Updated: Traveller Universe Creator
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Kakistocrat
SOC-12
If MarcPolo is willing and able to perform step 11 to create a Traveller Universe Creator installer for macOS (i.e. for Yosemite and newer, since his computer runs Yosemite), then that installer could be uploaded to your Github site, so that other macOS users on Yosemite or newer could just download the macOS installer, rather than go through the same “From the code” process that he’ll need to do to create the macOS installer. (Since the MacPorts Python portions would be compiled for Yosemite, the PyInstaller environment variable overrides for MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET and mmacosx-version-min should be for 10.10 [Yosemite] also; no advantage would be gained by using 10.7 [Lion] overrides.)
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
If you’re still planning on installing Python 3.11 and friends from MacPorts on your Yosemite system, note that the MacPorts installers have been updated to version 2.9.0.
Not done yet. But I discovered; I'm stuck on several fronts. E.g. I cannot upgrade to a compatible version of X-code (or cannot find the needed legacy link). I'm also just out of surgery, so this is moving slower than even my more pessimistic estimates. Not done, just delayed again. Cd be this stale os version not the way forward. I'll report in when I can
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
I hope that your recovery will be swift. Whenever you feel ready to take this on, try the following:
If the xcode-select --install command isn’t working from Terminal on your computer, then an alternative approach would be to download the command-line development tools installer directly from Apple in your browser. To do that, use your Apple ID to log in at https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action ; using the search pane there, enter “command line tools”, then select the appropriate Yosemite-targeted .dmg package to download.
Once you’ve downloaded the command-line development tools installer and have run it, run the xcode-select -p command in Terminal; if it has installed correctly, that command will show the folder in which it has been installed, and you’ll be able to continue from step 3 in the previously posted list.
Please note that in my last reply, the link to the MacPorts 2.9.0 Yosemite installer is incorrect; the correct link is here.
I’m still using an older macOS version than yours, so don’t give up hope yet.
If the xcode-select --install command isn’t working from Terminal on your computer, then an alternative approach would be to download the command-line development tools installer directly from Apple in your browser. To do that, use your Apple ID to log in at https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action ; using the search pane there, enter “command line tools”, then select the appropriate Yosemite-targeted .dmg package to download.
Once you’ve downloaded the command-line development tools installer and have run it, run the xcode-select -p command in Terminal; if it has installed correctly, that command will show the folder in which it has been installed, and you’ll be able to continue from step 3 in the previously posted list.
Please note that in my last reply, the link to the MacPorts 2.9.0 Yosemite installer is incorrect; the correct link is here.
Some small additions to the browse_sector app.
You can now
1) Not of all of the details on the Traveller World site will match my world. We used different algorithms to create the worlds so while Traveller details will be the same, things like temperature and gravity will be different. But it can be fun to have a map made and ready to go. I used the random seed function so you should always see the same planet when you click on the button for that planet
2) This is only available on the browse_sector.py file right now. It has not yet been bundled into a new install exe.
3) I am looking at building an import function, so you can create your own sector outside of my algorithm, and load it into a database and browse it with my tools.
You can now
- Click a button and open Traveller Worlds via an API to see a World Map (as recommended by @OjnoTheRed).
- Click a button and open an image of the sector thanks to the API to travellermaps. You don't have to use the awkward html I created
1) Not of all of the details on the Traveller World site will match my world. We used different algorithms to create the worlds so while Traveller details will be the same, things like temperature and gravity will be different. But it can be fun to have a map made and ready to go. I used the random seed function so you should always see the same planet when you click on the button for that planet
2) This is only available on the browse_sector.py file right now. It has not yet been bundled into a new install exe.
3) I am looking at building an import function, so you can create your own sector outside of my algorithm, and load it into a database and browse it with my tools.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Only thing I'd want to do as a Feature Request™ would be a way to create (what I call) Merchant Portolan Charts of sectors, where the encoding of the visual language used for sectors and subsectors tells you more information at a glance.
