Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
Where did this come from? And why does it look funny? Have I found a portal into an alternate universe? Or have I just wandered in before Hunter's finished decorating the place and got wet paint on my shirt?
Ooh!
- Thread starter Andrew Boulton
- Start date
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Yep definitely a parallel universe, familiar yet distrubingly odd, I'm going back now
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Hey! Who said that!Hellooouhhh!
Can anybody heeeaaar meee?
What's happening here?
I better leave...
Seriously, some of the early posts in this shiny new forum were made while Hunter was still building it and refer to the under construction look it had. All spiffy now, so those posts look rather strange out of context.
Now who was it wanted this forum? And when are they going to start posting the goodies?
trader jim
SOC-14 1K
Hey!!!!.....anybody in this new place wanna buy a cup o CoffeeJuice and a Burritto,made with fresh rat meat???.....2 credits only!!!! 
Hey!!!!.....WAIT!!!!!....WHY IS EVERYONE RUNNING???
Hey!!!!.....WAIT!!!!!....WHY IS EVERYONE RUNNING???
trader jim
SOC-14 1K
Hey...whats that BIG sign say????.........
NO DOWNLOADING "BOOTLEG" MUISIC FILES!!!!!!
HHHmmnnnnn.......takes the fun outta EVERYTHING!!!!
NO DOWNLOADING "BOOTLEG" MUISIC FILES!!!!!!
HHHmmnnnnn.......takes the fun outta EVERYTHING!!!!
Shush, you blithering heathens!
I believe I was the one who originated the idea and Hunter acted upon it quietly (ie I didn't notice till someone pointed it out!).
The idea for the forum is it can be a place where people mention what they might like in terms of Traveller software, software they are working on and might like help with, software they have produced and might like others to know about.
The great software like Heaven and Earth, Universe, Galactic, etc. and all the great FFS/QSDS/etc. spreadsheets, the various world building softwares, etc. I think this makes a good place to let other players know about them, know about the use you've put them to, recommend or review them, and talk to people about new software you might be thinking about cranking out.
Does that answer the questions?
I believe I was the one who originated the idea and Hunter acted upon it quietly (ie I didn't notice till someone pointed it out!).
The idea for the forum is it can be a place where people mention what they might like in terms of Traveller software, software they are working on and might like help with, software they have produced and might like others to know about.
The great software like Heaven and Earth, Universe, Galactic, etc. and all the great FFS/QSDS/etc. spreadsheets, the various world building softwares, etc. I think this makes a good place to let other players know about them, know about the use you've put them to, recommend or review them, and talk to people about new software you might be thinking about cranking out.
Does that answer the questions?
Ok guys, time to post something on-topic I guess.
Well, I felt that I had to brush up on my knowledge of C, so I started to make a starship generator based on Book 2. Not that you need much help from a computer to use those rules, but hey, I could use a simple project for a start.
But, there is one feature that I plan on including, which I've never seen anywhere else. I think that it would be neat to be able to say that I want to make a ship using a specific hull and Jump 5 and then tell the computer "gimme the rest" or something like it.
That way it would be easy to "optimize" the use of hulls energy points and such.
Some day I might even finish the program, and start to add HG and maybe even MT rules to it. They sure could use some of that "optimizing" help!
/andreas
Well, I felt that I had to brush up on my knowledge of C, so I started to make a starship generator based on Book 2. Not that you need much help from a computer to use those rules, but hey, I could use a simple project for a start.
But, there is one feature that I plan on including, which I've never seen anywhere else. I think that it would be neat to be able to say that I want to make a ship using a specific hull and Jump 5 and then tell the computer "gimme the rest" or something like it.
That way it would be easy to "optimize" the use of hulls energy points and such.
Some day I might even finish the program, and start to add HG and maybe even MT rules to it. They sure could use some of that "optimizing" help!
/andreas
Hi Guys,
I've been playing around in Visual Basic 6 enterprise edition and don't really know much about programming in Visual basic. As things go, I've beening doing what amounts to OTJ training. (ok on the hobby training if you want to be technical about it!).
In any event, I was wondering if anyone wants to work - co-ordinate with me on creating something for use with FAR TRADER.
