PSU Cyril Wiki talk:Manual of style

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Open polls

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Star icons

• Following on from the previous icon suggestions, since I have AoI and should be able to do it - instead of something like would it be better to take images directly from the game and use them for the star rarities? I find that a better idea because the 10-12* and 13-15* colours in particular do not go well with a white background. - Mewn 16:16, 4 October 2007 (BST)
  • The stars taken from the game take up a lot more space; and might also prove to be tricky to get right since they're anti-aliased. We may be better off with hand-drawn stars; could just grab the ones we have now and draw a black border around them or so. Au+ 18:37, 4 October 2007 (BST)
    • Black borders sound ugleh. How well do the game rips shrink? That definitely sound preferable if done right. - Miraglyth 18:49, 4 October 2007 (BST)
• Hey, Mewn? Let's give it a shot. When you get a chance, could you upload one star of each color? We can turn them into templates to see how they look and go from there.  ;) - EspioKaos 13:03, 4 November 2007 (CST)

Element colours

• Similar to below suggestion, why not standardise element colour (where necessary, if anywhere) to that of the colour used in the weapon palette, PA menu, etc.? - Miraglyth 08:39, 29 September 2007 (BST)
  • Agreed. I'll work on that after while (going to work with the weapons icons first), and we can keep adjusting things where necessary until we have the set of colors we like best. - EspioKaos 04:49, 30 September 2007 (BST)
    • It doesn't help the wiki any, really, but if the white part of all the weapon icons was made transparent, people could use cellpadding=0 and a background color in a table to display a weapon of a particular element. - Miraglyth 07:45, 1 October 2007 (BST)

Weapon icons

• What do you guys think about using the in-game icons for weapon categories in the weapon stats tables instead of the typed out name? I figure in the cases of names like double saber and grenade, it would greatly reduce the amount that the first column is stretched out (as well as get rid of any double spaced cells). We could always do vector drawings of the icons, or just get nice shots of them from the game itself. Or, we could just use the ones SonicTeam put up on their new PSU site. - EspioKaos 19:00, 28 September 2007 (BST)
• That sounds good to me. The icons are generally easy enough to recognize. Can images be made to link to articles? If they can't, that would present a problem, but otherwise I'm fine with it. - Mewn 00:13, 29 September 2007 (BST)
  • I'm fairly certain that we can make images link to other articles. I'll look into it. - EspioKaos 04:50, 30 September 2007 (BST)
  • Sounds like a very good idea. I actually intended to do this at some point, but then forgot. I see no reason why pictures from the game would not work. --Qwerty 00:18, 29 September 2007 (BST)

Enemy page template

• I'm happy with the enemy template now, so I'd like to propose it formally. If there's to be a vote, I'll let Espio handle it, heheh. Anyway, final discussion, opinions, any tulips and/or roses, etc. - Mewn 18:12, 14 September 2007 (BST)
  • Looks good to me; I could only suggest minor tweaks, such as the use of icons in place of leader boosts, shoe boosts and the like in the boosts column. I think we actually already have the appropriate icons for those somewhere on the site. If anyone suggests a unique alternate proposal, we'll put things to a vote. Otherwise, I think we should go with this and make any minor changes if necessary. Objections from anyone? EspioKaos 19:40, 14 September 2007 (BST)
• That can be easily done. I'll change the icons now. Seems better than 'shoe boosts' which has never seemed right to me anyway. - Mewn 20:15, 14 September 2007 (BST)
  • Sweet. That looks great!  :D EspioKaos 20:25, 14 September 2007 (BST)

• Ok, if there are no more comments, or objections or suggestions or whatever, by the time I check this site tomorrow morning (probably about 11AM GMT), I feel it should become the template as I'd like to start making a few articles with it. Alkaven is working on a few templates that seem fine so far, so hopefully we'll be able to use them (and if they aren't ready, it can always be implemented a bit later). - Mewn 21:48, 15 September 2007 (BST)

Unit page template

• After Alkaven started a new page for Cara / Force, I remembered that we hadn't finalized a standard template for the unit pages. There was discussion going on, but that kind of trailed off. So, let's finish this off, right? I'm going to start a poll with the two formats we have (this one and this one), but if anyone else has any other designs in mind, please let us know. EspioKaos 00:33, 11 September 2007 (BST)

Slight modifications to the weapon template?

