Random Traveller World: Felid/Orret in Far Home

Realizing that most of my "popular" posts are Traveller posts (well, this is ostensibly a Traveller blog! I just throw everything else as well into it) I decided to do a random world map. Hit up the Traveller wiki and hot random page until a world came up, Felid. From the wiki entry:

Felid is an agricultural garden world with a near-ideal, utopian environment conducive to most sophonts.

As an agricultural world, this world is a near-ideal environment for producing quality foodstuffs of plant, animal, and other forms. Quality foodstuffs are a major export commodity for this world.

Its economy and population are rapidly growing and living conditions are expected to incrementally rise barring outside forces.

It is a Non-Aligned world dominated by human sophonts located in the Orret Subsector of Far Home Sector.

This world-system hosts a Military Base, usually associated with military ground forces, which may be located on or off-world.

A757746-A is the UWP, a nice class A port, a bit smaller than Earth with a thin atmosphere, 60% water and a representative democracy of about 50 million people. 

First, a world of 60% hydrographics:

Then some sort of IIS forms perhaps. Though this will sort of work. Just don't print it! Grabbed some of the info using Heaven&Earth. I still really like that program!

Anyway, a quick pure Traveller post put together with Fractal Terrains, GIMP, TravellerMap.com, the Traveller Wiki, Google Draw and Heaven & Earth. 

One of the members over at COTI wants more than a simple explanation - they wanted flavor text as well. As in - what does the world smell like and similar things. Guess I have a hard time with that since a world is never a single thing. Though smell could be omnipresent for a hellworld or something, but anything with a biome habitable by humans I would think would smell and feel different depending on where you were. And having said that - perhaps a world has a slightly higher level of methane or something, and so yes, in that case the world could smell like rotten eggs. So hmm, maybe...

Oh, and I did correct the freight part of the software - it is the number of lots, then for each lot you do the size in dTons. Still stuck on figuring out how to get it signed and all that for upload into the Android app store. They don't take personally signed apps, and while I have an app key from them, cannot figure out if that is somehow used to generate the signing certificate. I think it is, but I'll admit to getting confused over all that other than a vague idea of signing sofware. *sigh*

Organic Towns Month 4: Windemere Crossing and solo Traveller

As I do my monthly organic towns, I am reminded of not one but two TAS articles: in JTAS 13 and JTAS 18. In JTAS 13, Real Time Traveller:

The boardless nature of Traveller, however, permits greater flexibility. With some ref's notes small adjustments, a satisfying solitaire Traveller campaign can be conducted on the basis of a few minutes each day, by playing the game in "real-time" terms. Make one day in your life match one day in the game. After breaking down Traveller events into daily steps, most actions (a patron search, selling cargo) can be handled in the few minutes it takes to throw dice, consult a table, and note the result in a continuing log. 

In JTAS 18, Travelling Without a Starship:

A single planet alone can furnish multitudes of adventure ideas. Tens of millions of square kilometers of surface area are open to ventures in dozens of climates and terrain types, among many cultures and subcultures, and among different levels of civilization . . . any referee could keep games going for years on a single isolated planet, with no need for repetition of adventures and no need for a spaceship. Some vary successful adventure novels have worked this way. 

Of course, I have tried the Zozer Solo rules and while that works, I may have to expand out to see about the mythic DM or some other process. But anyway, doing my monthly turns at Organic Towns is essentially the same sort of thing - roll some dice, note the results, and move on. While I'd much prefer a real time game with people, adulting is hard to get everyone coordinated! Though our group does have 1 retired gamer, I'm still 6 years out (unless I win the lottery, but of course, I'd have to actually play to win!) Not sure if I'll return to that solo Traveller game - it was not as much fun as I was hoping. In fact, I do find most solo games pretty boring. Though world-building is fun, I am not sure it will actually go anywhere.

And I seem to recall a trading without a starship article as well - I may have to dig through my actual print copies as pretty sure I read it (and yes, I do have the Journal CD but as I've said so many times, I much prefer reading "real" books. I'm old, so get off my lawn!)

Month 4 of Organic Towns for Windemere Crossing

Moving on to month 4, we are still constructing our western gate: workers are expecting to have it completed next month. In the meantime, the taverns in town have benefitted from the workers thirst and hunger.

