Programmers dig CT
- Thread starter Jeffr0
- Start date
All of CT was modelled after flowcharts...therefore, it is only logical that CT appeals to them. The thing is that role playing has moved beyond that but has Traveller? I eagerly await to see what Mongoose will do with the Traveller franchaise but forgive me, if I believe flowcharts are a thing of the past and the sooner they scrap and move to a more narrative writing style the better it will be.
didn't the guy who kept winning the High Guard Tourneys build his fleets via LISP programs ?
you can google for the details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurisko
I had thought he'd won several tourneys with a combination of bizarre ship fleets or something.
Keklas Rekobah
SOC-14 1K
For my programming classes, I used a few RPG character-generation procedures...
For BASIC class ("Intro To Programming"), I used AD&D 1st Edition ... well, it WAS the mid-1980s, after all!
For C+ class, I used Traveller LBB1.
For C++ Class, I used Traveller LBB3 and LBB6 (World/System generation).
For Microsoft Visual Suite, I used Cyberpunk's character generation with cyberware dependent on type of character (Netrunner, Nomad, Ripperdoc, et cetera).
Now, what to code in Assembly ... "Welcome to Alpha Complex, Citizen! What is your SECLAR?"
For BASIC class ("Intro To Programming"), I used AD&D 1st Edition ... well, it WAS the mid-1980s, after all!
For C+ class, I used Traveller LBB1.
For C++ Class, I used Traveller LBB3 and LBB6 (World/System generation).
For Microsoft Visual Suite, I used Cyberpunk's character generation with cyberware dependent on type of character (Netrunner, Nomad, Ripperdoc, et cetera).
Now, what to code in Assembly ... "Welcome to Alpha Complex, Citizen! What is your SECLAR?"
while learning how to automate MSIE + XML I built a PC generator for Rifts. first a template maker for RCC or OCCs (or PCCs, etc).
I was able to generate a first level PC from a some die rolling conventions, then add in skills, psionics, spells, whatever from there. then boost it up or down in levels to get something in the ballpark.
while not perfect it worked pretty good, simulating the PB process in most respects (which ain't easy to do).
last count I'd made 360+ characters with it in about 3 years.
I was able to generate a first level PC from a some die rolling conventions, then add in skills, psionics, spells, whatever from there. then boost it up or down in levels to get something in the ballpark.
while not perfect it worked pretty good, simulating the PB process in most respects (which ain't easy to do).
last count I'd made 360+ characters with it in about 3 years.
Add in the fact that Traveller uses hex to the flow charting aspects, and of course programmers like it. Not that programmers use hex much anymore, but back when I was getting my degree & playing Traveller (20+ years ago), hex usage was mandatory. So Traveller was a natural fit!
daryen
SOC-14 1K
Out of random, idle, pointless curiousity, are those fleets actually recorded anywhere?
Obviously, it is the second tournament win that is wanted (since the first win forced the second edition). I would really like to see what the fleet ended up looking like.
FlightCommanderSolitude
SOC-13
There is/was a thread on here where I actually posted them ...
http://travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=3062
Oddly, the text I posted has vanished from the message! What a bummer! But my post indicates that the fleet stats may exist on the ct-starships group, at least.
http://travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=3062
Oddly, the text I posted has vanished from the message! What a bummer! But my post indicates that the fleet stats may exist on the ct-starships group, at least.
no daryen, I didn't mean it like that.
I actually tried but came up with nothing, you might have better luck. I remember in the past seeing a page (years back) but I couldn't find it.
I might have downloaded & saved the page in my archive CDs, but that might take a few days just rooting thru them. I need to do a monthly backup soon, so... what I'll do now that I have a DVD RW is put all my old archive CDs on one DVD (if they fit) then I can toss all the singles.
It would have been cool if he had actually liked the game, but it didn't work like that.
He was just a techie who saw a good opportunity to win a contest. He isn't a Traveller player or a Marc Miller fan.
