Zone page refreshing
Brend
Mercury
Stuiter
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Zone page refreshing
Brend » Tue Feb 28, 2012 12:21 am
I discovered a serious issue on the rules namespace; the Write-a-Thon completely missed all zone pages.
All zone pages, such as Organics Zone...
I'll start on this in the coming weekend, and any help would be appreciated.
All zone pages, such as Organics Zone...
- ...use broken datalists for climates,
- ...seem to have broken links to old system creation pages,
- ...and the 'all zones' link links to a page without a zone listing.
I'll start on this in the coming weekend, and any help would be appreciated.
Mercury » Wed Feb 29, 2012 12:02 am
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Mercury - Storyteller
I looked at all the raw material zones pages and added tables. If everyone agrees with that layout, I'll try to get the other zones done tomorrow.
I don't know what to do with the "All Zones" list yet. Should we make a separate page with a list of all zones? Zones currently don't have a data model, so we could theoretically make one...
I don't know what to do with the "All Zones" list yet. Should we make a separate page with a list of all zones? Zones currently don't have a data model, so we could theoretically make one...
Brend » Wed Feb 29, 2012 12:28 am
I have tried some things, and I ended up with a small change, viewable at Organics Zone.
It's basically a strong reduction of the table size of the climates listing. The idea is that the actual information on the climate can be viewed at that climate's page, and that only information of relevance should be shown. This has two benefits: the table is less imposing on the zone's page (the page is about the zone after all, and the climates are just a small part of the available boosts), and it invites people to go to the climate's page, and have a look around there.
While not all climate pages contain the most inspiring content, they do contain links to other relevant pages. And over time the climate pages might accumulate some extra content in the form of a flavour text and possibly one or two links two example worlds.
Feel free to build upon this idea further.
As to the data entries for the zone types: this might be useful. Shall I look into this in the coming weekend?
(Musings, ignore at will: We might look into a generic production boost data entry, though this is difficult to realize with the current data plugins.)
It's basically a strong reduction of the table size of the climates listing. The idea is that the actual information on the climate can be viewed at that climate's page, and that only information of relevance should be shown. This has two benefits: the table is less imposing on the zone's page (the page is about the zone after all, and the climates are just a small part of the available boosts), and it invites people to go to the climate's page, and have a look around there.
While not all climate pages contain the most inspiring content, they do contain links to other relevant pages. And over time the climate pages might accumulate some extra content in the form of a flavour text and possibly one or two links two example worlds.
Feel free to build upon this idea further.
As to the data entries for the zone types: this might be useful. Shall I look into this in the coming weekend?
(Musings, ignore at will: We might look into a generic production boost data entry, though this is difficult to realize with the current data plugins.)
Stuiter » Wed Feb 29, 2012 11:40 am
It looks good.
Simple and clear.
The old page looks indeed to much like climates and is too extensive.
You should only put the relevant information on the page.
There are a lot of realtionship with thing that can influence it.
Especially for metal and gas, you can spent special point on them.
Just put up a small summarie of the effects and leave the rest of to that page.
Simple and clear.
The old page looks indeed to much like climates and is too extensive.
You should only put the relevant information on the page.
There are a lot of realtionship with thing that can influence it.
Especially for metal and gas, you can spent special point on them.
Just put up a small summarie of the effects and leave the rest of to that page.
Mercury » Wed Feb 29, 2012 11:36 pm
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Mercury - Storyteller
I added a List of Zones page and fixed up the raw material zones pages. I think they should be good now. Will look at the Product and Special zones later.
Brend » Thu Mar 01, 2012 12:29 am
None of the other things have 'list of' pages; why do we need a dedicated list of zones page?
I'd rather have the list of zones at the bottom of the zones page, as we do with all 'listables'. This keeps the relevant links on the page where everyone ends up, reducing the effort required to find a certain listable.
--
Related: I found at least a few references to 'primary' and 'secondary' zones, for example Products. But these are not concepts we clarify in the rules.
This raises the question of understandability: I know that Mercury meant this as 'primary' = 'raw materials', 'secondary' = 'goods processing zones', 'tertiary' = 'supporting zones'. But new players that weren't here when the game started might miss this distinction, especially since the goods themselves are not classified as such, and the list of zones (where-ever it is located) does not classifiy them as such.
Since Tertiary Zones are actually a whole group unto themselves (a rather large one, as nearly every other zone can be 'tertiaried' in theory) I propose that we classify as follows:
This is basically Mercury's original classification, with an added Infrastructure bracket.
Incidentally, adopting this classification and clarifying it might clear up Clarification request: Focus and infrastructure zones as well; focus simply ignores Tertiary and Infrastructure zones.
If we can reach agreement on this, I will wrap up all the work into a big ball of 'datafication, classification and listing' that I will pick up friday.
