Session 4 / Night Survival and Wrap up

As the darkness fell, more of the creepers kept appearing on the berm around the site. After Osrum was pulled back from attacking the creepers, Tamsym, the Vargr trader, made additional fires to keep the encroaching critters at bay. Rosie and company managed to get the fusion power plant restarted at about 20% capacity and the creepers really started to go to town on the wiring. Morgana yelled at them to shut the power down as it was attracting more of them.

After some significant conversation (via a pre-typed out dialog I had between players and NPCs, that did seem to help a bit), Osrum, seeing a creeper on a building top, climbed up to whack it and knock it off. These very large creatures were pretty tough - even though he hit it, it hit back. The fight continued another round until the creeper ran off, leaving Osrum severely injured. While Morgana was cleaning the wounds, Max and Rosie finished up repairing a basic walky-talky and Rosie climbed the tower to try an SOS. She sent out some calls, but got no response back.

Tensions were rising as Abe, the med-tech, got backed into a corner of the medical area while Morgana was stitching Osrum. He finally confessed to being part of the skill-jacking team, naming Hambley as the leader of the group. Going back outside, Morgana confronts Hambley who, while raising his gun, does not shoot. Max was moving around a building to get a bead on him just in case. Tamsym, in a flurry of activity, was disassembling one of the buggies. At this point more of the creepers started getting a bit more aggressive. Morgana thew a molotov cocktail, hurting three of the creepers. One ran off while the other two, killers, started moving to the group. Hambley got off a shot, wounding one, and Qat was attacking another with her machete. Osrum was up by this time, and started attacking some creepers moving in from the rear of the camp.

Next round, Hambley shoots again, but misses. He also missed Qat who was in the line of fire. She was not sure how intentional that was (I really did roll a 3 on his shot, and as Jeff's character was actually behind the creeper, seemed like an opportunity he may take to eliminate the Travellers, one by one). Another molotov and more creepers get hurt. Most of them are starting to run off now, between the guns going off and all the fires. Hambley got another shot off, killing that creeper and Qat almosst dispatched the one she was attacking. That creeper crept off, dragging its legs.

At this point the sun was rising, and most of the creepers had either left or were dead. A ship approaches, the former ISS Katydid, and Travis Roanoke, former Scout, lands. He and a female Bwap, Morgana's assistant / lady in waiting, get out to greet everyone.

Behind the scenes - the SOS did manage to reach the Katydid at the starport. Travis was there just as a stopover to somewhere else, and his ship does have a better sensor system than the port itself. So once he managed to triangulate that, he was about to take off when the Bwap asked to come aboard. There was a small shuttle at port with noble markings on it. Travis is quite the trusting soul, so along she came.

What I need to do is get a name and some info on the Bwap lady in waiting, have a vague outline of what will happen when the Katydid gets back to port (which is all of 2 30 dTon cutter modules, 1 for the port and 1 for living area, and perhaps 3-5 full time employees). Will Hambley run off, all that fun stuff.

Then the lab ship is one parsec away on D'Arlee. Obviously the Katydid can get them there under pretty cramped conditions. But why would everyone stay together? And will they pursue why they got jacked and taken to Q'auntar?  The Bwap will have established that her charge / friend was missing after a couple of weeks. She went to the last place she knew she was at, D'Arlee, and from there instituted some legal actions. All the Travellers gear will be available in police custody, including a very interesting bauble for Osrum (who, while a barbarian, comes from a system that was previously very high-tech and is currently red-zoned by the Imperial Navy).  I'll probably set that in motion - the police, in their investigation, also turned to the Imperial Navy. They recognized the bauble as coming from Pax Stellar, and there may be a research opportunity with perhaps some renumeration.

Perhaps the week in jump space everyone becomes close friends. Close as any rate as the Katydid does not have a lot of space.

T5 Scout deckplans:

Session 4 Preview

The last session is fast approaching. I am going to have to write the NPC dialog as I cannot wing it well enough, and don't want to do the whole metqagame thing and just explain things.

What I am hoping is that they get through the night, perhaps some NPCs killed, perhaps the mystery is figured out as to why they have all been essentially kidnapped (and while I do have some of the players reasons figured out, the wanderers in the bunch are a bit more complicated).

If all else fails, I'll have one of the player's previous characters come along in the Katydid and pick the crew up for transport to the D port.  Ialso want to have a Bwap along as the Marquessa's seneschal or something, to have an NPC along to help smooth out a few things.

Her fancy lab ship is all of 1 jump away on D'Arlee, so I've started some mapping for that.

Session 1 & 2: Escaping the short hauler and a jungle trek

Our Travellers wake up, dazed and confused. The doctor, after a bit of time, realizes that this is not the normal waking process from a cold berth.  And they all notice that the ship is canted and there is ankle deep water. A quick search of the room they are in reveals just ship booties, and some unmarked medical vials used to insert drugs into cold berth passengers.

The group moves to the command section, and finds some survival equipment and what appears to be hastily ransacked rooms off the bridge. In exploring the engineering section, they discover the leak from a buckled maintenance hatch, with water trickling in and flowing towards the front of the craft.

About this time, Anson, the other survivor in from the other room full of low berths, comes up and demands to know what is happening. The players are a bit confused as to who the new person is, and the doctor goes to check on the other low berths. There are 2 dead bodies in there, victims of EMP.

Rosie explores the cargo hold, and finds the exploded crate. Water is chest deep at the front of the cargo area. Anson asks why they have not retrieved any survival equipment from the air lock. Which they do, including a vacc suit and a 4 person emergency survival pack.

