Is there a successor program to Heaven& Earth?

[Someguy]

A successor program to Heaven& Earth

OK, a little thread recycling here!

Originally I asked if there was a successor program to heaven and earth. It seems there are some attempts, but no true successor.

However one of the board members here is able to write one, if I pay him, so if I'm going to be shelling out, I want it to be a good one. So please post below the functionalities you liked about heaven and earth and what you would do to improve it.

I know I want some pretty advanced mapping options, such as the ability to automap multiple sectors at a time, with the ability to draw arbitrary lines on the blank maps to designate this part as rift, this part as sparsely populated this area is densely populated with stars. Then have it auto generate the maps.

I also want the ability to tell it what information I want it to generate, so if I want to generate unexplored space it will generate everything but population, government type, law level and tech level, leaving them at a value of zero.

And once its got the star maps done, I want it to be able to generate the system maps, so I know every planet, planetoid, gas giant, moon and asteroid belt in the system.

Potentially the ability to generate planetary maps that allow me to decide, possibly a sliding scale, if I want the water/land masses to dispersed or clumped together. IE does the Hydrographics 9 planet have a single landmass and one big ocean, or thousands of islands and archipelagos spread all over the place dividing the oceans up, or some where inbetween.

I know its a tall order, but given enough time, and money it can grow into it.

So what would you like in this gizmo?

 

[thalassogen]

If not, what would it take to inspire a few of you codemonkeys to begin working on an OS neutral program that can do all the wonderful things H&E did?

I would like to do something like this, but at the moment it would take time (as my free time is sparse) or money (to let my day job rest).

 

[tjoneslo]

No matter what I do, I just can't get H&E to work on my machine. So I'm wondering, is there is a successor program to H&E?

The closest working example I've found is Traveller Universe. It does the mapping aspects, but not much of the automated generation. It is being worked on, slowly.

 

[Someguy]

I would like to do something like this, but at the moment it would take time (as my free time is sparse) or money (to let my day job rest).

So how much money are we talking? 4 digits? 5 digits? Just give me a number and I'll get to work on pulling it together.

 

[Someguy]

The closest working example I've found is Traveller Universe. It does the mapping aspects, but not much of the automated generation. It is being worked on, slowly.

Would be nice if it was complete and os independant, but I run a Linux box and thats all windows 98/NT stuff. I'll run into the same issues with it as I do with H&E.

 

[Carlobrand]

Years ago I used to use Heaven & Earth when I felt the need to expand my traveller universe. However, I no longer use windows on my computer, rather I use Ubuntu 13.10 (may go back to 12.04 here soon). ...

Ubu-what?

 

[thalassogen]

So how much money are we talking? 4 digits? 5 digits? Just give me a number and I'll get to work on pulling it together.

I have sent you a PM.

 

[JimMarn]

Ubu-what?

It is one of the many versions of linux.

 

[simonh]

Starbase already supports a lot of what you want, it's also open source and runs fine on Linux.

I know I want some pretty advanced mapping options, such as the ability to automap multiple sectors at a time, with the ability to draw arbitrary lines on the blank maps to designate this part as rift, this part as sparsely populated this area is densely populated with stars. Then have it auto generate the maps.

Starbase lets you define the dimensions of your campaign map, in sectors, when you create it. By default it's 2x2 sectors and you can increase that depending on the performance of your machine. You can pan and zoom the map using the mouse and scroll wheel. It can also generate PDF or PNG maps of subsectors and sectors. You can create named links between worlds such as trade routes with multiple different colours.

You can multi-select subsectors, sectors or arbitrary regions of hexes, set a star density and then auto-populate them. You can also create named regions of hexes to quick-select them later to make other changes. You can also create your own political alignments such as empires or federations. Optionally it will auto-name worlds for you, or it will assign default grid-based names, or you can provide a name list for it to assign from, but you can rename worlds manually too of course.

There's no arbitrary line-drawing or ability to add arbitrary labels or text yet.

I also want the ability to tell it what information I want it to generate, so if I want to generate unexplored space it will generate everything but population, government type, law level and tech level, leaving them at a value of zero.

