Traveller Sunday - NPC Crew Interactions

The NPCs have been relatively quiet and part of the background without any real personalities.

I've generated a NPC interaction graph, and we'll base the interrelationships off those rolls using the reaction table. Having a 2 in there really indicates some serious hatred for some reason....someone wit ha 12 and the other NOC with a much lower score for may indicate unrequited love...

And it looks like I forgot Li...will have to add her.  So you read the table down the left hand side for that person and how they react to the others. So Franklin really dislikes Purity but gets along well enough with everyone else. Purity does not seem to like Franklin any better.

I need to add more NPC interactions I think to our play.

	Franklin	Ferdinando	Purity	Francine	Quentin
Franklin	-	6	3	11	9
Ferdinando	5	-	9	8	5
Purity	4	11	-	8	2
Francine	5	10	4	-	11
Quentin	10	12	6	8	-

Traveller Sunday - On To Kryslion

Away from one dictator and to another!  At least this one is charismatic.  I've started working on the Kryslion guide ( Kyrslion ), and they turn out to be a gregarious people who love crowds and tattoos. Hey - it was what was rolled up, and with a population of 50 billion, liking crowds is a good thing!

Traveller Tracker

Not too much to post here.  I did start on the ship view, which will allow you to edit the ship.  I've got the basic data binding in place, but want to make the view a bit prettier.  Bit at least I got the initial databinding in place!  Next to see if I can go back & update the data as well as reading it.

But it seems there is a VS update all the time, so once I got that at least something done, I went with the update.  So maybe some more this week depending on how much time I get. Real life is not always nice, so my time with this is more limited than I would like, especially once I get started.

Traveller Sunday - Leaving Cyan

After a day of recovery (that fast drug works miracles apparently, although Travis is still sore and Pennity will be in the hospital for a few months) our Travellers take the Renegade Scout Ship to the Way Station.  I had the poster of the ship laid out & we got to look that over a bit, but as it was just a 2 day trip or so to the Way Station, it was simply there to look at.

The first stop in the belt was at Ming Station, the main administrative hub. They met the Way Station Scout Commander, transferred the funding form the Countess for the new fuel purifier, and opened some initial talks about possibly sharing research from the Lord Fish deal.

They then took a shuttle with the scientists from Le Suroit to a Vanguard class station (another poster map, again just there for looks) where they caught up with the engineers who were finalizing the ship updates.  The Lab Ship now has a spoke that goes all the way through, which contains both the fuel purification system as well as enough fuel so that they can still do a Jump-1. Their manuever spped has dropped a little, so intead of 1G they have something like .95G - close enough not to worry about.  Ferdinando has the drives all recalibrated for the new mass and volume.  While Travis went on a simulator to verify he could still pilot the updated ship (and had 2 very unsuccessful rolls with finally getting a succes - we pictured the scene in Galaxy Quest when the pilot takes the ship out, scraping the port), Li made the rounds and I made reaction rolls for each of the crew. Even without a persuade DM, the lowest was a 7, the highest a 10. So the new crew member apparently fits in quite well.

Sadly, I really had nothing at the Way Station that needed doing despite having my nice big map of Flash Gordon references. So after another day of getting things packed up, the crew move out 100D from the belt, and make the jump to Kryslion.  Travis rolled a 7, so the just while successful will be a bit further out than 100D.

And so I need to start the Kryslion world work up.

Traveller Sunday - The Rescue of Purity

Over breakfast on the day Purity was to return so that they could go to the Scout Way Station, our Travellers got a frantic call from Purity as she was approaching the starport in the grav APC.  She got cut off in the middle of warning about an incoming object.  Travis, Boris & Li rush to the starport administration building, and call the prison Warden.  He has just found out that the APC was shot down on the east end of Startown, and has no further word.  He urges our adventurers to contact the Marine and port Authority.  The Marines convene a quick meeting.  Due to the political situation, they cannot mount a heavily armed response to this situation.  They do not want a repeat of the riots from 5 years ago, which is what brought the Marines in the first place.

However, lending them Pennity and Pagille, along with a modified ACV (air cushion vehicle or hovercraft) cargo van, our heroes sally forth from the port.  Both characters managed to fail negotiating with the customs official for exiting the port; however, a fortuitous roll by Pennity let them pass through the gates without much more of a delay.  They had their guns in hidden ports - handy having access to high technology which can bypass the local authority's scanning devices as the Marines have discovered for several covert excursions.

I had 3 encounters listed in my maps. The got through customs easily enough.  The warehouse district I managed to roll citizens, and only 2 of them.  So while the reaction roll was pretty low, 2 locals against 4 in a hover van are not good odds so they just gave our group dirty looks.  Finally closing in on the light industrial area, I had everyone roll for surprise.  No one surprised anyone.

As our group approached the rising plume of smoke that they could now see, and noticing people walking in what was obvious to our Marines as a search pattern, they were stopped by 2 well armed soldiers. A brief conversation lead nowhere when there were suddenly shots heard against the roof of the van.  Fortunately, the van had been updated to carry armor. However, the two soldiers in front pulled back and started shooting as well.

At this point Pennity, at the urging of one of the players (sad I can't recall who now...) managed to speed up and take out one of the gunmen, while Pagille rolled down hos window and started shooting as well, managing to take out the other gunmen.  It was at this point more shots were being fired, and Pennity, seeking cover closer to the downed APC, smashed through the loading dock of a small warehouse, crashing to a halt next to several barrels of beer. 

