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mj12games.com/forum → Starmada → Published Ships in Drake Notation
Say, do the published ships from the Imperial Starmada Sourcebook and Hammer & Claw exist anywhere in Drake Notation (for easy transport into Vassal...)? Apologies if I'm overlooking something obvious -- but I ain't seeing 'em.
I don't believe so.
Aight. Well, as time allows I just might tackle that (and then post them).
Ummm... would posting them necessarily be wise? They're the primary reason (as I see it) for buying the setting books, so posting them on the forums could kind of cut into that.
On the other hand, if such Drake notations did exist, I would be the first to applaud their maker. Provided the Powers What Is let you.
I hadn't thought of that -- good point. I'll try to check with the authors before doing anything like that then -- might even just send *them* what I generate and them them dispense at their discretion.
I don't think they should be made publicly available as it would greatly, IMO, cut into the sales of the products.
For use in Vassal, one needs to use one of the excel sheets to build ships from the settings and then cut and paste the drake notation into the Vassal properties box. Time-consuming, I know, but preserves the rights of MJ12.
Let me first say "thank you" to everyone for understanding and respecting appropriate boundaries.
If someone were to put together a collection of Drake notation for published ship designs and provide them to "dispense at [my] discretion", what would be fair? For that matter, should we make the Drake notation available as a matter of course when future supplements are released?
If someone were to put together a collection of Drake notation for published ship designs and provide them to "dispense at [my] discretion", what would be fair? For that matter, should we make the Drake notation available as a matter of course when future supplements are released?
That's a good question... I guess it would depend on utility in a print format. Perhaps as a supplemental download for those that purchase the book, if such a thing could be tracked?
If they were added as an extra page or so at the back of the PDF version of the product could they then not be copied and pasted into Vassal?
If they were added as an extra page or so at the back of the PDF version of the product could they then not be copied and pasted into Vassal?
The source book PDF's are copy protected. You can't copy and paste from them.
The Drake notation would have to be a separate, unprotected PDF to allow copy and paste.
Good discussion -- I'm certainly not trying to infringe on rights or make more work for MJ12, but I do think it'd be a very nice perk to have the Drake stats available for published materials specifically because of Vassal. I've got three friends I'm trying to rope into doing some campaigning, and they don't feel comfortable yet trying to put together their own fleets -- so we've decided to each pick a race from the two books in question. If I end up coming up with Drake notation myself here in the next little while I'll either keep them to myself or share them with Cricket to dispense as he decides. Cool?
The source book PDF's are copy protected. You can't copy and paste from them.
The Drake notation would have to be a separate, unprotected PDF to allow copy and paste.
For those who buy the PDFs, this would be easy to work around -- either set the Drake pages to a different security setting, or include them as a separate file.
But for those who buy the hard copies?
And can I assume then that there's a consensus that this is worth doing?
You've got my (nearly worthless) vote!
Another suggestion is to offer it as a separate purchase, mebbe at a lower cost bracket? Like, PDF is X, Hard Copy is X+n and Drake Notation is a couplea' bucks?
I have just copied a ship sheet from the Iron Stars rulebook into a word document without any problems other than the formatting being all over the place (and I'm at work so I am using programs at least 5-6 years out of date).
If the PDF copy and paste can be done by different security settings then you may as well just put in a couple of extra pages of Drake notation and put the price up by $1 (or whatever the extra hosting & work costs) and maybe have a "secret code" in the hard copy that the purchasor can email in and get the Drake notation in exchange.
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. :-)
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
oh, pretty, definitely! Otherwise why not use numbered pins on a tiny hex sheet instead of miniatures!
numbered pins on a tiny hex sheet
There's a game in there somewhere. 
Governorflax wrote: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 :roll:
Paul
pin a printed hexsheet with terrain already on it to smallish cork board. Get some thumbtacks, label 'em, mark which side is front...
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.
If players have already seen the ships to vote on them why would they buy the book?
Hmm, good point.
mundungus wrote: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).
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.
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