You can have several world generation scripts and select the one you want to use for a given region. Alternatively there is a world group editor. This lets you select a region and then apply +/- modifiers to selected world attributes across the region, or set minimum or maximum values, or just set them all to a given value. Great for what you describe, or e.g. setting the same government code for all worlds in an empire to the same value.

And once its got the star maps done, I want it to be able to generate the system maps, so I know every planet, planetoid, gas giant, moon and asteroid belt in the system.

There's currently no system map generation, but it can generate Book 6 style system information as an editable text report in the world details. I would like to expand this aspect to include system maps/diagrams and such.

Potentially the ability to generate planetary maps that allow me to decide, possibly a sliding scale, if I want the water/land masses to dispersed or clumped together. IE does the Hydrographics 9 planet have a single landmass and one big ocean, or thousands of islands and archipelagos spread all over the place dividing the oceans up, or some where inbetween.

The world generation scripts are highly customizable. By default it generates fixed text along with each world attribute code, but this can be modified to generate custom text descriptions as you describe.

I have experimented with various fractal and Perlin noise generation algorithms to create world maps. It's a major task to produce something of a quality you'd need for an RPG and would essentially be a major dev project similar in complexity to the rest of Starbase. Frankly, Fractal Terrains from ProFantasy Software is probably your best bet, along with hooks in Starbase to load assets such as planetary maps from the system's data directory, or from arbitrary directory paths saved with the system data.

There's more information with links to the documentation, source code and other resources at the link below. There's a pre-built Windows EXE. To get it running on Linux you'd need to install the dependencies (Qt, PySide and a few others) and run it from source.

StarBase on Github

If you're interested, ping me a private message so we can exchange email addresses. Perhaps we can do a Google hangout some time so I can give you a demo, guide you through the installation process and we can discuss specifics.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Frankymole]

However one of the board members here is able to write one, if I pay him, so if I'm going to be shelling out, I want it to be a good one. So please post below the functionalities you liked about heaven and earth and what you would do to improve it.

Better mapping would be great. One thing that was wrong with H&E was that the satellite size formula was the wrong way round: instead of parent planetary size minus 1D, it had 1D minus planetary size. (Or whichever way round - anyway it was opposite to Book 6 / WBH).

I contacted the author of H&E but whilst agreeing with the problem he wasn't able to fix up the software.

So it'd be nice if errors like that were fixable!

Having it supported, and across multiple OS's is vital. Otherwise it'll die a death before it really comes into its own.

World Data exportable to a good surface mapping application (artwork generation) would be ideal; at least for the basic terrain allowing referees to then tinker with symbols etc afterwards. I also liked the JTAS journal article about using different icosahedral hex maps for different sized worlds, so a surface map with the twenty planes of an icosahedron without the hexes would be handy. Also, how about a system map that allows different positions of planets along their orbital paths, at different times - or a journey time generator?

 

[simonh]

I contacted the author of H&E but whilst agreeing with the problem he wasn't able to fix up the software.

So it'd be nice if errors like that were fixable!

Having it supported, and across multiple OS's is vital. Otherwise it'll die a death before it really comes into its own.

Apart from Starbase being open source, even if you're running the standalone Windows executable the world generation scripts are plain Python source files loaded at runtime. You can tweak them however you like.

World Data exportable to a good surface mapping application (artwork generation) would be ideal; at least for the basic terrain allowing referees to then tinker with symbols etc afterwards. I also liked the JTAS journal article about using different icosahedral hex maps for different sized worlds, so a surface map with the twenty planes of an icosahedron without the hexes would be handy. Also, how about a system map that allows different positions of planets along their orbital paths, at different times - or a journey time generator?

I'm very open to the idea of integrating with external utilities, e.g. calling a mapping application with a set of command line arguments defining the relevant world stats.

Simon Hibbs

 

[daltoncalford]

I have already started on just such a beast.

I own a copy of Traveller Universe as well as all the source books (ct/mt/tne/t4/mgt/t5/dgp's wbh).

I have found most of the packages that are currently available, for a lack of a better term, wanting.

I am using LiveCode 7 rc6 (full unicode support) and SqlLite.
Target platforms are Windows, OSX, iOS, Linux and Android.