Pagille had been shot during this maneuver, and Dr. Duk-Lyle was using first aid to stabilize him.  At first, due to the positions of Pagille in the front, it was not a particularly successful staunching of the wounds. While Boris moved the injured Marine to the read seats, Travis leapt out the front and grabbed Pagille's gauss rifle. Pennity had left her side with a trusty laser rifle, and was going out the other side of the vehicle.

Pagille was stabilized, and Travis shot very badly several times. While not hitting anyone, he came close to hitting his boots.  Pennity manged to take out at least one gunman but then was almost fatally wounded by a very successful shot.  Boris was quick to the rescue and managed to ably stabilize her. At this point they got unexpected help from above - apparently the APC driver and Purity were in this building, and the driver was lending support from the second floor.  Purity came over to the doctor and Pennity, and getting the Marine's gun started shooting as well.

Travis got hit hard, and falls unconscious to the ground. Purity is not particularly successfully shooting either, but the gunmen are falling back, and the Marines do have more support coming in.

With a lucky shot, the pilot takes down the leader of the group, and the rest flee as the Marines finally show up. 

All are rushed back to the port and get hospitalized and taken care of. Pennity will be recuperating for some time (she was down to 1 point left). Travis opted for the medical slow drug and is hooked up to intravenous feeding for the next 24 hours.

The doctor gets a commendation for his aid, Travis gets free medical care.

Also discovered that these soldiers are actually from the Blade mercenary group from Kryslion. Aphix hired them as plausible deniability several months back, for both training and covert acts against the rebels. Fearing that Purity had discovered something at the prison (she did not) she wanted her killed before she could report anything. 

Fortunately the APC has great airbags as both Purity and the pilot survived without injury.  THe Baldes commander is getting sent to Imperial Prison.  All this fits in with the latest issue of the Freelance Traveller where the mercenary group is described.  As this takes place in 1104, and in the article the leader of the 2nd Platoon is in Imperial Prison, this worked out well to bring in some flavor from some one else's OTU.

Sunday Traveller

The morning started with another light snowfall, covering the port's ;anding fields and buildings. The snow softened the harsh outlines of the older buildings, and covered the ravages of the riots that, five years on, still lingered.

Boris, Travis and Li are having breakfast at the hotels small canteen when their comm's buzz with an incoming call. Li does not yet have a ship comm, she will have to wait until you get to the ship at the Way Station.  It's Purity - she was nearing the port in a prison grav APC when a small rocket launched grenade hit the vehicle, causing it to crash in the eastern part of Startown.  Apparently grav APCs are fairly resilient as she and pilot both survived the crash, but the vehicle itself is pretty much totaled. They have moved to a nearby industrial building and are trying to hide as it appears a small, armed crowd has arrived. She is unable to determine if the crowd are the ones who fired the grenade or have just shown up.  Her final words are, "I don't exactly blend in here well, but we'll continue on foot to approach the port and..." as the transmission gets cut.

Below is the map - the orange circle is where they went down. Talking with the port warden and military officials, due to the current state of affairs on Cyan, the do not recommend a full scale Imperial military approach - they do not want another riot.  They are recommending a more nuanced approach. They have several local ground vehicles that have been modified somewhat to offer better protection, and advise dressing more like the locals.  They will also supply the two Marines that accompanied Boris & Travis on their prison research.  Arms will be concealed in the vehicle and should be able to pass through customs.  So you can bring your pistol and cudgel if you so desire (there is always a chance, however, that you may get caught in customs; however, the Marines assure you that they've done this on more than one occasion for a variety of reasons).

From what the port can tell, there is interference in that area of Startown - the comms are being jammed.  Additionally, no one has claimed credit for the attack.  The port's opinion is that it is not the rebel faction - while not directly pro-Imperial, they do want further trade and access to Imperial goods and services. However, like any movement there are a variety if factions.  They are also not ruling out the local Army, particularly as rocket launched grenades are not easy to come by.

The point of impact is about 10 kilometers out, in a light industrial area.

Traveller Tracker Overview

I've got the basic framework set up as below (most to be actually filled in).  The main screen has a frame where all the content goes based on the the menu options on the left and the active ship.  The plan is you pick or add a ship, and can track your cargo, fuel and all that.  Repeating what I already did 7 years ago but for UWP and to actually publish on the Windows App store.  Hopefully I'll have the ship and class editors in place soon and can actually start seeing if this works.

Traveller Tracker

Having learned that foreign keys are not good, I can still set the data models up the way I want to, then I comment out the code in the migration script that deals with foreign keys. It does mean that I nave to manually link things together, but that's not particularly difficult.

I've added a new page to edit the ship details - not much is there yet, but I can navigate to it.  I am going to rewrite the main page to reflect my initial design - I've added a frame which is where we navigate to.  So the left hand will be navigation style buttons, the main part will be the actual data.

I think the options will be (going vertically down the left):

• List - list the ships in your database. There will be a button or link to get to the details
• Ship - details of the ship. Allow editing, and loads this ship as your current ship.
• Classes - allows you to edit the ship classes
• Log - current log of the active ship

That's a guess for the moment.  The class is what defines the ship tonnage, jump, maneuver and power systems, cargo and maybe fuel.

But progress is slowly being made.

Traveller Sunday

Flying back to the Cyan Port, there is a light snow covering the tarmacs, and the occasional craft launching or landing in the distance.  Boris, Travis and Li part ways with their Marine guards, and go to the Port Hotel where they have a few hours before their dinner with the Countess. Li leaves to get some shopping done, while Travis and the Doctor clean up and do some research on the Countess and try to catch up on local news.  Most of the local news is state-sponsored propaganda, but even there is little negative news on the Countess. The Imperial database indicates she has been a career diplomat and has moved up through the ranks consistently over the years, and is now the Imperial representative on Cyan. Her goals, as listed by her bio, are to bring peace and prosperity to Cyan. Knowing how the nobility works, our Travellers are aware that prosperity will also be coming to the Countess.