Here's the iconography that I used for my LBB S3 Spinward Marches (re)mapping in 1105 effort (#175-#179) and what the results looked like when I got done (#185).
I know that I've shown this demonstration of the "useful effects" that result from this shift to a new paradigm of color iconography, but there really is a "seeing is believing" effect once you put it into practice.
Take this "jump map segment" I made for merchant operators who want to exploit the opportunities of District 268 in other posts of mine before.
At a glance, I know where all the rich worlds are, the poor worlds, the agricultural and non-agricultural worlds, the desert worlds, the ice capped worlds, the hostile atmosphere (A-C) worlds ... and so on and so forth. The world name font tells me if a world population is 0-4 (underlined italics) or 5-6 (italics) or 7-8 (normal font) or 9-A (all caps) so I don't have to go around checking every single UWP for population numbers.
If I want to know about opportunities for wilderness refueling or the availability of starport fuel services, I can just look at the ring color.
1632 Milagro might be a bad place to jump without additional jump fuel reserves.
Why?
Type E starport, so no fuel for sale.
The world is ice capped, so liquid water is not available for quick wilderness refueling using fuel scoops.
The star system has no gas giant ... so if you need (unrefined) fuel, how good are you at MINING the polar ice caps ... without drawing the ire of the local government which imposes a Law Level: A on the world? Point being that if you aren't extremely careful, you might run afoul of the local police forces and be brought up on charges of illegal mining of whatever little (frozen) water exists on the mainworld.
1233 Flexos might also be a bad place to jump to without any additional jump fuel reserves.
Why?
Type E starport, so no fuel for sale.
The atmosphere is code: A with a hydrographic code: 1.
That means FluidOceans Shallow Lakes composed of something that is not chemically water and could potentially be difficult to purify into refined starship fuel.
The star system has no gas giant.
The color iconography coding scheme I developed gives me ALL of that information at a glance without even needing to dig into the UWP details. Likewise, because of the world name font work for population sizes, I can tell which worlds will have "developed markets" with lots of passengers and cargo awaiting a tramp trader to come and pick them up for transport ... and which worlds will have immature markets lacking in demand and volume, potentially meaning that going there may force a starship to operate at an economic loss due to insufficient demand for ticket services while overhead expenses remain constant (and potentially expensive!).
I'll understand if this kind of hex map generation simply is not possible to do with the APIs that you are using. I was only able to do it by direct copy/paste editing of the .png file image produced by Travellermap, overlaying world names and icons onto a generated map of the sector (or jump map, as the case may be).
Furthermore, the color scheme that I chose works best on a black background ... which works beautifully on screen displays ... but would quickly run into contrast problems if done on a white background for a printing on white paper.
Here's the iconography that I used for my LBB S3 Spinward Marches (re)mapping in 1105 effort (#175-#179) and what the results looked like when I got done (#185).
I know that I've shown this demonstration of the "useful effects" that result from this shift to a new paradigm of color iconography, but there really is a "seeing is believing" effect once you put it into practice.
Take this "jump map segment" I made for merchant operators who want to exploit the opportunities of District 268 in other posts of mine before.
At a glance, I know where all the rich worlds are, the poor worlds, the agricultural and non-agricultural worlds, the desert worlds, the ice capped worlds, the hostile atmosphere (A-C) worlds ... and so on and so forth. The world name font tells me if a world population is 0-4 (underlined italics) or 5-6 (italics) or 7-8 (normal font) or 9-A (all caps) so I don't have to go around checking every single UWP for population numbers.
If I want to know about opportunities for wilderness refueling or the availability of starport fuel services, I can just look at the ring color.
1632 Milagro might be a bad place to jump without additional jump fuel reserves.
Why?
Type E starport, so no fuel for sale.
The world is ice capped, so liquid water is not available for quick wilderness refueling using fuel scoops.
