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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 9:49:44 GMT
Good tip on the Generations book, I've checked it against the cards for 1984/85 to see what's what. Only interesting observations are the book does use .5 increments on some. It has Soundwave's strength as 7.5 whereas the generally accepted value seems to be 8. Also, they have Scrapper as skill 8, but I reckon it's 9 botchthecrab.com/archive/techspecs/decepticon/1985/ts_scrapper.jpg |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 9:52:45 GMT
Phil, could you move the tech spec chart chat from the end of the rank thread into here so it's all together?
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 27, 2020 10:13:04 GMT
That's definitely closer to 9 than 8.
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 10:23:23 GMT
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 27, 2020 10:51:02 GMT
Now that is weird.
Weirder because my brother had First aid, non-giftset, and the Techspecs I remember is the clearer giftset one! I recall no ambiguity at all! I even remember commenting that his intelligence is 9, whereas Ratchet only has an 8! What's going on?!
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 27, 2020 10:54:56 GMT
Good tip on the Generations book, I've checked it against the cards for 1984/85 to see what's what. Only interesting observations are the book does use .5 increments on some. It has Soundwave's strength as 7.5 whereas the generally accepted value seems to be 8. Also, they have Scrapper as skill 8, but I reckon it's 9 botchthecrab.com/archive/techspecs/decepticon/1985/ts_scrapper.jpgNah, looking at that link I reckon it's 8. It hits 8 square on from the left, but the blue line continues on after it's passed the skill line towards the 9 before turning back down again. But at the skill line it's 8. Martin |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 27, 2020 10:57:01 GMT
Phil, could you move the tech spec chart chat from the end of the rank thread into here so it's all together? Done. But eventually they'll all end up in the same place ;-) Just biding my time..... |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 27, 2020 11:00:50 GMT
I'd also agree with the 7.5 on Soundwave's strength. The blue line never quite reaches 8, but it peaks before it hits the strength line and starts coming back down, so it's 7.5 when it crosses the strength line.
I think the Generations book takes the specs quite literally and won't assume that the peaks and troughs are necessarily intended to align with the ratings if they're a bit off.
Martin
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 11:14:35 GMT
I'm into 1987 now checking against Generations for each figure. There are too many discrepancies over the half values to post, and there are also a lot that are just wrong when compared to the original tech spec. I was keeping track of them to post here but I've given up because there are so many. In short, Generations isn't quite as accurate as you'd think. I wouldn't trust it without checking the actual cards.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 27, 2020 11:41:55 GMT
Skill, the final Techspecs value, had particular interest to the young Shockprowl and his brother. HIS BROTHER?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? THERE'S TWO OF THEM ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? |
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 27, 2020 11:44:14 GMT
Skill, the final Techspecs value, had particular interest to the young Shockprowl and his brother. HIS BROTHER?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? THERE'S TWO OF THEM ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? Don't worry. My brother and I are different. He's... a very odd person indeed... |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 12:49:30 GMT
I'm questioning this myself now. I am starting to think that half values will make this more accurate, I just didn't know if that was 'accepted' or not, but seeing Generations go that way makes me think this would be better if it did cover the midway marks by making them halves.
Thing is, having spent all morning double checking the 84-87 values, which I've been compiling over the last few weeks, that would mean going through them all again. For a third time. Which... I can do for the sake of accuracy.
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 12:49:42 GMT
The other big question I have is how we categorise the toys. I'll explain:
Many toys have obvious sub-team groups, like Headmasters or Protectobots. But in some cases you might want to list more than just Protectobots, you might want to compare all the combining toys. So the chart needs a toy type field and a sub-group field. Equally, You might want to compare all the cityformers, so for Fortress Maximus his toy type would be City/Base but his sub-group Headmaster.
So the question is what these should be called for other groups of toys. In many cases both will be the same, but that's just how it is. I thought the easiest way to do this would be to use the terms on the catalogues, but even that is problematic:
Is Sideswipe (and co) a Robot Car (UK 84 catalogue) or a Car (US 84). Is Brawn (and co) a Mini Car, Mini Vehicle or Minibot? I'm not sure what the accepted names are.
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Jim
Thunderjet
Micromaster Backside Monitor
Now in glorious Ultra HD 4K
Posts: 4,931
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Post by Jim on Jul 27, 2020 13:02:26 GMT
This is more work, but my inclination as a dev in this kind of case would be to have multiple groups so that you could search by different types of group, unless you’re sure the users would strongly favour one type of group, in which case optimize for that for now.
