A Mystery From The Embers Of The Great Library

[Ozymandias]

Those of you who remember the Great Library recall how I meticulously cataloged each item, with, for example, every Unit being sorted by era, unit type, creator etc. Those of you who don't remember CDG - well, I'll just leave it at that. I found an ARL 44 marked as from CDG. All I know from the .txt is that it's from the Storm Over Europe mod.

Should I add it to the Unit d/b?

 

[Civinator]

I think it is the ARL44 created by ripptide: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/french-arl-44.107990/
Unfortunately the download of the ripptide units is not working any longer, at least not with the Google Chrome browser.

 

[Lionic]

That is definitely Ripptide's unit. He always included *.gif and *.jpg previews, *.pcx icons ending with ...large.pcx and ...small.pcx, sounds. There is even a topic for that unit https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/french-arl-44.107990/ which could be downloaded in Chrome if you right click on the download link and select "Save link as".

 

[Ozymandias]

I thought it looked liked Ripptide's style - So ... Should I repost it?

 

[Lionic]

I think not as it is available already.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

This thread begs a great question.

Should there be a minimum requirement for files to be included in unit creation?

Ideally my preference would be as follows:

*_SM.pcx
*_LG.pcx
*_Unit32.pcx
sound files (in proper wav format)
Attack.flc
Death.flc
Default.flc
Fidget.flc
Fortify.flc
Run.flc
Victory.flc
unit.ini (with built in link to sound & flc files)

Optional:

Attack2.flc

 

[Vuldacon]

Moff Jerjerrod... I believe a Fidget flc is also important as it adds an "alive" movement, breaks the monotony of the Default flc and shows a little more about the Unit "character".

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Moff Jerjerrod... I believe a Fidget flc is also important as it adds an "alive" movement, breaks the monotony of the Default flc and shows a little more about the Unit "character".

I agree now that you mention it and giving this some more thought. I've updated my list, see my post above.

 

[Quintillus]

I think it is the ARL44 created by ripptide: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/french-arl-44.107990/
Unfortunately the download of the ripptide units is not working any longer, at least not with the Google Chrome browser.

I thought it looked liked Ripptide's style - So ... Should I repost it?

Civinator is correct, the issue is with Chrome (and, nowadays, Firefox) preventing http downloads from within https pages. Chrome silently fails to download it, Firefox is a bit nicer as it gives you a message explaining the situation and lets you download it if you ask politely.

I have https-ized the ARL44 download so it should now download just fine in any modern browser. No need to re-post it.

The only problem is that it's one of approximately 200 units from ripptide with the same problem. I don't have the time to fix all 200 of them tonight, but may be able to chip away at it over the coming week.

Lionic is correct about how to download those units in the interim.

---

A slightly different question is, should these units be added to the Downloads Database? It appears to me that all of ripptide's units predate the Downloads Database and are thus not in it. I see no problem with it, and have done so for the most recent unit: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/flakpanzer-gepard.30990/ . But this is also a manual task, and requires moderator involvement, at least in order to use the "Reassign Resource" action so it shows the correct author (I believe standard users can use the "Change Discussion Thread" action on threads they own to link the Downloads Database entry to the existing thread, as I'm 97% sure I did that with my own threads before I was a moderator)

So, if someone wants to start creating Downloads Database entries for ripptide's units, using the "External Download URL" option to an https-ized version of the existing download URLs, and "Change Discussion Thread" to link to the forum threads, that would be great. Post the ones that have been done, and I can reassign them to have ripptide listed as the owner, thus enabling the Downloads Database functionality of search-by-author to return the correct units.

At a higher level, the "reconcile older units/mods/etc. with the Downloads Database" is one of those un-glamorous tasks that could make the pre-2006 units easier to discover. Part of my moderator duties here are to take those "require a moderator to perform them" actions, so I'm happy to help with that part, although given the volume of units across all authors, and the rather meagre moderator salary, being able to focus on the parts that do require a moderator would make it more likely to happen than if we all collectively say, "it would be nice if that happened someday" but don't chip in a bit towards making it happen. It takes a village to build a house, as they say (or something like that...).

 

[Ozymandias]

See my first Post, my Comrade, my Friend Many a time I have simply reposted many Units from the 10,000+ game assets I sometimes come across in the Lone and Level Sands where the Great Library once stood.