Univeral Apps revisited

I've updated to VS2015, and the previous universal app stuff no longer works.  So I am working on a new version for Windows 10 devices. The previous one was Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.  The new version should work across all Windows 10 platforms, hopefully with a correct view for the screen size.

I am, of course, over-engineering this. You get back a list of starships. A starship class contains the following:

• StarShip Class
• Class - starship class
• Class Name
• tonnage
• Cargo tonnage
• Jump capacity
• Maneuver capacity
• Type (A2, etc)
• Name
• USP
• Age
• List of Crew members

Crew members are a class:

• Crew Class
• UPP
• Name
• Rank
• Age
• Race class
• Name
• ???
• Dictionary of skills, skill level (i.e., Blade 1)

Skills are also a class:

• Skill Class
• Name
• ????

I've left the race and skills kind of empty at the moment.

The theory is down the road you should be able to drill down from the simple list to get standard ship information, crew information, etc.

Sadly I have good ideas about schema, my UX skills not so much. 

I was planning on starting this today but so far it has been a lot of large updates to VS2015 to get things ready.  I'll be able to just copy the existing classes to the new system.

I believe I am also going to look into a local DB to include.

If I were to referee again...

Thinking a  bit more about refereeing a game, and if I can get started, I believe I'll use the following:

1. Character generation: Mongoose 2nd Edition rules. I've got the beta PDF, and I like the life events and how it adds more background to the characters. In particular, how it can link the characters together before the game begins. No more "You meet in a starport bar...".
2. Basic task resolution: the 68A rule: 6+ for easy, 8+ for hard, 10+ for difficult. Apply appropriate skill and characteristics bonuses, as well as potentially the boon/bane die depending on circumstances. 
3. Combat: never my strong point in refereeing games. Use basic task resolution for hitting, and I'll have to dig into the Mongoose rules for combat.  Just remember that combat in Traveller tends towards high fatality rates!
4. Starships: I have a soft spot for Classic Book 5/High Guard. 
5. System generation: looking into T5 system generation.

Then I have to decide if I want to play in the OTU or homebrew. If OTU I generally play in the Lorenverse - no assassination, no Virus. Then decide how the Imperium is: Star Wars Empire, late Roman empire barbarians at the gate, bored dilettantes meddling in local affairs.  

Wanting to play Traveller again

I manage to play RPGs during the summer with the Asheville gaming group (there's a conflict during the school year for Monday nights).  So far we've played the One Ring and a DC super hero game. I'm wanting to play Traveller again, but knowing that I'm probably the only one with the rule books I'll be refereeing. So perhaps I'll see if another night is available for 2-4 people to play a bit.

If so, then I'll post the basics about the universe we'll play in, basic assumptions, rule sets (probably Classic with some T5 and Mongoose tossed in) and whatever.  And we'll need to decide on a game type (merchant, military, exploration, etc).

Random Starship Encounters

I've decided to play with Universal Apps, so I am writing a Win Phone/Win 8.1 program to generate random starship encounters.

Phase 1 is actually complete: I've replicated the Supplement 7 Starship Encounters.
Phase 2 is a tad more ambitious: you'll be able to select the world location and based on the UPP, and options such as location (Imperial, etc) and if you pick a small or large ship universe, it will generate a bunch more random encounters.
Phase 3 is taking the universal part and sticking it into a web site at some point. However, my web development is sorely lacking in the modern era.

Going a bit aboveboard: the encounters beyond Supplement 7 actually detail the ship a bit more, and the plan is to allow users to add their own ship classes into the mix.

Details in the models so far include name, class, type, tonnage, cargo tonnage, age, jump, maneuver and a crew listing (a list of crew models - its turtles all the way down!)  The idea is that you could select one of the random encounters to get more detail.

Why am I doing this? I've always thought the Traveller Universe form Classic was a bit bland on experience of coming into a star port. 3 other ships, in a universe of trillions? I've got a lot of the Gurps stuff and that was a bit too busy for my taste. In fact, I may add world details as well (stealing from the old trade program for the most part but refactoring the classes a great deal) for classic, Gurps and the T5 stuff. Just

How long will this take? Knowing me, I may never finish. I already program 8 hours a day for work family time is more important. The trade program was developed when I got laid off - plenty of time!