Forum:Referral tree templates

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Template Namespace[edit]

I recommend moving these to template namespace if there is no reason to keep them in main namespace. Category:Referral trees —¿philoserf? (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2020 (EDT)

Short answer is yes, I would also recommend the same. Longer answer is the contents of those articles need review. User:BackworldTraveller came up with adding the hidden template to make sure the referral trees don't dominate the articles. I recommend moving them to the bottom of the article under a "See also" header so they don't dominate the articles. The list of articles needs to be reviewed and edited, as I've found as many of half of the entries are redirect links to articles. The Referral list articles, which are a list of similar types of vehicles/starships, could be replaced with a template generating entries from a common category or template entry. It's a task that needs to be done and thank you for considering do this. Tjoneslo (talk) 06:23, 17 June 2020 (EDT)
I agree about moving to a See also section. Perhaps just above Sources. A Wikipedia like bottom of the page navigation box seems right for the biggest trees too. I will have to look more closely at the content and use. —¿philoserf? (talk) 08:20, 17 June 2020 (EDT)
I'd agree that the contents need review. I'd suggest that the links to redirects is a side-effect of continual changes of mind about categorisation. If a particular tree can be agreed, then migrating to that tree's pertinent pages would be a job in itself. I also agree that a common namespace is good...but would it be worth using a name other than Template or is that some hard-coded prefix? If that is possible, the names space Xref or QV or Tree maybe? BackworldTraveller (talk) 09:00, 17 June 2020 (EDT)
p.s. At the end is probably better as the "Show" box of the hidden list tends to get tangled in the info boxes when at the top of the pageBackworldTraveller (talk)
See Traveller:Namespaces, the prefix / namespace "Template:" has a special meaning and allows for special processing within the wiki. Tjoneslo (talk) 17:54, 17 June 2020 (EDT)

Vehicle Template[edit]

Shall I create one and start sorting the pages into that structure?

The current hierarchy is..

  • Vehicle
    • Aircraft
    • Exoticraft
    • Gravcraft
    • Groundcraft
    • Spaceplane
    • Primitive Craft
    • Spacecraft
    • Starcraft
    • Watercraft
  1. Should it extend to include all transport options (Skis, parachute, grav belt)?
  2. Should it also include Railways and Mag-Lev transport systems?
  3. How do we want to categorise things like the DUKW (Groundcraft and Watercraft), Hovercraft (Aircraft and watercraft and ground craft), Ecranoplan (Ground Effect Air/Water Vehicle)?
  4. Why are Primitive Craft a separate category? The defining difference seems to be that the power supply is "Muscle" as the examples are all actually members of the other categories.
  5. The names for categories have been changed in part over time and the old links left as redirects (e.g. Interfacecraft redirects to spaceplane) Should we tidy up?
Things like Skis and parachutes are listed under Personal Mobility (see Category:Personal mobility and Personal Mobility Gear). Please move articles and update the links to add spaces into "exotic craft" and "space plane" and rename "Grav vehicle" and "ground vehicle". Separating the Primitive Craft is done by Tech Level (TL0-3) simply because of the nature of the things. I would leave it that way. If at any time you find the referral trees links going to redirect pages or duplicates, please feel free to clean them up. Tjoneslo (talk) 18:03, 17 June 2020 (EDT)

The page Transportation Technologies of Charted Space manages to have two separate hierarchies in the same article!

I'd propose then that the tree looks like (but without the commentary):
Template:Referral-Tree-V-Vehicles

Vehicles[edit]

§ == ( Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information: ) == §
  • Vehicle
    • Aerospace Vessel (new)
      • Aircraft (would include Hovercraft, Helicopters, Propeller Driven Aircraft, Jet driven Aircraft. Explicitly excludes Grav Vehicle)
      • Airship
      • Grav Vehicle (n.b. Currently redirects to Gravcraft - moved in 2018) (Explicitly refers to Spaceplane and Spaceship)
      • Spaceplane (n.b. Currently Space plane redirects to Spaceship - moved in 2019. n.b. Interface Craft redirects to Spaceplane - moved in 2019. Includes Rockets. Explicitly refers to Grav Vehicle)
      • Spaceship (NAFAL) (Explicitly refers to Grav Vehicle and Rocket)
      • Starship (FTL) (Explicitly refers to being a type of Spaceship)
    • Watercraft (currently trivial)
    • Land Vehicle (n.b. Currently redirects to Groundcraft - Moved in 2019. Refers to Grav Vehicle)
      • Ground Vehicle (n.b. Currently redirects to Groundcraft - Moved in 2018: to cover "Wheeled Vehicle" (currently redirects to ground craft); "Tracked Vehicle"(currently redirects to ground craft); "Legged Vehicle" (new redirect); "Sledge" (new redirect))
      • Tunnelling Vehicle (New)
    • Exotic Craft (renamed) (n.b. Currently Exoticraft)
    • Multi-Environment Vehicle (new. n.b Amphibian currently redirects to Amphibianoid [animal]; triphibian doesn't exist; Arguably includes Grav Vehicle, Spaceplane, but I'd leave those as Aerospace Vessels)
  • Personal Mobility Gear

Is Maksim-Smelchak still involved as it seems to be following (ish) a structure he worked on?

BackworldTraveller (talk) 11:23, 18 June 2020 (EDT)

This all looks great. My only request is a small addition of the Personal Mobility Gear. It's not vehicles, quite, mostly. The problem with putting things into boxes is you inevitably find something that doesn't fit into any of the boxes, or too many of them at once. I have not seen nor heard from Maksim in several months. If you want to reach out to him, that would be great. Tjoneslo (talk) 16:35, 18 June 2020 (EDT)
I've looked at personal mobility gear and made a start. I've noticed that there is not a clear distinction made between gear designed to aid movement (Personal Mobility Gear) and gear designed to enable existence in an environment (Survival Gear). Also, survival gear is basicall just a list which, it seems to me, is better served by the Goods/Survival Gear summary page. Furthermore the survival gear lists in the Survival Gear page don't match the Goods/Survival Gear list so just taking the list out of Survival Gear can't be done at this time.
Within Survival Gear,
  • all of the Climbing Gear section is actually mobility gear.
  • Swim Fins in Water Environment Gear are mobility gear.
  • lists of apparatus for keeping warm are there - not for keeping cool.
Is there a gear-head in this wiki that could be co-opted to reconcile Survival Gear page list to the Goods/Survival gear list?

BackworldTraveller (talk) 03:57, 19 June 2020 (EDT)


Hurray for a second pair of eyes. You are right the Personal Mobility isn't well defined. I think I would go the other way with this. Personal Mobility gear are powered machines on the border between wearable equipment and vehicles. It's not very precisely defined because it's an interstitial category. This would mean that crampons, Snowshoes, and (maybe) Parachutes belong in Survival Gear.
Maybe Personal Mobility is not the correct term, it should be "Powered Mobility", and coop the "personal mobility" back for swim fins and climbing gear and so on.
The plan is: The T5 rules define a set of categories for equipment. And other Traveller books use similar, but slightly different categories and groupings. Every piece of equipment has a primary category, and the current list is in the Goods page. So each category would have: A Category: page (list of items), The Goods/X listing (collecting all of them), and a article with a description of what these things were, and a list of them.
And then there is a set of secondary categories, grouping equipment based upon use or environment or whatever category is useful. For example is a Piton Hammer a tool (because it's a hammer) or survival gear (because its designed for climbing). And this process isn't complete, and I'm working slowly at it. As usual, suggestions and discussion welcomed.
I've assigned climbing gear to Climbing Gear (primary use), Survival Gear (Subsidiary use) and Personal mobility (Subsidiary use)
I've assigned swim fins to Personal Mobility (Primary use) and Survival Gear (Subsidiary use and it makes sense it is listed with the wet suits, etc.
I've added Skis and Snowboard to Personal mobility Gear
I've updated Survival Gear and Personal Mobility to be the definition of the class while linking to the lists of equipment types within that class.
If we are to split Personal mobility from Powered Mobility then this can now be done from an all in one place start.
As an aside,
  • the powered exoskeleton (i.e. power-armour without the armour) isn't in the mobility gear. The page is red-linked. I suspect there would be a lot of interest in such an item.
  • the underwater water-jet pack is also missing (a-la James Bond and Thunderball which showcased a lot of 1970's scuba-related equipment)
  • the "Wing Suit" that has been used recently for extending glide range on parachute jumps would be good too.