• There was mention a while back about a few minor things on the weapon template that might be altered. I can't seem to find where it was, however. Anyway, one thing I was wondering about is the drop box. In the Deva-zashi template given on our example page, monter is used, when, well... not everything these items can drop from should be classified as such. (I believe I brought up the example of there being newman, beast and CAST enemies in-game that aren't exactly monsters since they aren't infected by the SEED-Virus or something. They're simply acting out of their own zeal and free will.) Anyway, I'd like to suggest changing monster to enemy. I've actually already done that with the weapon pages I've created, but if we decide to keep it as monster, I'll change them back myself. I know this is ridiculously minor, but I felt it needed to be mentioned. <_<; EspioKaos 23:40, 8 September 2007 (BST)
  • Said beforehand that I thought "enemy" was more fitting, and I still hold to this view. - Miraglyth 00:01, 9 September 2007 (BST)
    • Sweet. So, I guess no objections on this?  ;) EspioKaos 17:41, 12 September 2007 (BST)

New line shield table proposal

• Here is my proposal for a new line shield table. I took out a number of columns that I felt were unnecessary, such as the element (for ones that can only be a specific element, this can be detailed in individual articles) and the Att, Acc and Tech columns, which can also be detailed in individual articles. (I guess these are the "hidden" stats from set bonuses and line shields made for specific battle types?) Thoughts? EspioKaos 04:19, 7 September 2007 (BST)
  • Erm... anyone? <_<; EspioKaos 06:24, 8 September 2007 (BST)
    • Personally I consider the element - both NPC and synth limitation - to be one of the defining characteristics of a Line Shield. The Att./Acc./Tech. values not so much, but still directly useful information when looking up a table of Line Shields. I do however like the condensing of slots a lot! As for the comments, I believe set bonuses (with link - nice one) and Type limitations should be the focus, but not drop locations for every other shield that "might not be easy to find". - Miraglyth 11:30, 8 September 2007 (BST)
    • I have to agree with Mira on the element, it's an important part of the data. I too like the way you've done the Slots. The stuff such as bonuses to Att and Acc can be detailed in the Comments column. Other than that I think it looks better than the current table. - Mewn 16:35, 8 September 2007 (BST)
      • OK, check out my second table. I added the element column back in (also created temporary templates for each element color -- we can fine-tune the actual colors later). What I'm going for is using the neutral green to identify a line shield that can be synthesized with any element you want. Any line shields that can only be one specific element will have that element listed. EspioKaos 16:38, 8 September 2007 (BST)
      • That looks fine to me, certainly less cluttered than the other table. - Mewn 18:33, 8 September 2007 (BST)
        • "What I'm going for is using the neutral green to identify a line shield that can be synthesized with any element you want." -- Actually, that was already the case. - Miraglyth 23:59, 8 September 2007 (BST)
          • Oh, heh. >_>; EspioKaos 00:12, 9 September 2007 (BST)
            • Not sure what your line (no pun intended) of reasoning was, but mine was that only non-limited shields were capable of being green. - Miraglyth 02:51, 11 September 2007 (BST)
              • Yup, that was it. EspioKaos 03:11, 11 September 2007 (BST)

Weapon Type Names

• No objection, but just to clarify - Mewn's renaming of "Bows" to "Longbows" and "Grenade Launchers" to "Grenades" :| is to fit in with the weapon types listed at the "License" missions, right? - Miraglyth 23:38, 4 September 2007 (BST)
• Yes, you're right. I feel we should maintain some consistency, and Throwing Blades already got renamed to Cards by Espio half a month ago. I suppose I should point out that the Bullet License missions uses both 'Longbow' and 'Long Bow', but since I've never seen it spelled with a space, I assumed the former was the correct term and the latter was a typo. - Mewn 23:57, 4 September 2007 (BST)
• Works for me.  :) EspioKaos 04:19, 7 September 2007 (BST)

Misc. item tables

• I've been playing around with what our possible template for non-stat-based items could look like. Just like with the weapon tables, I've categorized each remodeling ticket by its star rating, followed by name. The next column lists prices, which is more or less filler. Same thing goes with the description column. The version column is needed since we already know that there will be AotI-exclusive tickets. The comments column I kept and used just like with the weapons. Personally, I'd like to stick with keeping information like the item description and price within individual item pages, but without that stuff in this table, everything looks so thin and bare. Any ideas? EspioKaos 05:37, 25 August 2007 (BST)