The star system has no gas giant ... so if you need (unrefined) fuel, how good are you at MINING the polar ice caps ... without drawing the ire of the local government which imposes a Law Level: A on the world? Point being that if you aren't extremely careful, you might run afoul of the local police forces and be brought up on charges of illegal mining of whatever little (frozen) water exists on the mainworld.
1233 Flexos might also be a bad place to jump to without any additional jump fuel reserves.
Why?
Type E starport, so no fuel for sale.
The atmosphere is code: A with a hydrographic code: 1.
That means Fluid
The star system has no gas giant.
The color iconography coding scheme I developed gives me ALL of that information at a glance without even needing to dig into the UWP details. Likewise, because of the world name font work for population sizes, I can tell which worlds will have "developed markets" with lots of passengers and cargo awaiting a tramp trader to come and pick them up for transport ... and which worlds will have immature markets lacking in demand and volume, potentially meaning that going there may force a starship to operate at an economic loss due to insufficient demand for ticket services while overhead expenses remain constant (and potentially expensive!).
I'll understand if this kind of hex map generation simply is not possible to do with the APIs that you are using. I was only able to do it by direct copy/paste editing of the .png file image produced by Travellermap, overlaying world names and icons onto a generated map of the sector (or jump map, as the case may be).
Furthermore, the color scheme that I chose works best on a black background ... which works beautifully on screen displays ... but would quickly run into contrast problems if done on a white background for a printing on white paper.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Sure thing.
My assumption is that it CANNOT BE DONE ... so if you can't do anything with it ...
But sometimes just being able to visualize an end goal will suggest a possible path to achieving that end goal, after which it's mostly a matter of Time, Tools and Tech Manuals in order to make it happen.
After having completed my (re)mapping project ... and seeing the vivid richness of colors
that resulted from the effort all across the sector map ... it's now hard for me to revert back to the "usual colors" implemented by Travellermap (with erroneously applied UWPs on so many worlds into the bargain).Just simply LOOKING AT the richer color set that I formulated for my "merchant portolan chart" of the sector makes potential trade routes at different jump ranges practically POP out of the visual information that you're looking at.
Did you know, just by looking at the (sub)sector map ... that Roup/Regina/Spinward Marches was an Industrial Water World?
Or that Enope/Regina/Spinward Marches was an Ice Capped, Industrial, Non-agricultural world?
That Louzy/Jewell/Spinward Marches was an Industrial, Non-agricultural, Poor world?
Or that Bevey/Rhylanor/Spinward Marches was a Desert, Industrial, Non-agricultural, Poor world?
The addition of all of those trade code colors to the world icons just makes SO MUCH INFO immediately available, at a glance, once you understand the color scheme for the trade codes.
So if it can't be done ... oh well.
But if it can ...
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Correct.
I manually, one by one, edited each and every single world icon, effectively "covering" them with the standardized icons that I was overwriting them with. The world icons I developed were specifically designed to include "black boundary space" around them so that the replacement world icon would completely cover the original world icon generated by Travellermap for each system.
For world names, I would first measure a rectangle box 2 pixels wider on each side than the text on the original image. I would then move that selection box into the "empty black" of an empty hex, copy a block of black that exact size and then paste and move that black rectangle to cover the world name completely. I would then use Annotate > Text to (re)create the world name in Arial font with the correct italics+underline option and then pick up and move the recreated world name into the correct position over the black rectangle covering up the original world name that had been output by Traverllermap onto the original .png image of the sector.
I would work subsector by subsector, cross-checking with the Sector data file to reduce opportunities for errors, in a right to left then top down array through the subsectors until I had completed the entire sector (re)map.
So the entire effort was done by
Hardest part was to develop the habits, workflow, skill and confidence to be able to make what needed to be done something of a "repeatable standard" operation. It got easier to do with more experience having done it ... but it was still tedious, time consuming work.
However, the end result is DEFINITELY worth the effort, as far as I'm concerned.
I am someone who appreciates spending a lot of time to get something just right.