BackworldTraveller (talk) 14:59, 19 June 2020 (EDT)

For the powered-exoskeleton, I know I've seen several designs in different systems but nothing published. The underwater jet I know I did a design in Through the Waves for T20, but those books have not been filed into the wiki. I remember the wing-suits, also used for BASE jumping, but nothing officially published. The other one that's missing is the heli-pack, precursor to the grav belt. Tjoneslo (talk) 15:38, 19 June 2020 (EDT)
Back to the main topic: What is the link between the vehicle class description pages and the various instances of vehicles of those types? I'd assume a category and some form of list page (similar to what has been done for Goods), but those aren't currently applied consistently. BackworldTraveller (talk) 18:08, 19 June 2020 (EDT)
Correct. Apply descriptive category names to the various vehicle articles. Make up ones that make sense to you as you see fit. You can use {{Goods title list}} with the category for vehicles as well as goods to create the lists. Most of the lists on the vehicles and ship pages are all hand generated, and will be out of date. Tjoneslo (talk) 20:19, 19 June 2020 (EDT)
This section is closedBackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT)
Made a Vehicle summary list template. Applied this to Primitive Craft and recategorized Bicycle and Coracle to ensure they got picked up.
Categorising the data about vehicle types as Transportation|TechnologyTransportation|Vehicle Type
Categorising the vehicles themselves as Vehicle|[Major Type]|[Minor Type]
Having gone through the Gravcraft page, I can see why this is Gravcraft rather than Grav Vehicle - It includes Grav Cities! So while it needs a bit of reformatting, it should probably stay with its current name.BackworldTraveller (talk) 04:05, 20 June 2020 (EDT)

This subsection is closedBackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT)

As a result of working through the Vehicle tree as far as I have to date I have noted the following about the InfoboxVehicle: It could do with two additional parameters. (a) to note the userbase for the vehicle (Civilian, Paramilitary and/or Military) and (b) to note the role of the vehicle (Main Battle Tank, Assault Gun, Mining Vehicle, Cargo Vehicle, etc.). It would be useful if both of these added the parameter values as Categories.
Starships (and possibly spaceships) are a subcategory of vehicles but have an entirely separate taxonomy in the Wiki. I thus suggest that these are looked at separately not least because of the sheer number of specific designs everyone has loaded. These should not be marked as Category:Vehicle.
In the referral tree, I currently have the layers of vehicles by environmental type 2-3 deep. Should we also list the vehicles in the tree by Category:Vehicle User value and by Category:Vehicle Role value? I'm ambivalent on the answer and will go by whatever is said.
What is the difference between a Grav APC and a G-Carrier? Both are defined as military armoured troop carriers?

BackworldTraveller (talk) 16:47, 20 June 2020 (EDT)
This subsection is closedBackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT)

I also not that most of the entries in 101 Vehicles haven't been loaded...another 101 jobs!
As the copyright enforcer I am obligated to point out that the DGP 101 Vehicles is under a copyright we don't have permission to use in the wiki. Same with the Adjutant books. If you want something to copy into the wiki, please consider On the Ground, Against Gravity, and Through the Waves. If you are very enthusiastic about this, I can send you the completed but unpublished title In the Clouds as well.
I would agree, keep the starships and spaceships out of the Vehicles category, Where the dividing line of where to place space planes and aerospace fighters and the like I will leave to you. Tjoneslo (talk) 19:52, 20 June 2020 (EDT)
I don't have the titles mentioned and until I get work won't be purchasing them. A draft of In the Clouds sounds possible.BackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT)
Re 101 vehicles, the book is used as the justification for the existence of several classes of vehicle. Can we go as far as the name of the vehicle and its mode/type and just reference 101 Vehicles for the remaining details and stay within US law? e.g. #1 Penetrator Armoured Car, Ground (wheeled), AFV, See 101 Vehicles? BackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT)
Do we know which of the 101 vehicles also appear in the other publications which are within the wiki copyright? e.g. Trepida grav Tank? Striker Grav Tank?BackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT)
I would have to read through the book to give you a list. Tjoneslo (talk) 06:51, 22 June 2020 (EDT)
There seem to be a number of vehicles (definitely vehicles though) that have been described using InfoboxShip or no infobox at all! any suggestions?BackworldTraveller (talk) 12:51, 21 June 2020 (EDT)
If you find articles about vehicles without an infobox, please add one. The Template:InfoboxVehicle has a layout you can cut and paste. For articles using the InfoboxShip template, if it really is a vehicle, please replace the template with the proper one. Tjoneslo (talk) 16:06, 21 June 2020 (EDT)
Section closedBackworldTraveller (talk) 05:20, 24 June 2020 (EDT)

