WELCOME TO THE NEW WEB SITE!
As you can see, we’ve gone ahead and pulled the trigger on switching over. For those who don’t like to read long blog posts – here’s the short of it. All the ships, workbooks, files etc., are either here in the new format, or still linked to the old site. The old side WILL stay intact for the next two years. Files will slowly be transferred to the NEW site over then next few months. If you are unable to find a file or link, please jump on the Yahoo group and let me know.
The Long of it:
Ok – so one of the advantages of a BLOG is you can write…and write and write if you want too. This means I can go into long or details explanations with out taking up valuable real estate on any single page. And folks who want to read it CAN…
So the fist questions is WHY!
We launched the Tactical Starship Combat site in 1998 (can ya believe it?!?) and we have never really done a major overhaul or face lift since. When Brad upgraded his site, it was something of an impetus to get me wanting to do a new look. I had ALSO wanted to do something that would be much easier than the current HTML system. (Learned my lesson on THAT one!) While a WordPress blog is not the newest or latest in technology, it is now one of the more dominant setups. And when I read they had revamped their “engine” to allow for large numbers of pages (in excess of 10,000), I figured it was time to switch. I knew that the basic pages (Construction, Links, Publications and Fleets) would be simple to translate, so we started there.
The Look:
So I examined several “dark” themes, and found that one of the things that I enjoyed about Brads site, as well as other web sites, was the clean simplicity. Not a lot of fancy stuff, just well done design and layout. I went through about 50 pages of WP skins but kept coming back this this one. There were some limits, but once I started testing the look, I realized it would work. The SDS pages, by far the largest part of our site, presented a challenge. I had to essentially “break” the page to get the current look. Once I was able to break the master mold, it was a case of just doing it! I personally really like the clean layout of the SDS pages.
New Address:
I was SHOCKED no one had snagged FASASTSTCS and immediately purchased the name. I figured it was easier to just get a good new site name than have to put everything together, relink a bunch of stuff….uggg! A web site transfer goes one of two – very smooth or VERY ROUGH. I’ve never really known and in-between. Another strange reason for a new address what that I felt if would force me to redo many of the pages. Over the years, a number of errors and math problems have crept into the pages. I knew that doing new pages would require fixing these errors. So far so good.
…but a BLOG?
Well – yea! The cool part is that starting next year (if all goes well) we will use the actual blog as a way to highlight new ships. Rule clarifications, new book – all KINDS of stuff can be explained and highlighted without over crowding things. I’m hoping to leave the “comments” on for that actual blog posts, but I gota be honest – I got spammed within 10 DAMN MINUTES of launching the website blog last month. So we’ll see how it goes.
The Process:
Thanks to several of our regulars, the transition is continuing fairly smoothly. Fortunately, the formatting for the individual pages is simple enough that non-web folks can jump in and help without too much trouble (or without taking up too much time – I hope! That is ALWAYS the difficulty!!) Each ship is being check and any errors corrected. While not complicated, it is time consuming. I’m hoping to have the majority of the work done by Christmas, but we’ll see.
The Future!
I’m am truly hopeful that we will be able to get back to publishing book, play aids, scenarios and new ships in 2016! There is a ton of half finished materials and new printable material that I’m hoping to get too once the transition is done. Perhaps even a “SHIP OF THE MONTH” or – dare I hope? – SHIP OF THE WEEK?!? Who knows!
Stay tuned to the blog page here on the front for more updates, new features and new content in the coming weeks and months.
Joshua! Glad you could find some ships for the era you were looking for. There will be a TON MORE ships from that era if I can ever get around too it. I’m actually looking for decent graphic for Andorian, Nausiccan, Romulan and Klingons ships from the Star Trek Online game… Go looking online and you find dozens if not HUNDREDS of Federation ships from all different eras. But try and find a Nausiccan…you got 1 or 2 choices – thats it. To say NOTHING of the Edoans. I had to MAKE the Tallarians – there just weren’t designs. Hopefully we’ll be able to give you more designs for more races in that era in the coming months.
Hi, I think your blog might be having browwser compatibility issues.
When I loiok at you website in Chrome, it looks fine but when opening inn Internet Explorer, it hhas some overlapping.
I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Othrr
then that, great blog!
Just wanted to say. I made my own variant of a Star Trek RPG game, with a similar concept of that of Star Trek Online. I am fascinated to see this new website as I couldnt really find ships that had either a comission date or refit date close to that of 2351. Now with this new update to this website, I have found tons of Klingon and Starfleet ships that are around 2340 – 2351.