Saturday, June 30, 2018

All data in. Now to proofread it!

Got all four subsectors put in, but I need to review the data a bit. There also seems to be an awful lot of read and amber zones, but this section of space is pretty far away from the Imperium, somewhere on the far edge of it. So perhaps the Scouts are being extra cautious.

The Imperium's border was originally in purple on my original map, so I am just following that. Need to get the X-Boat routes in, and the trading routes. Having some issue figuring out GIMP for that stuff. Paths...


Friday, June 29, 2018

D'Arlee Quad - half done

I've got half the worlds put in, and I'm testing various TravellerMap API calls. I also found out that Heaven & Earth will import the sector file, so I can actually generate the extended systems that way. So cool to be using college stuff with software I was using in college as well as stuff that could not even exist then (I have a computer science degree pre-dating the world wide web. Internet was there if you knew the IP address...)

I've got 1 planet description that oddly is listed in a subsector but at row 11, which in the correct subsector has an entirely different world name and UWP.  I'll put in the description here though. I do want to find a place to out it.

Links A37455-8 Scout Base, non-Imperial, 2 gas giants, non-agricultural
Links' name is derived from some obscure myth. The major occupation of the people is the production of porcine products. Their quality is unsurpassed, and they produce all ranges of food derivatives from emergency rations to gourmet cookery.

*Referee Only* The mass production of food products means that supplies of high quality are readily available at discount prices. The people are gregarious so add one to all reaction rolls.




Thursday, June 28, 2018

The remaking of a sector

Starting to re-do my old D'Arlee Quad (2x2 sectors) to bring it into the modern age. TravellerMap rocks! Pretty sure it can do the borders and all that, just need to figure it out.

My plan is to do world write-ups as I have done in the past.  My own little corner of the Universe.  Apparently it is at least partially in the Imperium. I must have not wanted to create everything from scratch.


Friday, June 22, 2018

College Traveller - the mid 80s

I dug up my old Traveller stuff. I had a complete 2x2 sector written up via typewriter, hand drawn maps and ships, and oddly a complete sector-wide shipping company.  Now I do so much on the computer, but those early days I could spend weeks with paper, pen and pencils and my father's old typewriter generating material.

Apparently I also created Zhodani ships!


Sunday, June 17, 2018

Parrot Isle

I am just following a tutorial, but I better understand the sheets, layers and effects now.  Still need to mess with Traveller-style maps and things, but as The Fantasy Trip is going to be re-released I may see if I can get the gaming group to try that RPG as well as Traveller (now that I have more time! Plus my son is finally almost done w/Scouts as he has completed all Eagle merit badges, the project, and is just getting all the letters of recommendation and the final paperwork done. Meaning Monday nights, which were Scout night, can now go back to being gaming night with the RPG club in town!)

Anyway, below is a map from that 2nd tutorial where I learned about sheets, text on curves, and some more transparency things. Plus a sepia version as a player handout.




Saturday, June 16, 2018

Traveller Tracker Ship Classes

Getting back into the tracker software, and making things work a little better on smaller screens. Mostly adding a scroll viewer around the grids. Not really pretty but at least functional. I am also cleaning up some of the more obvious UI issues, such as the edit boxes getting squashed or missing sides.

I started a user document but then thought it was premature.

I also spent a couple of hours going through more CC3+ tutorials. Getting a better idea of sheets and layers and how to make more interesting and eventually better looking maps.

I really need to spend the time getting the Tracker software working and looking better.

Slightly revised ship class editor:



And a map - hey, I've got some text on curves, and learning about glows...it could be a TL4 island...




Thursday, June 14, 2018

No more classes

I've decided to withdraw from my class and school. Too much stress, not enough potential return to be worth it. So now I have free time to spend with family, work on the Traveller Tracker software, learn how to use Campaign Cartographer, and actually play.

While a painful decision as I really hate to quit, it was driving everyone, including the dog, crazy (I apparently do not sleep well and he would not stay in the bed but leave. According to my wife I would be yelling and thrashing as well...hmm, PTSD from a class, who knew?)

So hopefully I will be able to start up another Traveller game (I've got some ideas), work on the software, make fun maps...

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Traveller Tracker - at least buying cargo now loads & displays the manifest

Finally got back for a few minutes, and updated the purchasing process to switch to your manifest window after purchasing, and it does properly refresh and show the current manifest.

As a reminder, it is available on GitHub, and in theory you can sideload this via the HockeyApp process (although we've not really had a lot of luck with that so far).  So at some point, if this just does not pan out, I may try again with a more generic approach other than UWP. Just wanted to see if I could write a universal Windows program so that the store would handle distribution.

If I ever do rewrite this for the nth time, this time it will be .Net Core so that it will run on Windows, Mac, Linux in theory. Not sure about the UI for that although there are rumors they will be porting XAML. Or I could try my hand at Java as that runs on everything as well.

Now back to project management...yay?

Sunday, June 03, 2018

T5 Freight tonnage

After a lively discussion on the COTI forum, the conclusion is that the tonnage is:

(Flux + Pop) x (TCs + 1)  

The trade codes (TCs) that are applicable are a limited sub-set of all the trade codes, so I've added that flag to the trade code table and it seemed to work. I'll probably update the seed to automatically set that as well when you load the software the first time.

I am also assuming we're using the absolute value of flux - no negative tonnage (I guess we really could do that and say that there is a demand for that particular cargo in the system). And it is possible for flux to be 0, meaning that no cargo was found.  And unlike CT, it appears we roll once per day - good thing I set up the version table to have a slot for how many days per search!

And I still need to make that UI better: buying cargo should show the updated manifest. I do have the new ship process a bit better: it does go to the ship details layout. I may want to color-code the items you need to have entered to indicate that things are still needed. However, selecting the era did load the appropriate sectors and all that.

And playing with Campaign Cartographer more. I really need to go through a LOT more tutorials...but here is a test for the Cosmographer satellite view. I really need to figure out a bit more..