Classic Sector LBB's now available!

[Renard Ruche]

Hello all:
I was wondering if anyone knows what to do once you download the scripts. I know there was a thread that Mickazoid had posted, but can't seem to find it. Running OSX here. Really want to play with this...

Thanks ahead of time!

 

[Mickazoid]

Hey there!

Here's the thread - full install instrux are in there, as well as in the 'SectorMaker.sh' and 'SectorMaker.cgi' scripts themselves. There's also a 'guide to the installed files' in the .zip archive:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=10806

Here's the link to the latest scripts archive:
http://micki001.cnc.net/trav/SectorMakerScripts.zip

I think you'll find it's pretty straightforward if you read the install directions carefully - let me know if you have any problems, and good luck!

 

[Renard Ruche]

Thank you Ms. Mickazoid! You rock

 

[Mickazoid]

My pleasure! This user also installed the scripts successfully...

...his experience or a PM might help you as well:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/member.php?u=1344

mickazoid - first, thanks for all the work you've put into this! It's amazing what emulating the "LBB style" can do for the endless strings of data in the bare .sec/etc. files. The Marches PDF is remarkable by itself, but the ability to apply a similar treatment to any existing sector, or generate from scratch, is almost mind-boggling.

That said, I was wondering if you might provide a bit more "hand-holding" on the install process. I've spent the last 20 years moving through DOS/Amiga/Windows, and switched to the Mac in 2006. While I am pretty comfortable, I won't claim to have a lot of experience with the UNIX underpinnings, and while I believe that I followed the instructions, there were a couple bits that had me scratching my head.

Specifically, I'm not sure exactly where the output folder (/sectors/autogen) is supposed to be created. I've tried a couple of locations, but don't know if I've gotten it right. The other issue, perhaps connected, is that I am getting a "command not found" whenever pdftk is called (lines 810, 830, etc). I installed the Mac OS X package that was on PDFHacks, and it appears to have installed correctly - all of the files are where they are supposed to be. It said that it was for OS X 10.3 only, but I assumed that just meant it wouldn't work with 10.2 or earlier.

As I said, I'm not sure if both issues are related - I'm not sure if the pdftk error is occurring because my output folder isn't in the right place, or if it isn't finding the installed file properly, or if I'm missing something else entirely.

Also, the PDF-API2 install wasn't straightforward - I followed the instructions that were included with it, but ran into permissions issues until I ran the install with sudo, so I'm not entirely sure if the process completed properly. I believe it did, but it's very difficult to know for sure, since the install process goes by very quickly. It appears that everything ended up in /Library/Perl/5.8.6/PDF, so that appears correct.

Thanks in advance for any pointers you can give me, and thanks again for all the effort you've already put into this project. This is on a Core Duo iMac, by the way - congratulations on your new MacBook Pro!

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=10806&page=23
Rick

 

[tinker123]

Since these are totally randomly generated books, putting in 'specific info about strange customs, etc.' would be possible - but a bit far afield from the randomizable data the rest of the book presents. It'd be best suited by using a standing 'canon' db

Can I suggest that the best structure for handling that sort of info is the same as the sector generation? First define some kind of standard file format for the detailing of a world (or maybe for version 1 don't bother with this, just make it freeform text), then put the hooks in the booklet construction to include any world-detail files that are present in the folder. You could maybe use the filename as the link to the world it details, so that the booklet-construction script just strings together the subsector name & hex-number to get a filename, and if that exists include it in the book.

The random generation / canonical DB thing happens outside the booklet production (just like it does for sector generation). For example, I've just written a program to generate animal encounter tables from a UPP. I could easily upgrade it to read a .sec file, use the world names as the random seed (so you always get the same table produced for the same planet) and generate a whole subsector's-worth with appropriate filenames (e.g. Regina0501.enc).

The same sort of approach could be used for generating a world map (with terrain types per hex) or local customs or whatever.

Then, if anyone picks up one of these worlds in a landgrab, they can supply the "official" include files for that world, which just replace any random ones before assembling the booklet.

What do you think?

 

[Mickazoid]

Interesting ideas indeed - they would ensure complete consistency of data and would certainly make for a more full-featued script.

I may indeed look into those kinds of additions (specifically the 'random seed') at some later date, but at the moment, the script is focused on generating rules-based books without such user 'cruft' or 'canon' unification.

