Community projects?

Targor Avelany · 03-26-13, 02:22 PM

I love the idea and will be happy to join.

If nothing, we will have the information for possible use in the future projects.

Also, we might as well include all the uboats (IX, XXI, etc), since we are starting to move towards having those in the game.

gap · 03-26-13, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Targor Avelany

I love the idea and will be happy to join.

Thank you Targor

right now we are:

gap
keysersoze
Targor Avelany

Any new volunteer? Three people won't go anywhere far

I will post here the stuff I got ready and some basic instructions as soon as possible

Quote:

Originally Posted by Targor Avelany

If nothing, we will have the information for possible use in the future projects.

I agree

when I worked with Trevally on collecting historical information for OHII, I learned a lot and I got many cool ideas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Targor Avelany

Also, we might as well include all the uboats (IX, XXI, etc), since we are starting to move towards having those in the game.

yes Targor I had exactly your little jewels in mind

a cool feature could be to group position report for U-boat type, so that if historically a type IX was in our vicinity, an U-boat of the same type will spawn in game

volodya61 · 03-26-13, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

Any new volunteer? Three people won't go anywhere far..

count me in

but I think I could not be very helpful to collect any historical information..
but I can be helpful in any other case

I need only to solve some problems with my PC and I will able to start..

keysersoze · 03-26-13, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by volodya61

count me in

but I think I could not be very helpful to collect any historical information..
but I can be helpful in any other case

I need only to solve some problems with my PC and I will able to start..

Thanks volodya

gap · 03-26-13, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

Nope—it's just the only thing I could think of that would make it easy for many people to collaborate on one big project.

Just kidding Daniel,
lately the "are you by any chance working for ...?" phrase, in all its variation, has become the ubiquitous answer to someone who is proposing a good product/service here in the forum

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

Actually, there are some drawbacks to using it. For one, I'm having trouble formatting the cells the way I want them.

Do you still have the file I sent you a while back? Can you redo it in google documents format?

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

Here is a link to that special operations document. Have a look and tell me if you think it's a feasible format.

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B4...it?usp=sharing

I think so. We don't really need such a complex spreadsheet for storing those data anyway. As far as we can set a basic formatting and add new rows/columns if required, any format is good. In case we need for more advanced options, we can always copy/paste the text in a traditional spreadsheet application

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

P.S. You might be interested in the radio messages for U109's escort mission in November 1941.

Good stuff

I think that escort mission is listed in my compendum for OHII. Scripting those messages would be a nice addition if Trevally will ever implement this sort of missions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by volodya61

count me in

Thanks Volodya! We are four:

volodya61
Targor Avelany
keysersoze
gap

Any new volunteer? Come on guys, we need to be at least 5 times this number

Quote:

Originally Posted by volodya61

but I think I could not be very helpful to collect any historical information..
but I can be helpful in any other case

Not mutch historical information to colect Volodya: we just need to copy/paste coordinates from uboat.net to a spreadsheet, and to interpolate missing coordinated, if required. Boring task, I got to admit

Recording the number of torpedoes onboard at the beginning of each patrol (depending on U-boat models and other special ammo, like mines, eventually carried), and the cumulative number of ships sunk for each date is another idea I had for determining if each boat is available for support or not, but this information is also easily accesible from the same website, or from U-historia.com for the ones who understand a bit of Spanish. That's all

Quote:

Originally Posted by volodya61

I need only to solve some problems with my PC and I will able to start..

I hope you solve the problem with your PC as soon as possible: we need for it nd its human operator

V13dweller · 03-26-13, 08:03 PM

I don't expect my modding skill is what is needed here but, I normally just change weapons on ships, change direction on ship nodes, like my mod that redirects the rear depth charge nodes on the Soldati destroyer so it gains depth charge racks instead of KGuns, but I'm not sure if this skill is what is needed for this community project.
I do have quite a lot of spare time I could use for research or other menial tasks like that.

keysersoze · 03-26-13, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by V13dweller

I don't expect my modding skill is what is needed here but, I normally just change weapons on ships, change direction on ship nodes, like my mod that redirects the rear depth charge nodes on the Soldati destroyer so it gains depth charge racks instead of KGuns, but I'm not sure if this skill is what is needed for this community project.
I do have quite a lot of spare time I could use for research or other menial tasks like that.

V13dweller,

This sort of project requires absolutely NO modding ability whatsoever

Anyone who can navigate to uboat.net, can copy and paste, and enjoys reading and learning about U-boats can participate.

keysersoze · 03-26-13, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

Just kidding Daniel,
lately the "are you by any chance working for ...?" phrase, in all its variation, has become the ubiquitous answer to someone who is proposing a good product/service here in the forum

To be honest, I wish it was true...a high paying Google job would beat being a poor student

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

Do you still have the file I sent you a while back? Can you redo it in google documents format?

Yes, I believe I still have the file. I will see if I can get it into google documents format. By the way, I am completely open to any other suggestions if you think there is an easier or better way. I thought it might be easier for you if we could all collaborate on a single document, rather than if you were forced to assemble each person's spreadsheet into a larger document.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

I think so. We don't really need such a complex spreadsheet for storing those data anyway. As far as we can set a basic formatting and add new rows/columns if required, any format is good. In case we need for more advanced options, we can always copy/paste the text in a traditional spreadsheet application

From what I know of it, Google documents are fairly rudimentary, which is both a good thing and a bad thing for a project like this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

Good stuff

I think that escort mission is listed in my compendum for OHII. Scripting those messages would be a nice addition if Trevally will ever implement this sort of missions.

