Talk:Assignment: Dilithium Mining in an Unstable Asteroid Cluster

@User:Unscjon117 Hi, please kindly refrain from using templates in the "risk" parameter, as it screws up cargo table storage, just use risk=Low, not risk=, I don't see why you would even use a template anyway. Also, base outcome chances need to be recorded without any doffs assigned, for this you need to turn off "Enable first officer recommendations" tickbox. Also, any reason to remove location and icon? - I've added those back if you don't mind. Trajos (talk) 11:22, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Haven't seen this before, there is some red warning message on the Template:Risk so we should either adjust the template or use the risk=Low as Trajos suggested. --Damixon (talk) 11:56, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * @User:Damixon, please see the history of that template as I'm both the original author *and* the editor that revised the doc to reflect the issue that was identified.
 * @User:Trajos, this is the first and last time I will ever say this:  STOP .
 * This is the second time you've brought up the issue of that template. Go read the history of the template and its corresponding doc page; you'll see that I personally added the warning message following your original mention of the issue, so that others would be aware of it. Additionally, I've removed its use as I've encountered it, noting that Template:Assignmentinfo has been modified to handle formatting of that value, and removed any other hard-coded formatting I've found in order to make such pages consistent with the current direction of that template.
 * As to why someone "would even use a template anyway", the answer is simple: a) to reduce the amount of wiki text that needs to be added to any given article and b) ensure such text is consistent wherever it's used. An example of this would be... when you modified Template:Assignmentinfo to add "color highlighting for risk outcomes" in revision "03:27, 23 August 2019" of that template. Perhaps when you originally mentioned the issue with using a template as a value to the risk parameter, you might have mentioned that Template:Assignmentinfo had already been modified to format that parameter consistently across all articles.
 * As has been noted elsewhere, the game exists on multiple platforms which, while the same in many respects, have numerous differences between desktop and console versions. You need to be aware of this and accept it as fact. Stating "you need to turn off  tickbox" implies that it exists across all platforms, which it does not.
 * Further, the comment you embedded in the article itself is inappropriate, as it isn't "wrong" - it's *reasonable* for a player to look at a set of "base outcome chances" as the minimum chances for success/failure when duty officers meeting the minimum criteria for running the assignment *at all* are assigned to it. While console doesn't have the checkbox you mention, I *have* found other ways of "unassigning" auto-assigned duty officers - and, at least on console, have found that subsequently assigning a duty officer that meets the minimum criteria *without* triggering any of the success or failure modifiers does *not* change the outcome chances - so the values are the same either way (*on console*).
 * Re: location, "Available on almost any ground or space map." applies to all location-independent assignments. This is generally understood by anyone that plays the game, and doesn't need to appear on every article that isn't location-specific.
 * Re: use of the Resolve icon, the game itself (*on console*, and on desktop from what I recall - might have changed) doesn't display icons below the duty officer images when it lists the slot-specific requirements of what *type* of duty officer is required. Leaving off the icon from the list of duty officer *types* makes those particular lines of text in the article consistent with the manner in which the information is displayed in-game.

Unscjon117 (talk) 13:12, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Unscjon117,

1. Point noted, I'm sorry about bringing up this issue multiple times, I missed the warning you added.

2. Well in this case you weren't reducing the amount of text, you were increasing it, because Assignmentinfo was already taking care of this at the time you created the new "Risk" template. So instead of "low" - 3 bytes, you used "" - 12 bytes, 4 times as much. Either way this is not too relevant now for assignments specifically, given that we are on the same page of not using "" anymore.

3. Point taken - sorry for making too many assumptions.

4. Yes it is perfectly reasonable when you are creating a new assignment page that does not exist yet. In this case the page already existed, and had values that happened to be correct. You replaced them with the best possible estimates that you could get given the limitations of your platform. They happen to be incorrect - why did you replace the existing, correct values?