On the top deck, they search the rest of the ship, and retrieve various clothing, find the 2 revolvers, and use sheets and pillow cases to carry rations and various odds and ends. Fearing getting flooded and drowning, they prepare to exit the ship via a maintenance hatch. Anson, a belter, is a bit terrified, so she gets one of the vacc suits, Rosie goes into an emergency bubble, the rest done breathers that will function underwater a bit. It worked out well - opening the hatch let the compartment get flooded, but all managed to stay upright. The doctor pushed Rosie through, and started swimming to the shore, pushing the now fully inflated emergency bubble ahead of her. The others exit the ship, and those with recon took notice of the radio tower off in the distance. Anson started to freak out - being a belter she was much more comfortable in the safe confines of a ship. Max talked her down, and dragged her to the shore. Eventually everyone got to shore.

Session 3: The Trek
Getting Anson out of her vacc suit also caused some difficulties. She would have slowed everyone down, but the doctor and Max (now her "Shippie") got her through that, and they started to hike towards the tower. The sounds of bugs and the rustling of small animals startled a few people, but Osrum of Bob saw no need for worries as the animals were all running from the Travellers. The insects did not bother the off-worlders (thermally they were just not right).  Nearing the tower, they discover the dead body of a crewman. A quick perusal indicated he died of internal injuries from the ship crash.  They spent enough time to bury him via a rock cairn, and continued.

At the outskirts of the tower, they saw the berm, robots and the general lay of the land. Katriona and Jim, watching warily, approached them. A quick conversation and the group moves to the camp proper.

And here is where I have issues: II can manage 1 or 2 NPCs at a time, but now there are 6 all with varying degrees of complicity and behaviors. There is more going on than the Travellers are aware of, and not everyone at the camp are part of it. So trying to figure how to do that without giving it all away, and allowing for role playing, is hard. Fortunately several of the players are doing well. I need to get the others involved a bit more, so I'll have to see about conversations. I may have to go ahead and script ahead of time and just talk my way through that.

Anyway - as the night deepens, some of the creepers start coming out. I need to have that fear rising (and a couple of the NPCs are good for that) as well as increasing tensions at the camp as everyone is trying to figure out what is really going on.

Final session is this Monday,

Session 1 - Part B

I know, the cast of characters should have been done first. However, as I wrote the first part at work, I did not have my attendance sheet. I made one simply because I am (a) quite horrible at names, and (b) to make sure I can keep track of the characters.

So here they are in no particular order, along with some notes as I recall part of their character generation.

Marquessa Morgana Greybourn, MD  A retired doctor of 5 terms who rarely got promoted. Yet somehow managed to roll multiple lab ship mustering out benefits. So she has a much more advanced lab ship (so I can finally use some of my posters and minis!). She had excellent rolls except for promotion and was rank 3 when she left the scientist / doctor career.

Rosie McGarber A Scout (Surveying) that managed to start an interplanetary war in the middle of her 2nd term. She was asked to leave but somehow managed to gain diplomacy. Probably on not what to say.

Qat Tolliver Space Bum (Drifter / Wanderer). Kicked out of his family at a tender age of 14, he wandered the stars. After one too many close brushes with death, he enlisted in the Army. He did not sty a full term but was kicked out. Trying to get into another career, he failed, and somehow got drafted back into the army. Where he was forced out again.  He decided enough was enough.

Osrum of Planet Bob (Drifter / Barbarian) We've yet to determine his birth planet, but Osrum was sent out to observe the universe and report back to his chief. While his people may call his home planet Bob, I am pretty sure the Imperium has another name for it.

Lt Sir Maximilian Joseph Kleinshmidt (Max) A couple of terms in the Scouts (Explorer), a few terms in the Navy (Flight), and Max is ready to face the universe. While not daunting in a physical sense, his innate intelligence will do him well.

Vargr The last player could not make it, and as I do not have an email address or anything, we have not come up with details. He was a Vargr Salvage trader I believe.

The Lab ship is listed below. Fortunately with the skill package they have enough PCs to actually pilot the thing. I may have fudged a bit on the stats but close enough. The ship is from 0-Hr. I am sadly addicted to his Kickstarters...

Session 1 - Part A

Surprisingly, 5 of the 6 players showed up. The 6th was really ill, though, and that is a very valid excuse. We started by finishing off the character creation, and applying the general Traveller Skill package to the group to help even some things up.  The range of characters is early 20s with 1 1/2 terms to a couple of 5 termers. The nice thing is that the group decided which package to use, then distributed the skills to those who needed them to help them both round out their characters the way they wanted to, as well as fill in any missing holes, The one hole was I don't think anyone had astrogation (old Navigation skill; Navigation is now planet-based navigation).

Once we had that settled, we started with the group waking up in the short hauler. I made a basic schematic of the ship as I really detest the isometric plans Mongoose seems so fond of. There was some brief exploration, but more a fear of the water dripping in and concerns about flooding the entire ship, leaving the players inside. One of the Scouts did notice that there was a crack of daylight form the mangled maintenance access hatch, so they were less concerned about lack of a breathable atmosphere than of drowning.

As they did not search too much beyond the bridge and engineering section, I had the 1 NPC that survived come up behind them. She was a bit brutal in asking what they were doing, but things calmed down. As per the others, she had no idea what happened and where they were.

A brief search and they ended up with a large supply of emergency rations, pillow cases and sheets for making carry bags. There was a bit of prompting to check the main cargo lock as that was where the 4 person emergency kit was.

With the water slowly rising, they distributed the 2 vacc suits to those who could not swim (we played survival gives basic swimming), and stuffed the young Scout into a rescue ball, but only partially inflated it so that it would fit through a maintenance hatch.

The good doctor prepped everyone, and opened the ceiling hatch. With a good dex roll, she managed not to get banged about as the water rushed into the craft. She lead the way up, then the rescue ball popped out. She started pushing the now fully inflated beach ball with the Scout towards the nearby shore. All the others also got out and either started for shore, or in the case of Anson, the NPC, freaking out and unable to get back into the water. She is a Belter through and through, so was panicking at all the water. The other Scout/ex-Navy player helped calm her down, and towed her to shore. Once there, she thanked him as a Shippie, so there is now a trust bond between these two.