Li returns with several bags, and asks if she too is invited. As she was, both Boris and Dr Duk-Lyle almost appear affronted that she even made such a suggestion.  So quickly pulls out a fairly spectacular semi-formal gown, and returns.  Amidst the praise, a slight bump on her thigh is revealed to be a small holster and pistol. With a grin and "it doesn't hurt a girl to try" she quite easily leaves the small body pistol behind. 

They are met at the hotel entrance by a port taxi, and are quickly shuttled to the racing yacht. Met at the airlock by an austere butler, they are ushered into the dining area where they are met with delight by Countess Millie. A coffee and introductions are exchanged, and Millie offers a tour of the yacht before dinner. Travis recognizes the coffee from Trane, and finds to his dismay that the Countess imports it at a fair expense. The yacht is a Kitaro class racing yacht, so is not a typical Traveller yacht.  Fine yet subdued appointments show a refined taste. They are led to the large kitchen where Chef Waldo and is sous-chef are busy cooking. They are almost ejected from the kitchen by the same chef who is busy cooking some sort of fish.  The rest of the tour goes well, from the small pool with the complete holographic wall system, to the larger than expected engineering section. At the rear of the ship is the garage, currently with 2 grav speeders.

At pleasant chime announces that dinner is served. Returning to the dining room, they encounter the Marquis Juliette Sung Ottowald who they last saw on Trane.  A very pleasant dinner was served, and making rolls against social, Travis noted that the fish is exceptional and wonders if it is Lord Fish.  And indeed it is (note that Lord Fish is from the http://travellerrepublik.blogspot.com/ site - thanks!)  The Countess notes that she has an idea she would like to discuss after dinner.

So, after a resplendent meal, after dinner is served causing Travis to grimace at missed opportunity. Her plan is to finance Le Suroit to research keeping the Lord Fish tasty for more than a couple of days after processing. This fish is not only expensive due to its rarity but also that it has to be shipped live - once dead, despite any preparation, the taste and value rapidly declines.  She offers a cool Cr250,000, enough to pay for the fuel processor as well as purchase a fish or two at Kryslion, their next port of call. Li continues to elbow both Travis and Dr. Duk-Lyle, so they take an electronic copy of the contract to review it.

They end up hiring an advocate to review the document, and decide to modify it so that they will also get a cut of the profits going forward should they actually manage to find a way to preserve the flesh. The Countess readily agrees to the new contract. So now they have a six month window at Kryslion to see if they can do what has not been done despite more than 50 years of trying.

Now from the GM/Player perspective: this allows the players to finance the Cr180,000 fuel system they needed for the ship, as well as give them some additional incentive to explore Kryslion.   They do not have a definitive time to get to Selshor (the original goal of this adventure, to retrieve the Katydid. However, the Scouts would prefer a sooner rather than later).  The chances of them succeeding are pretty low but not impossible. It will be a weekly roll that has to be met each time. Success will move forward, near success may lead them to an incorrect research path, and failure may really mess them up. This is a task chain, so I need to read up on that.

Additionally, I had set up some maps to have Purity shot down in Startown. This was an option if they wanted to get some combat in. Combat being possibly fatal in Traveller. Also gives me a chance to bring out a Zombie game that has road and building tiles so we can have a tactical game. Zombies will be the opponents.  Just using the pieces...

Traveller Tracker - Foreign Keys

After the initial jubilation of being able to use SQLite with Entity Framework in a UWP application, I was dismayed to discover that foreign keys are not supported in SQLite.  EF has some nice tooling for database migrations, but sadly they will not work.

There are workarounds, which is what I am probably going to end up doing. I just have to be careful about the naming conventions so I don't accidently create a FK in the models.

But I have learned how to add additional tables into the migration path, and now knowing about some of the limitations, I can work around them. 

I must be getting excited by all this again - had the strangest dreams about the code base last night. Or perhaps that was the carrot cake...

Animal Encounters

There are a lot of interesting animals here on planet Earth.  One I like is the giraffe - just how unlikely is it for something like this to be?

A famous giraffe, April, has given birth to a baby boy.  But just watching her gives me some ideas for animal encounters (I may have to revive the PETA of Romar for the next chapter or two).

Traveller Tracker

Finally got some time to get back to this. And finally have it at least loading and running with an attached SQLite database.

Biggest issue was a naming convention: using Entity Framework and the SQLite stuff there are some assumptions about naming conventions. Fortunately MS/SQLite borrowed from the Ruby On Rails, and I've no idea where they got their ideas from.

Regardless, the screen comes up, and you can add a ship to the library.  Right now it has a hard-coded name while I was verifying things worked; next step is to allow editing and have a full ship detail page (the main page is just a list of your ships. An ugly list at the moment...)

I also updated VS2017 to the latest version and few other things, but now progress in theory should be a tad faster as I think I've got basic I/O in place.

