Starport design/software

[coliver988]

I've noticed the starport 101 thread has been closed, and that was one I was eagerly following in my lurk mode. I'm thinking about writing a starport tool that would allow the GM to flesh out/track starports beyond the simple starport code. This link (http://webpages.charter.net/coliver988/starport design.txt) is the initial (and rough!) idea I have. But beyond that, I am thinking that this software would sort of be a library for manual and generated data on a starport, including things as in how many dTons of available cargo storage is available (low & high port if applicable), security measures the port uses, the size of the port, how busy it is, types of landing bays (open, covered, etc). Sort of apply some of the things in GT:Starports to CT. And keep a history so that if the travellers return, we've already got the data for that port.

If there is any interest in this, I may actually write it (sorry, this would be a Windows program rather than Apple or web-based).

 

[Nightshade]

I'm interested

 

[Duke]

I'd like to see it too.

 

[whartung]

If there is any interest in this, I may actually write it (sorry, this would be a Windows program rather than Apple or web-based).

Write it in Java then, and it'll work everywhere.

 

[Berg]

Definately interested...

 

[Gadrin]

I've noticed the starport 101 thread has been closed, and that was one I was eagerly following in my lurk mode. I'm thinking about writing a starport tool that would allow the GM to flesh out/track starports beyond the simple starport code. This link (http://webpages.charter.net/coliver988/starport design.txt) is the initial (and rough!) idea I have. But beyond that, I am thinking that this software would sort of be a library for manual and generated data on a starport, including things as in how many dTons of available cargo storage is available (low & high port if applicable), security measures the port uses, the size of the port, how busy it is, types of landing bays (open, covered, etc). Sort of apply some of the things in GT:Starports to CT. And keep a history so that if the travellers return, we've already got the data for that port.

If there is any interest in this, I may actually write it (sorry, this would be a Windows program rather than Apple or web-based).

suggestion: use XML to store the data, this way you can have a mini-database for each port, including high + low in the same file. then you could display it using XSL and a browser.

MSXML is free and is installed automatically if you have MSIE 5+. It's pretty simple to learn (especially if you're familiar with HTML or the MSIE DOM, they're almost identical). Anyway by using XML, you can then do other things with the data, such as write script/programs to work with that information separately. It'll work with VBScript and I use Winbatch to access it via COM. You can probably use JScript or Javascript with it too to access via COM.

 

[coliver988]

The backend will be XML (somewhere I've posted a LBB2 style cargo generation system, which uses XML for the various support files, allowing users to manually adjust settings and stuff as required). That uses XSL and all that fun stuff, as will this program. Makes for a great simple database, as well as being easily transportable (i.e., if I ever did a web version it would use the same data files).

It will be in C# simply because I really like the various libraries in that; whereas in Java it has always been more of a write once, debug everywhere sort of experience for me (not trying to start anything with that, honestly!)

I'll be my actual office the next couple of weeks (normally I work out of my basement, telecommuting. But at least it is my basement & not my parent's!). So I usually have excess free time (no family ). I plan on at least organizing my outline, if not actually starting programming (the key to successful projects is sucessful planning).

So suggestions as to what you may like this to have in it would be appreciated.

 

[Gadrin]

The backend will be XML (somewhere I've posted a LBB2 style cargo generation system, which uses XML for the various support files, allowing users to manually adjust settings and stuff as required). That uses XSL and all that fun stuff, as will this program. Makes for a great simple database, as well as being easily transportable (i.e., if I ever did a web version it would use the same data files).

if I send you a PM with my email will you send me a copy ? I'd like to look at it.

I had done a simple text cargo generator for a non-traveller game, but it was designed to work within the parameters of the PCs ship and more to add easy stats to a campaign, rather than part of an official merchant system.

So suggestions as to what you may like this to have in it would be appreciated.

Ease of use is usually first and foremost, but that's what software is supposed to do You'll have to give us an idea of how you see it functioning.

For instance, say I've got the Marches from the CT book, inside an Access DB (or within XML). It'd be nice to pull up a Sector, then a subsector, then point out a world and get both the world & port summary for the place. Then the merchant onboard, or other crew can look and see which cargo might work best with that destination.

"Decent load this time, but crud, they charge %20 more for fuel there, so we're going to drop..." and how much port fees are, etc.

BTW -- I think that page you referenced offered "acres" as the unit of measure for downports. I thought Traveller was metric, maybe kilometers instead ? Just a thought.

 

[robject]

The backend will be XML (somewhere I've posted a LBB2 style cargo generation system, which uses XML for the various support files, allowing users to manually adjust settings and stuff as required). That uses XSL and all that fun stuff, as will this program. Makes for a great simple database, as well as being easily transportable (i.e., if I ever did a web version it would use the same data files).

It will be in C# simply because I really like the various libraries in that; whereas in Java it has always been more of a write once, debug everywhere sort of experience for me (not trying to start anything with that, honestly!)

I'll be my actual office the next couple of weeks (normally I work out of my basement, telecommuting. But at least it is my basement & not my parent's!). So I usually have excess free time (no family ). I plan on at least organizing my outline, if not actually starting programming (the key to successful projects is sucessful planning).

So suggestions as to what you may like this to have in it would be appreciated.

resource file:
- landing facility types and attributes
- storage facility types and attributes
- cargo handling types and attributes
- passenger facility types and attributes
- shipyard facility types and attributes
- transportation types and attributes
- security facility types and attributes
- service types and attributes (food, lodging, entertainment)

starport file - one set of data for orbital, one for downport:
- monthly or yearly traffic logs by number of ships, total volume, total cargo volume, total passenger count.
- landing facilities available (type and number)
- NPC staff detail
- cargo storage & handling facilities available (type and number)
- NPC staff detail
- passenger facilities available (type and number)
- NPC staff detail
- security facilities available (type and number)
- NPC staff detail
- transportation facilities available (type and number)
- NPC staff detail
- overall acreage (down) or volume (up)
- services available
- NPC staff detail
- library data available

 

[su_liam]

Well, with the backing db in XML, it should be fairly reasonable to create readers and editors in other languages. If you make your c-pound source available, porting should be near trivial, especially with lots of comments. By near-trivial I mean, trivial to a decent programmer, merely difficult to a squib like myself.

 

[Gadrin]

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[coliver988]

thanks for the suggestions so far. I'll hopefully get all of those organized, then figure out a schema for the data. 75% of this project is simply properly defining the data. I'll post that at the same place as the current document. My theory is that it will be a single XML file to handle any number of ports. I've also thought about incorporating some of the G:Starport design sequences so that you could enter in pertinent data & it would calculate things like cargo throughput and some of the suggested items listed, but that may tread on copyright stuff. Maybe phase 2 (phase 1 just being able to manually enter/review data).

The LBB2 style cargo program can be found at the TAS forums, see http://www.traveller.comstar-games.com/viewtopic.php?t=229 for that thread I started [Edit: oops, I just responded, not started. sorry!] . The directions for downloading the files are there (there is an installer or individual files).

I'll probably release the code when I get to that point. I've actually been doing some serious OOP development for work once I figured out that class objects made life so much easier. If I do that, then in theory someone could take that class and write their own front-end if they don't like mine (while I've been a professional programmer for 20+ years, it is almost all server-side stuff; my UIs are somewhat un-imaginative. I'm a programmer, Jim, not a user interface guru!).