Talk:Armor (Long War)

DR

The damage reduction formula has been published, so we know for a fact that 0.3DR = 30% chance and 0.33DR = 33% chance. Either there's a hidden 0.03 on the armour or the chance is 30% not 33%. Binkyuk (talk) 15:50, 28 August 2014 (EDT)

There is some confusion with the coming beta 14 about how much damage reduction those two armors have. I will wait for Ellatan's response, it is fine as it is at the moment.--8wayz (talk) 17:35, 28 August 2014 (EDT)

Google Sheets

I've created a Google Sheets that grabs a lot of useful information from DefaultGameCore.ini, XComGame.int and XComStrategyGame.int, combines it with a few user inputs (such as research requirements, wiki filenames, etc...) and then formats it into wiki tables. This should make it easy to update the tables whenever a new patch rolls around.--Thels (talk) 04:31, 1 April 2015 (EDT)

The sheet can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xRJLa7vQw1H0o7QIkZqEwqdT2AT317hzvbzoZRg4DUI/edit?usp=sharing --Thels (talk) 04:31, 1 April 2015 (EDT)

I've updated the soldier armors with the table generated by the document. I have all the other item tables ready, and Research/Foundry/OTS/Facility tables are really easy to generate from there on. However, I would like people's input on the format of the table. It's relatively easy to change the looks and layout of all the tables generated by the Google Sheets, but it would still require them to be manually copied into the Wiki, so I'd prefer people's opinions on the looks of the table, and settle on a specific layout, before updating the rest of the item tables (and others). --Thels (talk) 04:31, 1 April 2015 (EDT)

I also gave Credits (not the icon, but the actual values) a tooltip for extra information. Could easily expand it to the other columns that include secondary values, but I'm still on the fence if I like it or not, so I could really use some opinions from other people about it.--Thels (talk) 04:31, 1 April 2015 (EDT)

Armor images should be scaled down to 128x64px, for consistency with other pages; table width could be reduced to ~80-90% for similar reasons. For perks (specifically damage control on this page), just use the perk templates that the rest of the LW pages use. The HP, mob, etc. icons seem off compared to their text headers; they probably could also use some scaling down.

 

As far the layout of the table itself, I like it. I don't think the credit icon is really needed - the column image should do fine. The tooltips definitely should be expanded, as on first glance I have no clue what they were for. I don't think the equipment slots and flight fuel need their own columns - could probably just add a note under special saying that shadow armor has one less small item slot, or that seraph armor supports flight mode (6 fuel), as an example. Otherwise, looks nice.

 

One major concern I have is how much of a pain it is to manually edit the page. Considering most updates generally only modify a few things here and there, it's usually easier or more convenient to make edits for small updates manually; some extra white space would really help with that. The other major concern is that of descriptions - a lot of the wiki tables have their own [more detailed] descriptions over the default LW info, and rewriting the whole table using this method would erase helpful information. Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on it.

--Hawkeye2777 (talk) 02:08, 2 April 2015 (EDT)

 

((How do you indent your entire post?))

Image size: Sure, I can change this. A slightly smaller image is probably better for people that run on lower resolutions.

 

Table size: I'm not so sure about that. I don't really see the merit of an 80% or 90% wide table, especially not if it's forced. That'll make things look ugly on lower resolutions for no real gain. I'll be going over all the other item/research/etc... tables as well, so they'll end up being consistent regardless. I could remove the fixed width entirely, but that may look a little ugly on some pages with a lot of tables, such as the weapons and equipment pages. Also, I like it that the columns are a bit spacious. Makes it easier to follow them.

 

Perks: I could do that, but wouldn't that bloat the table size a bit, to have all the perk information included?

 

Mobility etc: I find the icons used in most other tables a bit too small, honestly. I guess it's a matter of opinion. I didn't like it that those icons were smaller than the cost icons. That felt off to me.

 

Credit icon: Do you mean the § character? I personally am not too fond of it, but I noticed that the general consensus on the nexus forum was that people preferred to have the character in. I'm happy to remove the character. I only need to edit 2 cells for that on the Google Sheets. Want me to remove days for time as well?

 

Tooltips: What do you mean expanding them? You mean adding tooltips like the Credits column to the other columns? I have planned that, but the current tooltips feel a bit off to me. Is there a way to assign a tooltip to an entire cell, rather than the text within a cell?

 

Fuel: You're probably right, there. Fuel is only used by 2 armors, 1 shiv and 1 equipment item, so it could very well be added to the Special column instead (perhaps add (X fuel) after flight more, and for Fuel Cells, mention that fuel is increased by X amount).

 

Secondary slots on the other hand are used a lot more. While for armors, only the Shadow armor is different from the others, MEC suits vary wildly between different suits, so it would be nicer keep it a column there, like it is already. Since armors are on the same page, I do think it's nicer keeping it a column there as well.

