Template talk:Trps

Revision?

I have several concerns with this template.

• It's an inefficient use of horizontal space on the suburb pages.
• Fire Stations aren't TRPs, nor are Revive Points or Bulletin Boards. (I'm not saying that these latter locations shouldn't be featured prominently on the burb pages, but let's put them in the right place.)
• For the space they take up, they add only slightly more information than is already present in other templates on the suburb pages.

Is there any support for revising it to address only actual TRPs? Also, I'd like to see each TRP box stretch out for the whole row, and include the following information.

Building Type	Name	X,Y	Barricade Level	Powered?	Ransacked?	Last Update
Auto Repair	The Herman Building	24,26	VS	No	No	Ragged Robin 08:28, 2 April 2007 (BST)
Factory	The Herman Building	24,26	VS	No	No	Ragged Robin 08:28, 2 April 2007 (BST)
Hospital	The Herman Building	24,26	VS	No	No	Ragged Robin 08:28, 2 April 2007 (BST)
	The Herman Building	24,26	VS	No	No	Ragged Robin 08:28, 2 April 2007 (BST)
Mall	none
Necrotech	The Herman Building	24,26	VS	No	No	Ragged Robin 08:28, 2 April 2007 (BST)
Police Department	The Herman Building	24,26	VS	No	No	Ragged Robin 08:28, 2 April 2007 (BST)

i second the motion to revise the template, as Fire Stations are pretty useless indeed and having lists of them, but not lists of factories (for example) is wrong. it indeed needs to be uptodate with what is on TRP. However, your "status report lines" idea is awful, there only should be lists here. --~~~~ [talk] 21:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Why mention fire stations and not bulletin boards? Ive still found some unsprayed. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:46, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm for:

1. removing Fire Stations
2. adding factories
3. maybe adding auto repairs too
4. not touching anything else

--~~~~ [talk] 21:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Factories are a bonus, definately. Would you consider all multi block buildings? Power stations, zoo's etc? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

oh... yes... that would be good i guess... modifying Mall section into "lagre structures"?.. --~~~~ [talk] 22:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for this! This looks much better and looks much more functional as well. User:Pyxzer/sig 12:38, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking good to me. I'm all for it. Spiffy. User:Heron 19:30, 25 November 2009 (EST)

We should totally get people to notice this and change it. Who's in charge of stuff like that anyway? User:Pyxzer/sig 13:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this layout would be an atrocity compared to the old. Now we do need change, and Factories and Auto Repairs have been sorely over looked so I throw my support behind Kittithaj's design in the section below. If perhaps people want to chop Fire Stations at some later point, hopefully I won't be there to see it. Also why not just make it the "Malls or Fort" SectionJD 16:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

How exactly are fire stations TRPs? User:Pyxzer/sig 18:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Status of the TRPs!

I suggest that this template uses Template:Status, rather than putting Wiki links into a list.

Firstly, it would make finding out the status of the building easier to locate. Assuming, of course, that the Danger Reports were updated frequently.

It would also cut down on the amount of building links that lead to disambiguation pages. (For example, I stumbled upon one today whilst looking at St. Odile's Hospital.)

It is bolder, which means it would stand out more than the template does at the moment.

For a version of the template using Template:Status alongside those currently being used, see this page.

---

Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}23:31, 23 October 2009 (BST)

One thing at a time. Althought the status reporters created danger reports for the BIC centres they didn;t actually put all the danger reports on the relevant pages how can people edit them? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 10:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I'll sort that out now. --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}10:58, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I have found the source of this problem. This bot made the danger reports but didn't put them on the pages. I'm using its contributions page to do so. --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}11:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Although the ones by BulkUpdatesBot that arent on the pages aren't the TRPs represented by this template. All Hospitals, Necrotechs, PDs, FSs and Malls are accounted for. Therefore, there should be no problems with this template. Although the Danger Reports still need doing. --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}13:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The bot created all reports some time back with the intent of making everything in the right form at and to see what pages would actually get used. There's a plan to submit the underused reports for A/SD, though there's some issues with a deletion request on this scale. At any rate, I would recommend you don't add reports to pages blindly, as that'll just make more work when somebody has to remove them.

