Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Spacemaster => Topic started by: NicholasHMCaldwell on February 06, 2014, 03:22:14 PM
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As a preliminary to returning the Imperium setting in the future (as a future unified Spacemaster setting and possibly as a HARP SF setting), we need to extract the text from various scanned pdfs. So anyone with time and software on their hands to OCR and tidy up the extracted text for us? Volunteers wanted!
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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I'd be happy to help out. I'm picky enough to lie awake at nights wondering if "anal-retentive" is supposed to have a hyphen or not, so proof-reading and correcting OCRs would be a welcome change. :)
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i would also be happy to help with this project as it can tie in with my preparation for my existing HARP SF game. i assume you are expecting a text-based pdf as the finished product in place of the current image-based pdf? Would it be entire volumes or simply selections from the existing volumes?
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Sorry, I can't help with the computer stuff-- I just don't have the skills or the time at the moment.
I love the idea of resurrecting the Imperium setting. Though to be honest, I didn't mind the Privateers setting; I especially liked the way Privateers balanced the races (I actually used the Privateers races, in addition to the SM2 races, in my current SM2 campagin), and I liked the way they did tech levels. So, what I would like to see from a unified SMU is a system that takes the best of both, reviving the Imperium but with balanced, varied races.
Nicholas: from one academic to another, and from someone who has gone through that difficult first year, I would say: it only gets better from here! Your first few semesters are just about survival. Just get to the summer, and everything will be better :)
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I'll check my old files to see if I started this already.
I was working on a timeline ( http://www.icewebring.com/SMSDTimeLine/TimeLine.htm ) and may have OCR'd some stuff for that.
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Sounds like there is some interest in the Spacemaster Imperium setting! I'm excited to revisit this. Maybe even expand that old fiction...
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Oh, and just to clarify something I read... the original Spacemaster was not designed to sell as a DUNE game (though after we were well into producing the game, I think that ICE did try to get the license), but we had already started developing the Imperium background. We'd created several houses and groups; and yeah, there was some Dune influence.
But in the beginning, Kevin Barrett sent us the concept as 'Tech Law' unsolicited as this little bound proposal, and we loved it so much that we though it might be worthwhile to do an entire new genre. So they sent me (why me, I don't remember) and my KAYPRO to meet Barrett in Toronto, and on that tiny 9" screen we developed the attack tables and the original Tech Law and Future Law. How's that for backstory?
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I might be able to help out with some of this. I have regular flights with not much to do other than catch up on email.
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Sounds like there is some interest in the Spacemaster Imperium setting! I'm excited to revisit this. Maybe even expand that old fiction...
I'd love this as well be it in the form of new SM2 based adventures or updated campaign material & eventual release of a SMU RPG. I'm all for Terry expanding his old SM fiction for potential re-release (as I missed out on it) & new SM stories as well. I'm a fan of his Shadowworld fiction.
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Is there any kind of setting bible, or usage guide, which provides the authoritative version of the terms and abbreviations using in the StarMaster 1st and 2nd Edition books? I have begun to review some of the text extraction efforts I already completed. It would be very useful to have a final authoritative version on the bulk of the terms so we can all move to the same spelling and abbreviations when proofing.
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Sounds like there is some interest in the Spacemaster Imperium setting! I'm excited to revisit this. Maybe even expand that old fiction...
I'd love this as well be it in the form of new SM2 based adventures or updated campaign material & eventual release of a SMU RPG. I'm all for Terry expanding his old SM fiction for potential re-release (as I missed out on it) & new SM stories as well. I'm a fan of his Shadowworld fiction.
I wrote a serialized story for Alarums & Excursions way back in the 80's under another of my nom de plumes (might have been Biff) about an agent solving a murder on Akaisha Outstation. Sadly, those floppy disks are long gone, and A&E was a classic mimeo'd thing that wonderful Lee Gold slaved over. Ah, well!
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Is there any kind of setting bible, or usage guide, which provides the authoritative version of the terms and abbreviations using in the StarMaster 1st and 2nd Edition books? I have begun to review some of the text extraction efforts I already completed. It would be very useful to have a final authoritative version on the bulk of the terms so we can all move to the same spelling and abbreviations when proofing.
Well, now would be the time to establish these terms. I don't know how practical it would be, but if contradictions come up, if they could be flagged in a PDF or Word draft, I could review them.
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I would be happy to help out with this. Has it been decided if you need whole books OCR'd or just certain texts.
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Count me in for this! I'll try and allow for the american spelling (Armor instead of Armour) ;) whilst I'm doing it.
I've had 25 years of fun from my 2nd edition SM and would love to give back.
Stuart
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I'll check if the software I have at hand can do the things... The good part is that I have all the physical SM Books, so I can probably scan them again at work if needed.
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Mine are already scanned. ;)
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I checked, as long as it's a pdf file I can get the text out...
