Searching by Name in New Cryo Vault

JayneCobb

First let me say I really love the new cryo vault and collections! Great work, DB! One observation and suggestion, though. When you search by a crew name sometimes all the variants are included and sometimes they are not. For instance if you search "Worf", then "Duchamp" is included. However, if you search "Picard" then neither "Tommy Gun Dixon" nor "Dixon Hill" are included with the rest of the Picards. I don't find it to be a big deal but, going forward, I suggest you find a way to get the crew's real name in the new crew's title. "Tommy Gun Dixon Picard" might be awkward but it would make sense for the new cryo vault functions.

I'm not suggesting DB go back and rename characters, not a good use of resources even if it were possible. I'm thinking more of future new crew.

Thanks again for the fabulous upgrade!

[OPA] Col. Fred L. Johnson

Yep, the same thing is with Anastasia Komananov, she doesn't show up when searching Kira even though Anastasia is a variant of her.

I'm sure that the other crew with unusual names have this issue and it shouldn't be too hard to add crew's "real" name somewhere in their code so they can be recognized in database. It even doesn't have to be added to their screen name.

I'm not a coder though, I just assume that this should be easy enough.

Dirk Gunderson

I think it was BP who had a post about this a few days ago. Crew like Komananov and Duchamps are technically not “versions” of the characters because even though they bear their likenesses, they aren’t truly Kira and Worf, respectively. Not in the same way that Cardassian Kira, Mirror Intendant Kira, Will Scarlett, and others are. Yes, they have been counted as versions of event crew in the past (just like Changeling Bashir was even though that also isn’t really Julian) but this is the reasoning for now.

I wish I could remember where that thread is in case something happened since I saw that post.

[OPA] Col. Fred L. Johnson

Why not keep it simple? As long as Anastasia and Duchamps are considered as versions of Kira and Worf when it comes to events, that's all what matters, technically or not.
I can't think of any other occasion when I want them to show up in searches anyway.

Mithiwithi

Dirk Gunderson wrote: »

I think it was BP who had a post about this a few days ago. Crew like Komananov and Duchamps are technically not “versions” of the characters because even though they bear their likenesses, they aren’t truly Kira and Worf, respectively. Not in the same way that Cardassian Kira, Mirror Intendant Kira, Will Scarlett, and others are. Yes, they have been counted as versions of event crew in the past (just like Changeling Bashir was even though that also isn’t really Julian) but this is the reasoning for now.

I wish I could remember where that thread is in case something happened since I saw that post.

Another way of putting it is that their "rules" for which versions of a persona are event crew differ from one event to another. In a holodeck-themed event where there's a Worf event variant, they may want Duchamps to be event crew, while in a Klingon Empire-themed event, they don't want Duchamps to be event crew. And I put "rules" in quotes because there isn't any algorithm for it - it's entirely a human-driven decision on the part of the event-content authors.

If I were designing the technology, what I would do is this:

1. I would add "persona" attributes, so that any crew related to a particular persona would have the same attribute - for example, Duchamps, Civil War Worf, Defiant Commander Worf, etc. would all have the "Worf" attribute. These attributes would be searchable in the crew and cryo interface, the same as the thematic attributes; this would address the core problem people are trying to solve in this thread.
2. I would design the shuttle-event-bonus system so that I could designate cumulative bonuses for multiple attributes. For example, in a hologram+Worf event, I would give bonuses to "Hologram" and "Worf", so Duchamps would get bonuses for both attributes but Civil War Worf would only get the Worf bonus; whereas in a Klingon Empire+Worf event, I'd give the bonuses to "Klingon" and "Worf", so true Worf variants (who all have the "Klingon" attribute) would get both bonus while Duchamps would only get Worf.
3. For true event crew, I'd probably also want to have the ability to "override" bonuses for a specific character, so that they would have a fixed (maximum) bonus and attribute-based bonuses would be ignored. This is probably the most bug-prone part, since event crew would also have many of the attributes needed for partial bonus, and I would not want to add those on top of the event-crew bonus (especially since different event crew may have different numbers of the bonus attributes).