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Author Topic: Community effort on the manual? (wiki)  (Read 11595 times)

slay_mithos

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Community effort on the manual? (wiki)
« on: August 29, 2014, 02:23:44 pm »

I was reading the topic about MDF in the general discussions, and combined with what we can read on this sub forum, it appears that one of the most important negative point is consistently about the manual, and lack of informations (about buildings, about features, about progression...).

While it's certain that a manual done by the people actually making the mod is often better, because they know all the features they included, it is also true that writting an extensive documentation takes a lot of time.

Being somewhat used to writting documentations myself, I was thinking about how we could help Meph and the others with something most of us can contribute toward.


There are various things that really lack documentation, and various points that could be extended a lot.
* Progression:
One of the biggest thing about MDF is that there are many, many things to do, and it is overwelming.
One way to change that a bit would be to document how general progression is intended, separated into the various branches.
A pretty nice example of this is the "Human Cheatsheet.png" that's in the root folder of MDF, detailing the buildings, as well as giving an order in which the various workshops were intended.
Many of us players have somewhat worked out how the different industries come together, and have assigned out own priorities on things (one might go for metal working, an other for magic, and a third for farming/animals), but we mostly figured out what order the buildings are built in.

*Third parties tools:
It was pointed out multiple times in the last few weeks that it is not really clear as for what is made for Masterwork, and what was just included and used.
So I went to the "credits" page of the documentation, and I have to agree that proper credit is not clearly given to everyone.
This too is something almost anyone can write, like:
Code: [Select]
<strong>THIRD PARTY TOOL</strong> (<a href="LINK TO FORUM TOPIC">Link</a>):
<p>Author: AUTHOR PSEUDONYM(S)</p>
<p>SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE TOOL</p>
While it might seem small, I can assure you that people that also put a lot of work in making those tools get their name and work awarded the proper credits.
Most of us can take a minute or two doing this, and save hours of time for Meph to work on parts where we can't actually help.


*Short tutorials/tips&tricks:
Also relatively easy to write (but takes quite a bit more time), it can cover a lot of small and obscure things about the mod, unknown vanilla mechanics, usage of tools...
Things like "choosing your civ at embark", "setting up proper configuration for ranged military", "working with stockpiles", "about minecarts", "working with quantum stockpiles" are all vanilla related, for example.
I tried my hands with the dfhack utilities, and I'm quite content on how it looks after a bit of formating, but it took over two hours, and it's still not complete, so not everyone might want to spend that time in just writing a small text.


*Descriptions/text about single feature/workshop/item/material:
Not all of it is well documented, and quite a few pages have different formatting (some races use the old workshop description template, some are just short text, others have walls of text).
I believe that the old way for the building was quite decent, because it gives information about building materials, skills and size.

The plants page is nearly good, but grow duration is not accurate (given that the default is harder farming ON).


*Flow charts:
While it might seem trivial and/or related to the progression, I think it would be a good thing to have clear flow charts for various things.
It can be simple things, like "plant iron acorn" > "process grown saplings for acorns and ironwood logs in the sawmill" > "Process ironwood log for iron bar in the herbalist's lab (dwarves)" or "make iron grade items from logs (bolts, furnitures...)" or "process into planks in the sawmill".
Of course, it is more usefull with images than pure text, and while it's feasible to make strait ones like this, it becomes way harder to make more complete and/or complex ones.
I might try to make a little something that reads raws and makes something like this, but it's a lot of work, and I just don't have that amount of free time right now (might come later, bits by bits, or not at all).


Anyway, those are just a few ideas on how any of us can help, only for those wanting to, without requiring insane amount of hours per person, and helping the mod (and the plugin/script authors).

I hope I'm not overstepping my role as "just an other player", and that it won't backfire like my previous 'tips and tricks'...
« Last Edit: August 30, 2014, 07:31:55 am by slay_mithos »
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Meph

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Re: Community effort on the manual?
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2014, 02:26:47 pm »

Very nice to see this.

The credits are really old, I usually wrote everything into the changelogs when it comes to additions by other authors, so it should be easy to just go through them and find the fitting names and links. :)

Edit:

Faction graphics wallpaper done by Mike Mayday.
GUI source code by Lucas_UP and Splinterz.
Orc Mode by Smakemupagus.
Succubus Mode by Boltgun.
Gnome Mod & Plump Helmet Men & Timestream & Pantheon by IndigoFenix.
Force Event & ProjectileExpansion & Hackwish & many more scripts by Putnam.
AddPetToCiv scripts by Urist Da Vinci
Leather Stockpile Standardization by Billy Jack.
Several Raw Patches by Drayath.
Localisation Patcher for the Exe by Insolor.
Text Will Be Text by Mifki.
Dfhack by lots of people, most of all expwnent, warmist, ag and quietust.
Dfhack spells & upgrade scripts by Roses.
Random Creature Generator by Talvieno.
Fear the Night by Xangi.
Utilitiy Plugins for dfhack by Falconne.
Many Raws, creatures, items and more by Deon.
Many Raws, creatures, items and more by Hugo_the_dwarf.
Many Raws, creatures, items and more by Narhiril.
Many Raws, creatures, items and more by Putnam (again).
Stonesense Fixes by Denisac.
Stonesense and Isoworld by Japa.
Several bugfixes done by arbarbonif.
Soundsense by Zwei.
Dwarf Therapist by Dwarf Engineer & Splinterz.
PictureFort by maackey.