First, our building roll: the tower (which honestly I had forgotten I stuck there but as this was a military outpost in the past, it was part of the infrastructure!) And it is a level II tower, so, this morning the guards spotted an ominous sign: hundreds of birds migrating the wrong way!

Next, our moral roll, slanderous graffiti regarding the settlement leaders has been appearing more frequently. Wonder if this is the same graffiti artist that was writing those bawdry limericks on the barracks a couple of months ago?

Interestingly, other than graffiti, there are no reports of crime. Could be our newly enlarged town guard is having a beneficial effect on our fair trade town.

At this point, the town hall is complete, and the first town meeting took place with a bit of festivity. The Sea Elves are still looming in the back of the meeting hall, with the grand table for the Burgermeister, sheriff and Nomehi Wirididea representing the town, the police and the local merchants. A decision was reached to expand out the market. As caravans pass almost daily along the Ocean Trade Route, they want a bigger piece of that pie. And it could make Windemere Crossing a destination instead of a waystation. This will cost us 36 SP and take two months to build. We're also going to add a pasture to help feed the town, and the fencing should be completed next month.

There was rumor of a retired merchant fightng a weaver outside of town, but no one is certain of that, and Rennor, who seems to know everyone, has not said anything. And she does like to break up fights. The new fine tooling from Bernice Lister (town guard who dabbles in leatherworking) and Durdo's wife Viola have started selling some wares in the merchants' quarter. Sheriff Sprigbasher did buy a nice new coin purse with his initials stamped on it from them. As he did get a small raise now that he is leading two new guards. 

The spearmen train daily in the space behind the barracks. They also patrol outside the city walls in pairs, while the town guard stays inside the walls. 

With the new housing, pastures being built, and Durdo and his wife welcoming twins, our population is now 348 residents. 

And asked for some fantasy spear carrying soldiers patrolling outside a walled townvnext to the desert and got this. Though I could also image dive in the web but then I feel bad when I don't attribute who did that art, then I remember the AI is trained on that and also does not give proper attribution. We do live in strange times! But I do like to browse through art and find things that seem interesting. I am so glad people do share their stuff online!

I am also tracking a lot of these updates in the Windemere document (and got lazy and just doing some copy/paste) but thinking some stuff I really need to consolidate better. And I know - I keep saying that! For someone who likes organization, I am not that good at it!

World Explainer

I've stalled on this (really, me, stalled?) Work got more interesting than I like (we lost one of our developers as he moved on to a better position, and he was the primary source of a lot of institutional knowledge. So just me and a junior developer, though I am trying  to get a friend from my last job hired as he was laid off last week, and would be a really good asset for my new job). Just need to figure out the OAUTH and signing thing and should be good for the Android store. Though I do need to re-read the freight part as that is not 100% correct - think I need to do lots and tons per lot or something. I may finish that, but the deploy as a test application is swirling around the "I've already got too many software things I need to keep track of" situation.  Plus I've not heard back from Marc Miller so that also is a bit bothersome. Though he does have a fairly liberal view of this sort of thing, I don't like to make assumptions!

Zombicide Writ Large, Android Developer

We played a round of Zombicide this morning. Between a 2nd set of tiles and an expansion, we decided to do a large run from the top of the board to the bottom. Only 1 player character (out of 8 - there were 4 of us playing 2 characters each) managed to barely get out.

We placed a few targets which had the red-level weapons, though we cheated and allowed their use before you get to the red level of experience. As with most Zombicide games, we were really close to at the end then a series of very unfortunate spawnings killed us all. If I had more zombies we may have had more than one survivor. I need to remember to bring spare zombies as I do have a few from various Reaper and Fantasy Series that would work just fine! I've also started painting some of the characters. It is slow going of course! And now wondering if I should paint her skates white along with her apron. Probably will! and then figure something for the base. I just like her as a roller-skating waitress carrying a chain saw seems like a bad idea, but a lot of fun to play!

The Abomination is painted as is one of the new characters I got in an expansion pack. As always, we had a pretty good time even though we all died. Again.

I also am moving forward on the Traveller World Explainer. I've opened a Googe Developer account, and I am working on figuring out the remaining things I need to do to get it there. It will be in test mode, and so far I've only assigned my email as a test account just to see how and if it will work. But I am slowly making progress. I need to also follow up and see if the Windows store has the same sort of thing: I can put it in test mode and only have a few emails with invitations to test it.