But it's going to be plain text, no formating, no flourish.
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I checked, as long as it's a pdf file I can get the text out...
But it's going to be plain text, no formating, no flourish.
That should be fine (assuming it is going to me), as long as it's something that I could pour into MS Word, then I'd do a rough format/style while editing it.
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I checked, as long as it's a pdf file I can get the text out...
But it's going to be plain text, no formating, no flourish.
That should be fine (assuming it is going to me), as long as it's something that I could pour into MS Word, then I'd do a rough format/style while editing it.
If I wasn't clear, if you have the files, send 'em! I'd love to at least have a look and review what Kevin and I wrote so long ago, while Nicholas decides exactly how to handle it all. let me know if you need my email.
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Could you give us a list of the concerned books, let people already on it tell what books they are on, so that I can pick one or two not currently being scanned?
I can OCR and send txt files for someone to check them (being non native english, my writing level isn't good enough).
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I checked, as long as it's a pdf file I can get the text out...
But it's going to be plain text, no formating, no flourish.
That should be fine (assuming it is going to me), as long as it's something that I could pour into MS Word, then I'd do a rough format/style while editing it.
If I wasn't clear, if you have the files, send 'em! I'd love to at least have a look and review what Kevin and I wrote so long ago, while Nicholas decides exactly how to handle it all. let me know if you need my email.
I don't have any file... since I have the books I never bothered to scan them. ::)
As Mando pointed, maybe it would be best to get a list of who is working on which book...
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Could you give us a list of the concerned books, let people already on it tell what books they are on, so that I can pick one or two not currently being scanned?
I can OCR and send txt files for someone to check them (being non native english, my writing level isn't good enough).
I'd like the 2nd edition GM Book, Player Book and Tech book in that order. Let's be sure to coordinate so we don't duplicate efforts.
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For the (many and huge) tables, do you want a plain text markup (tabs, markdown?) or separate Excel Sheets?
Speaking of markdown, it could be an easy way to cleanly and basically format the scanned text for proofreading. It's easy for anyone to use, and it imports well into inDesign. It's available on PC, Mac and tablets.
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Of the three books,
- 2nd edition GM Book,
- 2nd edition Player Book,
- 2nd edition Tech Book.
http://www.icewebring.com/ICE_Products/Product_Page.php?product_id=413%20Space%20Master%20Boxed%20Set (http://www.icewebring.com/ICE_Products/Product_Page.php?product_id=413%20Space%20Master%20Boxed%20Set)
I can take the Tech Book.
PS: The scans I have on my drives are very low quality but should work, if someone has better ones, let me know.
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For the (many and huge) tables, do you want a plain text markup (tabs, markdown?) or separate Excel Sheets?
Speaking of markdown, it could be an easy way to cleanly and basically format the scanned text for proofreading. It's easy for anyone to use, and it imports well into inDesign. It's available on PC, Mac and tablets.
Tab-delimited or Excel (ugh) works fine for me; if you can get those critical tables properly into an excel sheet, that would be awesome, but I am sure they will need work. I'm not familiar with markdown, but a quick search says that it is an HTML converter?
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I'll grab the books and scan them at work, but it will have to wait next week, right now it's hectic due to several emergencies at the same time. ( I work in Telco for those that didn't know )
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There's no big rush. At some point, I'd like to have the pages scanned at 300 ppi for the artwork as well. Some of the art and many of the layouts and maps can be re-used.
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Tab-delimited or Excel (ugh) works fine for me; if you can get those critical tables properly into an excel sheet, that would be awesome, but I am sure they will need work. I'm not familiar with markdown, but a quick search says that it is an HTML converter?
Not really, Terry, it's a basic text markup (à la HTML, but much more simple) that can then be processed to output html, pdf or rtf. For example, to indicate bold you type: this word is **bold**. Header level 1 is: #Chapter 1 and header level 2 is: ##Chapter 1.1. Simple, no? And it can be imported into inDesign. So it's an easy way to share formatted files and review or modify them without having to care about the other person having word or another text processor.
The markup is standard and the file is plain text, so it's easy to convert. Markdown is now often used to replace html or bbcode markup for blogs or mailing. And some start to use it to create "no database" sites, or just to take notes.
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"Root" site with all needed info:
http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
Mac and ipad apps:
http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/productivity-roundups/35-markdown-apps-for-the-mac/
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In the interest of not duplicating effort, I am at page 35 of a pass through the 2nd Edition Player Book and have clean text versions of several of the adventures, although it appears that the initial focus is more toward the core books.
Takeyabue
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- 2nd edition GM Book:
- 2nd edition Player Book: Takeyabue (book scanned, ocr'ed, text review)
- 2nd edition Tech Book: Mando (waiting for Guillaume's scan, will ocr and make basic text review)
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Tab-delimited or Excel (ugh) works fine for me; if you can get those critical tables properly into an excel sheet, that would be awesome, but I am sure they will need work. I'm not familiar with markdown, but a quick search says that it is an HTML converter?