I've found 232-BHR-7 class Toolbot which is a robot but is a vehicle...any suggestions on Taxonomy? BackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT)

There is no Infobox for the Robots. I think at one time the decision was to use the Vehicle infobox for the robots, and other times it was going to be designed. Since this seems to be your area of preference, pick one or another. Tjoneslo (talk) 18:24, 21 June 2020 (EDT)
The disadvantage of having the robots use the InfoboxVehicle is that they get classified in the vehicle taxonomy. The implication is that "Combat Robot" is a subclass of "Combat Vehicle" and "Military Robot" is a subclass of "Military Vehicle". A tracked robot is a tracked vehicle which is a ground vehicle... However, this stance appears to be in line with Imperial Law.
If we go with this stance, then the number of pages/lines in the Vehicle taxonomy will expand. Shall I do this?

BackworldTraveller (talk) 05:07, 22 June 2020 (EDT)

This was the question previously. Should robots be considered a computer controlled vehicle or their own separate thing. And largely this came down to which design systems (e.g. Book 8 vs FFS for example) the designer was used to. So, yes, let's do this. Add the Robots to the vehicle taxonomy with the idea that robots are, in this system, just computer controlled vehicles. Tjoneslo (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2020 (EDT)
Category ClosedBackworldTraveller (talk) 05:20, 24 June 2020 (EDT)

Is the Category Good being transferred to Goods? BackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT) Should any vehicle also be classified as Goods?BackworldTraveller (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (EDT)

I am using the Category: Goods for all the things that are not starships, vehicles, and robots. I may add weapons to that list at some point, depending on when / if I get to them. The Category: Good right now is a list of articles that need review. Most of them are empty placeholder articles or incorrectly categorized. I would ask that you do not add vehicles to the "Goods" category, and remove the "Good" category from any articles you do review. Like always, I'm happy to hear your opinion on the matter. Tjoneslo (talk) 18:24, 21 June 2020 (EDT)
OK I will try to ensure that vehicles are neither Good nor GoodsBackworldTraveller (talk) 05:07, 22 June 2020 (EDT)
My preference is, if we change our minds on that and want to add the vehicles to one or both categories, that the InfoboxVehicle template be updated. Much faster and easier to manage. But first let's make sure the existing articles are in a good state. So thank you for checking on that. Tjoneslo (talk) 06:51, 22 June 2020 (EDT)

There are both Robot and Robots categories. Robots appears to be the preferred usage. is this correct?BackworldTraveller (talk) 05:09, 22 June 2020 (EDT)

General rule is if you find both a singular category (e.g. Robot) and a plural category (e.g. Robots) to use the plural one. Following the Manual of Style recommendation referencing the Wikipedia style, a category is a list of article or a collection of things which implies a plural for the name. There are exceptions so whatever works best for you. Tjoneslo (talk) 06:51, 22 June 2020 (EDT)
I've moved all Robots entries to either Robot (an exemplar) or Robotics (a type) and recommended the Robots category for deletionBackworldTraveller (talk) 05:20, 24 June 2020 (EDT)

Closed BackworldTraveller (talk) 17:13, 24 June 2020 (EDT)

The Category Vehicles seems to be an exception. The Category:Vehicle seems to be the good one and the plural is redirected there...despite this, there are many entries marked Vehicles...most of which are not vehicle definitons. I'm moving the true vehicles (slowly) but that will leave a load of Mr kline's pages which are mostly textual descriptions of various units with embedded vehicle descriptions that don't use infoboxVehicle! I'm not intending to tackle encoding those at this time.BackworldTraveller (talk) 12:04, 22 June 2020 (EDT)