The Traveller generation rules are random, so while I have built the ability to render pre-existing 'sec' files (to allow printouts of canon worlds, etc.) I prefer not to try to integrate with 'meta' activities like landgrab, etc. or try to accomodate the kinds of customization and finite control that 'canon' or 'landgrab' sectors (and their many rules 'exceptions') would require. My pen-and-paper days have led me to be perfectly comfortable with the idea that your 'Gombro Sector' may have the same UPP's as mine, but different animal encounters

Automatically-generated sector books with random names, maps, data, polities, routes, and other purely rules-based info (all of which can be re-jiggered and the book re-generated) has been the focus of the script - to serve as a 'sector supplement' along with more game-specific or game universe-specific stuff, etc., which can be written up by a referee into a separate self-generated document of world notes to serve a local campaign well.

Applying the script at the 'meta' layer to ensure consistency of animal descriptions, world notes, cargo, etc., across campaigns is to me an interesting, if secondary, goal. I'll look into it in the coming months!

 

[Jacqual]

Hi all Great work on all the mapping, it is a load of the stuff. Where can I get the individual Subsecter PDF's' all I see is that monster with all of them. It rocks having it all in one file on the ole' PC but printing It in the LBB format which I would love to do is well I cannot figure it out and with the price of ink in the world and I dont want to kill any forest's either. I saw the pic of all the LBB's and I would love to have I just cant find them. But I still think it is a great book and awesome work again. A LBB with what 330 pages well you could hurt someone with that. Let alone you might get a hernia picking it up lol.

 

[tinker123]

My pen-and-paper days have led me to be perfectly comfortable with the idea that your 'Gombro Sector' may have the same UPP's as mine, but different animal encounters

I totally agree. What would bug me, though, is finding that every time I tried to regenerate my Gombro sector, something in the content changed (such as maybe the trade routes). That would mean that I couldn't easily upgrade my Gombro sector to the latest spec of booklet.

My obsession with separating the random bits from the presentation started from some work I did on generating random music. I'd improve something, like say the style & interest in the bass playing, and be unable to apply it to any of the songs that had already been generated. So eventually it dawned on me that the randomised bits had to be kept separate from each other: create random song, apply bass-playing rules to it (with different random numbers involved).

Oh, and more importantly, I forgot to say: great work, and a real service to the Traveller community. Thanks.

 

[jfetters]

Interesting ideas indeed - they would ensure complete consistency of data and would certainly make for a more full-featued script.

I may indeed look into those kinds of additions (specifically the 'random seed') at some later date, but at the moment, the script is focused on generating rules-based books without such user 'cruft' or 'canon' unification.

The Traveller generation rules are random, so while I have built the ability to render pre-existing 'sec' files (to allow printouts of canon worlds, etc.) I prefer not to try to integrate with 'meta' activities like landgrab, etc. or try to accomodate the kinds of customization and finite control that 'canon' or 'landgrab' sectors (and their many rules 'exceptions') would require. My pen-and-paper days have led me to be perfectly comfortable with the idea that your 'Gombro Sector' may have the same UPP's as mine, but different animal encounters

Automatically-generated sector books with random names, maps, data, polities, routes, and other purely rules-based info (all of which can be re-jiggered and the book re-generated) has been the focus of the script - to serve as a 'sector supplement' along with more game-specific or game universe-specific stuff, etc., which can be written up by a referee into a separate self-generated document of world notes to serve a local campaign well.

Applying the script at the 'meta' layer to ensure consistency of animal descriptions, world notes, cargo, etc., across campaigns is to me an interesting, if secondary, goal. I'll look into it in the coming months!

Hey Mickazoid -

Two questions - what sector format are you using for the conversion process?

Also, when will the Windows version be available?

The reason I ask, is that I am working on a .Net sector generator that creates the sectors in an XML format, which I would like to be able to export to whatever format for mapping purposes (at the moment, I am trying to get it to convert to the HES/WBS format for importing into Universe). My blog has more details, so I won't go into all that complexity here.

Thanks!

 

[Gadrin]

I posted a response to your blog. I'm not sure how much help I might be but it might be worth it.

I used Altova's XML alternative to XPath -- XQuery ???, but found bugs in it. They made some changes and it got worse! Luckily I kept the original, but haven't used that it in ages.

I've done most of my work in Winbatch and MSXML, which would be similar to VBScript, so I don't know how much help I could be to you.