Capitalization

• I'd like to get a little discussion going on this subject. While I've listed most "odd" instances of capitalization in-game (TECHNICs, CASTs, GUARDIANS Colony, etc.), I think we should talk about how we'll capitalize things like healing item names (should they be considered proper nouns?). Thoughts, opinions? EspioKaos 17:17, 21 August 2007 (BST)
  • I think item names should be capitalized as proper nouns, if for no other reason than it looks better to me. - Mewn 17:34, 21 August 2007 (BST)
    • I've been torn between both sides for a while, but after looking at how odd things like scape doll and moon atomizer look without capitals, I've found myself leaning more toward considering them proper nouns. Of course, I still think that individual item categories (recovery items, shotguns, line shields, etc.) should not be considered proper, and thus should not be capitalized. EspioKaos 18:48, 21 August 2007 (BST)
• On the recent capitalization swapping of the line shield and photon arts sections, I think it should be pointed out that both are considered standard nouns in-game, so no special capitalization is required. For example, check out the line shield descriptions. You'll see "a mass-produced line shield" or "a super high-end, custom-made line shield" (man, they really like their hyphenated words). On photon arts, I'm fairly certain that the menus do not capitalize the word, but I'll have to double-check that next time I play. EspioKaos 18:01, 8 September 2007 (BST)
  • I originally decapitalised Line Shields to Line shields, and Mewn changed Photon Arts to Photon arts, but you will find numerous places - particularly the manual - that deliberately capitalise both. The same applies to Photon Fortune, by the way. You are right though - the game does not capitalise it in that menu, but AFAIK all menus are "first letter is capital, all the rest are lower" so I'll question the weight of that. - Miraglyth 00:04, 9 September 2007 (BST)
    • Heh, it's times like these that I wish English were like Japanese with not having to deal with capitalization. Either that, or SEGA had been consistent with it. XD Anyway, I just checked the in-game tutorial, and it recognizes photon arts as a standard noun with no special caps. o_o EspioKaos 00:20, 9 September 2007 (BST)

Unit tables

Rank	Name	Maker	Tech.	Ment.	Ver.	Comments
1★	Cara / Force		20	0		--
	Cara / Mind		0	10		--
Rank	Name	Maker	Tech.	Ment.	Ver.	Comments
6★	Te / Force S		100	-50		--
Rank	Name	Maker	Tech.	Ment.	Ver.	Comments
9★	Te / TECH PP Save		-30	0		Lowers PP usage and TP.

This is the general idea for unit tables. Of course, we'll swap out Tech and Ment with Att, Acc, Def, Eva and End where applicable. Anything else we should add? EspioKaos 03:07, 18 August 2007 (BST)

Just wanted to add that I've done the initial conversion of the tables for both online and offline. You can find it here, I'll keep it updated with any suggestions/changes until the format is finalized. Propagandist 04:56, 18 August 2007 (BST)

• Excellent work!  :D Two things. First, a few of the offline S-rank units are identified with the A-rank green. Minor, I know.  ;) Second, in a few of the comments sections, it might look better with commas or semicolons separating two descriptions (Hard / Power Charge, for example). Or maybe line breaks. EspioKaos 05:06, 18 August 2007 (BST)
  • Thanks, I wasn't able to check on those as I was at work. Now that I'm home, I'll go through and double check all of the units to make sure it's accurate. I've also a few ideas for the comments that I want to try out. I'll note any major updates on this talk page. Propagandist 05:45, 18 August 2007 (BST)
    • So, how we doing on this? The adjustments you've made look great, and really, the only other thing I can suggest just has to do with capitalization of a few things in the "comments" column. To be honest, I think we're ready for approval and all.  :) EspioKaos 17:23, 8 September 2007 (BST)
      • It's essentially done, I'm not entirely sure all of the units are accurate but that can be cleared up when it is put out on the main page I guess. Let me know and I'll put it up (of course, you can do that too I guess).Propagandist 23:05, 8 September 2007 (BST)
        • On the Te / TECH PP Save example above, don't we know how much it lowers the PP usage? - Miraglyth 00:05, 9 September 2007 (BST)
          • Yeah, it's actually included in Prop's tables. EspioKaos 00:30, 9 September 2007 (BST)

