CT Only: Continuing down the LBB recreation rabbit hole.

[plazman30]

So, now I am in a "How Far Is Going Too Far?" moment.

I'm on Page 22 and working on the Drive Potential Table. This is the original table from the 1981 LBB:



In my version, I added alternating rows of grey to make it easier to read:


But then I had some fun and threw it at Google Gemini and asked it to make the table look better, and it came up with this design:


If the books were in color, Gemini gave me this:


I think the color table, though impressive, is going too far. It would also increase the POD print costs by needing to do color.

My version with the alternating rows, I think, balances maintaining the appearance of the LBBs and adding a little readability improvement to the original.

But the black and white Gemini version looks nice. And I think it's easier to read that my little update.

 

[Ildefonse]

So, now I am in a "How Far Is Going Too Far?" moment.

I'm on Page 22 and working on the Drive Potential Table. This is the original table from the 1981 LBB:

View attachment 7146

In my version, I added alternating rows of grey to make it easier to read:

View attachment 7147
But then I had some fun and threw it at Google Gemini and asked it to make the table look better, and it came up with this design:

View attachment 7148
If the books were in color, Gemini gave me this:

View attachment 7149
I think the color table, though impressive, is going too far. It would also increase the POD print costs by needing to do color.

My version with the alternating rows, I think, balances maintaining the appearance of the LBBs and adding a little readability improvement to the original.

But the black and white Gemini version looks nice. And I think it's easier to read that my little update.

I prefer your reworked version: maybe if the "Build Time" were not bolded in the Gemini version I'd prefer that (if the idea is to bold the important bit, then I think just the contents of the table, "Drive Potential" per the heading, should be bolded. But also not a fan of white text on black background.

 

[RossWinn]

View attachment 7147
My version with the alternating rows, I think, balances maintaining the appearance of the LBBs and adding a little readability improvement to the original.

This is the way! Pos Def!

 

[atpollard]

(Image from @plazman30 )

When I create these sort of tables, I find shading every third row (instead of every other row) easier to use. It is easier for the eye to follow the wide white and narrow grey stripes without jumping a row. It is still easy to differentiate the white row above a grey row from the white row below a grey row.

Maybe shade rows 100, 600, 2000 & 5000.
Just something to try out and see how you like it.

 

[Condottiere]

With a type/zebra engine, you could power a twelve kilotonne hull.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Why stop there?

Oh, right. No room left on the page...

(Apologies for the off-topic content. I really like this project!)

 

[whartung]

I think the color table, though impressive, is going too far.

I like the color table also much more than the enhanced B&W one. Without seeing every third line, I can't really posit an opinion on that. But your first cut looks good to me.

 

[plazman30]

AD&D 1E style.

 

[plazman30]

View attachment 7150
(Image from @plazman30 )

When I create these sort of tables, I find shading every third row (instead of every other row) easier to use. It is easier for the eye to follow the wide white and narrow grey stripes without jumping a row. It is still easy to differentiate the white row above a grey row from the white row below a grey row.

Maybe shade rows 100, 600, 2000 & 5000.
Just something to try out and see how you like it.

LIke this?

 

[whartung]

Honestly can't say those look any better. Maybe on larger tables, but with one that short, alternate rows seems better to me.

 

[plazman30]

I'm kinda liking this. Bold column headers. Slightly darker grey shading.

 

[whulorigan]

I'd like to change the page numbering in the facsimile edition also, so that it shows the book number and page number: 2-48. I think that would make it easier to know where you are in the book and which book you're in.

Just thinking ahead, you would want to do B2-48 (Book 2, p.48); A2-48 (Adventure 2, p.48); DA2-48 (Double Adventure 2, p. 48); S2-48 (Supplement 2, p.48); etc

 

[kilemall]

AD&D 1E style.

View attachment 7154

Classic green bar report format.

 

[plazman30]

I wonder if recreating the 3 LBBs is the way to go. Might have been better to do The Traveller Book. That one is available as a POD, but it's still a scan. But that would take a LOT more work.

 

[plazman30]

Have another Book 2 oddity that I think could use a "correction."

Page 29 ends with Ordnance description. Then, page 30 has a bunch of charts on it. Page 31 has a full-page example of combat. Page 32 then continues this ordnance description. If you're reading the book, you'd get confused that ordnance ends mid-sentence, and the next page with text is a whole new section. I'm wondering if Page 31 should have a box around the text to let the reader know it is its own separate block of text and not a continuation of the existing text.

I'd post screenshots, but that would post 6 pages of Book 2, and I wish not to invoke the wrath of the copyright gods.

I think there needs to be a visual indicator that this is not part of the paragraph text.

Opinions of the best way to do this and maintain the "feel" of the LBBs?

 

[Ildefonse]

It's almost as if pp.30 - 31 were intended as a QRS for ship combat: charts on one side, turn sequence on the other. So putting a box around them seems fairly unobtrusive.

 

[plazman30]

On Page 37 now. Hopefully, I can finish this by the end of the week. Not too bad for switching from Scribus to Affinity Publisher halfway through the process. This is a good exercise for learning a new app. Well worth the time.

 

[plazman30]

So, I learned a trick today which immensely sped up my workflow. I can take a screenshot from any LBB table and throw it in a Large Language Model (aka AI) and ask it created and editable table from that. I can then open that in a spreadsheet (LibreOffice Calc in my case) and then copy and paste that into Affinity Publisher as a table, edit it and clean it up.

I was typing the tables out by hand, which could take quite a while.

Here is Page 41 from LBB 2:



And here is what I could do in about 5 minutes using an LLM to create an editable for me:


That table would have taken me easily 30-45 min to type in and clean up.

 

[whartung]

Very nice. Great improvement.

 

[plazman30]

So close to done. Need to take a break to get some Christmas stuff done. Hopefully, I can put some finishing touches on it tonight and call it quits.

I need to do a little cleanup on books 1 and 2. But by the end of the week, I should have personal copies of the LBBs done in an editable format suitable for POD. Sadly, POD is limited to Mixam, probably because of what is now a custom size. I'd love for this to someday be available as a POD option for everyone, just to crush the souls of the eBay sellers charging exorbitant prices for LBBs books in deplorable conditions.