HILFE! generate sector data & map?!

[Redcap]

OK, I'm about to dispense a bucket of instant urban renewal on my thrice be darned PC.

I'm trying to get the H&E 1.0.8 to turn out a random sector. It won't do it. It just sits there, doing nothing, as if the entire subroutine for doing that is somehow AWOL or something (that's a guess. I'm not a programmer, I haven't a clue. I just click the buttons.) o:

I tried loading the H&E 1.0.8 beta, but that crashes all the time. o:

I cannot understand this dos _(*£$%* that goes with Galactic (I'm not a programmer, nor do I pretend to understand this "parameter" rubbish. How in the hell, in these point and click days, is this thing the best there is?!).

SO.

Short of having to go down the really really time consuming and repetitive dice and paper and convoluted rules books all over again (like, that was in the bleedin 80s, maaaaaaaaan!), is there a software solution that I can use that is at least XP complaiant, has menu lists, and a simple ONE CLICK solution to my woes?

Cheers in advance for any and all help and suggestions

 

[Icosahedron]

Like you, I can't get the 1.0.8 beta to load, and like you, I just press buttons.

Unfortunately, H&E is the best there is.
The reason is simple - writing a computer program to generate a sector is a helluva lot more difficult than using pen and paper. The guy who designed it moved on, and everyone else (back then, most people who used a computer were programmers - they had to be) just used H&E rather than write their own.

The projected sales volumes probably wouldn't make it worthwhile, so something like this would be effectively a huge voluntary project.

Having said that, Universe 2 promises to do what you ask and if MGT takes off, other programmers might be tempted.

You'll probably be waiting at least two years though.

Meanwhile, sharpen your pencil.

 

[GypsyComet]

Generating a sector is actually fairly easy as programming tasks go.

Making the data look pretty, keeping it all manipulable, and adding things like maps is a bit harder.

 

[coliver988]

there's a subsector generator here: http://www.signalgk.com/

several Traveller related software here: http://www.vrhome.com/traveller/software.htm

and here: http://www.freelancetraveller.com/infocenter/swlist/others.html

That was the top few searches for 'online traveller subsector generator' - nope, not in the 80's anymore, and web searches can turn all sorts of things!

I know (ok, IIRC) that the web-based subsector generator used existing SEC files but it may have had a random option. That's on this forum.

As GypsyComet said - generating a subsector via software is easy. Making it look good and usable, well, that's something else. There are only a few tables and it is pretty straightforward.

 

[Redcap]

OK, many thanks for all the replies Faith in Humans = Restored

As it happens, someone (who would rather remain un-named) phoned me (Good grief, I never even knew I gave him my phone number at the last UK Gen Con I went to a few years back!) and told me to uninstall 1.04, then re-install 1.0.4 and then1.0.8; seems the initial uninstall does something, I don't know what precisely, and it gets the system ready for the 1.0.8 version to be working nice once installed. Result? I got the subsector generation to work thanks to his telephonic help

Example of the resulting map below... remember to right click and open in a new tab or window!

http://www.practicalairsoft.co.uk/Hnaar/images/Khuaryakh.GIF

 

[Gadrin]

Good to know.

Thanks for the update! Pretty nice Traveller fan-support on these boards.

I'm getting to know MySQL and I'm tempted to start building a CT set of tools using that database.

Right now I'm learning how to import various types of data (csv, and fixed-width), just imported the Reaver's Deep and Far Frontiers data from the Traveller Map; I've got BAT files for windows to handle hands-off, installs (for v5.0.67 and the newer v6.0.9) and I'm in the process of wrapping my head around the various security and access issues for the program.

I wrote a die-rolling program using MySQL own stored procedures, so it might be something possible in the future. Written a few Functions too.

See if I can figure out how to auto-gen some subsectors/sectors and then try my hand at characters.

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