LCARS Marker for STM mod?

[AngleWyrm]

Toying around with PSP, to get some Star Trek type text for the Engergy Beam Marker; is this something we would like for the four different markers?

http://home.comcast.net/~anglewyrm/ebm.gif

[Randallw]

Seems suitably Star trekish, however why use purple (the colour for propulsion) on a marker intended for armament which should be yellow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif. Nah, just kidding I wouldn't know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I got a font tucked away somewhere which seems to have been ripped straight off the LCARS interface, it has no difference between capitals and lowercase, narrow letters but if you make them yellow on a black background they look very authentic.

[AngleWyrm]

EDIT: Which looks better?
http://home.comcast.net/~anglewyrm/bwm.gif
http://home.comcast.net/~anglewyrm/bwm2.gif
There once was a basic idea that LCARS was supposed to present only the necessary info, and draw attention proportionally to the tasks presented. Simplicity and cleanliness of purpose. Somewhere along the lines it got kinda mixed up, and a bajillion little boxes of numbers got displayed everywhere.

Here's an LCARS font from a site that was working on LCARS type stuff (attached).

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Upper one.

The font I meant looks a little like your font, but its letters are even narrower and there is *absolutely* no difference between upper- and lowercase, not even in size.

[Randallw]

The first one. You know I was kidding about it having to be yellow right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[AngleWyrm]

yeah, but truth is often spoken in jest. I had drawn the colors from Voyager, and after looking back at it realized that the first image was uncomfortably close to some shade of...pink. Yech. Definitely not military ops. I tried a blue and grey combo that worked out rather nicely, but then I got to looking at some panel images from DS9 runabouts and TNG, and yes, bunches of em are in fact yellow.

I dunno if the prop designers had any thought put into the LCARS system's color scheme reasoning, or if they just went "pretty lights". With the way much of tv is developed, I'm leaning towards the latter. Sometimes I wonder if we put more into it than the show designers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Probably..... There are overviews for bridge/ops stations but not which button does what. You could try taking all bridge station layouts from a series (or all of them) and assigning functions to all buttons..... would be a diversion for a long time. You'd spend at least several months on it I think.

[AngleWyrm]

Here's the four images, unzip to (SEIV)\Pictures\Components

And here's some thoughts on LCARS panel button functionality
http://home.comcast.net/~anglewyrm/lcarsbutton.gif

The main area labelled 'function' activates the button's purpose. This could be a simple activation toggle, or it could call up additional functionality, a sub-menu. The circular area is a status light, indicating the situation of the button's purpose. It could be offline, online, needs-attention, working properly, busy, etc., represented by color. The numerical area is only present when there is an associated primary quantity with the button's function, such as flow control, frequency, alert set point, etc. The small area on the other side of the numbers is a Selected marker, only present in sets of buttons. It indicates which of the set is currently active in groups of mutually exclusive buttons that have no other visible subsystems. It usually extends out to a submenu.

If you run across that thinner font, maybe you could post it? It might improve the images.

[AngleWyrm]

And some further meanderings on a totally off topic trek...
http://home.comcast.net/~anglewyrm/regulator.gif
This flow regulator panel shows a white status light. The quick-access menu on the left has filled with two ports that have 'Notify Operator' status (port 15 and port 3). Other ports can be reached from the 'port' button. Port 15 is the culprit of the white status flag, and pressing the '15' menu item produces the displayed sub-menu, where we see that flow through port fifteen has exceeded maximum set point. All this with only one keypress from the user.

Port 3 is a lower priority notification, and examination results in the discovery that the port three flow regulator is scheduled for routine maintenance.

Make sense to you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Yep. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Randallw]

LCARS have to be pressed for a minimum time so as to avoid glancing blows working. Also I don't think they work if a bunch of them are pressed at once, so as to avoid wrong input when you land on it after the power grid blows during a battle.

[AngleWyrm]

Which seems to happen quite frequently on starship bridges. Also, evidently inertial dampers are more difficult to get working right than transporters, replicators, and warp cores...no, strike that--warp cores regularly go into a breach overload countdown. Wonder if the Romulans have the same kind of problems with their Quantum Singularity Reactors.

And how come they don't just replicate some dilithium crystals? Science Fiction, the story of "what if.." What if they solved the problem of people wandering around in dark tunnels with flashlights? Like transporter drones, for instance. The dead-horse flogging x-files suspense scene would be removed. Isn't that an improvement in the quality of life? Isn't that what trek technology is all about? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[Randallw]

Well you can't replicate energy. They use the Dilithium crystals to get energy. Why use the crystals if you have replicators that can create that much energy from thin air. While discussing replicators, has anyone thought about the raw mterial used to make things. heres a hint, with 1500 people on the ship theres a lot of...how can I put it....raw material being produced.

[AngleWyrm]

Reorganizing the molecular structure of...spent fuel. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Oog...Crystals 4th dimensional. Maybe repilcators can't replicate that?