Final product will be GPL version 3, if I release it, as I was designing it for myself and not for general release (I don't know the current licensing issues and I do not want to cause any problems with Marc).

The current status of the project is as follows.

1.) Database is designed and baseline data populated.
2.) I have my custom world generation script finished, but, the code to support plain jane traveller is not there.
3.) I am working out interface layout/colours/graphics.

I am willing to discuss it with anyone who is interested.

best regards

Dalton

 

[simonh]

I am using LiveCode 7 rc6 (full unicode support) and SqlLite.
Target platforms are Windows, OSX, iOS, Linux and Android.

Sounds interesting. I've been wanting to do some mobile development, the iPad would be a great platform for an app like this and there are no compelling Python based mobile frameworks to speak of.

Where do I sign up to help out?

Perhaps I could work on making the StarBase persistence layer compatible so we can share project data?

Simon Hibbs

 

[daltoncalford]

Sounds interesting. I've been wanting to do some mobile development, the iPad would be a great platform for an app like this and there are no compelling Python based mobile frameworks to speak of.

Where do I sign up to help out?

Perhaps I could work on making the StarBase persistence layer compatible so we can share project data?

Simon Hibbs

Hi Simon,

I have not been setting this up as a public project (yet) but I have been working with Jochen Linneman (thalassogen) with regards to discussing various concepts as to how to present the data.

If you want to discuss this, you can contact me directly and we can have an off board discussion.

My biggest issue is in UI design.

I am looking at a program that must have a uniform look and feel, across multiple disparate platforms while keeping a Traveller Feel to it.

I can make a very basic package which would be perfect for myself, but, if people are willing to throw ideas as to UI layout, icons for indicating things on maps etc., I would be more than willing to throw them in.

 

[Kilgs]

Instead of reinventing the wheel, you folks should contact Hemdian (Universe and Universe-to-be II) to pitch in. He's stalled at the moment and maybe some additional programmers would help him out.

 

[simonh]

Instead of reinventing the wheel, you folks should contact Hemdian (Universe and Universe-to-be II) to pitch in. He's stalled at the moment and maybe some additional programmers would help him out.

The problem with Universe is, and my apologies if I am mistaken here, but it's based on commercial proprietary technology that has licensing fees attached. I'm not in any way an open source purist, but I have concerns about getting involved in a project that can only ever be commercial and closed source and costs money even to start developing on. Also it's Traveller only. Hemdian's done a great job with it and it does what it does very well, but it's not for me.

Some of my objectives with Starbase were:

• Open Source so anyone can customize it for their needs
• Plug-in world generation scripts for even easier customization by beginner level programmers
• Customizable world attributes so it's not tied just to Traveller
• Cross-platform - having a bit of trouble getting it running on OSX, but runs fine on Windows and Linux
• Based on established technologies likely to have long functional lifetimes (Python and Qt)

There were no existing projects that hit on any of these points, so I started Starbase.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Someguy]

Personally, I think that 31 flavors of ice cream is a good start. I apply this mentality to just about everything. Including how many programs there should be out there for the games we love.

Not every program is going to do everything everyone wants it to do, and so there is always room for improvement.

Competition of ideas. Its toxic to democracy, but the life blood of a republic.

 

[aramis]

Personally, I think that 31 flavors of ice cream is a good start. I apply this mentality to just about everything. Including how many programs there should be out there for the games we love.

Not every program is going to do everything everyone wants it to do, and so there is always room for improvement.

Competition of ideas. Its toxic to democracy, but the life blood of a republic.

I wish Rob Prior's mapping program were redone for OSX... it rocked for OS9.

 

[Kilgs]

Personally, I think that 31 flavors of ice cream is a good start. I apply this mentality to just about everything. Including how many programs there should be out there for the games we love.

Ugh. I want one Super-Program! That does it all. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten the perfect program but the other program does this ONE thing that can't be imported! Gah!

Astrosynthesis is a great example. ALMOST everything I could want.

 

[Baron]

Yeah, from my perspective, as a user rather than a programmer or tinker, one program is more than sufficient. I don't want to cllutter things up.