Originally, I had created a program that generated cargo lots giving a Start location and a destination location. After I coded it, I found that what I really should have done was had the program process all the stellar data in a database, and generating cargo based on start location and *ALL* Possible destinations instead of start and ending destination. This permits starship captains or pursers to dig up freight loads based on what is there rather than what the captain arbitrarily decides in the absense of data.
What I think would be interesting is if all of us who program in Visual Basic got together and started to integrate our manhour capabilities, and create code as one "central" programmer (system analyst anyone?) requests.
Example:
We might have one person set out to create the modules for FIRST IN. Another might be working on FAR TRADER. Still yet another might be working on populating a database as per the head programmer's request. Still yet another might be working on database structures for retaining ship names, ship locations, inspections, etc. As projects get concluded, others of us who have knowledge with Visual Basic can start working at doubling up to get projects done faster.
I started on Far Trader and then stopped due to real life time committments and lack of interest in stead pace work on the project.
Any takers?
Hal
I've been playing around in Visual Basic 6 enterprise edition and don't really know much about programming in Visual basic. As things go, I've beening doing what amounts to OTJ training. (ok on the hobby training if you want to be technical about it!).
In any event, I was wondering if anyone wants to work - co-ordinate with me on creating something for use with FAR TRADER.
Originally, I had created a program that generated cargo lots giving a Start location and a destination location. After I coded it, I found that what I really should have done was had the program process all the stellar data in a database, and generating cargo based on start location and *ALL* Possible destinations instead of start and ending destination. This permits starship captains or pursers to dig up freight loads based on what is there rather than what the captain arbitrarily decides in the absense of data.
What I think would be interesting is if all of us who program in Visual Basic got together and started to integrate our manhour capabilities, and create code as one "central" programmer (system analyst anyone?) requests.
Example:
We might have one person set out to create the modules for FIRST IN. Another might be working on FAR TRADER. Still yet another might be working on populating a database as per the head programmer's request. Still yet another might be working on database structures for retaining ship names, ship locations, inspections, etc. As projects get concluded, others of us who have knowledge with Visual Basic can start working at doubling up to get projects done faster.
I started on Far Trader and then stopped due to real life time committments and lack of interest in stead pace work on the project.
Any takers?
Hal
If someone suggested a similar project in another language, I'd consider it. VB is *evil* (note, this *is* very much a personal prejudice... not meant as a canonical assertion of fact).
Now, an interesting idea might be to separate the various segments of a conjectural larger project in such a way that they do not require the same software - say using XML or plain text data files of some specified formats as intermediary stages.
For instance, someone could write some Java that crunches out the far trader analysis from data loaded into a MySQL database. Then he could write that analyzed data into a portable file format. The VB programmers, with their spiffy interface coding capabilities, could design a nice UI to display and manipulate this data.
This is just one example of how multiple dev tools/languages/skillsets could be involved. The interface points need not rely on common language or toolset versions.
Now, an interesting idea might be to separate the various segments of a conjectural larger project in such a way that they do not require the same software - say using XML or plain text data files of some specified formats as intermediary stages.
For instance, someone could write some Java that crunches out the far trader analysis from data loaded into a MySQL database. Then he could write that analyzed data into a portable file format. The VB programmers, with their spiffy interface coding capabilities, could design a nice UI to display and manipulate this data.
This is just one example of how multiple dev tools/languages/skillsets could be involved. The interface points need not rely on common language or toolset versions.
TheEngineer
SOC-14 1K
Hi,
well, I like evil things
=), even VB
Perhaps it would be really good idea to take care for an interchangeable format of all the nice things generated by useful programs written in any language.
Is there any Traveller ISO group out there ?
If not lets make up our minds.....
Regards,
Mert
well, I like evil things
Perhaps it would be really good idea to take care for an interchangeable format of all the nice things generated by useful programs written in any language.
Is there any Traveller ISO group out there ?
If not lets make up our minds.....
Regards,
Mert
Huh Kaladorn, sounds pretty spiffy. Sort of an open-source + open-data project suite. What kind of data would be useful to developers out there?