(Footnote: In the current zone listing seems to include Tertiary Zones, Power Zones and Open Market Zones in the Special Goods grouping -- which is weird for multiple reasons, whatever classification we adopt.)
I'd rather have the list of zones at the bottom of the zones page, as we do with all 'listables'. This keeps the relevant links on the page where everyone ends up, reducing the effort required to find a certain listable.
--
Related: I found at least a few references to 'primary' and 'secondary' zones, for example Products. But these are not concepts we clarify in the rules.
This raises the question of understandability: I know that Mercury meant this as 'primary' = 'raw materials', 'secondary' = 'goods processing zones', 'tertiary' = 'supporting zones'. But new players that weren't here when the game started might miss this distinction, especially since the goods themselves are not classified as such, and the list of zones (where-ever it is located) does not classifiy them as such.
Since Tertiary Zones are actually a whole group unto themselves (a rather large one, as nearly every other zone can be 'tertiaried' in theory) I propose that we classify as follows:
- Primary Zones: These zones gather raw materials.
- Secondary Zones: These zones process goods. This includes both the normal products, and the special goods.
- Tertiary Zones: These zones boost the output of another type of zone. (i.e., the Gasses Tertiary Zone boosts the output of all Gasses Zones; and the Power Tertiary Zone boosts the output of all Power Zones)
- Infrastructure Zones: Any zone that is not Primary, Seconday or Tertiary. Will include Open Market Zone, Power Zone, and others like Military Zone or Planetary Shielding.
This is basically Mercury's original classification, with an added Infrastructure bracket.
Incidentally, adopting this classification and clarifying it might clear up Clarification request: Focus and infrastructure zones as well; focus simply ignores Tertiary and Infrastructure zones.
If we can reach agreement on this, I will wrap up all the work into a big ball of 'datafication, classification and listing' that I will pick up friday.
(Footnote: In the current zone listing seems to include Tertiary Zones, Power Zones and Open Market Zones in the Special Goods grouping -- which is weird for multiple reasons, whatever classification we adopt.)
Mercury » Thu Mar 01, 2012 7:42 pm
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Mercury - Storyteller
I've moved the zone list to the zones page (zone pages will need updating but will do that later once we decided on division)
I support Brends proposal for zone division, but I'm not fully happy mixing Product zones and Special Goods zones - they seem different to me.
I'm also not entirely sure if the naming scheme should be kept - primary, secondary and tertiary works well, but infrastructure is a bit of an odd duck in the bite there.
Anyone have any suggestions?
I support Brends proposal for zone division, but I'm not fully happy mixing Product zones and Special Goods zones - they seem different to me.
I'm also not entirely sure if the naming scheme should be kept - primary, secondary and tertiary works well, but infrastructure is a bit of an odd duck in the bite there.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Brend » Fri Mar 02, 2012 4:19 pm
(!) When I want to indicate the current 'Tertiary Zone'-type (i.e. the one that gives +15 production bonus to all zones that produce a single good on that planet) I'll use the term Booster zone.
Skip to the yellow text to skip to the summary.
It was your own division
This confused me as well, as the first time I encountered the terms 'Primary Zone', 'Secondary Zone' and 'Tertiary Zone' I wasn't aware of their meanings -- I just assumed that Special Goods were produced by Tertiary Zones, as they used products produced in Secondary Zones.
Nowadays I think that the product zones and special goods zones aren't that different. True, the product the produce is used for different things, but in the end they just munch up goods, and produce goods. But I can see how this might be confusing the issue, especially if we just call them Secondary Zones.
The (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary) scheme is lifted directly from the three-sector hypothesis. As such the scheme comes with it's own semantics embedded in real-world economical theorizing. Strict adherence to this scheme would provide the following division:
This division is clearly unsatisfactory, as it does not allow us to indicate the set of Booster-zones as separate from the infrastructural zones. However, we wish to separate the zones producing Special Goods from those producing Products. Hence the following proposal.
Understanding why we divide the zones is important to answer this question. Base on the current use (i.e. the fact that rules refer to groups of zones) and the high probability of new zones and laws about zones I would suggest the a tiering scheme.
In the tiering scheme, we use the primary position of the zone in the economic chain to classify the zone. Each higher tier uses goods produced by a lower tier. For example, The
Zone is a Second Tier zone, as it depends only on First Tier goods ( 
+ 
). This is easy to explain, and does away with the distinction between special goods and products, while still taking into account the zone's placement in the overall economy.
All tiers taken together form the set of Industry Zones. Industry zones are unique in the fact that they produce goods, optionally consuming other goods to do so. Next to the Industry zones are the Support zones. Support zones are those zones that directly influence one or more other zones. The final group are the Infrastructure zones, these support the whole economy by providing required utilities or other services.