Another minor refusal to get out of the suit (it really would have slowed them down considerably) and the group marched on.

Next update I should have the list of characters (other than our missing Vargr) and what happened.

So far they do say that they are enjoying themselves.  I did get to use the cardboard heroes and some of my printouts, so that is always nice.

Session 0 - creating characters

While I only expected 2 people to actually show up, somehow we ended up with 6 players. So the character creation took a bit longer than expected, especially as I've not really done a whole lot with Mongoose 2nd edition. While several people had played previously, most had very dim memories of the games other than dying early. A few had never played before.

We did do a round-robin character creation. Everyone rolled straight stats with an extra roll to replace anything they wanted to. Each player did a single term going around the table. We started with 2 drifters, a barbarian and a wanderer, 2 Scouts, a doctor and a Vargr free trader. The 1st Scout survived his first term but was washed out in the middle of his 2nd term. The player was okay with that and is playing the 24 year old. The wanderer managed 2 terms as a wanderer, tried the army but got kicked out, missed re-enlistment and managed to get drafted back into the army but kicked out again. He stayed out after that. The Scout stayed in the Exploration branch for 4 terms I think then enrolled in the Navy, making Lt. The barbarian actually survived 5 terms and mustered out. The doctor managed to get up to Medic-4, as well as having a Marquis social status. And the Vargr free trader also went into the Navy I think before mustering out.

Of the group, 1 player really does not like that sort of character generation, 1 was seemingly ambivalent, 3 were okay with it and one was very enthusiastic about it. I think long term there will be 3-4 people to play again, and I may end up going straight Classic as one player does have a lot of CT material.

Next week - waking up from cold berths!

September game

I've got 3 players ready to play in September. Hopefully I'll do a bit better this time around. I've got 4 sessions, although it may not take that many in all honesty.

The plan is:

Session 1:

• generate characters round-robin style. As everyone has played before the basics are probably covered. However - they have not played in decades and I plan in using the Mongoose and/or Cepheus Engine rules. I need to generate the list of character types they can play that I have generation rules for. I will also be bringing printouts of various pre-gens from the software I've got in case they would rather do that.  
• We will also have a combat test round to get everyone familiar with the combat process. This will be Mongoose 2nd edition mostly. Although the adventure itself may be entirely combat free.
• Go over the general rules and ideas behind Traveller. Again, as everyone has played before, this should not be too long. A brief intro to MTU (my Traveller Universe) which, as it hangs just outside the 3rd Imperium somewhere near the Great Rift, I do have "official" material as well as my own to use.

Session 2:

• Introduction to waking up on the short-hauler. A bit of a trope for Traveller (you awake in a cold berth with no idea how you got there!) it is how this adventure starts.
• Exploration of the ship, introductions between characters and the 1 NPC, and exploration of the slowly sinking craft.
• Escape from the ship, the trudge towards to only visible man-made object. I will have to have the encounter tables made up. Perhaps some jungle background noises.
• Finding the 1st body.
• Making it to the primary location, intros all around

Session 3:

• surviving the night. 
• Animal encounters
• people encounters
• what is everyone doing

Session 4:

• where to next - do they get out?
• rescue via escape to starport or deux ex machina and bring in Travis Roanoke & the Katydid?
• continue game?
• feedback: what worked, what did not. Would they like to play again?

I am really hoping it works out - I would love to get back to refereeing (and playing if possible) Traveller as a regular thing. I am a bit nervous as well.

Maps

Well, this one is a fantasy map from my old college days. I found my old gaming notebook and I outlined several maps.  As I am in on the Fantasy Trip RPG Kickstarter, I thought I'd see about fantasy maps.  My gaming group is not into science fiction gaming much so I am not sure I will get enough people to referee Traveller in September. I am hoping...

D'Arlee Pilot's Guide

Hopefully attached or available is the WIP of the pilot's guide. Redid the sizing so that in theory it prints out as an old-style LBB.

D'Arlee Pilot's Guide

I need to get back to the Traveller Tracker, but as the UWP thing seems to be not going well, perhaps I should start smaller or something. It is basically functional except for the T5 & MGT trading parts (classic trading worked last time I checked). but it will never get used...

Refereeing again, part 2

I'll be doing the 4 week "short" game slot in September. I've been re-reading the adventure, and working on maps sporadically. Of course my printer died so I'll have to buy a new printer in the next couple of weeks. And I really need to re-read the combat rules. Pretty sure I'm going with Mongoose 2, although the classic rules have some ease of use (the players are used to armor class making you harder to hit which is essentially what the CT rules do).

My plans are:

• Session 1: generate characters via a round-robin technique (1 term per player) so we all have some understanding of each other's characters; a test combat round to go over how combat works; and initial set up of the adventure
• Session 2: escape from the ship and the trek overland. There may be an animal encounter or two. Initial meeting of the crew at the test site, and go over who/what is there. We may cover the 1st night there with the creepers, err, creeping about
• Session 3 (maybe the last session): cover the night and see where they go from there. There are few options so I will be curious to see how that plays out.
• Session 4 (if we have it): recap, and where to go from there. They can only go rimward pretty much as Q'auntor is at the top of the map and I've never decided where this goes in the OTU.

Depending on how they play, there may be no combat at all. And with the limited amount of ammo, less reason for combat other than against the creepers.

As I do have the Great Reft box set, perhaps somewhere in there would work so I could use the stuff I seem to keep buying. I am also getting the ship box, but a giant Navy ship can be used anywhere. Heck - I could pull out my Enterprise blueprints and use that as a surface installation!