Something like this? Because it will get a very, very long list. :D
« Last Edit: August 29, 2014, 02:49:18 pm by Meph »
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::: ☼Meph Tileset☼☼Map Tileset☼- 32x graphic sets with TWBT :::
::: ☼MASTERWORK DF☼ - A comprehensive mod pack now on Patreon - 250.000+ downloads and counting :::
::: WorldBicyclist.com - Follow my bike tours around the world - 148 countries visited :::

smakemupagus

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Re: Community effort on the manual?
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2014, 02:52:51 pm »

The Orc Fortress credits page seems to have been lost when the manual was merged into one.  Meph and I already discussed but if someone else is taking the lead on manual overhaul then please include it.

#############

Orc Fortress is a plug in which builds on the foundation of Meph's Masterwork Dwarf Fortress and of course on Bay12 Games' Dwarf Fortress itself. It also uses a few item assets, building designs, and concepts which originated in other great mods including Genesis, Kobold Camp, Legends of Forlorn Realms, and !!Science!!. Thanks to all who share their work on the forums and in particular to Hugo_the_dwarf, Deon, Phoebus, Narhiril, Urist da Vinci, i2amroy, Putnam, Wrex, gwathlobal; whoever made the original version of the Orc sprites; and the general combined experience and wisdom of the Bay12 forums. Any components of Orc Fortress that are my original work I am certainly happy if they are freely reused and recycled, in fact that is one of my main motivations for posting it.

The Orc in the Logo is by by Eva Zimmermann.

Special thanks to the DFHack team and scripters who make all the cool plugins, such as expwnent (autosyndrome), Falconne (fortress utility plugins), and Putnam (itemsyndrome).  It is these scripts that make advanced weapons and magic system possible!

Particular thanks to Wrex for detailed testing and development of orcish weapons.

Particular thanks to gwathlobal for detailed testing of armor and materials.

Particular thanks (again) to Putnam for allowing us to use his language file transcription of Mordor-speech.

Special thanks to Meph for invaluable help and advice on many occassions.  And also, thanks to all the rest of the Masterwork community for your feedback, patience, modding tips and solutions, and for generally being awesome.

Extra special thanks to Tarn Adams and Bay 12 Games, for developing this unique, wonderful, and slightly insane world and making it so moddable! Please consider supporting ongoing development at http://bay12games.com/support.html.

-smakemupagus

slay_mithos

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Re: Community effort on the manual?
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2014, 03:35:29 pm »

Something like this? Because it will get a very, very long list. :D
I know, but the thing is that without proper credits in an easy to access place, many people will do the amalgam between the package and the mod itself.

While I always think people should be smarter, Minecraft modding scene in particular was plagued by this, to the point where multiple modders went out of their way to make their mod incompatible with a package, or with any other mod.
And all this ends up hurting both the players and the modders.

If MDF can set the example right to the end, we might not have such dramas over here, and be able to continue to profit from this big pit of ideas that is DF's modding scene.
You are already asking the authors, and often helping with what you can to improve the tools, so all that's left is to name the people for their work in the credits.

Anyway, I sincerely hope that we will have more than a few active players willing to give a bit of time in order to make this all happen (for the offline documentation or the wiki namespace), because it's really something that we can help with, without needing skills in coding, or Raws writting.
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For the 55 people who did download V1.5 till now:  You human race is not working.
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daisha

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Re: Community effort on the manual?
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2014, 06:59:49 pm »

I think broad community-effort would be better spent on the MDF wiki than the manual, personally, for the simple reason that it's already set up to accept community input.  The manual could certainly use some help, but I think that project would be better served by close collaboration.  Maybe people who feel they know the mod or a specific race very well could adopt a manual page to write, ideally with a tutorial fort like Meph did for humans for each race?
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slay_mithos

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Re: Community effort on the manual?
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2014, 08:53:00 pm »

Wiki, manual, all in all, it doesn't matter much, as long as we put the infos.

Wiki:
*Pros: Anyone can edit/add pretty easily, easy to format things so that it's clear to read (sections and all), can be updated over time.
*Cons: Not available offline, doesn't respect versions unless specifically made that way.

Manual:
*Pros: Offline, can be shipped with the correct version, less chances of outdated info for the end user, can use more advanced ways to present the data (requires work though).
*Cons: Not possible for everyone to update, harder to translate from forum posts into HTML pages, needs to be up to date before releasing a version.