ABCDETUVQWYZM all moved from Vehicles category. 'F' is about half the rest!BackworldTraveller (talk) 12:04, 22 June 2020 (EDT) and 'F' BackworldTraveller (talk) 17:04, 22 June 2020 (EDT)
and 'GHIJ'BackworldTraveller (talk) 14:43, 23 June 2020 (EDT)
and 'K,L,N'BackworldTraveller (talk) 05:20, 24 June 2020 (EDT)
Less than a dozen entries to go...but need sleep!BackworldTraveller (talk) 17:13, 24 June 2020 (EDT)

Astonishingly all done...anyone fancy reviewing Vehicle and its subsidiary pages and categories...page content of specific vehicles hasn't (generally) been touched, but taxonomy pages have been. I'd appreciate comments.

BackworldTraveller (talk) 11:56, 25 June 2020 (EDT)

Fandons (Vargr Sourztourrgh Motorcycle) are listed in Traveller Chronicle 1 and 101 vehicles...is it uploadable/usable or not?BackworldTraveller (talk) 13:00, 22 June 2020 (EDT)

There are several vehicles from Challenge 67 and JTAS 14 that have been boiler-plated with insufficient data to fill in the template correctly. Do you have access to PDFs of those publications that could be used to populate the missing entries?BackworldTraveller (talk) 15:20, 23 June 2020 (EDT)
Subsection moved to my Talk pageBackworldTraveller (talk) 02:10, 24 June 2020 (EDT)

Vehicle Tree Review[edit]

  1. Is Mass Transit Vehicle as class that is needed?...Commercial Vehicle or Rail Vehicle seems to have been used.

Type-??-Vessels[edit]

There seem to be Referral Trees for the various two letter type codes e.g. Referral-Tree-Type-AA-Armored-Merchant‎, Referral-Tree-Type-AA-class-Armored-Trader‎‎, Referral-Tree-Type-A-Merchant-Vessel-Tramp-Liner‎‎.

a) Is the use of referral trees for what is, effectively, a manually maintained categorisation a prudent use of time and effort? b) Has the set of trees/categorisations been reviewed? The examples above show "AA" appears twice. c) Are the trees not a form of template and thus should be in the "Template:" namespace?

BackworldTraveller (talk) 06:00, 2 August 2020 (EDT)

Answers in order
a) The problem is not all of the templates on the ship pages have been updated correctly (e.g. type=TBD) to be able to pull the list. But yes, having a single template to generate the list would be much better. Manually maintaining the lists is time consuming and error prone.
b) The whole set of trees has not been reviewed. The problem is the underlying code (e.g. AA) to description (e.g. Type-AA-class-Armored-Trader vs Type-AA-Armored-Merchant) has not been standardized. The Ship Type Code have been standardized but the secondary codes vary between military and civilian classes.
c) Yes, the trees are templates and should be in the "Template:" namespace.
d) The names are inconsistent: Referral-Table-Type-BH-Heavy-Battleship vs. Referral-Tree-Type-A2-Far-Trader which will make finding them a challenge.
There is a Template:Ship summary list for listing all ships in a class. Generating another template to get this as a simple list of names is pretty straight forward. Would this be useful
- Tjoneslo (talk) 07:34, 2 August 2020 (EDT)
A names version would be useful...and then we just need to visit the referral tree pages and update each, renaming them was we go...Should be finished by 2022? BackworldTraveller (talk) 07:42, 2 August 2020 (EDT)
Related issue: If we rename the exiting trees, we get a load of redirects...do redirects work for templates? If not, we need to rename them, point all reference to them to the new name and Delete the old (redirect) page. Agreed? BackworldTraveller (talk) 07:44, 2 August 2020 (EDT)
See Template:Ship referral tree. This should be a quick update for the article. Please keep in mind the policy is the referral trees go under a two level "See also" heading just above the "References" section at the bottom of the article.
Using the Move functionality with a redirect will have the template work correctly. This works only through one level or redirection however. If you are going to do this I would prefer to update the article to use the Template:Ship referral tree rather than mucking about with the existing templates. Tjoneslo (talk) 09:03, 2 August 2020 (EDT)
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