All that said however, you should be safe to apply the automated template on TRPs, as those won't get deleted. --  RoosterDragon  15:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Another version of the template, with Factories replacing Fire Statios, ARs replacing Bulletin boards and RPs removed. See the earlier link. --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}16:31, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

My only issue with this is the status reporters themselves, very blocky. Can we not make them rounded or something? The little green blocks would look much better like traffic lights? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 16:55, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Overall I like the idea, but I think the locations of bulletin boards and RPs still need to be up there somewhere. Otherwise I think it's a great improvement (especially if people start updating status reports more often), and definitely approve of removing FS and adding factories. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 05:43, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Remember the aesthetic look of the template. Hagnat had all colors aligned nicely - red fire stations with pink hospitals, dark blue Necrotech buildings with light blue police departments. Removing fire stations would mess up the delicate harmony of the layout.

I propose adding factories and auto repairs together, since they already have matching dark gray/light gray colors, and remove nothing. Like this:

Fire Stations {{{FSs}}}	Hospitals {{{Hs}}}
NecroTech Facilities {{{NTs}}}	Police Departments {{{PDs}}}
Factories {{{Fs}}}	Auto Repair Shops {{{ARs}}}
Malls {{{Malls}}}	Bulletin Boards unknown
Revive Points {{{RPs}}}

The idea of adding auto-update status reports is also nice. One problem though, I don't think they'll be used enough. Sure, NTs will be most frequently updated. And after them, hospitals and PDs. But I don't think we'll see people updating fire stations, let alone factories and auto repairs. -- Kittithaj 20:09, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, statuses of each NT buildings are already shown on the suburb template. So it's kind of redundant to show them again.

Anyway, one of Duke Garland's from last year was "inefficient use of horizontal space." So I propose another layout:

Fire Stations {{{FSs}}}	Hospitals {{{Hs}}}	Factories {{{Fs}}}
Police Departments {{{PDs}}}	NecroTech Facilities {{{NTs}}}	Auto Repair Shops {{{ARs}}}
Malls {{{Malls}}}	Revive Points {{{RPs}}}	Bulletin Boards unknown

Intuitively, fire stations and police departments are grouped together. Also in the same column are malls, another source for ammunition. Health buildings - hospitals and NTs - are grouped together in the second column, with revive points. Fuel depots are grouped last, with bulletin boards.

What do you think? -- Kittithaj 19:15, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I still say kill Fire Stations with - well - fire. Damn them I say! They're not goddamned TRPs and it's time to end their stint on this template. I propose a 2 column layout and just have it width=100% to take up the room, it also works better for people who don't have enough screen width for 3 columns which will probably squash horribly. It usually has to contend with both the suburb template and contents so it won't get that that much room.

I'd like to see:

Malls {{{Mall}}}	NecroTech Facilities {{{NT}}}
Hospitals {{{H}}}	Police Departments {{{PD}}}
Auto Repair Shops {{{ARS}}}	Factories {{{F}}}
Bulletin Boards {{{Board}}}	Revive Points {{{RP}}}

Ok, so the colours are less aligned, oh well. They're done by importance instead. Malls/NTs are the highest. The Hospital/PD partnership and then the lesser ARS/Factory combo. Remember you could also change the board/RP colours to whatever you like.

Concerning the NT's on the suburb template. Removing them would be best. They're a relic that Swiers chucked onto it way back when the NT Status Map was updated separately from danger reports (another 100 templates you had to keep in sync by hand with the reports, it never worked :P). I kept them working after I pulled the map into the 21st century, but they're clunky and this works better. They can go if we use this method instead. --  RoosterDragon  19:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Going by TRP, this template should include Auto Repairs, Forts, Malls, Hospitals, NT Buildings and Police Depts.