The scheme is illustrated below (including assignment of current zones):
The advantages of the tiering scheme are:
However, I have also identified at least as many disadvantages:
These disadvantages are mitigateable though:
The tiering scheme allows for easier extension of the scheme with for example a classification of 'Military Zones'. This would not be an odd one out, but a natural extension of the scheme. We will have to take care not to spawn a superfluous amount of distinct classifications though; I propose that we only create a new classification if the classification will contain at least six zones (number arbitrarily chosen to resemble the size of the First Tier).
The Special Goods issue is not resolvable by defining an extra classification. However, I do not envision any Fourth Tier products coming up for inclusion in the near future, as we still have some Raw Material + Product combinations left. Should the case come up, we should handle it exactly like the scheme suggest, the zone becomes a Fourth Tier zone. The Fourth Tier good is after all not just a Special Good, it is Special Special Good!
The last disadvantage is that of ambiguous classification. We can not take away this issue, as it is inherent in any classification system that is also at least remotely usable. I therefore propose that we do this by common sense. If the primary function of a zone is to boost the production of one or more other zones by whatever means (e.g. consumption of
) we classify it as a Support Zone, and if a zone provides a service for the whole economy (such as the generation of 
through the consumption of ) it is classified as an Infrastructure Zone.
An interesting note on the tiering scheme is the fact that we can very easily project it back onto the The (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary) scheme of the three-sector hypothesis. I leave this as an exercise to the reader.
Summary
Divide zones as shown below, and fix any ambiguous zones by common sense.
(PS. barring any negative replies, I will work on the necessary wiki changes this evening, hopefully around 19:30ish. Iwill include the zones page, the zone pages, and the necessary 'Xth Tier Zone' pages and the 'Support Zone' and 'Infrastructure Zone' page.)
Skip to the yellow text to skip to the summary.
Mercury wrote:I support Brends proposal for zone division, but I'm not fully happy mixing Product zones and Special Goods zones - they seem different to me.
It was your own division
This confused me as well, as the first time I encountered the terms 'Primary Zone', 'Secondary Zone' and 'Tertiary Zone' I wasn't aware of their meanings -- I just assumed that Special Goods were produced by Tertiary Zones, as they used products produced in Secondary Zones.
Nowadays I think that the product zones and special goods zones aren't that different. True, the product the produce is used for different things, but in the end they just munch up goods, and produce goods. But I can see how this might be confusing the issue, especially if we just call them Secondary Zones.
Mercury wrote:I'm also not entirely sure if the naming scheme should be kept - primary, secondary and tertiary works well, but infrastructure is a bit of an odd duck in the bite there.
The (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary) scheme is lifted directly from the three-sector hypothesis. As such the scheme comes with it's own semantics embedded in real-world economical theorizing. Strict adherence to this scheme would provide the following division:
- {
, 
, 
, 
, , }-zones in the Primary bracket, - {
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, , , 
, 
, 
, 
, 
}-zones in the Secondary Bracket - { , Open Market, booster }-zones in the Tertiary Bracket (under the reasoning that offering infrastructure is a service)
This division is clearly unsatisfactory, as it does not allow us to indicate the set of Booster-zones as separate from the infrastructural zones. However, we wish to separate the zones producing Special Goods from those producing Products. Hence the following proposal.
Mercury wrote:Anyone have any suggestions?
Understanding why we divide the zones is important to answer this question. Base on the current use (i.e. the fact that rules refer to groups of zones) and the high probability of new zones and laws about zones I would suggest the a tiering scheme.
In the tiering scheme, we use the primary position of the zone in the economic chain to classify the zone. Each higher tier uses goods produced by a lower tier. For example, The
Zone is a Second Tier zone, as it depends only on First Tier goods ( + ). This is easy to explain, and does away with the distinction between special goods and products, while still taking into account the zone's placement in the overall economy.All tiers taken together form the set of Industry Zones. Industry zones are unique in the fact that they produce goods, optionally consuming other goods to do so. Next to the Industry zones are the Support zones. Support zones are those zones that directly influence one or more other zones. The final group are the Infrastructure zones, these support the whole economy by providing required utilities or other services.
The scheme is illustrated below (including assignment of current zones):
- First Tier: Any zone not consuming products produced by other zones: { , , , , , }.
- Second Tier: All zones that use only First Tier goods: { , , , , , , , , , , }
- Third Tier: All zones that use Second Tier goods: { , , , }
- Support: All zones that directly influence any other zone: all booster zones
- Infrastructure: All zones that provide some feature or service to the economy as a whole: { , Open Market }
The advantages of the tiering scheme are:
- Any zone that consumes and produces goods can be put in an appropriate tier. This makes sure that however many levels the economic system accrues over time, any zone can be put in the correct tier.
- Special goods are separated while not forming an exception. They are not 'Secondary Zones that deserve special mention', they are Third Tier zones.