So yeah, wiki is a good solution for a community effort.

My only problem is that it's way out off date right now, so everything needs to be added.

As for tutorial forts, I don't think they are enough to teach a race, because no race is linear, and it's a lot of work. They can be a fun read though.
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For the 55 people who did download V1.5 till now:  You human race is not working.
It is ok, I'm used to that in RL so why should my game be different :p
DFHack tips and tricks for your everyday tasks

daisha

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Re: Community effort on the manual?
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2014, 09:28:12 pm »

Any contributions to either can always be appropriated for the other, anyway. :P

And while tutorial forts ARE a fair amount of work and of only limited usefulness in the end, people post LPs about as often as they eat, I'm sure making tutorial forts appeals to some.  I might do it, except I'm more the consumer of such goods.  ;)
« Last Edit: August 29, 2014, 09:32:28 pm by daisha »
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LtGreeneyes

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Re: Community effort on the manual?
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2014, 11:01:19 pm »

I love the idea of the community working toward improving available documentation!  I'm even willing to put what little I know on the wiki, which as stated, is the best option for a community effort.  If the wiki is filled in a lot more, it'll even make the jobs of whoever is collaborating on the manual easier. :)
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smakemupagus

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Re: Community effort on the manual? (wiki)
« Reply #8 on: August 30, 2014, 05:55:52 pm »

Choosing your civilization (race) in Masterwork Dwarf Fortress

Set the races that you want to populate your world by checking the "Active" column in the GUI.

Set the races that you want to be playable in fortress or adventure mode by checking the "Fort" or "Adv" column respectively in the in GUI.  You can set more than one Fort mode playable race, meaning that you can play more than one races' fortresses in the same world.

Create a world.  (More tips on generating worlds for MDF can be found elsewhere.  One important point is that if you enabled a lot of races, you have to have a big enough world with enough neutral biomes and enough civilization slots to accomodate everyone)

When you're ready to choose your embark location, hit TAB until you're on the Neighbors screen.



The race at the top is that of your parent civ (in this screenshot, it's the orcs).  All the other races are listed in order of proximity to the embark site, but the top one is always yours. 

If you want to change race, hit TAB until you're on the list of civilizations and pick a new civ.  Sometimes the names give it away: if you're the Craggy Anvils you might be from a dwarf civ; while if you're the Bloody Twilights you might be an orc civ.  Anyway, you can TAB back to the Neighbors screen again to check before finalizing your embark.

mscottveach

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Re: Community effort on the manual? (wiki)
« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2015, 10:20:57 pm »

Choosing your civilization (race) in Masterwork Dwarf Fortress

Set the races that you want to populate your world by checking the "Active" column in the GUI.

Set the races that you want to be playable in fortress or adventure mode by checking the "Fort" or "Adv" column respectively in the in GUI.  You can set more than one Fort mode playable race, meaning that you can play more than one races' fortresses in the same world.

Oh My Christ, this was WAY TOO hard for me to find. There's no mention of this in the manual. It's not
particularly intuitive on a GUI with about a 1000 new things on it. And although I can find some people
ask the question on reddit and here, google does not spit out the answer easily.

@smake, I owe you one full sanity save.

I have one random question. Are the key bindings for moving and resizing your embark square fixed by the version
of DF you're running? Or is that something that keybindings/DFHack/LNP can modify?
« Last Edit: April 15, 2015, 10:24:02 pm by mscottveach »
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Boltgun

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Re: Community effort on the manual? (wiki)
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2015, 02:12:39 am »

I'm curious to see if these jeys can be remapped as well because my frenchy keyboards makes it a brain bending experience.

Otherwise, we really need a dfhack script to help chosing your race, I'll check to see if that's possible but no promises.
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Wyzack

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Re: Community effort on the manual? (wiki)
« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2015, 03:23:20 pm »

Once new humans and warlocks get release i will probably try my hand at drawing up some easy start guides. The cheat sheets are good for people who understand how things work, such as the guild system, but it is incredibly overwhelming for newbies and turned me off of trying it for a while.
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Thelo

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Re: Community effort on the manual? (wiki)
« Reply #12 on: April 17, 2015, 02:17:09 pm »

It's a very good idea.


What is the proposed method of contribution?
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Lottanubs

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Re: Community effort on the manual? (wiki)
« Reply #13 on: April 26, 2015, 09:37:27 am »

Is there a wiki yet? If so, there should be a link in the OP.
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smakemupagus

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Re: Community effort on the manual? (wiki)
« Reply #14 on: April 26, 2015, 03:18:57 pm »

Is there a wiki yet? If so, there should be a link in the OP.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Masterwork:Main_Page

It's part of the main wiki.  "Masterwork:" in the page name puts any new page you create in the Masterwork namespace.
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