Including an area for forts in the global template seems silly; instead a "buildings of note" area could be introduced, which could list anything of note within the suburb, going where Bulletin Boards now reside. Though apart from Forts, I can't see any other uses for this section. --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}22:42, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Would simply making the first box "Malls & Forts" be an acceptable answer? --  RoosterDragon  22:55, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Yes it would. --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}23:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Why not make it multi block structures? Forts, Malls, Power Stations, Stadiums, Cathedrals and Mansions? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 15:14, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Not all multi-block structures are TRPs, so I don't think it would make sense for all of them, though it's worth considering, certainly. I'm also curious about the color choices, but I feel like I'm missing something, so I apologize if I'm unaware of some legacy reason for why these colors are in use. Wouldn't it be better to use colors that provide better visual identification and contrast for the different TRPs? The new barricade plan templates provide just that, and if we used those colors we'd also have more of the templates standardized on one color scheme for the TRPs. To borrow from The Rooster's last example, I've posted an example here (I arranged it to match the barricade plan's key (alphabetical), but the arrangement isn't the point).

As it is now with the colors, several of them are drab and bland enough that they all seem to run together, such that I can't keep track of which means what at a glance. For instance, without looking, I couldn't tell you which TRP is gray with no border, which is gray with a border, which is off-white, etc., and I'm guessing most wiki users couldn't either. These newer colors provide much better identification and aid in scanning directly to the section that's desired. But again, if I'm missing a legacy reason for why the current colors are in use, I'll acquiesce on the point. —Aichon— 20:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The current colour scheme is being used because they are the colours of the TRPs on the map, so people can more easily recognize them. --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}20:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

To answer Roselessness' original question, we're talking about Tactical Resource Points here. Multi-block structures are not within our scope. While Power Stations may count as TRPs, Stadiums, Cathedrals, and Mansions are definitely not.

Now, for The Rooster's proposal, the color alignment is not that bad, as long as it isn't compared to the old layout. My main concern is putting the Mall cell up first. Since only 24 suburbs have malls, those first cells of other 76 suburbs will be left blank, which is a bit weird-looking. But all in all, they're just aesthetics. And we can all agree that form mustn't takes precedent over function.

As for using "Mall & Forts", I also find it... strange, because there are 20 malls and only 2 forts. Using "&" to group them together seems to indicate that there are as many forts as malls, which there aren't. For forts case, I should points to the suburb template of 4 suburbs that contain forts themselves (Pitneybank, Peppardville, Pennville, and Whittenside). Forts are already listed under "Key buildings --> Others". So they don't need to show up again. Pitneybank holds both fort and mall, so the idea of putting those two together in one cell is even more strange.

As for adding status "lights" to the template, the same problem still stands. They will only be frequently updated for malls and NTs, seldom for hospitals and PDs, and hardly for factories and ARs. Maybe we should only add for the first four types. I also disagree with removing NTs status from suburb template, they work fine where they are, and people are used to them. Instead, we should put fort statuses (and perhaps coordinates) in those suburb templates. After all, there are only two forts. Just deal with them like an exception of the rules, instead of basing whole new template design around it.

And please, keep the colors the way they are. The system is in use for a long time and consistent with the in-game map itself. Color-coding barricade plans that way is fine, since they're barricade plans after all. But changing colors of this template would conflict with suburb maps and the game itself, causing much confusion. -- Kittithaj 20:55, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't think 25% ish coverage for malls is too bad all things considered. They're pretty important after all. I did have a clever plan to use magic so the malls section became forts for the involved suburbs, but damned Pitneybank had to go and have both.

As far as the key buildings nonsense goes. I find it a useless duplication of this template. Fixing this template would provide the perfect excuse to ditch the whole thing (especially the "others" section which creates a text wrapping abomination against nature) including the NT status bits, which I again would like to note my dislike of.

If the status was more intrusive I might agree it was too much. But it's just a nice brief coloured box. It's basically just an up-sized version of the current bullet point but with added function. Who cares if some buildings are mostly grey?

I agree, we do indeed need to keep the colours matching the map. There's no set standard for a "clearer" colour scheme (though I wish there was!) so it would confuse people if there was a mismatch.

