T5 Software Game Aids

[RixRacer]

Hey all...I am starting this thread (again) because I've had new ideas about creating software based on the daunting tasks of refs and players. I am in the process of formatting T5 charts, information, etc into software ready data sets. EXAMPLE: I have pulled all Sector, SubSector, and World data from Traveller Maps using the second survey data as the filter. and put it into row and column formate to load into software datasets. I have also translated hardcopy tables (Skills, Ranks, Muster out, etc) information into software data (datasets). One of the most difficult tasks is taking a consildated equipment list and converting that.

My first game aid tool will be Character Generation. I have all the data needed to do this (as listed above) and I've seen the T5.09 Career flowcharts (Awesome, by the way) and will gear my development efforts toward that.

I kind of want to hear from the users if it is worth it at all to develop T5 specific software as I have read over the past few years that many people use multiple game systems to accomplish gaming tasks. Is T5 Being used mostly in part? Like for ship design, or creating things?

Secondly, as far as equipment, I have capture about 12000+ items of various techlevels. I have split them in to category/subcategory, Description, Tech Level, Weight, Cost, Volume (if needed). I am thinking at the end of a career (after rolling Muster Out Benefits) a PC can buy equipment that they have on them by default at the start of their "retirement" or the beginning of their adventures.

What do you all think? Useful tool or Don't bother! Because it is not for me, it is for everyone!!!

 

[Bad_Syntax]

I wouldn't.

I started doing all the star generation stuff a while back... well, started being I think I stopped at the mapping point. I found a lot of bugs, and gave up.

I wrote an excel gunmaker that was mostly functional, and started to code one tonight as it'd only take me a couple hours and started encountering bugs. Then I started looking for errata, couldn't find why Ob exists on p213 of v5.09 PDF, and it apparently adds +4 TL on p221. While I would love to code all these, I just don't want to deal with things like that which needed fixed, and aren't. I know I can assume some things and "figure it out", but those are my assumptions, and that doesn't make them right.

On top of that, humans can assume some things by reading, while a computer needs absolute information.

I am more than happy to take all the generators in the T5 rules and code them to save some work, but I'd need answers to all my questions in minutes

Plus, on top of that, some of the rules are VERY vague to me. Take character generation. Why the heck was Agility and Grace introduced into the game, when they are the exact same thing as Dexterity? Maybe there is a reason I just didn't find, but it just made the process pretty convoluted. Having to skip around in the book so much looking up some reference to a table that wasn't in sequence was just frustrating.

If you want to code some, have fun, I'm sure folks will love it.

For me, I am now putting it aside as I just don't want to deal with what to me appears an unsupported book today

Oh, and I have also done a massive amount of work for every other traveller series, and usually run into the same problems at some point where something is simply "broke" with no fix in sight

 

[Ackehece]

I started doing all the star generation stuff a while back... well, started being I think I stopped at the mapping point. I found a lot of bugs, and gave up.

<*SNIP*>

I am more than happy to take all the generators in the T5 rules and code them to save some work, but I'd need answers to all my questions in minutes

Plus, on top of that, some of the rules are VERY vague to me. Take character generation. Why the heck was Agility and Grace introduced into the game, when they are the exact same thing as Dexterity? Maybe there is a reason I just didn't find, but it just made the process pretty convoluted. Having to skip around in the book so much looking up some reference to a table that wasn't in sequence was just frustrating.

If you want to code some, have fun, I'm sure folks will love it.

For me, I am now putting it aside as I just don't want to deal with what to me appears an unsupported book today

Oh, and I have also done a massive amount of work for every other traveller series, and usually run into the same problems at some point where something is simply "broke" with no fix in sight

well some of your questions are answered easier than others. Most of the Stat questions actually deal with the Sophont maker. Each as a special flavour for how Aliens (yeah yeah sophonts) act, think, and move. C5 and C6 are areas where it is easiest to see the differences, they can be more subtle in other areas.

C2
Dexterity, Ability, and Grace
Land, Air, and Sea.