And I learned a bit more about DB migrations. This is a code-first program, meaning the DB is basically defined in the code, and we use migrations to update the database. So the 1st migration just sets up the ship table, and you can see how ShipID is the primary key.

using System;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Infrastructure;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Metadata;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Migrations;
using TravellerTracker.Models;
namespace TravellerTracker.Migrations
{
    [DbContext(typeof(TravellerContext))]
    [Migration("20170416155153_initialShip")]
    partial class initialShip
    {
        protected override void BuildTargetModel(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
        {
            modelBuilder
                .HasAnnotation("ProductVersion", "1.1.1");
            modelBuilder.Entity("Traveller.Models.Ship", b =>
                {
                    b.Property("ShipId")
                        .ValueGeneratedOnAdd();
                    b.Property("CargoCapacity");
                    b.Property("CargoCarried");
                    b.Property("FuelPerJump");
                    b.Property("Name");
                    b.Property("dTons");
                    b.HasKey("ShipId");
                    b.ToTable("Ships");
                });
        }
    }
}

Cyan Starport Impressions

Starport Impressions

Despite being around for several centuries, the Cyan star port has never received an official name.  Cyan government has not been actively pursuing interstellar trade.

The primary administrative complex is a rambling structure, added to almost randomly over the years. The original control tower was abandoned more than a century before and is used for storage and the rare sight seeing citizen.  The new tower, more than 80 years old, presides several stories above the old tower and give a good vantage over the entire port.

The massive customs building houses what appears to be hundreds of offices and officials. Security is very evident throughout this building, which is the primary way of leaving the port. Security checks are very thorough for a TL A egress. Returning to the port can also be a hassle depending on crowds, the mood of the local army at the time, as well as the latest edict from the dictator. There are dozens of warehouses nearby both inside and outside the fence, some of which are still not usable.

Accommodations are adequate, but not up to high passage standards. And in the current siege mentality, things are crowded. Most merchants do not leave the port, relying on local brokers for cargoes. The Marine squads are housed in one of the hotels, leaving even fewer spaces for visitors. Marines patrol the perimeter constantly, primarily to maintain a visible watch over the occasional crowds outside.

There is the constant sound of grav vehicles loading and unloading cargo. Despite being a class C port, it is on the leg to the subsector capitol so has a larger than expected number of ships. Additionally, the local SDB fleet is housed here, and make trips daily. There are two airport style runways, so that local aircraft can transport cargo or people.  All has to be inspected by customs prior to leaving the port.

Startown was damaged in the riots of 5 years ago, and several buildings remain burnt out husks of buildings. Military patrols are constantly roving through the city, with more near the port boundaries.  It is not as rambunctious as many startowns are, but still has quite the variety of people.  There are still several brokers and trading guilds available in startown.

Traveller Sunday - planning

Starting to look towards the end goal of Selshor, and looking at gravity anomalies:

Lateral variations in gravity anomalies are related to anomalous density distributions within the Earth. Gravity measures help us to understand the internal structure of the planet. Synthetic calculations show that the gravity anomaly signature of a thickened crust (for example, in orogenic belts produced by continental collision) is negative and larger in absolute value, relative to a case where thickening affects the entire lithosphere

Our next session will start as you approach the Countess' yacht (sadly the Kickstarter for this ship just started so we won't have the fancy poster) and go from there.  I'll try & have a few possible paths for you.  You will need to decide if you want to have Li along.  She is somewhat persuasive as you have noticed...Dinner is a few hours off, giving you some time to explore the star port if you like.  Li may want to buy some more clothes - she has a simple ship suit and boots, and that's about it. Plus, in talking with Travis, she likes to trade as well. She could be persuaded to keep on the legal side of things...Purity gets in contact and will return in 4 days. Her job is almost complete but she will accompany the group to Selshor and back to Glisten, then head off into her retirement.

Getting some local rumors: you do hear on the news about a massive manhunt for dangerous escaped criminals. Urban areas have increased police and army patrols.  On the flip side, listening to your Marines (who are accompanying you on your return to the starport) there is also an Imperial Marine search going on with a little more finesse.  You will notice flying over the port boundary that there does seem to be larger crowds, and squads of riot police.  The prison has been on light alert.

All the above occurs in the grav APC flight back to the port. The APC is utilitarian without much in the way of comfort.

You will also notice a fair number of ships in port, several merchant vessels, one of which is of Aslan design. And near the Countess' yacht is another yacht, a Prosperity class vessel.  You can always access the port net for public information about vessels, including flight plans if published (Imperial law does not force a flight plan, but it is strongly advised. Additionally a flight plan can be made but flagged as private, indicating only SPA [Star Port Authority] can review it).

Le Suroit is docked at one of the Vanguard stations, getting refueled and restocked. Dr Duk-Lyle's comm has several stored messages asking about better rations.

Traveller Sunday - Prison Escape

As we last left our Travellers, Dr. Duc-Lyle and the Warden, accompanied by Corporal Pagille Ortirez and Warden Brownartz, were heading to the site of the missile explosion. Travis, Purity, Pennity and the Level 1 Warden (whose name escapes me as I never came up with this one!) were also headed there in another grav APC.  As were 4 Imperial SDBs. They must have timed it well as they pretty much all arrived at the same time.

The Renegade (Scout ship) was missing it's mechanic/Engineer, who was driving the 4 wheeler with the additional sensors on board to help triangulate the mole vehicle. There was a smoking 30-40 meter crater in the jungle, with trees pushed back along the edges. Some terse communications later, there was a Cyan SDB settled on one side of the crater, an Imperial SDB parked on the other side, close to the Scout ship.  The two grav APCspark near the edge as well. Hoovert Brownartz, the chief warden, is in direct communication with both the Countess Barout (recently elevated to a Countess as that's what was needed by T5) and Aphix Irteepini, the xenophobic dictator of Cyan. While the diplomats parlayed, the Scouts were getting frantic about their missing crew mate. Travis, being an ex-Scout, volunteered to help search, as did Dr. Duk-Lyle. The guards were flying the grav vehicles in a spiral search pattern, and finally after half an hour, Travis saw the glint of metal in the jungle. Setting down nearby, they found the overturned 4 wheeler, but no sign of Og (Ognuearz Giokga) nearby.  A search finally yields the Vargr Scout, unconscious on the ground. The good doctor stabilizes our furry friend, and using a stretcher from the grav APC they rapidly transport him to the Renegade where there is a med-bay waiting.  It was a concussion with a hairline crack, but Og will make a full recovery.

