Equipment Database Community Effort (Full Version)

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form_d_k -> Equipment Database Community Effort (5/9/2018 5:10:07 PM)

I started designing an Operation Downfall scenario last night and had an idea about the community creating shared equipment databases.

First of all, the default database is very good. But there are some downsides to it:
* Only a fraction of equipment is needed per scenario.
* There are a lot of generic units (AT Team, Heavy MG, Battleship, etc.).
* Categories are very broad.
* Since equipment entries are numbered, adding new ones can be problematic & require shuffling.

It would be better to have equipment databases separated out into categories that make sense (ex. USMC Inf. (Cold War, Late), German Armor (WW2), etc.), so designers could mix-and-match. This can be a community-driven effort, which I think would be at least fun to try.

More specific equipment entries are interesting because:
* They offer fine-grained control over stocks & replacements,
* Their stats can be refined,
* THEY'RE FLAVORFUL? Who wouldn't want to see the USS Missouri & USS Enterprise cruising around in the Pacific?

And for a Downfall scenario, it would be great to represent things like the Japanese Volunteer Fighting Corps (VFC) with its very diverse (and primitive) equipment: bows, arrows, spears, muskets, pole-mounted AT, and a smattering of decent firearms. I don't think Light Infantry does them justice; no matter how elite a platoon made of bow-equipped schoolgirls & the elderly is, they are going fair very poorly against even the greenest USMC squad.



form_d_k -> RE: Equipment Database Community Effort (5/9/2018 5:36:22 PM)

Considerations:


How would we organize the effort?


We could create a database list and have folks volunteer to make one. They could be versioned, and if someone feels like making their own version they'd be welcome to it.




How would scenario designers add databases together?


The easiest is to have them copy-and-paste partial databases into a skeletal one. To avoid conflicts, the numbering system would need to be agreed upon (ex. 0 - 500 is infantry).

A more complex method would be to have a program combine databases & handle renumbering. I'm proficient in C# (but not so much UI programming) and simply reading a config file & combining XML isn't difficult. If an external program handles combining databases, we could get even more granular and have people submitting individual equipment entries.


What are the limits of what we can do?


I'm not sure how well the TOAW engine is put together. I'm sure there's a lot of legacy code, and some of it may be clunky. However, if it parses XML in a typical way then we can add comments that can serve several purposes:

* Provide tags that an external program could utilize to organize & combine databases.
* Add various notes, like author, reference links, reasoning behind design choices, etc.
* Add 'extra' features we could beg the poor developer(s) to add; I'm thinking equipment descriptions, pictures, and maybe a links to Wikipedia.

For new equipment, I'd also like to figure out how exactly some statistics work:
* Anti-infantry values are a multiple of 8, which display as n/8 (so 8 is shown as 1). However, it appears values smaller than 8 are tracked; are they not considered in that case?
* What does a defense of 0 mean?
* What does the 'shock cavalry' option do? Could that be used to represent suicidal, fanatic units?

Thoughts & ideas on all of this?



HobbesACW -> RE: Equipment Database Community Effort (5/9/2018 5:54:41 PM)

Sounds interesting! I'm a born again newbie (not played since early 2000) so I can't comment on your idea. Could be willing to help over the summer though as little to do at work at the moment.

Cheers,
Chris



Cabido -> RE: Equipment Database Community Effort (5/9/2018 7:35:49 PM)

I'm no military equipment geek, so I think I wouldn't be able to help. Yet, I think this kind of community effort to be the way to go when it comes to huge amount of data not always easily available. But some guiding principles and methodology should be first laid out in order to translate one's available information into game parameters, since some values are really counter intuitive. This is the case of artillery values, which considers rate of fire to set AP strengths.

I think it would be easier if you just set a list of equipments in the first post of a thread, let people present their values and update the first post according to debate evolution. I've seen it already done for other games for parameter values, but not whole databases. Perhaps one thread for each category. Well, I never tried to deal with the database; there are people more proficient than me to suggest solutions. I'm just supporting the idea.



sPzAbt653 -> RE: Equipment Database Community Effort (5/9/2018 9:15:10 PM)

All values are related to one another, so having different people contribute would be problematic. Additionally, often when designing scenarios the anticipated or desired results are not as expected and can lead to some modifications of the database. Changing one entry can have ramifications in other areas. Deleting entries usually results in issues, and care must be taken when adding entries.

With all of this in mind, there are alternate databases available. I have found it easier to use one of those and make a few adjustments if I need to, rather than creating something completely different. Just a few thoughts from someone who has been using the equipment files for many years.



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