• Dexterity - fine touch control, eye-hand coordination - Standard
• Agility - overall body coordination - mostly applies to flyers
• Grace - body limb coordination - mostly applies to swimmers

see page 28 for special rules related to C2 and substitution between types
box at bottom of page 32 to see how this plays out
These rules seem to suggest that if a human is swimming, the C+S would be C2/2 + S as humans are not native born swimmers. I would only apply that if a Human was racing a Sophont with Grace though.


C3
Endurance, Stamina, and Vigor

• Endurance - Determination, and fatigue resistance - Standard
• Stamina - Long Term Endurance ability - Better than endurance
• Vigor - Short Term Endurance - Worse

Human Endurance (walk all day),
Dogs, Cheetahs Vigor (Super Energetic and no long term ability),
Whales and Sharks Stamina (never stop swimming)

C5
Education, Training, and Instinct

• Education - School , logic based learning
• Training - Behaviour Modification School, think obedience school.
• Instinct - inborn training, genetic

C6
Social Standing, Charisma, Caste

• Soc - Duke or Dirt
• Charisma - Attraction to others granting authority over group
• Caste - Droyne, or a human example: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, Dalit - Higher caste over lower caste

 

[Ackehece]

I started doing all the star generation stuff a while back... well, started being I think I stopped at the mapping point. I found a lot of bugs, and gave up.

I wrote an excel gunmaker that was mostly functional, and started to code one tonight as it'd only take me a couple hours and started encountering bugs. Then I started looking for errata, couldn't find why Ob exists on p213 of v5.09 PDF, and it apparently adds +4 TL on p221. While I would love to code all these, I just don't want to deal with things like that which needed fixed, and aren't. I know I can assume some things and "figure it out", but those are my assumptions, and that doesn't make them right.
<*SNIP*>

Obsolete - is an errata issue
if you want an idea how it works. See the armor maker pg.236
it is the same a modified but a .5 cost modifier and a .07 mass modifier.

 

[agorski]

My first game aid tool will be Character Generation. I have all the data needed to do this (as listed above) and I've seen the T5.09 Career flowcharts (Awesome, by the way) and will gear my development efforts toward that.

I kind of want to hear from the users if it is worth it at all to develop T5 specific software as I have read over the past few years that many people use multiple game systems to accomplish gaming tasks. Is T5 Being used mostly in part? Like for ship design, or creating things?

Secondly, as far as equipment, I have capture about 12000+ items of various techlevels. I have split them in to category/subcategory, Description, Tech Level, Weight, Cost, Volume (if needed). I am thinking at the end of a career (after rolling Muster Out Benefits) a PC can buy equipment that they have on them by default at the start of their "retirement" or the beginning of their adventures.

T5 Chargen is an epic programming challenge so I commend you on attempting this.

Data point: My T5 maker apps for iOS have been downloaded about 100 times each.

I've done a geek list on rpggeek of CT equipment. My suggestion would be to have an item appear once, but the user can select tech level and see how it changes things for that item.

 

[Bad_Syntax]

Thanks Ackehece, that does kinda make some sense.

 

[RixRacer]

T5 Chargen is an epic programming challenge so I commend you on attempting this.

Data point: My T5 maker apps for iOS have been downloaded about 100 times each.

I've done a geek list on rpggeek of CT equipment. My suggestion would be to have an item appear once, but the user can select tech level and see how it changes things for that item.

This is how I am going to handle equipment, or at least how I see it working right now...However, always keep in mind that I care about users thoughts more than my own. so If I hear a good suggestion I will always take it into real consideration.

First off, try to understand what I am really trying to do. I am trying to make my tools focused on specific adventures. This mean something like this: Let's say a group of friends are wanting to get together for a campaign/adventure. The ref for the adventure designs his universe, sets the stage and now it is time to allow the player to generate their characters. Now, to make things as fair and uniform as possible the ref comes up with some constraints that each player has to abide by. (# of time allowed to reroll characteristics, group of sectors the characters can be from, education re-attempts, so on and so forth) So the ref would send a fil (most likely an XML file) to each player. They load that into my tool and off they go...They can then send the resulting character sheet to the ref or have a copy when meeting for an adventure. Yes...There are still ways to cheat...the best solution is to do it all in person. I am i big believer in using technology (obviously) and would like to see more games run online. I mean come on, the technology is all there!!!