I'm hoping enough of them like that so we can explore the D'Arlee quadrant in more detail. I need to take that TravellerMap booklet and edit that to make a better guide.  There just never seems to be enough time.

On a non-related note, there is a Kickstarter for The Fantasy Trip. I did not get to play that much way back when, but it is a fairly simple OSR. I have basic and advanced Melee (the combat rules) and Advanced Wizard (the magic rules). I don't have (or at least cannot find) In The Labyrinth which is the DM guide basically, and explains talents and so forth. It is a very tactical-driven game based on Melee, the old microgame from Metagaming. At one time I had most of those games. Sadly I let them all go at some point in the past.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying/description

Q'auntor Crash Site

Playing with various options in CC3+ Cosmographer. Redid the map in the book for a hand out and to mark progress.

Of course, my printer has died after less than 3 years and not a lot of printing And I had just bought a new set of ink! I'll probably get the next one up but with only 1 paper feed in the front - $149 is probably cheaper than I could get this one fixed for, and it will still handle up to 13x19 for printing.

Makes me almost ill though - that printer was not heavily used.

Refereeing again

Looks like I may be refereeing again, this time for a short 4 session month. The gaming club I go to usually does a 1 month then 2 month sessions to let people do different things. Not many have played Traveller, so this should be interesting. Just need to find out when this happens so I can start more prep. I'll need to re-read that adventure to make sure I can capture the essence of it and make it fun.

I'll be running the Flatlined adventure from Mongoose, but moving to Q'auntar in my old homebrew quadrant. The UPP is close enough, and it is on the edge of Imperial space same as Neon, just not in the Rift area. And I still have no idea where this quadrant exists in the bigger Imperial space, but that is not really important.

So hopefully this will be a bit more fun and I'll get better at refereeing. Going to be a mix of versions, but primarily Mongoose as the combat seems a bit easier and I like that armor actually helps vs the old D&D style of just making you harder to hit.

I'll allow for Vargr and Aslan alien characters although I'd prefer everyone to play human, unless they've played Traveller before and have an idea of how those aliens are supposed to act.  Way back in the day we had a player playing a Virushi, but a slightly crazy one with battle dress. Wonder if I can find that drawing I made?

Q'auntor

As if I get a game going, here are a bunch of maps and stuff.

LLamma

Playing with maps.  Also bringing an advert in to my gaming group to see if there is interest in playing.

This is llovelly Llamma of the D'Arlee subsector.

Pilot's Guide To the D'Arlee Quadrant

WIP - this may become my playground for the next game I ref.

Link to GDrive: Pilot's Guide to D'Arlee

D'Arlee again

Slightly different view. And tomorrow - back to the ship tracker!

Got borders and the fill - lots of really nice options on the TravellerMap site. I'd be willing to pay for it...

D'Arlee Poster

Making progress - I had not realized that there was a poster form on the TravellerMap - I was actually doing the post via Postman (hey, I play with APIs for a living, so I always think about how to do it via software and did not notice the excellent and easy to use web page!)

Need to figure out how to get the top of the Imperial border off the map, and if I can stick in polity names (my League of Independent Planets smack dab in the middle there!).

Hopefully I'll get around to transcribing the history of the quadrant.

Camapign Cartographer and D'Arleee

Finally figured out the Cosmographer add-on a bit for subsectors. Still not great but making progress.

I have no idea what the dashed lines are from that map - 30 some years have not helped to remember things. There are 2 trade routes listed. I'll have to write up that trade company - I have a couple of typewritten pages, several hand-drawn images, and oddly 1 few organizational charts. Antares Shipping was approaching mega-corporation size apparently.

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...

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.

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.

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!

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.

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...

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...

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?

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..

Testing Trader

I've got 1 brave soul attempting to load the Traveller Tracker software. So far it has not worked: basically a certificate error. I thought the HockeyApp process was supposed to do all that, and it did create a certificate when I prepped the program for distribution.

I did manage to install it on my tablet.  The download is a zip file, and you unzip that. There is a .ps file (powershell) that you need to right-click and say run. It should prompt you I think, then it goes & installs the program. At least that was my experience. As we all know, it always works on the developers machine! You may have to run the powershell as an admin, but I do not recall doing that when I installed it on my test machine.

One thing I just found: you may have to delete the old app and try again:

• Check if you have already installed this app before, if so, browse to the old package and delete it

And this site may help: https://pumpingco.de/blog/9841/

I may entirely forgo the UWP version, and start yet again with just a plain Win32. I would keep 90% of what I did (and clean things up hopefully) but my goal was to actually get an app into the App store.  But if no one else can test it (and it has a lot of issues still, and more that I won't find simply because of my built-in bias on how to run it) it may end up not going there.

And sadly despite having a 3 day weekend I did nothing fun: it was worrying and trying to do homework all weekend. I have some sincere thoughts about dropping out. To quote Roger Murtaugh, I'm getting too old for this...

An unrelated note

I went ahead with the Campaign Cartographer Bundle of Holding. And got the Cosmographer add-on which in theory lets me do Traveller-like maps.  Most of the maps it turns out I could do with GIMP and stuff, but I'm just learning. The Traveller star maps are also probably easier in GIMP, and the documentation says that you can only import official Traveller sectors for the subsector mapping, which I've not dug into.

But...it does have a lot of nice templates which will save a lot of time, and there are a LOT of features I need to get under my belt.  So I think it may be worth the cost, just with a pretty big learning curve.

But I did make a play map in a fantasy style. I'll have to play with the SF styles.

I'll also see if a PDF attaches to these posts...