However, I have also identified at least as many disadvantages:
- Certain zones won't lend themselves to being called Infrastructure: take, for example, the Fleet Port Zone (this is a hypothetical zone that might be designed to accommodate the Military rules). while it does not fit any of the other classifications, 'Infrastructure' might not be the most applicable term either. The same is true for a Planetary Shield Zone.
- The way current special goods are handled seems clear. But what happens when someone comes up with a Special Goods that is constructed as follows: + = Colonization Modules. According to the tiering scheme, a zone that produces this new special good would be a Fourth Tier zone, thus splitting the 'Special Goods' zones.
- It is unclear where zones go that DO consume goods, but that do not produce other goods. Depending in their function these might be either Xth Tier zones, Support Zones (e.g., consumes to increase production), or Infrastructure Zones (e.g., consumes to generator more ).
These disadvantages are mitigateable though:
The tiering scheme allows for easier extension of the scheme with for example a classification of 'Military Zones'. This would not be an odd one out, but a natural extension of the scheme. We will have to take care not to spawn a superfluous amount of distinct classifications though; I propose that we only create a new classification if the classification will contain at least six zones (number arbitrarily chosen to resemble the size of the First Tier).
The Special Goods issue is not resolvable by defining an extra classification. However, I do not envision any Fourth Tier products coming up for inclusion in the near future, as we still have some Raw Material + Product combinations left. Should the case come up, we should handle it exactly like the scheme suggest, the zone becomes a Fourth Tier zone. The Fourth Tier good is after all not just a Special Good, it is Special Special Good!
The last disadvantage is that of ambiguous classification. We can not take away this issue, as it is inherent in any classification system that is also at least remotely usable. I therefore propose that we do this by common sense. If the primary function of a zone is to boost the production of one or more other zones by whatever means (e.g. consumption of
) we classify it as a Support Zone, and if a zone provides a service for the whole economy (such as the generation of through the consumption of ) it is classified as an Infrastructure Zone.An interesting note on the tiering scheme is the fact that we can very easily project it back onto the The (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary) scheme of the three-sector hypothesis. I leave this as an exercise to the reader.
Summary
Divide zones as shown below, and fix any ambiguous zones by common sense.
- First Tier: Any zone not consuming products produced by other zones: { , , , , , }.
- Second Tier: All zones that use only First Tier goods: { , , , , , , , , , , }
- Third Tier: All zones that use Second Tier goods: { , , , }
- Support: All zones that directly influence any other zone: all booster zones
- Infrastructure: All zones that provide some feature or service to the economy as a whole: { , Open Market }
(PS. barring any negative replies, I will work on the necessary wiki changes this evening, hopefully around 19:30ish. Iwill include the zones page, the zone pages, and the necessary 'Xth Tier Zone' pages and the 'Support Zone' and 'Infrastructure Zone' page.)
Mercury » Fri Mar 02, 2012 6:58 pm
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Mercury - Storyteller
I like the tier structure. It breaks with the three sector hypothesis in the original design, but actually keeps a strong link with it, while the tiers make everything much clearer.
I don't think most of the disadvantages currently raised are really an issue as they don't exist yet.
I am unsure about the split between Infrastructure and Support zone however - I don't think there will be other support zones besides booster / tertiary zones. Without other entries, it seems a waste to make a category for one zone. Could we put Support (booster) zones in with the Infrastructure zones in one group perhaps? This would also resolve the issue of where to place new zones -> anything not producing resources directly is in the new category. I'm not sure about a name just yet.
I don't think most of the disadvantages currently raised are really an issue as they don't exist yet.
I am unsure about the split between Infrastructure and Support zone however - I don't think there will be other support zones besides booster / tertiary zones. Without other entries, it seems a waste to make a category for one zone. Could we put Support (booster) zones in with the Infrastructure zones in one group perhaps? This would also resolve the issue of where to place new zones -> anything not producing resources directly is in the new category. I'm not sure about a name just yet.
Brend » Fri Mar 02, 2012 10:09 pm
After out-of-band debate between myself and Mercury we came up with the following scheme based on the tiering scheme: Each zone belongs to a category, and optionally a group within that category.
To keep it simple, I'll just give you the laydown of the current zones in this scheme:
If it becomes necessary we can create groups within the Support category to ensure an clear division. For Example, we might make a group of Military Zones should this be necessary.
To keep it simple, I'll just give you the laydown of the current zones in this scheme:
- Industry Zones
- First Tier Zones: { , , , , , }
- Second Tier Zones: { , , , , ,
, , , , , , } - Third Tier Zones: { , , , }
- First Tier Zones: {
- Augmentation Zones: all booster zones
- Support Zones: { , Open Market Zone}
If it becomes necessary we can create groups within the Support category to ensure an clear division. For Example, we might make a group of Military Zones should this be necessary.
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