Mission info articles

This is what I have in mind for individual mission articles. Of course, fill in the enemy and drop sections with actual information. Opinions? Suggestions? EspioKaos 00:08, 17 August 2007 (BST)

• I suggest an infobox (à la Wikipedia) to the side showing at least the following things:
  • Mission name (maybe JP name as well, since there is a large difference between the two in many cases)
  • Start Counter
  • Destination
  • Area(s) that the mission takes place in (e.g. Mad Creatures takes place in Raffon Meadow, Mad Beasts in Raffon Lakeshore etc.)
  • Type of mission (Free, Story, Co-Op, Party, Event)
  • Available ranks
  • Elements represented in the mission. - Mewn 12:03, 17 August 2007 (BST)

I'll see if I can take a shot at making a design like this when I have a chance. (Sometimes tables just don't come out like I want, though, so no promises. XD) EspioKaos 03:36, 18 August 2007 (BST)

• I'm for Mewn's idea. - Miraglyth 00:06, 9 September 2007 (BST)
  • Guess it wouldn't hurt to get this going again. Gentlemen, behold! Planet's Scar D: That's the basic idea; of course enemy info will have to be added; drop tables and all that, too. - EspioKaos 14:43, 2 November 2007 (CDT)
• OK, so how's this? - EspioKaos 11:19, 4 November 2007 (CST)

Synthesis board suggestion

(Copied from the scape doll talk page.) I really hate questioning something that we're trying to set as a standard, but I think this might be a valid point. While working on the scape doll's board info, I realized that the rarity of the board and the rarity of the item are different. While I don't think this is a common occurrence, I think we should address it before we begin a mass implementation of synth board tables, especially since the board rarity is never mentioned anywhere. I suggest changing the title of the table to the board name and then changing the current board name cell to indicate rarity. Like so:

[B] Scape Doll
Food	Hustle Berry x5	Chemical	Omega Acid x2
[B] Uses	1	Base Rate	100%
Synth Time	00:00	[B] Rarity	7★

I think we should do this, unless we're going to make individual pages for each board. Actually, that's something else. Should we do that, or just make a synth board redirect to the page of the item it creates? EspioKaos 18:40, 13 August 2007 (BST)

I'd be all for individual pages for boards, but the simplicity of putting board and item on one page is clear to me as well. --Beatrixkiddo 23:17, 13 August 2007 (BST)

• I have to admit, I'm not much a fan of this style. Why?

Title goes here
Material 1	Material 2
Material 3	Material 4
Synth Detail 1	Synth Detail 2
Synth Detail 3	Synth Detail 4

Seems a very strange way of arranging it to me, and not particularly conductive to finding out the desired information on a synthesis quickly. Additionally, there's a lot of "style="background:sixcharacters"" expressions in there which - while easily eliminated by a template - would surely be better off made header cells (start with ! instead of | ) and then just make the "title" cell darker manually.

If I may pitch in a couple of ideas:

Horizontal Item Details [B] Needed [B] Uses Synth Time Base Rate [B] Item x 0hrs 100% Materials Photon Ore Metal Wood <photon> <ore> <metal> <wood>

Vertical Item Details Materials [B] Needed [B] Item Photon <photon> [B] Uses x Ore <ore> Synth Time 0hrs Metal <metal> Base Rate 100% Wood <wood>

Actually, the code for the second one isn't edit-friendly at all. But some might prefer the look so I'll leave it there. - Miraglyth 00:07, 14 August 2007 (BST)

• • I like how the vertical version looks. One problem, though: what to do with the empty cells for boards that have less than four materials? Also, I still favor the idea of keeping the title of the table the name of the board it's about. EspioKaos 16:24, 14 August 2007 (BST)
• I do too, come to think of it.

The "number of materials" thing could do with exploration. By nature, all weapons require four (Photons, Ores, Metals, Wood) and some line shields require four (Photons, Ores, Materials, sometimes event drops). Then there are Food and Item boards which take two (Natural Materials, Chemicals), Decoration boards which take two (Special Materials, Wood) and finally Grinder / Material Upgrade boards which use just one (Grinder bases and the materials, respectively).