He got loads of defense funding for many years -- he may still be getting it for all I know.
I have to find that picture of him with a 70s moustache. He looks like a disco-king version of Ming the Merciless -- but with more hair.
I've always wanted to do a Traveller universe where the Emperor is Doug Lenat, and he won by cruel AI tricks, and he has that moustache.
G. Kashkanun Anderson
SOC-13
You can find Doug Lenat's first (1981) TCS fleet in JTAS#10. If you have a hard copy of it (or the JTAS compilation CD from FFE), then you can look it up on pp. 38-39.
I remember first looking over that fleet years ago and immediately noticing how weird and -- frankly -- not fun, it all looked on paper.:nonono: It really dampened my enthusiasm for the whole TCS Tourney concept after that. It was over twenty years later that I read an article on Lenat's AI experiment; and I recognized his fleet was the one that had so annoyed me years ago.
Now that I understand what he was doing with that fleet, I appreciate the AI and adaptive programming concepts that he was pioneering. I just wish he'd chosen something like Tunnels & Trolls, Bunnies & Burrows, Metamorphosis Alpha or the like to wreak havoc upon, instead of the Most Beloved Game of my youth.
I remember first looking over that fleet years ago and immediately noticing how weird and -- frankly -- not fun, it all looked on paper.:nonono: It really dampened my enthusiasm for the whole TCS Tourney concept after that. It was over twenty years later that I read an article on Lenat's AI experiment; and I recognized his fleet was the one that had so annoyed me years ago.
Now that I understand what he was doing with that fleet, I appreciate the AI and adaptive programming concepts that he was pioneering. I just wish he'd chosen something like Tunnels & Trolls, Bunnies & Burrows, Metamorphosis Alpha or the like to wreak havoc upon, instead of the Most Beloved Game of my youth.
Bob Weaver
SOC-12
I remember reading somewhere that Lenat entered two tournaments with his computer-generated unbeatable fleets. After winning both, he was asked by tourney organizers to not enter a third time. Probably because he was ruining the fun for everyone else. The HG rules have their flaws, and Lenat exploited them to the max. I don't mean to say he cheated, but for him it was more of a programming exercise than participation in a community activity. Too bad.
Cheers,
Bob W.
Cheers,
Bob W.
G. Kashkanun Anderson
SOC-13
Yeah, they tweaked the rules a bit after the first win, in an attempt to counteract the bastard child of science that Lenat had created. When he came back and cracked heads with yet another tragically-weird AI fleet the next year, the Powers that Be kindly asked him to pack up his munchkins and never darken the gaming tables of any TCS Tournaments again.
Looking over the 1981 fleet again, it strikes me that what's off-putting about it from a Traveller player's perspective is that while it is a truly effective force from a purely rules-exploitation perspective, you'd be hard pressed to find a crew of actual human beings that would be willing to crew it. The vast majority of the ships are creaking metal deathtraps who's only chance of survival is if nobody in the opposing fleet happens to aim at them any time during the course of the battle. The essential idea that his Eurisko AI hit upon, apparently, was that if you throw enough peasants at your enemy, he will eventually smother under the avalanche of mutilated bodies he has created in mowing you down.
Looking over the 1981 fleet again, it strikes me that what's off-putting about it from a Traveller player's perspective is that while it is a truly effective force from a purely rules-exploitation perspective, you'd be hard pressed to find a crew of actual human beings that would be willing to crew it. The vast majority of the ships are creaking metal deathtraps who's only chance of survival is if nobody in the opposing fleet happens to aim at them any time during the course of the battle. The essential idea that his Eurisko AI hit upon, apparently, was that if you throw enough peasants at your enemy, he will eventually smother under the avalanche of mutilated bodies he has created in mowing you down.
Try reading To Sea in a Sieve by Peter Bull about his experiences in Landing Craft during WWII.
Hans
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