PDF here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FSvjlf_75_0jE9xXBKIsYZixnJa4M78W/view?usp=sharing

T5 Cargo

There is a somewhat active discussion over on COTI about the T5 rules.  And I may be misinterpreting something. I thought that spec trade was handled outside of bulk cargo: bulk cargo is what is sitting on the docks, so to speak, and someone is willing to pay the Cr1000/ton to ship.  You have the major, minor & incidental lots, basically sealed containers. Really there to fill up the remaining few dTons of storage if you want a full cargo hold, or can't wait for the weekly roll on the spec trade.

Spec trade was rolled weekly for what it was and the tonnage, at least in the earlier editions. Still doing that - the software in theory adds a week every time you do a search for cargo and passengers (this is configurable by version but defaults to a week). So each time you click that button, I go through all the systems within jump of your ship, generate the passengers and three levels of bulk freight for each system, then generate a random speculative cargo. It is that last cargo I cannot find the tonnage for, UNLESS we use the freight guide which is:

(Flux x Pop) x (total TCs + 1) for a specific list of trade codes. I think I'll just go with that.

Buying T5 Speculative cargo

Almost there. The rules only cover the purchase price, not dTons or anything like that.  Currently I am defaulting to 1/25 of the cost for the tonnage, and yo can now purchase speculative trade items. The other major difference is that the is no haggling over the purchase price, just the selling price (i.e., the actual value table is only for selling items).  So that was also an interesting twist. So when you purchase a spec trade in T5, it just subtracts from your credits and cargo hold.

I still need to pass in the cargo code, and need to come up with a better way of generating what it is you are buying from the list of cargos. And I want to make the tonnage adjustable by the user which should be easy enough. I now see a better way possibly of integrating the Classic with T5, but that's okay. The code has gotten a lot messier than I like, but apparently that's how I code.

I did add a flag to the version table: CanAlterPurchasePrice. This way we can turn that on/off it you want to be able to haggle.

But some progress was made at least.

I am really itching to play or referee again. I was talking with a guy at the gym who may be interested, and I know John would play again, either as his previous Scout character or we can roll up a new one.  I may do the each player rolls up 2 characters so we have enough for a ship crew, depending on how many players play.  And I've gotten in touch with the guys I used to play Traveller back in college, almost 35 years ago.  Maybe a Roll20 version would work out.

Misc updates

Nothing software related sadly.  But I've finished my first class, so there is now a 2 week window where hopefully I'll get another version out there with corrections to several of the issues I noted when testing on my tablet vs running on my quad-HD big screen.  Still a lot of changes to make this vaguely useful.

And I am continuing with the program - not sure where it will lead but I do enjoy learning, although I'd prefer playing Traveller or any game more...

So my goal is to push another release out to the HockeyApp this weekend. I've made several changes but want to make some more, so I am hoping to have a few hours over the weekend to get things done and push it out Sunday night.

So fingers crossed, and if anyone wants to be an alpha/beta tester, just let me know.  Of course, the source code is open source and available as well - some people have been cloning the repo so perhaps this is getting used someplace.

T5 - Buying spec cargo

I've got this part working, assuming the user sets up the trade code adjustments. I've also decided that I'll update the 'create the actual value table' process to use the values form book 2 / BBB. I can't stick them in the seed process exactly - the versions are not there to link them to, and I've about the order of events to map the correct IDs. Also - I cannot find in the T5 book anything to indicate tonnage for spec trade. Just all the pricing.  I've not looked at the T5.09 document - that may include more info. Its just that I like having that giant tome open when playing with code.

I also installed this on my tablet via the HockeyApp process. It actually worked.  I also noticed several glaring issues when trying to use the software.  I've already made a few updates to address those. First, when you create a new ship it takes you to the ship layout. However - none of the details are in place yet, so previously the ship info tab was off to the right. Now it is the 1st tab and more obvious you need to fill it out. The 2nd issue was selecting the sector: as you had not selected an era, there were no sectors to load. Selecting an era now loads the sectors. I also default to 1105 era to have something in there when it is empty.  The TravellerMap supports 4 eras: 0, 1105, 1248 and 1900. In theory the tracker software should as well but I've really only tested with the 1105 data. A third issue are some layouts do not fit well with the tablet. I need to either resize them or make it more responsive.

Tracker - beta (really alpha) testers

I've had very slow progress (still second guessing about pursuing another masters degree. In project management. Just because I thought I should know more about projects)

Turns out there is a way to beta test this without the hassle of certificates. HockeyApp allows me to upload the software and create a test group. You get an email, sign up for free, and it will let you install the software.

In testing it, I used another email account and invited myself. I got the link, signed up (so now I've my dev account and a test account...) and it let me download a zip file. Unzip that, right-click the 'Add-AppDevPackage.ps1' and run with Powershell.  I had to say yes to change at the prompt, but then it bombed for me as I've already got that installed as I run it locally with Visual Studio.  I'll have to see if I can uninstall that & try again.

The HockeyApp platform looks like a good way to do this. If anyone wants to start alpha testing, PM me with your email and I'll sign you up.  I've no real idea if this will work but I really do intend to get this into the App at some point and having real people tell me everything that does not work (i.e., most of it...) may help me make progress again.

Please review HockeyApp and all that. I've never used it, but it is built into Visual Studio so it is supported (or owned) by Microsoft. If you want to try it out, just let me know.

Thanks!

T5 Trade - still WIP

I did add a trade effect field to the trade codes so you can have changes to the base price. I've added the trade selling trade code table but have not put in the matrix yet (that will come). So we're a few steps closer - I could generate the initial trade good code, and randomly pick one of the trade goods and all that. I just need to connect the dots, but sadly class time is taking up the majority of my free time.  I was sick the last few days (stomach virus? food poisoning? I've no idea other than I've not eaten much more than toast the last 4 days and I was pretty dehydrated for a while). So I managed a few things yesterday beyond feeling blech, checking work email, reading a chapter for class and taking notes, and having a class team meeting.

All I want to do is code sometimes! And play Traveller...

