Univeral Apps revisited

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

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

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

Crew members are a class:

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

Skills are also a class:

• Skill Class
• Name
• ????

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

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

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

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

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

If I were to referee again...

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

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

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

Wanting to play Traveller again

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

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

Random Starship Encounters

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

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

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

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

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

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

I've started messing with Azure web sites, some universal style apps. I'm in the process of writing a starship encounter series for Windows phone, Win8.1, and the web site. I've got the Supplement 7 encounters working on the 1st two, just started messing with the web site. MVC is...interesting.

T5 Success; Cargo program on GitHub

The T5 Kickstarter was quite the success...

I've also posted my cargo program on GitHub. I actually got a request in asking about it today surprisingly.  Perhaps I'll get back into it now that T5 is actually coming out this year.

Traveller 5 on Kickstarter. It has become addictive to watch.

Traveller on iPad

Work gave me an iPad & Macbook Pro (I'll be needing to write some stuff for iPads). As a learning experience I may try & (starting small) write the cargo program for that. Initial analysis of Objective-C andthe XCode IDE indicate I will be going very, very slowly at first.

Just curious if anyone would be interested.

Silverlight update 2

I've managed to get the 2 main classes compiled, but noted several things:

• Datatables are not supported. I've rolled my own, but I'm going to look into what I am doing and probably re-write all that. Datatables make for quick and easy data binding, but so do classes. So there may well be a complete rewrite of the classes
• Silverlight uses IsolatedStorage - in Windows it is buried in the user/local/....someplace area, not sure where it is on a Mac. So I need to figure out how to store the files: we can only read/write to that area. I'm kinda hoping that the installer, if it includes files, will stick them in the right place. I'll find out eventually.
• printing will have to be completely revamped. However, Silverlight uses FlowDocuments (a MS-version of PDF essentially, which are fairly easy to create and the on-screen and print results are close to identical).

So, I've managed the 1st part. Next step is to see if I can read an SEC file, and generate my set of systems and do some basic displays. I'm actually going to have a Sector class, which in turn has a list of World classes in it (or maybe even Subsector class that has the world lists, not sure yet).  When I get that working in the next few weeks (I've limited time to work on this) and it seems to work for a PC, I'll release it so anyone with a Mac can start testing to see if it actually does anything.

Cargo handler in Silverlight - Mac compatible

I'm working on converting the cargo program to Silverlight. This means it will work on Macs and any browser that supports the Silverlight plugin.  It will still be a program you download to run, but it is sandboxed and runs in your browser.

The classes are about 75% good as is. However, some things I was using (datasets, arraylists) are not supported in Silverlight, so I'll be converting them. And I'll be working on the 3rd iteration of the classes.

The interface should be a LOT nicer - I've been using XAML at work and it is really sweet in terms of presentation, customizing and data binding. All sorts of ideas are bouncing through my brain.

I'll keep things posted here.

adding expanded trade tables from Merchant Prince

Work in progress...

Alell update

Added some universities and a couple of images, minor edits. Still needs work but it is slowly coming together, I think.
 http://cid-68f917204deb20d2.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Alell.odt

Alell documentation

Still a work in progress: http://cid-68f917204deb20d2.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Alell.odt

Allell - System diagram

Still playing with GIMP and other tools. At least I have the planets scaled correctly now, but the lighting is not correct. And funny - I actually know HOW to do that...

Anyway, I'm working on an Alell source module for the heck of it. This is part of that.

Alell, an overview

Playing with a few image editors, and working on the Alell system:

There

No news is good news?

No comments on my last release either here or at the MGT-Aids site. So either everything works perfect (sounds of crickets) or no one has looked at the new version. I'll try & get back to it again this weekend, and see if there were any other requests out there I've forgotten.

And - have a great day!

weekend update

I've released the latest update on my skydrive account: Traveller2.zip

I'll try & get around to updating the MGT Aid file, but as of this morning for some reason it was not letting me log in.  (afternoon update: I relogged back in & deleted/reloaded the file).

I've also added the monthly payment check - when saving the ship file (and this also happens automatically when you exit the program) it checks to see if we've passed 30 days since the last time we've paid. If so, we add 30 days (and it should take into account wrapping around day 365) to the last paid date, subtract out your monthly costs, and add a note:

You can also add 1-3 days as well from a button on the status bar next to the date:

I've finished the preliminary Mongoose file checking. It only checks the big things (the correct number of fields, the correct number of lines). It does not check the actual values other than the die roll on the actual values table.

Update Plans

I plan on the following 3 updates to be released over the weekend:

1. complete at least the Mongoose trade file check utility
2. give the user an option to add days to the ship's date
   
3. fix the ship save function to save the date as well

If I get motivated and have the time, I may spec out at least the ideas I have about tracking NPCs, and allowing custom content to be added to the ship file. I am really thinking of images - being able to add deck plans would be cool. That and there has been a request for printing a ship data sheet. I really need to figure out reporting better.

Just remember - all the files this program use are text, so hand-editing is allowed. Notepad works just fine.

draft 1 of file checking

I've added a first draft of the file checking. So far it only checks Mongoose trade codes, but here is a snapshot of the current version, along with a file. I've not double-checked (hey, it is 5:38 in the morning!) but my guess is that this is the only incorrect line.

The things it checks for the trade codes are the number of lines (and this would only be a warning, not a breaking deal. I do plan on adding a column for passing the checks) (and this is only valid CSV lines, it ignores the headers & blank lines) and that there are 10 items per line.

I'll probably get this finished up & re-released over the weekend. If anyone knows a better way other than deleting & reloading the file in Yahoo, please let me know.

better forms

My new job has an interesting form thing I'm figuring out, and the TravellerMap page uses a PDF generator taht could create some interesting forms.

So - if there is a demand for better forms, I may get around to playing with that this weekend.