This weekend I built a cheap little solar system GUI onto my Traveller database. A perl script updates the 'official' date (one game-hour per 75 real seconds). I give the GUI the name of a system to model, and it fetches the contents of that system, determines (deterministically) the positions of each orbital body, and goes into a loop where it pings the database's date entry every 15 seconds or so. When the date entry changes, the GUI updates its orbital positions. Orbital position is totally dependent upon the current Imperial date + some offsetting based on the orbital body's stats; thus position is implicit in existing data: no additional storage required, which means no updates to the database of thousands of planets, gas giants, and asteroids.
Now that I think of it, here's something I could use: a file containing the official Traveller sectors, with the Book 6 extended system generation run on all of them, in some concise form of, say, XML. Exceptions would be those few systems which are already detailed, in which case that official data would be there instead of random data. My current database does not use the 'official' generation system, so the data isn't 'official', though I tried to make it look okay. I say 'concise' XML because it is possible to do-it-to-death, and I'm not really keen on that.
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"><sector name="Spinward Marches">
<hex id="1910">
<system name="Regina">
<zone type="Amber"/>
<allegiance polity="Imperial"/>
<primary class="G4" magnitude="III">
<companion class="F0" magnitude="D"/>
</primary>
<orbit number="1">
<planet name="Foobar" uwp="A123456-7">
<bases>A</bases>
</planet>
</orbit>
<orbit number="2">
...
</orbit>
<xboat>
<route to="1810" name="Hefry"/>
</xboat>
</system>
</hex>
</sector></pre>[/QUOTE]<planet> can be exploded if you prefer, but frankly I find it more readable without all that scattershot text in between.
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"><planet name="foo" starport="A" size="4000" atmosphere="4" hydrosphere="6" population="4000000" government="6" lawlevel="8" tl="12"></pre>[/QUOTE]Hey, the ideas are flowing. I could also use a file containing starship parts. That's right, parts. Again, in some concise version of XML. For example, a ship has a long list of components that are essentially line items. SO how about an enumeration of said line items?
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"><components>
<jumpdrive rating=1 volume="1%" fuel="10%"/>
<triple-turret sockets=3/>
</components></pre>[/QUOTE](Not so sure about that one, but seems like there's potential there...)
This weekend I built a cheap little solar system GUI onto my Traveller database. A perl script updates the 'official' date (one game-hour per 75 real seconds). I give the GUI the name of a system to model, and it fetches the contents of that system, determines (deterministically) the positions of each orbital body, and goes into a loop where it pings the database's date entry every 15 seconds or so. When the date entry changes, the GUI updates its orbital positions. Orbital position is totally dependent upon the current Imperial date + some offsetting based on the orbital body's stats; thus position is implicit in existing data: no additional storage required, which means no updates to the database of thousands of planets, gas giants, and asteroids.
Now that I think of it, here's something I could use: a file containing the official Traveller sectors, with the Book 6 extended system generation run on all of them, in some concise form of, say, XML. Exceptions would be those few systems which are already detailed, in which case that official data would be there instead of random data. My current database does not use the 'official' generation system, so the data isn't 'official', though I tried to make it look okay. I say 'concise' XML because it is possible to do-it-to-death, and I'm not really keen on that.
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"><sector name="Spinward Marches">
<hex id="1910">
<system name="Regina">
<zone type="Amber"/>
<allegiance polity="Imperial"/>
<primary class="G4" magnitude="III">
<companion class="F0" magnitude="D"/>
</primary>
<orbit number="1">
<planet name="Foobar" uwp="A123456-7">
<bases>A</bases>
</planet>
</orbit>
<orbit number="2">
...
</orbit>
<xboat>
<route to="1810" name="Hefry"/>
</xboat>
</system>
</hex>
</sector></pre>[/QUOTE]<planet> can be exploded if you prefer, but frankly I find it more readable without all that scattershot text in between.
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"><planet name="foo" starport="A" size="4000" atmosphere="4" hydrosphere="6" population="4000000" government="6" lawlevel="8" tl="12"></pre>[/QUOTE]Hey, the ideas are flowing. I could also use a file containing starship parts. That's right, parts. Again, in some concise version of XML. For example, a ship has a long list of components that are essentially line items. SO how about an enumeration of said line items?
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"><components>
<jumpdrive rating=1 volume="1%" fuel="10%"/>
<triple-turret sockets=3/>
</components></pre>[/QUOTE](Not so sure about that one, but seems like there's potential there...)