Anyway, disregarding the suburb template for a moment, it otherwise sounds like you just want to swap the positions a bit and fix the malls/forts issue. My less magical solution would be to subst the template on the forts suburbs and change the mall header to a fort one for them (Pitneybank would get the section divided into two). (alternative: one template with mall/fort magic, subst and fix problematic Pitneybank)

I don't know how much that sways you. More thoughts from all please. --  RoosterDragon  23:10, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm still kind of unsure how I would want things aligned, particularly because (as was noted) not all suburbs have Malls... or even NTs. So I do not think I would want either of those near the top. In addition, with the NT status in the Suburb template (as well as NTs and Malls having their own status maps) I do not think that displaying the status of TRPs is all that necessary. I would say better to have some kind of link to each suburb's BIC instead.

I think Rooster's idea for dealing with malls/forts is a good one; I know I cannot think of a better solution at the moment. Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 08:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

No coordinates, firestations

Just wanted to keep this discussion separate from danger status. The new template should do away with the coordinates (5,63) etc. The suburb map itself doesn't use coordinates, and people find the building on the suburb map by looking for the name of the buildings, not imagining a coordinate grid in their minds. Providing the coordinates on the template doesn't add any useful info and it causes clutter and text-wrap.

Just disagreeing massively here. Yes In Malton they may seem a bit redundant, but in perma death cities they are a must. Having a suburb 5 times the size makes such information much more important. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 08:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't even think about the other cities. Good point.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 13:01, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

You could get round that problem by making a separate template for the perma death cities No NT's anyway.--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 13:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Trps borehamwood oh look we did. Sylistically anything you do to one template, can it be done to this one as well? Thanks. Monroeville we just dumped the raw template code on the pages, so it doesn't need to be altered really. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 13:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Also the firestations have got to go. --_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 11:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Just had another thought. One thing that's nice about the old template is the ability to abbreviate the names of certain locations. Police Departments are listed as Crew Avenue PD, Vincent Square PD. It saves space and makes using a 3-wide template feasible. Also, listing "police department" after each PD is redundant. Same with Hospitals. Their names could be shortened to just "Cyril", "Etheldreda General" etc. And NT's could lose the "building" designation. I'm mentioning this only because it might help to cram in a 3-wide template and save verticle space.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 11:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

New player input

Hello I am a new player and usually new users have valuable insight into usability.

I would like to say I do not like the current template or page at all. These wiki pages are incredibly important to the game but relevant information is too spread out and hard to find with a lot of chit chat in between.

I am going to make a slight side track and mention this is valid critique of the main page as well (in the hopes of someone important reading this). 'the game' navigation on the left is junk with nothing usable. The usable stuff is at the bottom where I found the link to the suburb map which without this game is very unplayable (You can't just wander about exploring with only 50AP).

The first suggestion in condense table form is something that is definitely needed. And it should be at the top of the page. The last news report should be above or below that with a link to archived news, far far below. The descriptive suburb text should come in 3rd place without a content box (I know you can hide it but its totally unnecessary). This ranks the information in order of importance, the way it should be.

Co-ordinates - had no idea what those odd numbers were. Still have no use for them. Firestations - I can understand experienced players don't care, but they are still important for me. Someone said I should find an axe there since the PD I couldn't even get in! Then I found a radio and I want more flare guns! Since I don't have bullets. For me, Firestations are only second in importance to Hospitals.

The person who did the updating and definitely the time to the minute they did it is not important to me and the only people who know what BST is are british people. Aren't you guys proud of GMT?

Individual pages for each building is redundant and just spreads out the info making it harder to find. News info about the siege at the hospital is relevant for the entire suburb and shouldn't be hidden behind one more link.

I hope every time VVS+2 or whatever abbreviation is used, it is linked to an explanatory help page.

I hope my critique has been constructive and taken into consideration because this wiki experience was very frustrating as a new user. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Booban1 (talk • contribs) 04:23, 27 November 2009.