Not really, Terry, it's a basic text markup (à la HTML, but much more simple) that can then be processed to output html, pdf or rtf. For example, to indicate bold you type: this word is **bold**. Header level 1 is: #Chapter 1 and header level 2 is: ##Chapter 1.1. Simple, no? And it can be imported into inDesign. So it's an easy way to share formatted files and review
or modify them without having to care about the other person having word or another text processor.
The markup is standard and the file is plain text, so it's easy to convert. Markdown is now often used to replace html or bbcode markup for blogs or mailing. And some start to use it to create "no database" sites, or just to take notes.
Hmm, reminds me of the old days of putting in typesetting codes. I don't think we'll need it for this though, as very few people will need to see the drafts, and it's easier for me to have the plain text, create styles in Word (that will import into IDD) and apply them.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGqdE1NdMTg
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGqdE1NdMTg)
I was not here, I did not share this... 8)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMBb_tPPA8E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMBb_tPPA8E)
Poor Brad Dourif goes from giant eyebrows in DUNE to having them shaved off to play Wormtongue.
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Emer III is available in hardcopy now as well as PDF!
(http://www.rpgnow.com/product/125297/Shadow-World-Emer-III)
(sorry wrong thread, got excited)
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- 2nd edition GM Book:
- 2nd edition Player Book: Takeyabue (book scanned, ocr'ed, text review)
- 2nd edition Tech Book: Mando (waiting for Guillaume's scan, will ocr and make basic text review)
Got the Tech Book Scanned and OCRed... ( since OCR is an option I have with Acrobat Pro... it just needs to be copy/pasted out of the PDF. )
The file is 27Mb large. ( 600dpi and all, no cover though to make sure it doesn't ends somewhere unintended )
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Tab-delimited or Excel (ugh) works fine for me; if you can get those critical tables properly into an excel sheet, that would be awesome, but I am sure they will need work. I'm not familiar with markdown, but a quick search says that it is an HTML converter?
I have the SM2 attack and critical tables in excel. Not completely proof read, but I used them on a regular basis. (I also have a version of the critical tables where I have re-worded the critical text in order to make it easier to extract details [rounds of stun, bleed, etc] automatically.)
-Terry
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In the interest of not duplicating effort, I am at page 35 of a pass through the 2nd Edition Player Book and have clean text versions of several of the adventures, although it appears that the initial focus is more toward the core books.
Takeyabue
Duplication have already occurred;-)
I started creating a Microsoft Word version of SM2 Players book several years ago. I have the whole book in a word document, and have cleaned it up from page 1 to 68, but have not done anything with it for a few years. I’d be happy to give this to the appropriate person in the ICE organization.
-Terry
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Duplication have already occurred;-)
I started creating a Microsoft Word version of SM2 Players book several years ago. I have the whole book in a word document, and have cleaned it up from page 1 to 68, but have not done anything with it for a few years. I’d be happy to give this to the appropriate person in the ICE organization.
-Terry
Well, at least I tried. I am nearly finished myself (Page 110) so I will go ahead and finish. Mine, however, is probably less useful as it has not formatting but levels of headings and paragraphing.
Thanks for posting and letting me know.
Takeyabue
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I am assuming that Nicholas will be contacting you about your efforts, but let me thank you in advance. I'm excited that so many people are interested in the Imperium, and looking forward to working on its rebirth.
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In the interest of sharing information, I have finished my initial pass through the Player Book and have a 682 KB text file.
I plan to spend a bit of time working on the modules I have already created text files for to bring them into a common standard with the limited layout of the Player Book. This will allow me to use any regular expression scripts that I create across all my files to bring them into any format established once Dr. Caldwell's time frees up and he organizes things.
Following that, if we are still waiting for an organized effort to start up, I will move into pulling text from the Vessel Compediums as that is the need in my gaming group at the current time. I apologize in advance for any duplication, but I have decided to stick to my own needs until Dr. Caldwell has time free up.
Takeyabue
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I have some stuff that we can add from various sources (Grey Worlds, for example) That I can send, what email addy would you like them sent to?
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I'm curious about what people would most like to see in a new Space Master 3rd Edition, and how it would be divided up.
For starters, someone could comb through all the previously published Space Master 1st and 2nd Ed modules and do a kind of sourcebook encyclopedia of the Empire, with most of the Major Houses, many of the minor ones, and the important organizations, like the Dia Khovaria, MERLOGH, the League of Merchants...
Then an expanded Tech Law, where we update the Imperial tech from the old edition. However, Space Master Tech was always a little retro in some ways (though maybe not as clunky as computer-paranoid DUNE) because tech advances were controlled by a few corporations.
Thoughts?