It's the last two that bother me, since those won't fit into the "vertical with oddly-grouped" setup either. - Miraglyth 18:35, 14 August 2007 (BST)

• • We could always take the route of unique tables for each type of synthesis board, but do what we can to make them all have the same general feel. Maybe? I'll give some more thought to it to see if I can come up with another design. EspioKaos 19:10, 14 August 2007 (BST)
  • Having come back to this after a couple of weeks, the answer seems pretty simple: Given that Line Shields sometimes have an "event" material (the field for which could be left blank for the rest), all synthesis categories require either 1 (Grinders), 2 (Decos, Items, Food) or 4 (Weapons, Line Shields) materials. This is very friendly to the "Horizontal Item" layout above as 4 is divisible by 1, 2 and 4 hence colspan would work nicely. Observe:

Sori-senba
Details	[B] Needed	[B] Uses	Synth Time	Base Rate
	[B] Sori-senba	3	8h	1%
Materials	Photon	Ore	Material	Event
	Ray-photon x15	Vestaline x25	Ortaresin x35	<none>

Monomate
Details	[B] Needed	[B] Uses	Synth Time	Base Rate
	[B] Monomate	20	0h	100%
Materials	Natural		Chemical
	Sweet Berry		Trans Acid

Airboard
Details	[B] Needed	[B] Uses	Synth Time	Base Rate
	[B] Parum Souvenir	1	15m	60%
Materials	Ingredient
	Par Ash x20

• Just keeping the ideas going. - Miraglyth 03:10, 11 September 2007 (BST)
  • That does work very nicely. I like it! Perhaps details and materials could be put in bold, however. I think that might look even better. EspioKaos 03:22, 11 September 2007 (BST)
    • ...agreed. They actually are in that vertical table. I missed it in the first horizontal table though, and the following examples carried that mistake down ^^ - Miraglyth 18:54, 11 September 2007 (BST)

Closed polls

Please see this page for the archive of closed polls.

Unit article template

Please cast your vote on which of the following designs you prefer for individual unit articles. Voting will be open until 12:00a.m. CST Tuesday, September 18. Also, if you have a design of your own, please feel free to submit it for voting. When casting your vote, remember to highlight your choice in bold print and follow it up with your signature.

Proposal #1

Proposal #2

• Proposal #2 - Basically, it's the same thing as the first proposal, however open space has been condensed in the stats table (at the suggestion of Beatrix) and the redundant unit descriptor in the pricing table has been removed. EspioKaos 00:39, 11 September 2007 (BST)
• Proposal #2 - Definitely. I was more than half asleep when I made the Orpad/Guard one. --Qwerty 00:42, 11 September 2007 (BST)
• Proposal #2 - Mewn 01:05, 11 September 2007 (BST)
• Proposal #2: - This is a bit of a joke. - Miraglyth 02:50, 11 September 2007 (BST)
  • Heh, well I just wanted to make it official. Also, it leaves the floor open for suggestions. Of course, whether or not we see anything else is a different story. To be honest, though, maybe a vote isn't necessary on all aspects of standardization. Perhaps just the ones where multiple, independently unique ideas are presented should be voted on? EspioKaos 03:10, 11 September 2007 (BST)
  • Neither of these are complete templates if they don't offer all of the possible fields. Unless you are just talking about how it should look and not creating an actual template (potentially for each type of unit), these won't work because they don't have fields for each of the possible boosts (END/ATA/ATP/EVA/DFP/TECH/MENT). --JustTrio 15:15, 14 September 2007 (BST)
  • I doubt these are actual templates in the sense of there being a Template:Unit or whatever. It's just how it should look, and manually editing it for the appropriate stat boosts is easy, and better than having every stat for every unit when clearly individual units don't boost even half of them. - Mewn 15:22, 14 September 2007 (BST)
    • Exactly. Each type of unit will have the appropriate fields in its article. EspioKaos 15:37, 14 September 2007 (BST)
• Proposal #2 - Any reason we aren't creating templates any more? --JustTrio 11:18, 16 September 2007 (BST)
  • There's no reason we can't, as can be seen by the recently created enemy profile template. It would be a great time-saver. Personally, I just need to learn how to make the larger templates. XD EspioKaos 16:21, 16 September 2007 (BST)
• With the close of the poll, proposal #2 is the new standard. - EspioKaos 12:14, 18 September 2007 (BST)