There are lots of potential projects.
And open source/platform portable/easily importable should be watchwords.
The nice thing about well thought out XML is it can be both concise and detailed at once. By that, I mean
<planet uwp="C887798-4" hex="2410" sector="sm">
Can expand to look like
<planet uwp="C887798-4" hex="2410" sector="sm">
<physical_details>
<hydrographic_details>
etc.
Each can expand to contain more detail. So if you just want a 'quick view' all you need is the top unexpanded level.
Anyway, I was just thinking about a 'system display' that updates based on date because I wanted to be able to position jump-masking 100D limits.
If you stuff is portable and can easily add the 100D 'overlay' for each object in the system, that would be very cool.
Of course, I'm not real sure I'd have tied it to the database quite the way you did... I'd have thought just providing a date and saying "show me where things are on this date" (add in time if req'd) would be enough (one view). The constant updating would be something I'd think you'd want to have configurable on/off.
And open source/platform portable/easily importable should be watchwords.
The nice thing about well thought out XML is it can be both concise and detailed at once. By that, I mean
<planet uwp="C887798-4" hex="2410" sector="sm">
Can expand to look like
<planet uwp="C887798-4" hex="2410" sector="sm">
<physical_details>
<hydrographic_details>
etc.
Each can expand to contain more detail. So if you just want a 'quick view' all you need is the top unexpanded level.
Anyway, I was just thinking about a 'system display' that updates based on date because I wanted to be able to position jump-masking 100D limits.
If you stuff is portable and can easily add the 100D 'overlay' for each object in the system, that would be very cool.
Of course, I'm not real sure I'd have tied it to the database quite the way you did... I'd have thought just providing a date and saying "show me where things are on this date" (add in time if req'd) would be enough (one view). The constant updating would be something I'd think you'd want to have configurable on/off.
Very nice. Yes, I like that.
Easily. In fact, "orbit" is loosely defined as the 100D shell around a large object in orbit around a system (not the trace through the system).
Portable? Man, it's just a pile of data, your client can do anything it wants to with it. Also, another pair of eyes could only improve the database.
Right... in fact, all data is completely independent of the Imperial date. The client does the positional calculations: for my purposes, the Imperial date is made available via a separate, one-row table. The reason I did this is to synchronize the time between clients which want to maintain a consistent view with other clients (can you say "Traveller On-Line"?).
Implicitly. When the perl script isn't running, there's no updating going on. Of course, a one-row update to one table every 75 seconds is hardly a constant system load. Imagine 10 people simultaneously logged in and jumping their Far Traders from system to system, running cargo or hunting pirates, and spending money in the starports. Now that would be a lovely problem to have.
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">for(;
{
sleep( waitTime );
updateImperialClock();
}</pre>[/QUOTE]That works out to about 3.5 hours per game week. Previously, my PHP client modeled jump-delays realistically. I could jump to Regina in the morning, then prowl the insystem during lunch hour. A faster clock would let me jump at coffe break, too... hmmm.
Back in your sample XML code, I think I'd use the actual sector name. Maybe.
On second thought, time passes quickly enough... I can't see it going along any faster than 1 hour per minute. However, I can turn jump-time into a reward for using a superior jump drive and a skilled Astrogator. Say, shave 10% off the jump time for a certified jump drive, 20% for a Droyne drive, and shave another x% off per Astrogator's skill level.
Assuming T4/T5 skill levels (0-15 instead of 0-6), then 3% per level would give a max discount of 45%. If the standard configuration is a certified drive and an Astrogator-3, then the total benefit would be 22% jump time reduction, or 131 'hours': about 2.7 real hours.
A Droyne drive with an Astro-10 would grant 50%: 84 'hours' = realtime, 1 hour and 45 minutes. Yow.
Assuming T4/T5 skill levels (0-15 instead of 0-6), then 3% per level would give a max discount of 45%. If the standard configuration is a certified drive and an Astrogator-3, then the total benefit would be 22% jump time reduction, or 131 'hours': about 2.7 real hours.
A Droyne drive with an Astro-10 would grant 50%: 84 'hours' = realtime, 1 hour and 45 minutes. Yow.
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