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A Sourcebook would indeed be fabulous, along with some tech book(s).
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For starters, someone could comb through all the previously published Space Master 1st and 2nd Ed modules and do a kind of sourcebook encyclopedia of the Empire, with most of the Major Houses, many of the minor ones, and the important organizations, like the Dia Khovaria, MERLOGH, the League of Merchants...
I might have that already done... on paper...I made some cards with this kind of information some 20ish years ago, I definitely have the Houses on cards, not sure about the organizations though.
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I would appreciate more detail on fewer topics instead of a couple of paragraphs on many more topics. 10 to 15 pages of hard information on one house or clan with some details that I could extrapolate from instead of a three or four paragraphs of fluff on a multitude of topics. My players love power politics, economic intrigue, and undercover operations. Firefights are a sign something went wrong rather than a desired outcome.
Takeyabue
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For starters, someone could comb through all the previously published Space Master 1st and 2nd Ed modules and do a kind of sourcebook encyclopedia of the Empire, with most of the Major Houses, many of the minor ones, and the important organizations, like the Dia Khovaria, MERLOGH, the League of Merchants...
I might have that already done... on paper...I made some cards with this kind of information some 20ish years ago, I definitely have the Houses on cards, not sure about the organizations though.
I definitely have all the major houses ( name and a few other things ) and what I suspect is also all the minor houses from all the SM modules on cards.
I've scanned the cards, if you want them tell me.
I'll look for the organizations.
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For starters, someone could comb through all the previously published Space Master 1st and 2nd Ed modules and do a kind of sourcebook encyclopedia of the Empire, with most of the Major Houses, many of the minor ones, and the important organizations, like the Dia Khovaria, MERLOGH, the League of Merchants...
I might have that already done... on paper...I made some cards with this kind of information some 20ish years ago, I definitely have the Houses on cards, not sure about the organizations though.
I definitely have all the major houses ( name and a few other things ) and what I suspect is also all the minor houses from all the SM modules on cards.
I've scanned the cards, if you want them tell me.
I'll look for the organizations.
This background info would definitely be useful, as a handy reference if nothing else. Not sure what you mean by 'cards...'
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This background info would definitely be useful, as a handy reference if nothing else. Not sure what you mean by 'cards...'
Cards... like that : (http://i57.servimg.com/u/f57/11/71/69/26/kashme10.jpg)
( that's more or less the real size )
There's not much on them since they were intended for my players... but most of the time there's not much more information in the books.
Is your old terbob address still working ? I'll send the complete pdf there.
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This background info would definitely be useful, as a handy reference if nothing else. Not sure what you mean by 'cards...'
Cards... like that : (http://i57.servimg.com/u/f57/11/71/69/26/kashme10.jpg)
( that's more or less the real size )
There's not much on them since they were intended for my players... but most of the time there's not much more information in the books.
Is your old terbob address still working ? I'll send the complete pdf there.
I don't use the old AOL address, but I have terbob also at mac.com and gmail.com. I check gmail several times a day, that is the best way to reach me.
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See this thread for the definitive todo list - http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=15083 (http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=15083)
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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I have all of the attack tables and crit tables in excel. Think you have this covered now but they are there if you need them. I also have some of the Star Strike Crit ones done as well.
Stuart
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There is an expanded list of "all the houses" in imperial space in the First edition Silent Death Night Brood Supplement. Also what email should I send stuff to? I have a few of the Grey Worlds articles I can add, and also, as long as we are on it, I would love to see the Dark Space stuff integrated on the frontier somewhere.
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I would contact Colin, Thom, Nicholas or Terry by PM with your offer if you have not already.
MDC
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One thing I would like to see for a new space master is a less complicated method for building ships than having to get out a scientific calculator to factor mass, size and armor. and so forth.
Perhaps creating a chart or some what to take the work out of it for people.
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I can help with this if required. I have Acrobat for text recognition and some spare time.
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Less complicated ship building? I am yet to meet a player who saw a ship built in Star Strike that didn't say "Can I build the next ship???" Also, there is an Exel program that does most of the work for you....
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Less complicated ship building? I am yet to meet a player who saw a ship built in Star Strike that didn't say "Can I build the next ship???" Also, there is an Exel program that does most of the work for you....
It was me. I was the one who spent hours and hours in 4th-7th grade designing ships and trying to optimize them. The system was complex enough to seem interesting, but I quickly nailed down the optimal builds from a cost perspective:
- Lasers or MLA Cannon with +15 HUD, always in turrets
- CAT 24/26
- +25 armor belt
- 11 units of EW, giving you a +52 DB
- Payload pallets for another +52 DB of EW Pods, letting you cloak (total of +104DB from EW)
- At least 15 MTs, giving you +70 DB from Evade, and only letting small weapons track you.
- Payload pallets with lots of Mk.6 torpedoes.