OK. Since I cannot leverage travellermap or anything to do this now, it means I would make it up from scratch. It so happens I have some big ideas about mapping and hope to incorporate a number of mapping solutions in the coming years. So there is no reason I cannot look at this when I do that.
But I need to manage expectations. This is a lifetime journey for me. I have been working on this program on and off for 7 years, and I keep muddling along. I do not expect any mapping development in this version, so it will have to go on the backburner for now. But I do hope to return and give it a crack one day.
OK. Since I cannot leverage travellermap or anything to do this now, it means I would make it up from scratch. It so happens I have some big ideas about mapping and hope to incorporate a number of mapping solutions in the coming years. So there is no reason I cannot look at this when I do that.
But I need to manage expectations. This is a lifetime journey for me. I have been working on this program on and off for 7 years, and I keep muddling along. I do not expect any mapping development in this version, so it will have to go on the backburner for now. But I do hope to return and give it a crack one day.
I will note that the code for the TravellerMap is on GitHub and under the Apache license.
And years ago, there was a poster who did all the coding locally on a Linux box (and it may have been a Mac) to do the same thing Joshua Bell is doing but on your personal device. Think I still have a bunch of her things, though she has not posted in years. There were several scripts she added that did all the map stuff if I recall, several which were scripts written by others. Now to see if I can find those ancient trails, as they did create hex maps in PNG if I recall, and if (big if) you had access, it could be possible to format things.
Micki something I want to say....
Mickazoid - last seen 1 year or so ago. She (and for some reason assuming but no longer know why) had some excellent threads.
edit 2: they also released some really nice stuff; this post links to it and at least the Starports! is still there
And years ago, there was a poster who did all the coding locally on a Linux box (and it may have been a Mac) to do the same thing Joshua Bell is doing but on your personal device. Think I still have a bunch of her things, though she has not posted in years. There were several scripts she added that did all the map stuff if I recall, several which were scripts written by others. Now to see if I can find those ancient trails, as they did create hex maps in PNG if I recall, and if (big if) you had access, it could be possible to format things.
Micki something I want to say....
Mickazoid - last seen 1 year or so ago. She (and for some reason assuming but no longer know why) had some excellent threads.
edit 2: they also released some really nice stuff; this post links to it and at least the Starports! is still there
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And I now have an exe available for those Windows users who wish to try the program without having to install a python Runtime Environment.
Release v 1.1.0 is now available here.
Next up:
Release v 1.1.0 is now available here.
Next up:
- Video about how I (or anyone) can use the database to search through the data in the sector
- Video about how to change data you don't like without breaking anything (you can't really break anything but I will explain that).
- V 1.2 is looking at adding:
- a way to upload your own custom info and have the program optionally fill out any details
- create system graphics/maps that could optionally be entered on the pdf export
- customizing the pdf export to include and exclude some details
So I purchased the Mongoose World Builders book and there are some things I would now like to update.
1) MgT now has GWP and WTN. So I can use that system for calculating these numbers instead of GURPS (or at least providing both)
2) MgT has some culture ratings I can use to replace my ham-fisted attempts at adding my own culture categories
3) There is finally a system that emulates the Book 6 approach of starting with a mainworld and then extending the system. This will be helpful in adding the functionality for people to upload their own personal sectors (or even official OTU ones) and ask for the rest to be created. Though I am sure I could create my own or leverage T5, I appreciate there is a process I can leverage.
I am impressed by the book.
1) MgT now has GWP and WTN. So I can use that system for calculating these numbers instead of GURPS (or at least providing both)
2) MgT has some culture ratings I can use to replace my ham-fisted attempts at adding my own culture categories
3) There is finally a system that emulates the Book 6 approach of starting with a mainworld and then extending the system. This will be helpful in adding the functionality for people to upload their own personal sectors (or even official OTU ones) and ask for the rest to be created. Though I am sure I could create my own or leverage T5, I appreciate there is a process I can leverage.
I am impressed by the book.