That's my immediate goal. Longer term I do really want to get an entire trade tracker back up and running on the two operating systems and integrating with TravellerMap. It would look good on my resume to be published in 2 app stores. Though I don't plan on changing jobs (despite losing the 1 developer who had been there the longest and had the most knowledge. I am still fairly lost in all the systems and how and where they go. Makes me think the computer skill in Traveller is very, very broad and powerful! But as that is a game and not a simulation, all good!) Hoping this job will last until I retire in 6 years. However, I've found that no developer seems to last more than 2 years at this place. And the biggest reason I think is the company itself: it is an actual manufacturing plant. The benefits are wrapped around factory workers, which, coming from a technology worker background, is an entirely different thing. I now know just how spoiled I've been for a lot of things in my working career. Though things are changing as I think the owners are becoming aware that this is really an issue (institutional knowledge is something that cannot be under-estimated!). Hoping I'll last long enough to both get that institutional knowledge and manage to document everything so it is not as crazy as it currently is.

Next post should probably be another Organic Town turn to see how Windemere Crossing is going. I need to actually put some of those details in a better format so they can actually be used. One of these days I'll figure out the best approach is for me! And pretty sure I say that every 5th post or so...I am nothing if not consistent!

World Explainer Part 2: Passengers and Freight

I finally decided to email Marc Miller about publishing my little software application in the Windows and Android store. So far, no response, but hey, at least I am finally getting the courage to ask. It would be pretty cool to have a published application! I could hang out with the other cool Traveller developers on COTI ☺. 

I've also started on the next phase of things: passengers and freight. The downside of that is we need the destination world info for those calculations, so I'll have to get at least the population for the destination system. The previous time I did this, I actually had all the worlds within the jump range of the ship and calculated for each of those. I'll probably end up back there. Almost wondering if I could resurrect that version as I do have the source code. It's just a non-supported version of .Net and had some limitations. Though I am using parts of the code still.

Anyway, I still think if I share the directory, you can install the software via the PowerShell installer, which does ask if you want to trust that self-signed certificate. Why I do want to get this published with a real certificate. Well, that, and it would be pretty cool to have software published in at least one application store. 

I should have this 2nd part completed in the next few days, depending on work and other things. I've added the passenger table to my set of text files that get included with the application on install. Though I could not find them when I installed it, though I did look in all the usual places that Windows hides these things.

The button does not do anything yet, but I did some code cleanup behind the scenes that should help make it easier to expand on it. 

I think a lot of those things will eventually move back into a SQLite DB and then I'll have to give the users some access to that. I'll definitely do that when I add in "search the TravellerMap for systems". Though in all honesty, if you have internet access then that map gives you everything you need. But I'll be caching that data, so in theory once you download a sector, you have a local copy so have off-line access. At least that is what I did before. 

And sadly, my Kahrun character in our random-roll Tiny Dungeon game was killed by a lizard. She was often the most-hurt character in that game - a magnet for damage. Ursa Major (she was a bear person) was a lot of fun to play. Not too bright. As the group ended up outside dungeon at a random evil temple thing that was oddly adjacent to a grain silo, and our mission was to find food for the town, she attacked the lizards at the silo. First death of the group. Fortunately for the game, as it was on a marshland, and they did kill off the lizards, I now have a lizard character that will join the group. Not quite as powerful (we had gained another trait after our 3rd session) but should still be fun. I found it odd that they wanted to give me a freebie trait to be on a level playing field. I'm quite happy with starting all over - Ursa took some risks and died, so I start new. All the characters in a game don't have to be the same level. Most systems it becomes harder to level up the higher you get, so it all works out. This game we were just upgrading every 3 or so sessions, so in theory I'd never catch up. But hey, I am not a power player, I just play and have fun.

Pretty sure I've posted before about playing RPGs with mismatched characters in terms of skill sets or abilities (heck, this blog is a couple decades old so probably covered a LOT of things over the years!). Seems like most people want all the PCs to be the same power-wise. I think more interesting dynamics is a mismatched set. In fact - we have a little salamander type of character: he has to hang back as if he gets hit, he is pretty much toast. But he is our healer, and rides around on the treant character. Anyway, perhaps I'll post about that adventure soon.

And for those living in the USA - Happy 4th of July!