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 13:08:51 GMT
Yes, we could have any number of different ways to categorise. I've just taken the simple route with this idea - basically it's a filterable table rather than an actual database, so the more columns there are, the more unwieldy it gets to use on screen. Two should be enough because they can be used in combination, it's just a question of what the right term to apply is.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 27, 2020 13:27:18 GMT
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 13:41:10 GMT
Well this is exactly the point. He may well be there, but on the UK 85 catalogue he's called a Mini-Vehicle. And on the UK 84 catalogue he's called a Mini Car. But in general conversation they're also called Minibots.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 27, 2020 13:46:20 GMT
*blinks*
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 13:53:48 GMT
Right. Let's start with this then before I go any further and find I have to go back to the start again. I'm still deliberating over the .5 values. I can do it, but do we do it. The consensus so far has been to round up/down, but Martin's point about Soundwave and the fact the Generations book uses them suggest we ought to use them for accuracy. If I was programming this myself I'd set a switch so the user could decide, but I've gone a quicker route and this is just a wordpress install with a plugin to manage the table because realistically it doesn't need a full-blown bespoke database application - it's just a table of numbers. This will look MUCH better on a monitor than a mobile (if you have an HD monitor this shouldn't need to scroll horizontally). I'm interested in comments on the toy type/sub-group columns where the terms we use are vague. 88 onwards will get added once we've reached a conclusion about the .5 values. www.pinwig.net/techspecs/Also, I've only tested this in Chrome and Edge. No idea what other browsers will make of it. |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 27, 2020 13:59:11 GMT
What did they call them on the TFUK letters page when it said that if you got your letter printed you would receive a free [thing]? Could have sworn it was Mini Autobot.
And on 'The Autobot Who's Who' wallchart.
Martin
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 27, 2020 14:09:47 GMT
It's certainly a new way of doing it! Nowhere else on the Internet can I quickly learn that Sludge's tech-spec total equals that of Searchlight! Nice job.
(Budiansky's surname ends with a 'y'.)
Martin
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 27, 2020 14:10:31 GMT
PS Works fine in Firefox.
Martin
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 14:50:10 GMT
Ta. It's amazing how engrossed you can get in sorting and filtering different groups. Searchlight is unique so far in that he's the only character who has different numbers for all eight of his stats. Hence no modal value.
Rumble and Frenzy have the same firepower as Predaking!
Scavenger has the lowest average stat score of any of the combining toys from the first four years, and Hun-Gurrr the highest.
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Jim
Thunderjet
Micromaster Backside Monitor
Now in glorious Ultra HD 4K
Posts: 4,931
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Post by Jim on Jul 27, 2020 15:23:38 GMT
Nice work!
Can confirm it works with safari on my iPhone, just with a bit of horizontal scrolling required for the table. Will look at it in the laptop later, and no doubt get completely engrossed...
Don’t know if it’s just my browser but 10 comes after 1 in the numerical dropdowns, but that’s a minor issue!
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jul 27, 2020 16:32:40 GMT
Works fine in Opera.
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 16:34:13 GMT
Yes, I think that's the way the plugin is sorting the numbers. I could log that as a bug with the developer.
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 27, 2020 16:44:56 GMT
THIS IS AMAZING!!!!
Yes, sorting and filtering is quite addictive!
Some great finds! Pipes strength 9! Trypticon rank 9! Double-cross strength 1!
And Prowl TOTALLY rocks!!!
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 27, 2020 19:35:04 GMT
I've added the 1988 Autobots. It seems in 1988 whoever did the tech specs was much more accurate with the numbers - every point on each is dead on a whole number.
Question for when I get to 1989 - The Micromasters only have values for their patrol team, not individually, so do they go in individually by name with duplicate sets of data, or as patrols of four?
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 27, 2020 19:38:40 GMT
Teams. 'Cos otherwise you'd be suggesting that every member has the same ratings as every other member, which is nonsense when, say, one is a plane and another a tank. Also, how can teamwork and co-operation make sense for an individual on their own?
Martin
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Post by Benn on Jul 27, 2020 19:39:11 GMT
Patrol, I think. Unless they have individual specs elsewhere?
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