BattleTechWiki:Operation Doneve

Operation: Doneve is an off-shoot program of the long-term Project Planets collaboration, and we're seeking the feedback from Sarna's editors in order to improve it.

Background

Based on the tremendous efforts of both Gruese and Volt, two independent projects have been brought together to enhance each system/planet article on Sarna. Volt's much-vaunted Sarna Unified Cartography Kit (aka SUCKit) used graphing applications to precisely determine the coordinates of canon locations, based upon the CGL-generated maps provided in many of their products. Gruese started a fan-tool for Harebrained Schemes' BattleTech, to map the planets featured in that video game in relation to other canon worlds. Like the magic of Reese's Cups, it only made perfect sense to put those two together into something far more excellent.

After about a year and a half of work by the Operation: Doneve team, our site owner and bureaucrat Nicjansma (Nic Jansma) has taken the results of that collaboration and upgraded each and every system article with two features:

• System Information map: Sarna was originally populated (by Nic) with system articles dynamically created with system images based upon a set of (then) canon coordinates, though both the data and the process were stricken with many errors. These images are now updated with Volt's coordinates to properly reflect their true location and represented in the 3151 'Later Dark Age' era. Each map provides 2 distance rings (30 and 60 lightyears), a 50 lightyear distance bar, and a small subset map showing the depicted region within the larger Inner Sphere.
• Nearby Systems table: this original feature has also been updated, to indicate all the systems within 2 Jumps of the article's system, listed in the order of distance.

A third phase to follow will provide a scroll-able, slideshow gallery of the above maps, starting with the Age of War, through the Dark Age era.

Feedback

Two sub-sections are provided below. The Operation: Doneve team would appreciate your error discoveries and suggestions in the appropriate section. A project moderator will pass these on to the appropriate specialist or sub-team (as appropriate) for discussion and/or action. This feedback period will remain open-ended, so please feel free to return here with new input.

Maps

• First input (an example): while the images have the year in the file name, could we possibly add the year onto the image itself? Maybe under the Sarna chevron? -Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:27, 17 January 2020 (EST)
• Personally, I miss a Map Legend link. Not all details are self-explanatory. That link should be placed with any individual map file but also in every system article, preferably included with the image's caption (maybe something similar to the "e" footnote going with system coordinates). Frabby (talk) 02:05, 18 January 2020 (EST)
• I love the style of the new map, but I feel like the images compress the names too far to read on the actual planet page, necessitating a click through to the full file. would it be at all possible to have the initial image just contain the 30 light year circle and have the click through have the full 60, just to increase resolution within the space of the infor card? Or would that be the kind of thing that is simple to say but would be stupidly hard to implement? RasalhagueLibrarian (talk) 21:18, 18 January 2020 (EST)
  • In reply to RasalhagueLibrarian: The team discussed the range rings and unanimously (iirc) decided that the maps should include 30 and 60 ly rings, just like the old maps. That is the jump range of LF Battery-equipped ships, and was generally felt to be a good useable scale for orientation and navigation. I can't say much about the readability of the names, but I fear that's an intrinsic problem with the vector-based graphics of the .svg files. If the letters are scaled up we might encounter clutter problems in densely populated areas. Gruese would be the specialist for this question. Frabby (talk) 05:47, 19 January 2020 (EST)