You have some good points Booban1. User:Pyxzer/sig 04:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Booban, and welcome. Firstly, although it'll seem important now, that fire station has already outlived its usefulness to you if you've got your axe - you only ever need one, so after that it's mostly just another building to you. Its status as a TRP is non-existant since its ownly vital commodity (the fire axe) can also be found in factories, which also provide generators and the like, obsoleting the fire station. Secondly, I do agree about the main page being a bit counter-productive, but I've always found that the best place to start with the wiki is to go straight to the page for your current location, and look around from there. Everything else is good reading for when you've APed out and want to plan ahead. Lastly, minor point, but the times are logged whenever someone timestamps something, either by signing it with four tildes (~~~~) or adding just the timestamp with five tildes (~~~~~). There's no unified time standard for these since it keys off the preferences of the user who logged it - if something is stamped by a user in British Summer Time (which is now over for the winter), it'll display the time in BST. Usually the date matters more than the time, though, as something that's two days old is just as out of date as something two days and three hours old. Welcome aboard, though, and thanks for your input - it's always good to see new players get involved from the get-go. 05:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Continuing onwards...

Ok so things stalled a bit. So I think some quick opinions are in order:

Part 1: This template

1. Fire Stations: Keep/Kill?
2. Factories: Add/Forget?
3. Boards: Keep/Kill?
4. Revive Points: Keep/Kill?
5. 'Status Lights': Add/Forget?
6. Co-ordinates: Keep/Kill?
7. Columns: 2/3?
8. Names: Full/Shortened/Minimum?

Naming Examples:

• The Something Building/Something Building/Something
• Example Place Fire Station/Example Place FS/Example Place

Part 2: The suburb template

1. Listing TRP counts: Keep/Kill?
2. Listing other buildings: Keep/Kill?
3. NT Status: Keep/Kill?

For other cities, we'd be keeping the co-ords and not using the status lights regardless.

My quick replies:

Part 1:

1. Fire Stations: Kill
2. Factories: Add
3. Boards: Keep
4. Revive Points: Kill
5. 'Status Lights': Add
6. Co-ordinates: Keep
7. Columns: 2
8. Names: Shortened

Part 2:

1. Listing TRP counts: Kill
2. Listing other buildings: Kill
3. NT Status: Kill

--  RoosterDragon  19:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

As Rooster on the other cities.

My quick replies:

Part 1:

1. Fire Stations: Kill
2. Factories: Add
3. Boards: Kill
4. Revive Points: Keep
5. 'Status Lights': Add
6. Co-ordinates: Keep
7. Columns: 2
8. Names: Shortened

Part 2:

1. Listing TRP counts: Kill
2. Listing other buildings: Keep
3. NT Status: Kill

--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Part 1:

1. Fire Stations: Kill - They aren't TRPs, and I don't understand why they were ever included in the template.
2. Factories: Add - They are TRPs, so deserve a place on the template.
3. Boards: Kill - I personally have never used a board, nor ever realised when looking at one. In my opinion, shouldn't be included.
4. Revive Points: Keep - Important part of the suburb, which is closely linked with NTs.
5. 'Status Lights': Add - It was my initial proposal to add them.
6. Co-ordinates: Keep - Important for anyone looking up the TRPs in a suburb.
7. Columns: 2 - 3 Makes the template look too bulky.
8. Names: Minimum - There's no need to add in "Police Department", or even "PD" in a section about Police Departments.

Part 2:

1. Listing TRP Counts: Keep - It's helpful to someone looking over the suburb quickly to know the number of a certain TRP in a suburb.
2. Listing other buildings: Keep - Assuming this is used for Malls, Forts and places like Mobile Phone masts. This is useful, and they have DangerReport pags, so why not?
3. NT Status: Keep? - It doesn't really much matter to me whether or not they are kept, because I rarely see them.

---

Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}11:18, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Part 1: This template

1. Fire Stations: Kill
2. Factories: Add
3. Boards: Kill
4. Revive Points: Keep
5. 'Status Lights': Add
6. Co-ordinates: Keep
7. Columns: 2
8. Names: Minimum

Part 2: The suburb template

1. Listing TRP counts: Keep
2. Listing other buildings: Keep
3. NT Status: Keep

User:Pyxzer/sig 11:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)