Finally peace is made between Aphix and the Imperials, and the SDBs, except for 1 Cyan SBD, leave. The Cyan SDB is monitoring the Renegade, where a conversation in the common area is being held.  The warden thanks the good doctor for uncovering some shady drug losses, and verifying that medical treatment is fair, consistent and meets Imperial standards. There is some evidence of some brutality towards political prisoners, and the data will be further reviewed. Travis' efforts are also praised as he found some hostilities between Cyan and non-Cyan guards that HR should be better aware of. Purity will be returning to the Level 1 facility for a couple more days to finish up her research.

Li Brewster is getting early parole for her good behavior, and has offered her services as an additional engineer for Le Suroit. The parties separate: the Renegade launches for the starport with the SDB following, the grav APC, a bit crowded, takes our party back to the prison to interview Li and do a final farewell for Travis.  Li, who resembles Sally Field, and has Persuade-2 along with her winning smile, convinces Dr. Duk-Lyle that she would be a fine addition to the crew.

The prisoners in the mole vehicle, meanwhile, have disappeared. Imperial Marines are searching Brigham and the nearby jungle as they have discovered the abandoned vehicle, with tracks that lead out from a small truck or other personal vehicle. They are hoping to capture them before the Cyan police do. 

Our Travellers will be heading back to the starport. Here they will be greeted and feted by the Countess on her yacht, and by her personal chef.  She has a Kitaro class yacht.

I'll need to come up with some rumors, possible cargos to buy, and stuff like that. They are also seeing if they can outfit the lab ship with a fuel purifier: they have been lucky in that the Scouts have been getting their refined fuel the last few systems, but that is about to stop. And wanting to avoid a misjump, even with a new Jump engineer on board, they are looking into that. It will cost Cr180,000 and take 35 tons according to Book 5/High Guard. As they don't actually have that amount of cash on hand, and they will have to pay Li's salary at some point (she is happy to get a job and out of prison, so will work for free for the 1st jump, but she will want her salary after that.  The Scout engineers (this is a Way Station, so they do have a lot of engineers!) think the purifier is do-able, just figuring it out where to put it.  The current plan is to actually add a new spoke to the ship, and mount it there along with some extra tankage to continue to allow the Jump 2.  Putting it there makes some sort of sense - it will reinforce that single spoke, as the pinnace often is used as a fuel shuttle there are already fuel lines in the spoke, so they can purify the fuel before it gets to the tanks. Plus it make my mini we've been using for Le Suroit a closer model!

Traveller Sunday - Scout Crew

Still working on the stats for the Renegade class Scout ship, but I'm going with a 500 ton ship. I think I've a sufficiently large crew although there will be some specialists added at some point.  There is room for 9 by counting bunks.

Crew is mostly women - when generating characters I roll and even are female, odd are male. In 5000 years I am assuming the pay gap no longer exists or is even a memory :)

Holleng Giambice, 89C9A7, age 29 Scout 3, pilot of Renegade Class Scout Vessel. Near the end of her third term, she commands the Renegade class ship and is currently at Cyan, waiting to transport the Travellers to the Way station. Then off to explore space more.

Admin, Astrogation-1, Electronics [Comms-1], Explosives, Gun Combat, Language, Mechanic, Pilot [Small Craft-1, Spacecraft-2], Stealth-1, Survival, Vacc-1

McKennoz Langlert, 74CCD3, age 30, Scout 2, Astrogator Renegade Class Scout Vessel. Graduate of the Imperial University of Pixie, McKennoz always dreamed of being a Scout.

Astrogation-2, Carouse, Electronics [Comm-1], Engineer [J-Drive-1], Gun Combat, Language, Science [Linguistics-1], Survival, Vacc

Ognuearz Giokga (Og) 868875, age 25, Scout 1, Shuttle pilot, Mechanic, back up astrogator. Coming from the ice-capped plant of Najar, Og never wanted to go back. The lone Vargr on the crew.

Astrogation, Drive, Gun Combat, Mechanic, Persuade-1, Pilot [Small Craft-1, Spacecraft-1], Survival, Vacc-1.

Desision Thaddice, 98ABE7, age 34, Engineer, Medic. From the toxic Mithras system, Desison has lived a life of adventure and romance. A sailing accident two years ago has not slowed him down. He dropped out of college to join the Scouts.

Art, Astrogation, Carouse, Engineer (J-Drive-1], Gun Combat, Language, Mechanic, Medic-1, Science [Biology-1], Seafarer [Sail-1], Survival, Vacc-1

Alisiella Vereto, 86B9D7, age 31, Chief Engineer. Graduate of the Imperial College of Yori, her diploma hangs proud in the engineering section. She has large scars on her back from an accident she does not like to talk about. She has an antique pistol from a gambler she saved years back.

Animals, Astrogation, Electronics [Comouters-1], Engineer [Life Support-1, Power-2], Gun Combat, Language, Mechanic-1, Navigation-1, Survival, Vacc-1

Traveller Sunday - some interesting people of Cyan

Characters with stats were generated via software (RPGSuite) using Mongoose rules. Part of the game in play. This link should take you to the WIP for the Cyan system:  Cyan Guide 

The 3 Cyan Rebels listed below were part of a daring escape that our young Scout Travis was witness to, and Boris and Warden Browartz are on their way as we last left our game.