Tracker - non-UWP trade codes

Now you can add non-UWP trade codes (Hot, Puzzle, etc) to the worlds. Next I need to actually do the T5 trade stuff - there was just a lot of work to get the infrastructure in place (wanting to make this user-customizable as possible so you can run it with whatever rules you want).

Finally fixed the UWP-based trade code check.  Turns out the check for isManual was not working, but you can restrict the entire list at the end:

 List results = App.DB.TradeClassifications.
     Where(x => x.Sizes.Length == 0 || x.Sizes.Contains(Size)).
     Where(x => x.Atmospheres.Length == 0 || x.Atmospheres.Contains(Atmosphere)).
     Where(x => x.Hydro.Length == 0 || x.Hydro.Contains(Hydro)).
     Where(x => x.Pop.Length == 0 || x.Pop.Contains(Population)).
     Where(x => x.Gov.Length == 0 || x.Gov.Contains(Gov)).
     Where(x =>x.Law.Length == 0 || x.Law.Contains(Law)).
     Where(x => x.IsManuallyAssigned == false).ToList();

Tracker - T5 Trading. No, not there yet

But I am entering all the trade classifications, even the user-decided ones. I've added a flag to the table indicating if this is a manual trade code. All the UWP-based ones are auto.  I've added another table to attach trade codes to the worlds in question.  There you will be able to manually add the trade codes you want to that world, and when I check for trade code generation I'll simply add that list in.

Still need to actually do all that: in making the columns non-nullable, I broke my seed when I added all the trade codes with some non-filled values. I was hoping if I did not include something it would be empty, but the DB barfed at that, so I have to set the fields to "".  Which means I really did not have to reset the DB...oh well, now the seed has all the T5 codes.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have time for the actual cargo part. Probably not - need to finish a paper and I actually have to work a bit (need to update the work DB when no one is there so we don't interrupt users).

I am also wanting to referee or play again - I went through all my ship posters and really want a face to face game so I can use them...and I've got the Great Rift coming in at some point so I may move the play there.  Plus the Cruiser Kickstarter - I am getting all these things I should really use them!

Tracker - trade classifications

I have been depending on the TravellerMap API to have the trade code classifications in the Remarks field. While this does work, I'd rather have a more nuanced approach to have more details.

I already have the trade code table which gives you trade codes based on the UWP characteristics.  I've added a function to get that list of trade codes based on UWP. Had an issue with nulls but I'll update the DB to not allow nulls for the list of statistics, and that should correct it.

Since I am having to wipe my DB clean again (SQLite migrations do not support changing column attributes, the adding 'not nullable') I'll also expand out the seed that imports the trade codes to include all of them (I manually entered them for testing, found the null issue, and do not want to manually enter them all over again! Although a fix would be to initialize the new classification with blanks, I'd rather have the DB enforce that). This will still allow users to add their own trade codes if they want, and the T5 trade code generator will pick random goods based on trade codes, so that will allow for that to work. It won't affect Classic as that has a very restricted list.

The code to grab the list of trade classifications is pretty simple after the fact. What I've yet to figure out is how to add additional, non-UWP derived trade codes to a world (i.e., Capitol).  I'll probably add a new table for non-UWP trade classifications to allow for the manual entry, and combine those two lists in the new function.

 List results = App.DB.TradeClassifications.Where(x => x.Sizes.Length == 0 || x.Sizes.Contains(Size)).
                Where(x => x.Atmospheres.Length == 0 || x.Atmospheres.Contains(Atmosphere)).
                Where(x => x.Hydro.Length == 0 || x.Hydro.Contains(Hydro)).
                Where(x => x.Pop.Length == 0 || x.Pop.Contains(Population)).
                Where(x => x.Gov.Length == 0 || x.Gov.Contains(Gov)).
                Where(x =>x.Law.Length == 0 || x.Law.Contains(Law)).ToList();

Tracker - T5 Trade, a start

I've started looking into the T5 trade rules. First step was to also have the list of possible trade goods, so there is yet another trade goods table. In hindsight, there should just be 1 but the Classic rules use s D66 method for rolling up the goods, and I did not want to have to figure out how to enforce that.

So I've grabbed a few cargoes from the BBB and stuck them in there. I may extend it out a bit more (i.e. include the full description of what it really is).  This will allow the users to add whatever cargoes they want to add that are trade class based. When I generate the T5 cargo, I'll randomly pick one of the trade codes, then randomly pick one of the trade goods for that trade code.

Down the road I would like a more personalized trade goods option - some of my world workups had some fairly detailed smaller cargoes. Sometimes it is that personal touch of having 50kg of specialized organic coffee versus a container of freeze dried caffeine.

It is going slower not due to being hard, but my severe lack of time :(

And while I thought about starting a PBP game, that severe lack of time keeps raising its head...

Tracker - Printing...and maybe a PBP game on COTI?

Got the basic printing to work. I am not exactly happy with this - I create a rich text block and fill it up. To make things align I set the font to a fixed-width font.  I actually think I could do a hidden grid on the display page and use that - it would be automatic for the databinding and I could do some formatting...

I am also possibly going to start a PBP game over on COTI.  I've got some interest there from one of my fellow members, and I've got the inkling of a game idea based on some of his suggestions.  We'll see...if so, then hopefully this blog will be split between software and actual game stuff!

