The AC2 Wiki

[ete]

Added a param for Thread, so now it's easy to link back to the thread you're working on a faction in.

[ete]

Up to 98 factions. Had a name conflict between two factions with a text file called Fascist (Jarl's and an old one), renamed the old one.

[ete]

105, and http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Planet_Insurgency is actually pretty interesting.. I'd like to play against that someday. Spartan special forces with camouflage and 75% atk bonus, but massive defensive penalty. Needs some tweaks but yea, interesting concept.

I probably won't be around much for a few days, but will read everything posted in this thread, the modding forum, and ToE+subforums when I return.

[sisko]

ete, thanks for.. being you! 

[ete]

it's hard to avoid :p

glad to be appreciated

[Sigma]

Wow that is a lot of factions missing graphics.

Hey BU when I have some more free time I would be interesting in collaborating on giving these guys at least some rudimentary graphics. Could we set up like an assembly line to crank through these? I can do portraits and logos if you want bases and diplomacy.

[ete]

Bear in mind a lot of those without graphics actually have graphics, it's just that it's much easier for me to do one big bulk upload rather than upload them one by one. Factions which have an uploaded set of graphics which are massively lacking should be the main targets for now.

There are some without any graphics, but they're a minority. If you want to find out which before I get to the bulk upload feel free to browse my SMAX folder which has all the custom factions I've put on wiki in it (and if you look in the unsorted factions folder, you can find the ones I've not yet added).

[Buster's Uncle]

Wow that is a lot of factions missing graphics.

Hey BU when I have some more free time I would be interesting in collaborating on giving these guys at least some rudimentary graphics. Could we set up like an assembly line to crank through these? I can do portraits and logos if you want bases and diplomacy.

Start a thread in Modding, and let's rock.

[ete]

Could not sleep so I uploaded/checked/fixed another seven factions which brings the total to 112 down, 34 to go. I've developed much faster/more efficient ways of doing this than last time (batches of seven, do each stage for all of them, then next stage for all, etc) so it should take only about 4-5 hours to do the rest.

[ete]

Did most of another seven. This inactivity thing is pretty productive.

[Petek]

Hey ete,

Read your post on CFC about the wiki. One thing that caught my eye was your comment about making backups:

Also, after hearing about the issues with a previous wiki which held much AC info and was lost, I've set it up so any user can make a full backup of content with just a few clicks using Special:Export, and have made recent backups myself.

Could you please provide more details about how to make a backup of the wiki? I assume that you were referring to the lost wiki on WPC, so it's good to have extra copies of the AC2 wiki. You mentioned upthread that you were storing backups of the wiki in the cloud. That's a good idea, but are those backups accessible to other forum admins (such as sisko and Buncle)? Perhaps AC2 should look into a more formal approach to backing up the wiki? I think there are free cloud backup services for relatively small databases.

[ete]

I've set http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgExportAllowAll to true on the wiki, which means that you can go to http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Special:Export tick the export all pages box, untick the export only current version box, and export the full wiki in XML format. In that form it is trivial to restore all but the images to any mediawiki install, and I'll set up a good way to handle images soon (most I have stored in folders already, will likely back them up with a publicly accessible google drive folder). I encourage you and any other interested users to do this.

Backing up the actual wiki database is likely not worthwhile, everything of any value can be backed up in a more easily reusable form with the methods I've described. The only thing that would be lost even if AC2 went down entirely once I've finished the file backup is the user accounts, which are created automatically from forum accounts anyway. And I guess the configuration settings. I'll publish a recent set of localsettings with sensitive data (db passwords and stuff) edited out when I get home.

Also, I'll put my text backups as public on my google drive, just in case I'm not available.

[Buster's Uncle]

You know what I think might actually be good? Making our Faction library more visible on the site and main page. As it stands to get to it you need to naviage through two Wiki pages, and that's assuming you know it's there. Maybe put a link to the wiki list right on the front page, and maybe another at the top bar next to GotM?

The wiki's got a button at the top of every page and that great big hyperlinked logo in the right sidebar - there are limits on how much space can be made.  What if I put a link to the custom factions section in the OP of the Indexing the Network Node Factions thread, and stickied it?  That would do for modder convenience of access, wouldn't it?

[JarlWolf]

That could work. We just need something to catch people's attention is all and easy access.

[Buster's Uncle]

Done.

I could always do a Custom Factions section version of the Wiki logo in the sidebar and change the hyperlink...