Aphix Irteepini, Dictator of Cyan  5C8A96, age 42. A ruthless dictator who rose through the army ranks, Aphix is terrified of off-worlders. She has attempted to close off the starport but enough people are against her rule that it can be done.  Admin-0, Athletics-0, Carouse-1, Drive-0, Gambler-1, Archaic-0, Energy-0, Slug-2, Heavy Wpns-0, Melee-0 [unarmed-1, blade-1], Recon-3, Steath-1.

Irel Onzatt, Port Warden. 737A96, age 53. Irel faces the unenviable job of maintaining an Imperial star port on what has recently become hostile ground.  He is assisted with the Marine garrison, but the local regime does have a large squadron of system defense boats much larger than Imperial forces. He is in daily contact with the Count in his attempts to defuse the tensions.  Admin-3, Computer-1, Sensors-2, Pilot-2.

Wie Johnson, Marine Commander (Force Commander) A997C8 (age 46). A career Marine from Boughene, Wie was in Ground Assault and prefers an up front assault over nuance. He commands 3 50 soldier platoons.

Admin-0, Athletics-0, Drive-0, Engineer-0 [Power-1], Explosives-1, Gun Combat-0 [Energy-1, Slug-2]. Heavy Weapons-0 [Vehicle-1], Language-0, Leadership-2, Medic-1, Melee [Blade-2], Pilot [small craft-1], Recon-1, Stealth-0, Survival-2, Tactics [Military-1], Vacc Suit-2

Marquis Milueala (Millie) Barout of Rhylanor, Imperial Representative for Cyan 78865D (age 43). Having served as a diplomat for her career, Marquis Barout has settled down on Cyan as the Imperial Representative. Currently living at the starport in her yacht, the Aedil, she is brokering peace between Aphix and the Imperium. Her current duties are focused on the prison situation, which has escalated recently due to the underground escape of Janet Soo, Macahim Kaitloy and Ellina Hailion.  She does want to get back to her residence, hoping that it has not been damaged since the 1099 uprising.

Admin-2, Advocate-1, Carouse-1, Diplomat-1, Electronics, Gambling-3, Gun Combat [Archaic-1], Melee [Blade-2], Persuade

Warden Hoovert Brownartz, Commissioner 558D56, age 51. A small Asian male with over 30 years of law enforcement, Hoovert rose through the ranks and is now the Warden for the Cyan Prison.  He is also past the requirements for retirement, and plans on retiring sometime in the next year.  He also has reservations about the current political situation on Cyan and the Imperial Prison located on such a volatile world, and welcomes the review by our Travellers. He is close friends with the Marquis of Cyan as well as the starport administrator.

Admin-1, Deception-1, Drive, Flyer [Grav-1], Gambler-1, Gun Combat [Energy-2, Slug-3], Melee [Unarmed-2, Blade-1], Recon-3, Streetwise-2, Vacc

Janet Soo, Cyan Rebel. Former Army career officer who was disillusioned by some of Aphix’s treatment of non-Cyans. Refusing to take part in the attack of Startown, Janet has been in Level 1 for several years.

Macahim Kaitloy, Cyan Rebel. Janet’s trusty assistant, Macahim was also thrown into prison. He is as disillusioned as Janet, and has secretly (unknown to Janet) blown up more than 1 government building. No casualties as he was careful to choose times when people were not present.

Ellina Hailion, Cyan Rebel. Ellina was an actress who wanted to get more than local fame. Getting cut off from the wider Imperial audience she felt she deserved, she made several public announcements which eventually lead to her incarceration. There she met Janet and Macahim, and using her contacts, managed to stage the entire escape, basing it off one of her early adventure movies.

Traveller Sunday

Through a series of real life/miscommunications, we've managed to miss one of the 2 players the last two sessions.  As the characters had separated anyway, it worked out, and we've managed to pull them back together.

So, resuming on day 245 of 1104, Travis has been carousing with the guards and staff.  Few rumors of any import arose, although Li did communicate that something big was going to go down soon.  Dr. Boris found no widespread corruption or abuse, but inventory of certain drugs did not always match.  Purity's research found no systematic abuse.  There was a higher number of injuries to non-Cyan prisoners which was some indication of the hostilities from the often xenophobic Cyan natives.

The morning of 245 was muggy, with the constant sound of insects loud against the jungle noises surrounding the Level 1 facility.  Suddenly, the sound of shouting and screams rent the air.  Travis, his 2 Cyan guards and his Marine guard Pennity rushed back to the guard station to the sensor ops room.  There, Almill, one of the remote drone monitors, seemed to be having problems with the drone that was near the area of disturbance. Purity and Travis got a call from Li about a mole vehicle breaking the ground.  Without footage, the players had no idea what was going on.  Travis, in his youth and inexperience, did not notice the furtive manner of Almill, but Corporal Mell did.  Drawing her firearm, she requested the drone operator to step away from the console.  He did so with some speed, and the operator next door got the video going in time to see the drone digging its way back underground, escaping from the approaching APCs.  Almill was arrested on charges of aiding and abetting, while Travis and his guard retinue went out to view the new hole in the ground. 

