Cosmoteer Wiki:Style Guide

This guide serves as a reference on how to style pages when contributing to the wiki. While only guidelines, it is essential to try to adhere to the established style to maintain consistency and create the best possible reading experience.

Language

General Guidelines

All text contributed to the wiki should follow standard formatting and grammar seen on most wikis. Since the default game language is US English, all contributions to the wiki should use US English also unless providing translations.

Capitalization

When referring to in-game entities, names should be spelled in a way that matches the in-game case.

• Tri-Steel
• Hyper-coils
• Hyper-Jump Relay

Sometimes there is little consistency with in-game capitalization. For example, Manufactures guided Electromagnetic Pulse missiles and Manufactures Tactical Nuclear Missiles are both in-game tooltips yet feature different capitalizations of the word 'missile'. In these cases, it is best to consult other pages on the wiki to find if there is an already established style.

Numbers

All numbers should use standard (Arabic) numerals, which is to say 0-9. Large numbers should be separated with commas, like 1,234,567,890. Decimal numbers should be separated with periods, such as 22.7.

Buttons

Buttons, or keyboard keys, should use the {{Button}} template like as follows:

• {{Button|F}} → F
• {{Button|Enter}} → Enter
• {{Button|Left Mouse Button}} → Left Mouse Button

Page Names

Page names/article titles should follow title case rules wherever possible.

• Processor Fabricator
• Game Modes
• Build a New Ship
• Determining Ship Rotation Relative to Teapots

Media

Images

When uploading images to the wiki, try to follow these guidelines:

• Use a simple or recognizable filename: This helps with organization and makes it easy to find your images later.

• Categorize your images: All images uploaded to the wiki should be categorized, as this makes them easy to find and sort. Look at similar images to what you are uploading to find what categories they use, or navigate the media category tree to find the correct home.

• Try to follow established naming conventions: This depends on what you're uploading, but often you'll find that images already uploaded onto the wiki have a set naming pattern. As an example, ship images uploaded use the following format: ShipImperiumCivilianFulmarBlueprint.png.

• Use original game images where possible: This again depends on what you're uploading, but try to use images taken directly from the game files. For example, when uploading images of built-in ships, use the image that ships with the game instead of capturing your own in-game. When uploading images of user interface (U.I.) elements, upload them directly from the game files instead of cropping your own version.
  • Do not alter images taken from the game files unless you have a good reason.

• Prefer JPG unless you need transparency in your image: JPGs retain a decent level of quality while having small file sizes, which makes them excellent for web use. Remember that not everyone's internet connection is as good as your own, so supplying a 300KB JPG instead of a 5MB PNG might make all the difference to them. One of the main exceptions to this rule is when uploading images directly from the game files, as these are almost always PNGs.

Unstable Content

Though Cosmoteer offers public access to unstable testing builds, using stable/mainline branch content is essential as it most accurately reflects the experience most users will have with the game. Try not to update facts and figures in articles with values taken from testing builds unless you have a good reason for doing so.

Page Layouts

Each 'type' of page has its own specific layout in terms of what sections should be available and in which order. For example, a ship page has an entirely different set of sections to a version history page. It's important to copy those existing layouts when creating new pages to keep a uniform style on the wiki.

Version History/Updates

Update Type

The following are accepted update types:

• Major: Large game updates that increment the version number, i.e., 0.23.0 and 0.25.0.
• Minor: Smaller updates that still add new content or makes changes other than bugfixes, i.e., 0.25.1.
• Hotfix: A bugfix update quickly released to solve issues introduced in the previous update, i.e., 0.25.0a.
• Bugfix: An update comprised solely of bugfixes.

Infobox

The infobox should be the first thing added into the editor. It should contain all the fields marked as required, including the release date, link to the official patch notes, and version chronology.

Initial Description

The initial description paragraph should contain the version number in bold text, the type of update, the release date, and a brief summary of what the update adds. This summary can be as simple as "fixes a few bugs" for a bugfix update.

Changelog

The changelog should be copy-pasted from the official release notes. Each entry should then be bullet-pointed, and each entry label such as "Bugfix:" and "Modding:" should be set to bold.

The changelog must now be divided into the following categories (in order):

• Additions
• Changes
• Bugfixes
• Modding

You will have to use your own judgment to sort the additions and changes categories as bugfixes and modding are the only two pre-labelled in the official patch notes.

Category

All version history articles should be added to the Versions category. This should be the last thing added to the page source.