Tracker - T5 rules

The T5 trade rules are just stubbed out. If your ship is Mongoose or T5, it just returns a message about not currently supported. There is a user over on COTI that wanted a T5 trade program.  I really did not like the T5 version as it seems so dry. It is not hard to do though, so I have a short road map:

1. Finish the cargo printing manifest (4-8 hours)
2. Do the T5 cargo (unknown duration as it has been a couple of years since I read over those rules)

Unfortunately school takes priority, and this is mid-term week. I need to write a paper about a project. Fortunately, I've actually just started a project for work, and that will become my mid-term paper (and won't work be surprised to get a project charter, stakeholder communication breakdown, and a process breakdown!)  As that needs to be completed by Sunday, and I really don't think it will be too difficult, I am hopefully that I'll complete the printing by this weekend (although I really want some sort of template system so that the user can format it a bit, but that will be version 2.0, and as I am on v0.0.0.1 at the moment...)

And I may move this tracker as a project once someone other than me is using it.  When that happens I may open up a Trello board for project management the Kanban style!

And how did March sneak up so fast?

Tracker - Printing is still hard!

But I've got a start. Using some UWP Community tools to help with the print. What really needs to happen is a more generic way (there is a pretty good MVVM version that almost works, and might if I was doing the whole MVVM thing. But I am not).

I do have it printing the list control (the list of cargos themselves), but what really needs to happen is I need to create a nice looking RTF (Rich Text Format) and go from there. I now know how to get the print to work using the OS native print control, so there is a preview and all that. Now I just need to make a good-looking document and print from there.

And this is slow going not because it is hard (well, that too), but because I have a severe lack of time due to classes. Who knew that getting a 2nd masters would take so much time? Rhetorical question - I figured I'd give up any personal life the next 2 years.  I am adapting (and so far have a 49.5 / 50 so must be doing something right!). Any free time though goes to family. They all happen to be away today and I've caught up on classes. So here we are!

Wish I had a picture or something. Heck - I'll put in the ugly print I've got now.  I do plan on making this into a better document, and I am really thinking adding graphics - i.e., allow the user to upload stamps and stuff.  Down the road assuming I keep going down the road...

Tracker - printing is hard

Sadly, printing in a UWP app is a lot more difficult than it should be.  I've tried a few things, but in the end, I may end creating an HTML doc internally, and then saving that to a PDF.  I've not really had enough time to go through all the options, and there is a printer helper that in theory allows you to print a UI component, such as a grid.  But the component can't be attached to anything, and there is no simple way to clone a UI element.  I've got some code from Code Project that in theory allows for a deep clone of an element, but it is having issues I need to work through.

I want to get a generic print thing going as more than just the cargo manifest will need to be printed.

And it was a leg day on Monday - never a great way to start off the week!

Tracker - world images, logs now pivot

Switched the world control around a bit, so now the world image (primary image), notes, log and general images are all in a pivot control.  Still need to set the 1st image when the images get loaded - there's always a blank image until you scroll, then that image goes away.

The idea for the world log is to have a date-based log for the worlds just as we do for the ships. I don't think I've actually implemented that though.

Adding images to the worlds

I've added the image carousel to the world control.  Found a few things:

1. I need to either set the height in that control or do something - the image will come out at the size they are, and that means it rolls off the screen.  Maybe a pivot to have info & image?
2. it seems to lave a blank spot to being with, but once you scroll it is no longer there.  I think I need to set the first image as selected.
3. Drag & dropping images would be nice
4. a way to delete images would be nice
5. the world image can cover data - pivot to the rescue?

But it did work! And even more fun - it's a control using a control!

Tracker - now with images!

I added a generic image table so that I could add images to worlds or ships.  The hard part was displaying them.  I finally, after way too much trouble, got the image carousel to work. While you can't see it on the image, this is a carousel you can slide through the images.  I've made it a user control so I can plop it anywhere. Currently it is on the ship page, but I'll get around to adding it to the world viewer so you can have more than one image attached to a world.

Tracker - more cleanup, added notes to the world model

More under the hood updates with some UI updates: I've removed the edit buttons on the lists. Now you just click or press on the item and the editor loads up.  This saves a column to better fit smaller screens as well as cleaning up the UI a bit.

I've also added a notes field to the world, and I may do the same for the ship, so that you can have notes that are not ship date based.

I've added a generic image holder to the program but have yet to do anything with that.  If I have time this weekend I would like to get an image carousel working.  Get that done, and I can stick it on the ship tracking page and the world view control so you can add images to help invoke what things look like.

I've also added light slate blue as the background color for the user controls. If I don't like that I can always change the formatting dictionary.

Tracker - more cleanup and UI updates

Due to snow, I was unable to get to work today. So while I did spend half the day getting my computer ready to be able to work from home (Ubuntu on Windows without a VM! All the updates! Then Ruby! Then Rails! Literally almost half the day just downloading stuff) I also spent half the day working on this project (technically the office is closed due to the snow, but as some of us can work from home...)  I also spent some time shoveling snow, and getting my computer ready for the project management class that starts tomorrow.  So updates, due to an estimated 15 hours a week for class time, may be greatly reduced soon.

Anyway, after playing around some more I realized that several of my layouts won't play nice with smaller screens. So I've been doing a bit of revising, and some more cleanup under the hood as I've found minor errors when using the tracker.  The only major UI update you'll see from today's work is the available cargo tab.  I've set the major/minor/incidental cargos to just be text inside the button, and that reduced the width enough to fit on most tablets I am pretty sure. I also added the jump distance next to the world name, and if you click on the world name, the world info box comes up just as it does on the jump listing.

I've also had 2 people clone the repository, so that does mean at least two other people are looking at the code. Woot?  I also finished up the community stuff in GitHub (basically be nice) just because.

https://github.com/COliver988/Traveller for the GitHub account.

Tracker - and more cleanup

A lot more under the hood updates, mostly correcting the removal of an application-wide list of sectors I did not need. I also added the 1st option: reset the sectors. This actually removes all the sectors and worlds from the local DB, resets all the ship sectors and worlds (now I realize I don't need a ship sector if I have a world - the world contains the sector. Maybe another correction in a bit).  It then reloads ALL the sectors for the 4 eras. Doing so of course broke the ship view - it was assuming we have valid values for the things I just cleared!  On the bright side, this should also correct the same issue when adding a new ship - something I had not thought of.