Boris and the head warden were now on their way from the main administrative/hospital area, almost 200 kilometers away. Via a grav APC it would take under an hour to get there. In the meantime, the Renegade class ship in orbit started using its gravatic sensors to see if they could track the mole.  Resolution was not ideal from orbit, so the ship was fast approaching to get closer and perhaps find the fleeing prisoners.  Looking into hole, Travis wondered about a drone going in after the felling vehicle.  The drones at Cyan prison are large, grav drive based drones about 2 meters long, with audio and video capabilities.  The hole in the jungle dirt did not look stable enough for another vehicle to follow.  The drone followed the tunnel for almost a kilometer when the radio signal started getting too low.  They retrieved the drone and by now the Scout ship was significantly closer and had an almost 80% probability to the location of the mole.  The Scout ship was being flanked by 2 system defense boats from the local dictator, Aphix Irteepini.  Weapons went hot when the mole vehicle was located, and a missile was launched.  Several Imperial SDBs were heading out the confrontational area.

The primary issue is political: Cyan has its own government, a non-charismatic dictator who controls the army.  While the starport is an Imperial domain, the planet, while part of the Imperium, does have its own government. While there is some contention, what with a small rebellion, the Imperium normally stays out of local politics.  However, the prison is an official Imperial Prison, and so there is some grey legal areas. Additionally, the three escaped prisoners are leaders in the rebellion, and Irteepini would rather have them killed than returned to prison.  They are local Cyan but were interred in the Imperial prison along with hundreds of other political prisoners.

Apparently the prison break was well thought out: while the jungle and air space were monitored, no one thought about tunneling at that scale. The molepod was constructed locally in secret, using plans from the Imperial Army Corps of Engineers.  Cyan, being tech level A, had the tooling and wherewithal to construct this vehicle.

Traveller Sunday, part 2

While our Travellers are exploring the prison, interviewing staff and prisoners alike. their ship, Le Suroit, is being transported to the inner planetoid belt for its refueling and refurbishing for the next leg of the journey.  The primary reason is that Cyan and the Way Station are moving further apart, and the 1G lab ship will take too long to get there if they wait much longer.  The 2nd reason is that I may as well use the deck plans I've bought over the years, so the Renegade class Scout ship (which is 4G as of now :) ) is waiting to take them to the station when they have completed their jobs on Cyan.

And I've got the Renegade from 0-Hr / Ryan Wolf, both the deck plans and the miniature.

Traveller Sunday - At the prison

Due to a miscommunication, Thomas missed Sunday's game. As the two characters had actually split locations, that worked out okay.

We've dropped Dr. Boris off at the admin/hospital complex at the main gate (the only gate) of the prison. He has an attached Imperial Marine and 2 guards at all times for local protection as needed. His task is to verify that there are no abuses in the legal system on the medical side - i.e., patients are cared for and all that.

Travis and Purity travel on almost 200 km to the Level 1 section, with Li and another prisoner in the back of the grav APC. Li will be infiltrating the local prison population, which will clear the rest of her sentence. Purity is heading into the administrative side of things, to review the paperwork and personnel files.  Travis is to use his carousing skill (level 0, but it is there) to wander around and get a more general feel for things.  After an all too aggressive beginning, he relaxes more into the role of low-key snoop.  In the first week he picks up a rumor of one of the drone/sensor ops guys having a far too nice condo back in Brigham.

Li has found that something big is to occur soon but she has not had enough time to find out any details yet.  Purity has not found anything of obvious interest other than some petty thefts and minor guard abuses that have been recorded. She is pursuing some leads on potential guard/prisoner collusions.

On average, the local Cyan guards & staff, despite getting paid by the Imperium, are not forthcoming about much. About 70% of the staff are local Cyans, and have various levels of the native xenophobia traits.

So at this point I've rolled up Travis' Marine guard, one Pennity Mell, Corporal, along with the sensor ops guy and a bruiser thug that was in the back of the APC getting transported to the Level 1.  I'll need to generate some doctors, Boris' Marine guard, and a few other NPCs, and deal with reactions and all that.

We'll have to cover what Boris does, and we may do that via email to get the timelines synchronized.

Traveller Sunday - to the Prison

After a day of rest and non-ship food at the at least adequate hotel and dining establishment of the Class C starport on Cyan, our intrepid group, accompanied by Li Brewster from the prison ship, make the flight to the Imperial Prison known locally as the Jungle.

Dr. Boris is expected to inspect the hospital facilities, and question some randomly selected prisoners.  Travis, Purity & Li are flying over to the Level 1 prisoners to begin with.  They plan on inspecting various locations and seeing if there is any truth to the rumors of abuse and maltreatment.

So...yesterday's game play was fairly slow as I've not really had the time to get a lot of the background into place despite the 2 week hiatus between sessions.  As the prison is almost 200x200 kilometers, houses 100,000 prisoners, and has almost 10,000 personnel, it is a bit of an undertaking.

Hopefully this week I'll have time to get more details, gen up some interesting prisoners, figure out the hospital complex, the fusion complex, some sample guard barracks...at least I borrowed some deck plans that work well enough for the prison cells.

BTW: Li is getting a free trip as she was most helpful in the prison ship, she is nearing the end of her prison term, and she actually has some useful skills that may be of use to the players.  I need to flesh her out a bit more with emotional characteristics, maybe an interesting image or something.

And no - I've not had time to get back to the software development. Maybe when Bryson goes to college...

Traveller Sunday

After a longer hiatus than expected, we resumed our game.  Travis & Boris both failed to maintain the required concentration while studying to improve some skills. Travis' jump coordinates were far off the intended plot: instead of coming out of jump near the planetoid belt housing the Scout Way station, they emerged from jump at the 100 diameter limit of Cyan itself.  While this is not necessarily a bad thing, coming out of jump less than 45 minutes away from a captured Imperial Prison ship, was not fortuitous.

At this point, Purity Truth came out to let Boris and Travis know she is actually an Imperial Intelligence Agent, at the point of retirement but doing one last mission to inspect rumors of the Imperial Prison on Cyan.  While she was hoping for a more clandestine approach to her investigation, events compelled her to help out.