[AngleWyrm]

Could be.

Quark said something similar about gold pressed latinum. It wasn't the gold, or the pressed latinum, it was the pressed latinum within the gold that made it valuable. Perhaps the labor that goes into manufacturing it? Must have made sense to Quark, he sure likes the stuff.

Hey (in another wierd jump of illogic) Just watched TOS:The Changeling, and in one scene Uhura has had her entire memory banks erased of all education. They have to retrain her, and while she's learning to read, she gets frustrated and lapses into Swahili. Like it's a primitive tongue of the uneducated mind. Isn't that a revealing bit of history? Just like seeing her panties regularly http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[El_Phil]

Ahhh a STM idea: Cut the damage resistance of warp cores, nacelles and impulse engines to one to reflect their amazing ability to break down/breach/go into overload/technobabble problem of the week just when they're needed the most.

[AngleWyrm]

Perhaps with the aid of an external helper program, we could simulate Temporal Anomalies as well. The game would save it's position, and suddenly load a prior save-game. The player could then go through the game equivalent of a past history of what they did, and maybe make some useful changes. Then an hour later, all of a sudden the helper program would restore the original position back to exactly where the player was, so that "everything's back to normal(!)".

[El_Phil]

Or a massive damage weapon, huge reload time with a very very low PtH called "Re-calibrate the main deflector." or the "Trans-multi-phasal-hyper-recursive-ionised-bussard powered ray of doom."

[Ron_Lugge]

I liked that LCARs interface.

But too many things since that have made me want to laugh... especially since I'm making the mistake of browsing in class.

[Renegade 13]

El_Phil said:
Ahhh a STM idea: Cut the damage resistance of warp cores, nacelles and impulse engines to one to reflect their amazing ability to break down/breach/go into overload/technobabble problem of the week just when they're needed the most.



You'd actually have to increase the damage resistance. Components with higher DR are destroyed more easily/quickly in attack, etc.

[El_Phil]

True, but then the warp core would actually take some damage rather than instantly threatening to breach when hit by a weapon/strong breeze/kitten.

Give them the armour ability might do it, but lead to very slow combat.

Actually shouldn't the nacelles have armour ability, at least the Federation/DS9 ones. I mean if we're talking about easy to hit targets that would get shot first they do seem very vulnerable.

[AngleWyrm]

Oh, also for extreme future technology, I'de like to have one of them thar strap-on wrist flashlights. Comes with automatic sensor/tricorder can't read/reduced range.

[Atrocities]

Holly CRAP! Yes, YES Those would be excellent for replacing the current SEIV looking ones. YES YES YES>...... MORE.

[AngleWyrm]

How about a shield polarity reversing, frequency harmonic resetting, verteron-particle based teleporter bomb.

"They've penetrated the shields captain!"
"Get those multi-phasic blah blah thingies online, we've got to--"
KaBoom.

[Atrocities]

I still do not understand the exploding panel thing.... Please tell me that by the 24th century that have not yet adopted the idea of adding surge protectors to all systems. Seems to me that it would be a no brainer to do so.

Back in TOS, the exploding panels worked, but by TNG era, they should have fixed this.... and to be killed by an exploding panel... Oh give me a fricking break!

[El_Phil]

Well its a little know fact that the consoles in fact use a hyper advanced electronics system that utilises cutting edge trinitrotoluene as one of its key systems. Unfortunately there are a few safety issues...

As for being killed by an exploding panel, well if you wear a red shirt and have no name in any Trek then it's only a question of how you die not if, for you are domed.

[AngleWyrm]

Then there's the amazing phaser-powered door locking mechanisms. Firing on a keypad when you want to get through unlocks the door, and firing on a keypad when you want to stop others from opening the door prevents it from being opened.

Who needs to be clever when you ken jest shoot stuff. Hot dam BillyJoeBob, dat blowed up reel good.

[El_Phil]

It's just people being too lazy, they're not shooting the keypad at full power, it's actually on very very low power and pressing the right button.

That and the Jefferies tubes. I can imagine the meeting now:

Designer A -'So we're do we put the vital components of the ship? You know the ones that you may need to get to in an emergency?'
Designer B - 'I was thinking a well lit room with good access and plenty of space to work. Then I realised I hate every engineer in starfleet and so I've put them in a tiny crawl space that's a bugger to get to.'
Designer A - 'You can't do that! There's way too much light, make it much darker!'

Evil laughter ensuse

[AngleWyrm]

The Ratings-Teaser Self-Destruct Device (Named after two famous advertising executives, Bill Ratings, and Jeff Teaser).

Anyone know how many times the Enterprise has been destroyed? I bet it's a lot!

[AngleWyrm]

How about this: Several Federation starships are designed with the warp nacelles outside the living area of the ship. Furthermore, the secondary hull is even curved (below the rearmost hangerbay area) in a manner that suggests the hull needs to clear an area for the warp field. But the visual effects guys make warp bubbles surround the whole vessel.