Monday, February 15, 2010

Alell update

Added some universities and a couple of images, minor edits. Still needs work but it is slowly coming together, I think.
 http://cid-68f917204deb20d2.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Alell.odt

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Allell - System diagram

Still playing with GIMP and other tools. At least I have the planets scaled correctly now, but the lighting is not correct. And funny - I actually know HOW to do that...

Anyway, I'm working on an Alell source module for the heck of it. This is part of that.
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Sunday, January 24, 2010

Alell, an overview

Playing with a few image editors, and working on the Alell system:



Thursday, January 21, 2010

No news is good news?

No comments on my last release either here or at the MGT-Aids site. So either everything works perfect (sounds of crickets) or no one has looked at the new version. I'll try & get back to it again this weekend, and see if there were any other requests out there I've forgotten.

And - have a great day!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

weekend update

I've released the latest update on my skydrive account: Traveller2.zip

I'll try & get around to updating the MGT Aid file, but as of this morning for some reason it was not letting me log in.  (afternoon update: I relogged back in & deleted/reloaded the file).

I've also added the monthly payment check - when saving the ship file (and this also happens automatically when you exit the program) it checks to see if we've passed 30 days since the last time we've paid. If so, we add 30 days (and it should take into account wrapping around day 365) to the last paid date, subtract out your monthly costs, and add a note:


You can also add 1-3 days as well from a button on the status bar next to the date:



I've finished the preliminary Mongoose file checking. It only checks the big things (the correct number of fields, the correct number of lines). It does not check the actual values other than the die roll on the actual values table.



Friday, January 15, 2010

Update Plans

I plan on the following 3 updates to be released over the weekend:

  1. complete at least the Mongoose trade file check utility
  2. give the user an option to add days to the ship's date
  3. fix the ship save function to save the date as well
If I get motivated and have the time, I may spec out at least the ideas I have about tracking NPCs, and allowing custom content to be added to the ship file. I am really thinking of images - being able to add deck plans would be cool. That and there has been a request for printing a ship data sheet. I really need to figure out reporting better.

Just remember - all the files this program use are text, so hand-editing is allowed. Notepad works just fine.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

draft 1 of file checking

I've added a first draft of the file checking. So far it only checks Mongoose trade codes, but here is a snapshot of the current version, along with a file. I've not double-checked (hey, it is 5:38 in the morning!) but my guess is that this is the only incorrect line.

The things it checks for the trade codes are the number of lines (and this would only be a warning, not a breaking deal. I do plan on adding a column for passing the checks) (and this is only valid CSV lines, it ignores the headers & blank lines) and that there are 10 items per line.


I'll probably get this finished up & re-released over the weekend. If anyone knows a better way other than deleting & reloading the file in Yahoo, please let me know.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

better forms

My new job has an interesting form thing I'm figuring out, and the TravellerMap page uses a PDF generator taht could create some interesting forms.

So - if there is a demand for better forms, I may get around to playing with that this weekend.

some corrections made, not yet released

I've fixed 2 of the 3 issues (allow more than Cr99999 for ship expenses, added a flag for allowing illegal goods in Mongoose Traveller - adds a new ship option).  I still need to get to fixing the save, making it work as well as being backwards compatible.  Hopefully this coming weekend I'll have some time & fix & figure out how to re-release it.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

new multi-version trade generator


I've started from scratch, deciding to make it more object-oriented. The new version supports classic Traveller, T5 & Mongoose Traveller. It uses a ship config file that contains the info to run the program, so you could test the same ship in each version to see how they stack up.

The interface is a bit different (and sorry - I am no UI expert). It uses basic CSV & XML files - no hidden database.

Not sure about releasing it yet - I've a copy stashed on-line that does not contain all the data in the tables, but I am unsure of copyright issues.

Several enhancements:
  • you can add notes per system
  • uses SEC format files for the system (notes are kept in the notes.xml file)
  • you can add images to systems
  • uses the Berka 11 world system for showing basic images
  • actually has a few reports
Anyway - lots of work went into this, but it is still not done.