As the prison ship was approaching, the ISS Renegade was also approaching from the Way Station. Sadly it was still more than 2 hours out.  Knowing the prison ship only had 2 missile launchers for defense, Le Suroit opened fire with her pulse lasers in an attempt to disable the launchers. Sadly this was an epically bad night for dice rolls: the shot went wild, and they were notified by the prisoners that another attempt would be fatal. Part of the reason for the miss, despite having a gunner, is the pulse lasers on Le Suroit are more akin to mining lasers as well as having a more limited firing arc. That and rolling a 3 on the to hit did not help.

The two ships docked, but our crew could hear fighting in the background of the prison ship.  Communicating with the Imperial Starport below, our crew was deputized under Purity's command. A face to face parley was requested by Star, the leader of the prisoners currently in charge of the ship.  Docking was a bit problematical as the ships were at a 90 degree angle to each other do to the location of the docking ports (the lab ship really does not make it easy to get in and out of!).

At the upper jump pod, where the ships are joined, our crew hears knocking at the door.  An Imperial prisoner is on the other side, hands up in the universal sign of don't shoot me please.  They let her in.  The situation on the prison ship is explained: there are 3 groups, two of which are not really that violent. Star, the leader on the bridge, is one of the not violent ones who as requested the parley.

So our players, after removing all weapons as per Captain Boris, along with Purity, head to thge bridge of the prison ship. While Travis and Boris managed the athletic transition, Purity, despite being an Aslan and one would think land on her feet, was not as graceful (she has a lower dexterity due to failing a couple of aging rolls).

They are met by a Vargr who leads them to the elevators, past some bloodstained walls that were witness to the bloody uprising from the prisoners. The elevators still play musak in the far future it turns out.  A brief parley, and confirmation that the prisoners will be held at the Imperial starport pending investigation of the prison situation, and the ship is yielded to Purity.

While Travis goes back for Cudgel and his stunner, Star and Boris make for a quick survey of the ship to let the other prisoners know what the deal is.  There are a few bodies scattered, and a few prisoners still in there cells, refusing to come out.  In the starboard prison pod they find the remnants of the most xenophobic and violent prisoners. They refuse to be handed over to the Imperial scum, and one of them lunges at Boris with a hidden shiv. it was at this point Travis returns, and hearing the ruckus, fires his stunner. Sadly, another horrible roll and he takes out Star. Meanwhile, the good Doctor and the shiv carrying thug are tussling but both are inept at physical combat.  Finally our thug cuts the doctor, causing 4 points of damage. Travis has managed to get behind the struggle and attempts to pull off the thug. Sadly he is not nearly as strong, and only manages to distract him for a moment. Using Cudgel he attempts to smack the guy on the head. He does actually hit but does only 1 point of damage.

At this point, 2 ISS security guards (yes, my Scout Service has a security division) show up and the fight is shortly over.

And that's pretty much where we left off.  I'll try and get a better synopsis with names and all that in place, and the fallout of this.  Le Suroit is still orbiting Cyan, the amber zoned world, and may be there a while for legal proceedings.

Game and Software Update

Our Traveller game has slowed down - we've not actually played in a month or more. Between holidays, illness and other aspects of real life, we've been unable to meet up. Either that or my players are not really enjoying the game.  And I've been a bit out of contact myself for a variety of personal reasons. While next weekend (end of Jan) I am unavailable, perhaps we'll be able to play the following weekend.

On the software side, I've restarted the Traveller Tracker a few times.  Trying to get my head wrapped around the MVVM aspect of things.  I've got yet another restart in process where I've the basic MVVM set up, I've installed the SqlLite DB and tools, and I'm about to at least see about getting the various other models I had ported into the new program.  The Entity Framework sample I am following has migration built in it appears, so that my database will be maintained via the program.  So that's good.

I've got the basic idea for the main screen. Each button on the left loads the appropriate view.  Not sure how to implement this just yet, but I'll get there.  Eventually....

Software update

While I was making progress on the revisited UWP, I've decided I also want to learn some new things, not just keep rehashing the old things.

So...I will endeavor to make this a MVVM style software (Model - View - View Model) and embed SqlLite into it rather than using text files.

So, up front this will radically slow things down initially.  Long term, however, it should actually speed up things.  So Traveller3 is sort of stopping production, and I'll start on Traveller4 :)

If anyone wants the sort of functional Win32 version, I may be able to package that so it can be installed. I'm not really sure where I left it, other than replacing the IE8 web control with EO Chrome (with the nag screen as I had not paid for it) browser to verify if the TravellerMap API would still work (mostly, just need to adjust the call a bit).

As with all personal projects, I've no idea about an end date. I want to get it out before the year ends - I did state that as a goal on COTI after all :)

Traveller Sunday

Alas, one of my players was sick. So the rest of us (all 2) went to see Star Wars: Rogue One.  It was enjoyable.

And I got more work done on the Traveller Tracker. Finally got the support files to load although I am not exactly happy with the technique.  And the regex did not work on the new SEC files. So I am deciding that only files as exported from Traveller map will be used, and using a fixed width file format (which frankly is a lot more efficient than regex anyway; especially since my knowledge of regex is pretty much copy/paste!).

So I've added the initial data template for the worlds of the sector. Needs work but it is at least working.  And I think I'll save off the last ship used and load that on start up automatically as well. But at least I am making some progress.

As for the game - I did collect enough Lego minifigs I think to handle things. I'll have to recheck before we play, as well as look into BITS At Close Quarters to handle the combat.  Ill work up a cheat sheet for the players.