I'm pretty sure I saw the Silva Plana escort mission mentioned in your additional missions mod for OHII, so I was sure to include the radio messages for it. By the way, if you can get a copy of Wolfgang Hirschfield's diary, you can read an interesting account of the mission (he was the chief radio operator on U109).

I am trying to add as many historical radio messages as I can for each mission from this site:

http://www.wwiiarchives.net/servlet/action/intercepts/0

Unfortunately, the ULTRA decrypts in that database do not cover the whole war.

gap · 03-26-13, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by V13dweller

I do have quite a lot of spare time I could use for research or other menial tasks like that.

another community project member in

Now we are:

V13dweller
volodya61
Targor Avelany
keysersoze
gap

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

To be honest, I wish it was true...a high paying Google job would beat being a poor student

Not to dimish your respectable student status, but I got to agree with you about the google job

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

Yes, I believe I still have the file. I will see if I can get it into google documents format. By the way, I am completely open to any other suggestions if you think there is an easier or better way. I thought it might be easier for you if we could all collaborate on a single document, rather than if you were forced to assemble each person's spreadsheet into a larger document.

From what I know of it, Google documents are fairly rudimentary, which is both a good thing and a bad thing for a project like this.

Despite the fact that I have never used google documents, I am sure that its spreadsheet functionalities will be more than enough for our purposes: this is a job that could be done with notepad

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

I'm pretty sure I saw the Silva Plana escort mission mentioned in your additional missions mod for OHII, so I was sure to include the radio messages for it. By the way, if you can get a copy of Wolfgang Hirschfield's diary, you can read an interesting account of the mission (he was the chief radio operator on U109).

I will try to put my hands on this book. Thank you for your suggestion

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

I am trying to add as many historical radio messages as I can for each mission from this site:

http://www.wwiiarchives.net/servlet/action/intercepts/0

Unfortunately, the ULTRA decrypts in that database do not cover the whole war.

Once more, interesting information on standing orders and boat/BdU/FdU messages can be found also on uboatarchive. Indices at the following pages:

http://www.uboatarchive.net/BDUKTB.htm
http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTBList.htm

keysersoze · 03-26-13, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

Talking about the latter, in view of the willingness showed by TDW I suggest to wait for a pool of "data collectors" to form. It wouldn't make much sense if he started working on such an hard to do feature if there wasn't any interest/cooperation by the community.

I agree. We need to see if there is any interest in this kind of thing before we could even begin to think about implementing something like that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

I have already created a data entry spreadsheet as well as a tool for interpolating lacking position logs, and I have already started collecting the first data (for 3-4 U-boats, IIRC). I would be pleased to send them to anyone wanting to join the group, and to offer my advise if needed.

What format do you think we should use for this sort of data entry? I am familiar with google docs from doing large Arabic translation projects in groups. Each person would be assigned a portion of a story to translate and would post their section to a community document. Multiple people can edit and view the document at once, making collaboration easy. My only concern is the need to backup our files frequently, in case someone unwittingly deleted a large section of it.

What do you think?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Targor Avelany

I love the idea and will be happy to join.

If nothing, we will have the information for possible use in the future projects.

Also, we might as well include all the uboats (IX, XXI, etc), since we are starting to move towards having those in the game.

Thanks for the reply and for your enthusiasm Targor. I agree about including information about other boat types. On a related note, part of the reason I suggested using google drive/google docs (or some other kind of cloud storage) is so we could gather schematics in a single location. With enough input, we could have a "one-stop shop" for modelers to use. They would only need to click on the corresponding file to instantly have access to blueprints, frame lines, pictures, etc. for whatever they want to model.

gap · 03-26-13, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by keysersoze

What format do you think we should use for this sort of data entry? I am familiar with google docs from doing large Arabic translation projects in groups. Each person would be assigned a portion of a story to translate and would post their section to a community document. Multiple people can edit and view the document at once, making collaboration easy. My only concern is the need to backup our files frequently, in case someone unwittingly deleted a large section of it.

What do you think?

I have started working in xlsx just because I am quite familiar with it and it is easily portable, but any format able to manage tables, even simple txt, should be okay.

I have never used google docs, but according to your description it fits our needs

(P.S: are you a corporate memeber of google?)

keysersoze · 03-26-13, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

I have started working in xlsx just because I am quite familiar with it and it is easily portable, but any format able to manage tables, even simple txt, should be okay.

I have never used google docs, but according to your description it fits our needs

(P.S: are you a corporate memeber of google?)

Nope—it's just the only thing I could think of that would make it easy for many people to collaborate on one big project. Actually, there are some drawbacks to using it. For one, I'm having trouble formatting the cells the way I want them.

Here is a link to that special operations document. Have a look and tell me if you think it's a feasible format.

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B4...it?usp=sharing

P.S. You might be interested in the radio messages for U109's escort mission in November 1941.

03-26-13, 02:22 PM	#1
Targor Avelany Ace of the Deep Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Posts: 1,183 Downloads: 225 Uploads: 0	I love the idea and will be happy to join. If nothing, we will have the information for possible use in the future projects. Also, we might as well include all the uboats (IX, XXI, etc), since we are starting to move towards having those in the game.

03-26-13, 08:03 PM	#6
V13dweller Grey Wolf Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 768 Downloads: 101 Uploads: 2	I don't expect my modding skill is what is needed here but, I normally just change weapons on ships, change direction on ship nodes, like my mod that redirects the rear depth charge nodes on the Soldati destroyer so it gains depth charge racks instead of KGuns, but I'm not sure if this skill is what is needed for this community project. I do have quite a lot of spare time I could use for research or other menial tasks like that.