I also added a list of eras to the main app, so it is now centralized versus being in various places. The eras (M0, M1105, M1248 & M1900) are part of the API calls to the TravellerMap, so that you can get the UWP for the specific era. 1105 is of course the largest set of sectors; I think M0 only had about a dozen or so versus all of them for 1105.  I may have the options page show the count of sectors for each era, and maybe the list as well or something.

I've added a generic dialog class so that I can abstract user-enter dialogs a bit.  I've added that as I also added the image list table, and will allow you to load images for ships or worlds. I want to figure out the image carousel thing as I think that would be really cool, but realized I also wanted the user to be able to enter text for the images.

Throwing in one of the hex maps from my game - no images for the tracker since the UI has not changed much yet, and I like pictures.

Tracker - moved jump map to same tab (aka pivot) as the jump list

Well, that was simple, and I think simplifies the UI a bit more...so now we've the visual with the text for the jump distance as well.

Tracker - more cleanup, added the jump distance to the jump button

Bit more cleanup under the hood. There are parts that are a bit more complicated than I like - sometimes I apparently develop in a stream of conscious sort of way.  But I am at least unifying the UI a bit.

I've also added the jump distance to the jump button on the list of systems in range.  Just so you know at a glance how far away they are.  And now I am thinking I could add the jump map there...

What I really need is someone to side load this & give me feed back. Sort of going in circles.  If anyone is interested, I'll create the new installers for Windows 10 and post them.

Tracker - still in clean up mode

Mostly under the hood updates. I've moved all the ship edit stuff to the ship tracking view, and removed the edit option from the main ship listing. So now there is just tracking, and to edit the ship use the info tab.

A few other minor cleanups - apparently I was calling the TravellerMap API more than necessary (not that they are charging or anything but someone is paying for the web!)  So there is a bit more checking to see if I've already loaded what is needed into the local DB before loading again.  So that should also improve off-line capabilities a bit more (and I've not really tested that, but I am going with there will be problems).

Mostly refactoring.  Hopefully I'll finish that today.

I also updated the tiles to be better. The splash screen as a tile does not work well. Not happy with the small or wide tile so those will also need a bit more work. But they are better than before.  GIMP is under my Traveller selection as I pretty much only use it for Traveller stuff.

Tracker - a bit more consistency

I've started attempting to make the various layouts more consistent. I've removed the New Ship button from the main menu and it is now on the ship listing content page. That's where the new whatever button will be on the various layouts, such as cargo and starports (yes, you can now add your own starport class).  The ship listing page no longer has the delete option - it is on the ship edit page instead. But I have added the ship class so that may make the listing more useful.

I've also made the database save all changes when the program is closing or getting suspended.  I still have issues with data not always getting persisted to the DB, and this should help.

I've also reset the migrations, so anyone who is running this from the source code will have to reset their database if they use the last version or two of the software (App.xaml.cs file, uncomment the db.Database.EnsureDeleted line, run the program, then re-comment out that line unless you want a fresh DB every time).

Interestingly I have received no comments about installing this locally on user machines. Either no one wants to, the directions were more complicated than I thought, or people are being more cautious about installing software from the internet.  While I do have 7 watchers on that repository, no one has cloned it either.  But the code is out there for anyone to see.

Tracker - Traveller version update

After realizing there were also...questions...about the cost per jump for passengers, and not just bulk cargo, and also finding that the layout did not work on my tablet, I've made some additional updates to the version.  I've added the cost per passage by jump, and updated the math involved so that adding passengers as well as cargo should use the cost that is assigned to the ship's version.

Just trying to avoid the whole can of worms that has been open for, say, 40 years or so now...

Not entirely liking my approach: I almost went the way of adding yet another table that would have the cost, the jump distance, and what it was (high, mid, low, bulk cargo), as well as the version ID.  It would have allowed for jumps more than 6 if you allow that as well as streamlining the tables. But it also makes the UI more complicated in some ways. So each version would have, out of the box, 6 (jump ranges) x 4 (cargo, high, mid, low pax) associated records. I went this route for the actual value table - there are 14 actual value records per version (they get created at 100% when you load a version the 1st time).  So it could have been done to make it more flexible (I would then add another field to the version to indicate max jump range, rather than the default 6 with the hardcoded fields).

I really hate hard-coded fields - they box you in. I may still go that route, but as this is not enterprise level software, I probably won't.

Tracker - sideload the alpha release

I'm going with this is an alpha release.  If you want to trust me and have Windows 10 and install what I've got so far, here is how you do that:

1. Go to Windows settings & set your machine to developer mode to allow side-loading

2. download the installer package here (this has the installers for x86, x64 and ARM processers - I loaded it on my ARM Win10 machine this way to test):  https://1drv.ms/u/s!AgjJYJOsJH7WgYtQgV1IYp11qM_lwg

3. right click the appx package and follow the directions here to allow my not-a-real security certificate to allow you to install software from me: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23812471/installing-appx-without-trusted-certificate

4. Install

Now this is an early, beta release, so it WILL have issues (I just found that the version editor on my tablet does not scroll so you can't get past the J4 settings).  But I will appreciate any feedback.

Now note that this does mean you are trusting me, a faceless person on the internet.  While this application does access the internet (to use the TravellerMap API) and I've given it access to your pictures folder which may not be necessary to load images but I've not tested that yet), that is all it accesses.  You will get that info when installing.

Also note that if I do make radical database updates, your Traveller Tracker data will go away.  I cannot stress enough that this is an alpha release!

And finally, as to not clog up the Traveller G+ site, probably any questions/requests should go on this blog.  I fear most of them will be of a technical nature if you are not a developer.