5. When you say applies to all location-independent assignments - from what can a reader know that that this is a location-independent assignment, if there isn't a note on the page "Location: appears on almost every map" that you removed?

6. Yes this is correct, there is no resolve icon displayed in the requirements. However it is very small and makes the user immediately aware of the requirements, there is no reason for the Wiki not to provide value-added information to what is missing in the game right? (But I do take your point that whether we display the icon in Assignmentinfo in this case or not - is a matter of personal taste, feel free to remove it if you feel this would make the page more useful to the audience). Trajos (talk) 15:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 2. To answer the question, it saves over adding the formatting markup in the parameter each time, and there can be utility to having a template that does nothing but such formatting because sometimes you might want to use such formatting inline in text outside a template like Assignmentinfo, which is why it is often better to keep these templates around and use them internally in templates like Assignmentinfo for the visual formatting to avoid duplicating markup.
 * But for templates that aren't using Cargo, SMW, or other features that require a specific format, it can be more useful to leave the formatting out of the template so that unanticipated special cases can be more easily and quickly handled. It can be very situational as to what is best for a given situation. One of the drawbacks of using such extensions is that such flexibility isn't usually possible with them, so weird special cases/one-offs are harder to cope with without template modifications. It's the main reason I use them much more sparingly when I set up wikis these days.
 * 5. Doesn't the assignment type in the infobox do that? I know not everyone will gather what a personal assignment is, so maybe we could link that to an explanation, but I do believe that signals an assignment is location-independent unless my memory is failing me. &mdash; oOeyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 16:31, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi @ oOeyes ,

2. Yes, I appreciate that a template could do formatting without having to copy it around. But then it becomes a question of copying around 12 bytes of template, i.e., vs copying around just 3 bytes of "low" and relying on the enclosing Assignmentinfo template to add the markup (as was the case already at the time when "Risk" was created).

5. Yes I can confirm that "Personal" tab on PC will in fact be populated differently on different locations. Confirmed Example: "Evaluate Bridge Officer Candidate" assignments for almost any race. All of them are location-specific and will spawn inside "Pesonal" tab on PC, however they only have a chance to spawn during either sector/shipboard update if the player is physically located in a specific map/set of maps.
 * As a practical example you might get e.g. "Evaluate Ferengi Science BOff Candidate", but only if you are logged into DS9 ground at the time of update. Then if you move to e.g. New Romulus - the assignment will persist in your "Personal" tab until the next update. Hence "loctype=Personal" is insufficient information, since players wouldn't know which map they need to camp that assignment at, they will only know where to look for it once the update happens, i.e. in the "Personal" tab. But if I wanted to get a Ferengi Science BOff with the page as it was without Location section - I could spend a month at New Romulus checking my Personal tab just after every update, and would never get that assignment. Trajos (talk) 17:08, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 2. But the question was put as "why would you ever?" which is what I was answering, and I also believe that to be what @Unscjon117 was answering as well. We have plenty of templates like that, such as Mission, that exist for nothing more than to save a handful of bytes of typing in common cases. So the answer to "why would you ever?" is that it's a common practice that didn't fit in this particular circumstance.
 * But, of course, the reason we bother with a template like is because this wiki decided on the use of fake namespaces for several different types. The only obvious value in that is reducing the need for disambiguation, but at the tradeoff of adding extra nuisance to a lot of linking on the wiki. I can say I've been tempted to raise the "Why would you ever?" question for that given the standard practice is better. But someone did think it was a good idea, at least at the time, and might have even been proud of reducing the need for disambiguation pages. So, setting aside the issue of whether the practice should have been questioned, do you think I should have started the question with "Why would you ever?" &mdash;  oOeyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 17:42, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi @ oOeyes, thanks for explanation, yes that makes sense now. The answer given to the original question was relevant given the specific wording of the question, including the perhaps somewhat frivolous use of word "ever". Trajos (talk) 18:17, 8 November 2019 (UTC)