So, with that said, I'd like to see a character, after rolling for retirement, be given a subset of my larger list of equimpment. The ref can predetermine the max tech level and eliminate categories like energy weapons (for example). The character can then pick starting equipment from "the store" with the limitation of that particular "store".

Thoughts?

 

[RixRacer]

T5 Chargen is an epic programming challenge so I commend you on attempting this.

Data point: My T5 maker apps for iOS have been downloaded about 100 times each.

I've done a geek list on rpggeek of CT equipment. My suggestion would be to have an item appear once, but the user can select tech level and see how it changes things for that item.

Oh and by the way, my list consists of 1263 items in 30 categories. Just to give you an idea of the size I am talking about. And this is data I have in application ready format.

I also have 768 Sectors, 12288 Subsectors, and 148,973 Worlds, 162 Unique Skills in 27 Skill Categories, 99 Career Ranks, 61 unique Muster Out items, 46 Unique Trade Classifications (tied to skills), and have data table supporting the exact order in which skills are used (charts) in careers. 17 different data tables in all--and more to come.

Each data table is placed into a password protected compressed file. The application extracts and loads each data table into a full data set. The extracted file is then deleted after load but still resides in the compressed file. This was I can publish new data tables and not really affect the application with minor revisions. I will also build in a version check for the application with the Reference data file version. I am very big on uniformity and limiting errors over time.

Just FYI for the computer programmers out there. I don't do half-a$$ work...It is all or nothing

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Wowsers.

Yeah, I want to see this.

And what about these Unique Skills, Trade Classifications, and Ranks? Also 99 Careers Ranks?

Yeah, very curious.

 

[RixRacer]

Yeah, I want to see this.

And what about these Unique Skills, Trade Classifications, and Ranks? Also 99 Careers Ranks?

Yeah, very curious.

It is "data" speak for there are no duplicates. Example: If you look at each skill table across each career, there are duplicates. I came up with a single skill list gave each skill an ID number. 1 - Navigation, 2 - Seafarer, 3 - Designer. Then made a list of Careers 1 - Craftman, 2 - Scholar, etc Then skill...then I made a skill lookup table that would look something like this

for a craftsman
1 - 1
1 - 2
1 - 3

For a scholar
2 - 1
2 - 2
2 - 3

it is just basic normalizing of the data...It is not that I created "new" skills...I just meant there is no duplication and in a way the application can make sense of all the data.

It is very hard to describe without visualization. Basically I created a data representation of each skill and created a lookup table for all careers with all the skills that appear in their corresponding skill list (6 rows and 7 columns) per career. Citizen Life Skills is the only exception, It has it's own table (18 Rows and 6 Columns). The fact is, I can reproduce the EXACT skill table for each career. I can also create the Rank tables, and Muster Out tables.

 

[RixRacer]

Progress

So guys here is my first test in working with the data. So far the first task of the application is reading the data. I have a single encrypted data file with all the reference data and I extract and import the data by data group (Skills, Equipment, Sectors, subsectors, worlds, etc.) It resides in a master dataset in the application (in memory) and I use filter dataviews to display the records in the controls as you will see below.

This is an example of a World picker. You can narrow your search by selecting a sector, then a subsector, then list all the worlds in that subsector. That is the long approach. I will have search worlds as well. However there is another element to selecting worlds. You will be able to do it randomly. If there are no referee limitations (Referee config file) you will need to pick a sector to fire oof a random selection. However, a referee config file (one setup by the writer of a campaign or adventure, will be able to limit the sectors, subsectors or even worlds that can be selected. They will do this be preselecting a grid of worlds, or at minimum, picking a small group of sectors. I may think of other parameter to throw in there and as always am open to suggestions.

keep in mind, this is not a final look and feel. it is just a test (of the emergency broadcast system )