 

Descriptions: I do import the descriptions on the sheet itself (basically because I already dissect the int file that has them for other purposes, so it's real easy to do. But that's just an informative column for the user updating the sheet. The actual descriptions included in the final table aren't taken from there, but are a combination of text assigned to certain property flags, with the rest of the information (in this case, the Jacket and the bottom two lines of the Vortex Armor) being entered manually.

 

- Updating: Yes, you're probably right in that updating it manually would start to become a bit of a pain. However, I'm not sure if manually updating it is that much easier. Remember that the vast majority of the data is coming straight from the ini itself, rather than being updated in the google sheets. Updating that ini in the google sheets once, and then copy-pasting the updated tables again is likely faster than looking for all the changes made by hand.

--Thels (talk) 06:07, 2 April 2015 (EDT)

Table size: 95% then? :P I actually don't mind too much now that I think about it - I can just resize my browser.

 

Perks: I'll edit the page to show what I mean - you can simply display the name and icon (omitting the text). The MEC section is also using them.

 

Icons: They seem off to me because they're bigger than their corresponding header text, but I guess it's a preference thing.

 

Credits character: yes, that's what I meant. I don't have a preference on days in the time col. The spacing between § and the value was the main thing I didn't like - I wouldn't mind if it was formatted like §420 instead, but I don't have a strong preference either way.

 

Tooltips: Yes. Alternatively, you could put them in the column headers - that's one place I would look to see an explanation of what the values in ()'s are for. I don't know of a way to assign one to an entire cell.

 

Secondary slots: okay - fair enough.

 

Updating: yeah, I was thinking of manual updates for page text and such, but obviously that's outside of the tables. So I guess it's not a huge deal, but some white space between table cells would be nice.

 

Otherwise, this table definitely looks much better than its first iteration. Nice work on the spreadsheet too by the way.

--Hawkeye2777 (talk) 02:19, 3 April 2015 (EDT)

 

I still think 100% looks better than any other specific arbitrary number. The only decent alternative would be to not specify any width, so it's size would adjust to the amount of space it needs on larger monitors. Downsides of no specific width is that some columns are needlessly narrow on large monitors, and that tables on the same page may vary in width widely.

 

Ohh, I didn't know there were also templates for the perks without their descriptions. I thought the descriptions would be included. And uhh, yeah, I guess I could do it, though I'm not sure what the gain is, if the description is not included. It would mean that more things need to be manually updated when changes come around, rather than less. I also don't like that the image itself ain't linked, but I guess that's just a matter of fixing the template.

 

For credits and days, I do use a non-breaking space to not wrap them when columns get too narrow. And removing that space altogether would've been updating 2 cells again. But yeah, I don't like the credits sign myself as much, either. The only positive side is that if there's lots of columns, it's slightly easier to track which column you're at.

 

The column headers have some basic tooltip information, which could use some rewriting. Note that all the column headers are actually templates on here, so editing those tooltips should be done here on the wiki, rather than in the google sheets. They could perhaps be a little more elaborate, though I wonder how many people even know about the tooltips. Having tooltips both around the headers and the cells would be the best thing, not? I also figured out how to have the tooltip affect the entire cell: ||title="Tooltip text goes here"|Cell contents go here|| Check the Phalanx armor credits cost to see how it looks. I'll expand that look to the other rows and columns where applicable.

 

For whitespace, I could simply add spaces (alternating to the start and the end of the contents) if the contents are under a certain length, if you think that helps. They would still be uneven, because the very first column contains images and links and what not, but if you think it helps... Though When the sheet is decently wrapped up, I should write a basic guide on how to update tables using the sheet. Manual edits would require people to check what has been edited manually and include that on the sheets as well, if they plan to update through the sheet (if it's not derived directly from the input files, obviously).

--Thels (talk) 05:11, 3 April 2015 (EDT)

MEC exoskeletons and SHIV units on the Armor page?

I've added MEC and SHIV defensive stats back in. It's been discussed before on the forum, and consensus was that, despite MECs and SHIVs having their own pages, it would still help to have the defensive stats on one page together for comparison. MEC and SHIV weapons and equipment are on the same pages as Soldier equipment, and we're not moving Soldier armor off to the page for soldiers, so why should this be a special case? Thels (talk) 08:32, 1 July 2015 (EDT)

Well, having duplicate pages is very bad. If you insist having MEC's and and SHIV on Armor page, then you should delete them from MEC's and SHIV pages. Long War is updated frequently with many changes. Who is going to update multiple pages? This is completely unnecessary. Just use See also links or navbars or whatever, just please don't duplicate the same tables on multiple pages.Riw (talk) 12:06, 1 July 2015 (EDT)