• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

Heaven & Earth

C

ckirmser

SOC-5
Does anyone know if there will be anmy further work on Heaven & Earth? I have v1.0.4 and the Downport website talks about later Beta versions being sent to their mailing list.

My current version will not allow editing planet data once a system has been created and it'd be great to get a version that does. I never have liked the system creating TL-3 societies on worlds with no atmosphere and the like. So, being able to edit the data would be very useful.

This is a great tool and it'd be great to see it absorbed into Traveller in general and expanded on a professional level.

Heck, I'd even pay a reasonable price for an upgraded version.
 
Actually, all the data is saved off as .TXT files, so you can at least edit that part. The maps et al are .GIF files, so there are also plenty of graphic editors out there to make changes that way as well.

The .WBS files are simply text as well.

As in all cases - careful editing or you can corrupt the file as far as the program is concerned.
 
True, I can edit the text files that it saves, but those aren't part of the database file that H&E loads in when you do a 'Load Details.'

When you do a 'Load Details,' it recalculates all the system data using the data in the database file - System Data.DTA - not the saved details.

I thought it reloaded the saved detail files and tried modifying one to test it. No dice. It just rebuilt the system as it was originally.

Now, the .DTA file is also a text file, and has all the relevant system data, but I have no idea what its format is. I can monkey with it, but was hoping someone maybe had the newer versions to save a lot of time and effort.

I'd still like to see H&E as an official Traveller product, perhaps getting its own LBB or CD from FFE.
 
Somebody mentioned the data files have a logical or explained format to them, but I gave them a cursory glance.

I'd like to convert them to XML and then be able to read them without H&E then reformat them back into whatever format so the program can use them or update them.

Don't know if that's possible or not.


>
 
I have an excel spreadsheet - definitely not user friendly - that can convert between GRIP and H&E data formats. But, this only is set up for sector files, not detail files. Certainly not the .DTA format.
 
ckirmser said:
True, I can edit the text files that it saves, but those aren't part of the database file that H&E loads in when you do a 'Load Details.'

When you do a 'Load Details,' it recalculates all the system data using the data in the database file - System Data.DTA - not the saved details.

I thought it reloaded the saved detail files and tried modifying one to test it. No dice. It just rebuilt the system as it was originally.

Now, the .DTA file is also a text file, and has all the relevant system data, but I have no idea what its format is. I can monkey with it, but was hoping someone maybe had the newer versions to save a lot of time and effort.

I'd still like to see H&E as an official Traveller product, perhaps getting its own LBB or CD from FFE.
Click to expand...

Sorry I did not notice that part (reloading does a recreate). I saved off a system, reloaded it and it does recreate it. From a 62K line file with a single entry per line. Wow...I suppose one could go through there and start messing with it, but it would not be worth the trouble.

There is the BITS Universe which I think supercedes H&E. The screen shots looked really good, at any rate. Not sure how cross-compatible the data is, if it is at all. But the last I heard (and I may be misremembering) is that development was not going forward with Heaven&Earth.

And I just found out that when I tried to save off the data in extended format (in case that had something more to go on) some bug wiped out the previously saved data & could not reload it. So now I've lost that data (well, serves me right for not having a backup!)

Edit: redid that and the resulting extended data file (.ESP) would be easier to edit - it makes sense to people. But: it won't open that as the data when opening a system, just the .DAT file, so that's unfortunate.
 
Last edited:
This should be in the Software Solutions section ...

ckirmser said:
Does anyone know if there will be anmy further work on Heaven & Earth? I have v1.0.4 and the Downport website talks about later Beta versions being sent to their mailing list.
Click to expand...

There is a patch to v1.0.8 beta you might like to try. And check out the v1.0.8 Read Me. The author of H&E abandoned work on H&E to focus on H&E2 ... then RL forced him to drop that too. That was a couple of years ago IIRC.


coliver988 said:
There is the BITS Universe which I think supercedes H&E. The screen shots looked really good, at any rate. Not sure how cross-compatible the data is, if it is at all.
Click to expand...

I am the author of Universe. The current release supercedes Galactic, the next release will supercede H&E. However this is already a few years late and there is still much to do. Currently Universe can read/write H&E HES files but not DTA files. (I would like to include DTA files but that is dependant on understanding the format.)
 
Hemdian said:
This should be in the Software Solutions section ...



There is a patch to v1.0.8 beta you might like to try. And check out the v1.0.8 Read Me. The author of H&E abandoned work on H&E to focus on H&E2 ... then RL forced him to drop that too. That was a couple of years ago IIRC.




I am the author of Universe. The current release supercedes Galactic, the next release will supercede H&E. However this is already a few years late and there is still much to do. Currently Universe can read/write H&E HES files but not DTA files. (I would like to include DTA files but that is dependant on understanding the format.)
Click to expand...

Man I would like to get my hands on a copy of Universe.
 
Is there a system out there where you can create the physical aspects of a universe (star systems, planetary details). But enable you to add social items ( population, government, trade routes) as you want them to be. I really don't like random system generators that come with population 100 billion asteriod belts and they are all left handed fanatical cannibals. With a tech level of 4.
 
Andrew Boulton said:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Traveller-BIT...Z2547QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713.m153.l1262
Click to expand...

Ive tried and something but for some reason Ebay is making if way more dificult then it should be. :( I guess it must think that us in Nebraska do not exist.

I wish it were easier to figure out how to get one here. BTW I officially hate Ebay. I went through the whole process(My old registration is no longer working), entered in to register, and when i clicked the final all it did was take me back to the registration page, no error message, no confirmation. Waited a while and tried again, same result. This is the big suck.
I guess I will have to live without Universe. :(
 
Eamon said:
Is there a system out there where you can create the physical aspects of a universe (star systems, planetary details). But enable you to add social items ( population, government, trade routes) as you want them to be. I really don't like random system generators that come with population 100 billion asteriod belts and they are all left handed fanatical cannibals. With a tech level of 4.
Click to expand...

astrosynthesis by NBOS software should let you do all that .... I dont have serious complaints about the software but do experience frustrating moments

in heaven and earth, you could always try using this screen http://www.downport.com/wbd/H&E_10.htm to get rid of those weird results
 
I've been doing precicely that (editing problematic UWP elements) for my star system that I'm working on. Helps that it's in the middle of practically nowhere, and relatively little visited by gamers ;) makes my life as the world re-builder miles, nay, light years, more easy ;)
 
Frankymole said:
"Invalid item".

Is it still possible to get any system generation software for classic Traveller - anywhere?
Click to expand...

I purchased Universe about one year ago. The Ebay issue happened to me too. If you go to the BITS page, you can email them and they will update the listing so you can buy it. I think it just goes stale if no one buys one for awhile.

BITS got back to me in a few days and I had my copy not long after! Love it.

Very much looking forward to world data in Universe 2.
 
BITS no longer use the eBay shop but now use the Ancient Tomes webshop.

Universe 2 is coming but everything is getting overhauled. I'm currently in the middle of rewriting the import routines to make them more robust, and adding support for T5.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
Heaven's belt
Replies
4
Views
570
casquilho
casquilho
C
The Silurian hypothesis
2 3 4
Replies
67
Views
2K
kilemall
kilemall
C
So, armor ...
Replies
14
Views
1K
Marcatlas
Marcatlas
W
T4 Only: Some people say no stealth in space, a discussion.
9 10 11
Replies
212
Views
7K
Carlobrand
C
atpollard
Snub Pistol Errata
2 3
Replies
48
Views
2K
Condottiere
C
Back
Top