besides myself there have been 2-3 other people who have made contributions, and I would thank them for their time. But if you don't belive me use the recent changes feature, the software doesn't lie. Out of how many thousands of users, even a few hundred with potential knowledge to add? Nevertheless a poor ratio whatever the reason.
Please forgive me if this sounds like an angry rebuttal, not ment to be. But far less then a handfull of people can't be expected to do all the work. When I see posts about what it isn't, complaints and such it reminds me of what a give-me give-me place the internet realy is. And then as a webmaster one begins to wonder if the efforts was worth while.

[emtmedic005]

I love the Community Manual but it is very limited , it doesnt answer indepth questions, but for a newbie starting off its a great tool to use, also the hammer is a great tool to use on ur PC when SH3 is acting up:damn::damn:

[XLjedi]

There's really no comparison between focused discussion groups and the community manual. It's really unfair to the CM to even make such a comparison.

Mentoring, and the free expression of ideas is what draws me to the forums. I'm not really interested in re-reviewing the CM on a day-to-day basis; I much prefer the open discussion. I mean it's the difference between a teacher and a textbook. No one would suggest that teachers aren't necessary in the classroom because all the answers are already in the book. I think the CM serves it's role well as a decent primer. :know:


There's already a breakout for modding efforts... So I guess what you're after are subtopics under the general SH3 category. I'm not necessarily against the idea.

What categories would you propose? I think the most challenging part of doing something like that would be the natural overlap between proposed categories. As well as the fact that you'd almost have to consolidate the SH3 & SH4 forums so that topics on navigation and attack plotting theory for instance wouldn't exist in both.

I guess the flip-side to the argument would be that if there were too many categories, noobs would become overwhelmed and have no idea which forum is appropriate for their questions... Totally aside from the fact that forum admins workload would have to increase in the sense that folks would post off-topic and the admins would have to educate new posters and/or spend time moving things around.

I've seen on other forums where they've instituted a system for helping to classify the post by using a mandatory dropdown selection next to the title (a set list of keywords) to help assist in refining search results.

[Brag]

Forum threads get overloaded with opinions, often conflicting ideas. However, a page with links to useful sites like: GWX manual, weeky, various tutorials, and my site would be very helpful, at least to the newbie.

[Iron Budokan]

At first I thought we didn't need a tutorial forum, but the more I think about it the more certain I am that we do need one. (At least it would be nice.) There's a veritable TON of tutorials, links, videos, charts, etc that would be helpful to have at the fingertips...like, say, in a tutorial forum...? :hmm:

[Canovaro]

Forum threads get overloaded with opinions, often conflicting ideas. However, a page with links to useful sites like: GWX manual, weeky, various tutorials, and my site would be very helpful, at least to the newbie.
My thoughts exactly.
I think someone should pick this up and collect the tutorials, order them as links in one thread. A sticky tutorial thread. For newbies but also for advanced users.

The Wiki Community Manual is also a very good platform for this. I didn't know the community can edit this page, didn't know how wiki works to be exactly.

Either way, it must be clear who wrote it, when, and for which mod it has been made and for which realism level.
A targeting manual for GWX is not much use if you play with auto targeting in stock...

---

What I want to make myself is a handbook, a collection of all the graphs, charts and tables both existing and new made by myself, so you can print them and use them in the game, because ALT-TAB'ing is not a great thing in SH3. This could also be a developing thing.

[IrischKapitan]

Your all right the CM is limited in info, but a good base to learn about SH3 for a newbie.
But the CM is limited on info for GWX and other mods....


I also agree we need a seperate forumn for tutoriols which would help a lot

[Sailor Steve]

How about a 'Tutorials' sticky in the Mods Forum? Put in all the links and lock it.

[Takeda Shingen]

How about a 'Tutorials' sticky in the Mods Forum? Put in all the links and lock it.

This would be the way to go about it. As I say every time this type of discussion arises, we have 23 gross-forums spread across six topical divisions. Within those forums are 9 sub-forums, giving a grand total of 32 boards on the SubSim Radio Room. Many of these forums are seldom used, which would be the case should such a forum, as was mentioned above, be created. We're already swimming in division-inspired clutter, and the last thing we need at SubSim is yet another sub-forum.

[danurve]

I'll admit, this thread baffles me, puzzeling.

The logic against another sticky is in black and white yet most seem to still beleive that is the solution. The shIII main page here is 1/3+ stickies already. The CM as an alternate could be the resource, partialy set up to help unclog forum threads but no ones taking advantage of it. Or even inquire about how to go about it. Even as easy as it is.
Friggin amazing.
Must be to easy to note what it lacks instead. Or could that be because what someone is looking for just hasn't been set up yet. Just think about how much time was already spent complaining, requesting, wishing and wanting, with nothing to show for it. :nope:

[Stealth Hunter]

Ja. Wir benötigen ein HOFFNUNGSLOS.

[Takeda Shingen]

I'll admit, this thread baffles me, puzzeling.

The logic against another sticky is in black and white yet most seem to still beleive that is the solution. The shIII main page here is 1/3+ stickies already. The CM as an alternate could be the resource, partialy set up to help unclog forum threads but no ones taking advantage of it. Or even inquire about how to go about it. Even as easy as it is.
Friggin amazing.
Must be to easy to note what it lacks instead. Or could that be because what someone is looking for just hasn't been set up yet. Just think about how much time was already spent complaining, requesting, wishing and wanting, with nothing to show for it. :nope:

The stickies problem is easily resolved. There are 12 stickies on the SHIII forum, not counting the deleted sticky that will vanish once it is unstickied. You don't need all of those stickes as individual topics. In fact, there are two screenshot threads. Why? Merge the two, along with the video thread into a single 'user media thread'. Now you have 10 stickys.

Combine the Vista guide, screenshot tutorial and Newbie guide into a single topic. Now you have 8. Send the GWX AI thread to the SHIII mods forum, since that is why we have mod forum, to have 7. The SHIII SDK is still being used in SHIV, so UBI will not be releasing it. Accordingly, that thread can be dropped. Now there are 6 stickies. We've just halved the number of top threads.

Regarding the community Wiki: This would also be a great way to go. As of now, it is just sitting there, waiting to be further used. Expand on it.

[Gezoes]

More tutorials means better access for new players. That's a good thing. Besides, I look up a few things quite often and it's true, it's a bit hard to find sometimes.

The community manual is great! And online again might I add. I'm sure anyone would welcome any addition or expansion to it. This is no rant against it as some seem to think? :|\\

[joegrundman]

Well, I didn't think this would be so contraversial! :D

I seemed to have stepped on Danurve's toes as he seemed to imagine that this is some anti-CM rant or that a tutorial forum would be in some kind of opposition to the CM. Lighten up, pal! The CM is wonderful.:yep:

I think a sticky would be some help, but not the same thing at all. For one thing, you have to convince the appropriate mod to link to it, but i dare say that would be some improvement.

I think such a forum would also be popular, not unpopular, and would be constructive not argumentative. As internet forums go, this one is characterised by an uncommonly helpful and cooperative nature.

Also, so what if it isn't a super popular forum? As you say, you have lots of others, you can always close it down and transfer the existing threads to this and the sh4 forum.

In this I am inspired principally by the example of my previous gaming obsession, the TW series. The websites devoted to that do in fact have a thriving and exceedingly useful tutorials section for both gameplay and modding and as this game is at least as complex (and i think much more so in fact) such a forum would be just as useful here, if not more so.

But clearly there is some inertia against the whole idea. Does it cost a lot of time or money to open a new forum? If so, then I retract the whole petition!