Published Ships in Drake Notation

[mundungus]

This inspires an obvious product idea: a book (or e-book) of hundreds of ships (and custom fighters) in Drake notation. It would be nearly trivial for Dan to put together.

1. Have players submit their favorite ships (probably as shipbuilder .xls files for easy verification).
2. Let players vote on which ones they like. Either select the top N ships, or any that get at least K votes. (An automated voting system would probably be worth the effort).
3. ...
4. Profit!


What the world also needs is a shipbuilding program that could READ Drake notation. (If it could print out prettier ship record sheets, even better -- I've had a player pull out old Star Fleet Battles books and say, "Now THIS is a ship record sheet!")

Alas, I don't have the time to write such a program, so I'll take the coward's way out and sit on the sidelines proclaiming that Someone ought to do it.

[OldnGrey]

This inspires an obvious product idea: a book (or e-book) of hundreds of ships (and custom fighters) in Drake notation. It would be nearly trivial for Dan to put together.

1. Have players submit their favorite ships (probably as shipbuilder .xls files for easy verification).
2. Let players vote on which ones they like. Either select the top N ships, or any that get at least K votes. (An automated voting system would probably be worth the effort).
3. ...
4. Profit!

If players have already seen the ships to vote on them why would they buy the book?

What the world also needs is a shipbuilding program that could READ Drake notation. (If it could print out prettier ship record sheets, even better -- I've had a player pull out old Star Fleet Battles books and say, "Now THIS is a ship record sheet!")

Alas, I don't have the time to write such a program, so I'll take the coward's way out and sit on the sidelines proclaiming that Someone ought to do it.

A couple of things wrong with this.
First, the Drake notation format would have to be changed so that every item of information would be imported into a known cell. I believe that means that all possible choices would have to be in the notation even if they are not on the ship and still have to be represented by a space and comma (or chosen character,space would not work for this). Every drake notation would need to have exactly the same formatting.

Second, The input sheet would then have to be linked to each known notation cell. Unless there is a way to keep a cell linked to the contents of another and allow it to be changed, a fresh input sheet would be needed for each new Drake notation or if you make a mistake.

I also think that the different spreadsheets may have different ways of importing text files.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
It would seem to be a lot of work for little gain.

How about a vote on record sheets, Pretty or functional?
Paul

[Governorflax]

oh, pretty, definitely! Otherwise why not use numbered pins on a tiny hex sheet instead of miniatures!

[cricket]

numbered pins on a tiny hex sheet

There's a game in there somewhere.

[OldnGrey]

numbered pins on a tiny hex sheet

There's a game in there somewhere.

Travel Starmada

Play it on a Plane, Train, Anywhere!
Unless the pins would be seen as weapons on public transport

Paul

[Sergeant Crunch]

pin a printed hexsheet with terrain already on it to smallish cork board. Get some thumbtacks, label 'em, mark which side is front...

[jimbeau]

My opinion (for what it's worth) is that the Drake Notation is exactly the same as the current ship representations. If it's not available for the standard sheet display, the drake notation shouldn't be any different.

You're certainly capable enough to re-type the ship record sheets into Drake Notation and use them anywhere to the extent that the copyright laws would allow (which probably means NOT publishing them in a vassal mod).

Dan locked them down for a reason, I assume, and unlocking the Drake notation may be sending mixed messages to the consumer.

Again, not my IP, so not my decision.

[mundungus]

If players have already seen the ships to vote on them why would they buy the book?

Hmm, good point.

What the world also needs is a shipbuilding program that could READ Drake notation.

the Drake notation format would have to be changed

I agree that the Drake notation as currently defined is not fully specified. (Well, it's implicitly specified in that the official shipbuilder can output Drake notation, and I believe every ship feature shows up in that output. There's just no explicit set of rules for how to read and write it.) It would have to be extended.

Some of the other issues only apply to spreadsheets. I said "program", though -- I didn't have a spreadsheet in mind, but more something like a stand-alone Java program.

How about a vote on record sheets, Pretty or functional?

I'm not sure pretty and functional are directly at odds, at least if you mean functional in the sense of useful during the game. For reading into a program or posting into a forum like this, Drake notation is definitely more functional (and considerably less than maximally pretty).

My ideal program would be able to read and write Drake notation and to produce pretty, printable sheets (probably PDF).

[mundungus]

oh, pretty, definitely! Otherwise why not use numbered pins on a tiny hex sheet instead of miniatures!

...or pencil on a tiny hex sheet on a clipboard. This could buy you fog-of-war, too.

This is something that's always bothered me about the whole starship miniatures genre: the table is taken up by a huge map, almost none of which is being used. On the other hand, the miniatures can be pretty, and pins/pencils could become problematic in a tight melee.