My Excel dB

[MJD]

Here's a suggestion.

1. If you contact me and I don't reply within, oh, say, minutes, try again by a different avenue before getting upset that I don't answer my mail.


2. If you want a busy publishing company owner (or me, for that matter) to take time out of his schedule to help you out, for no gain to himself or his company, then it might be worth trying to make it easy. For example, be clear what you want. Having to figure out what you want, then spending the time helping you, takes up time that could be spent doing stuff that actually make money for the company.


3. I react badly to public criticism. I bet others do too. So before you tell the world that you're upset with the lack of a response, consider which you want more: the empathy of your audience out there in forumland or whatever you wanted to ask for in the first place.

 

[MJD]

Since this button has been pushed... The following generic response might indicate why I can be a little sensitive to this sort of thing:

Dear Traveller Fan,
No, I do not know where your order for a T20 product is. It seems unlikely that you placed the order with us as we do not publish T20 materials. I'm sure that you do remember ordering it from us, but in this universe we still don't publish T20 materials and we don't sell them. T20 is the *exclusive* (yes, with asterisks, I know to my cost) property of QLI and we're Avenger. We don't make T20 stuff, you can't order it from us, and we can't sell it. So it really does seem unlikely that your order was placed with us.

Chances are you ordered from QLI. You might try chasing it up with them. Good luck with that.

Yes, I did indeed work for QLI. I left some years ago and now I run Avenger. Avenger is not QLI. I don't work for QLI and that won't be changing anytime soon. So I don't know what is happening at QLI. I could invent something if that would stop you pestering me.

No, I don't have contact information for QLI that actually works. If I did I would be using it to chase up what I'm owed. Yes, I'm sure that you're right. I surely must have a working contact address or phone number or something. How foolish of me not to have noticed.

And yes, I'm sure your idea for a Traveller sourcebook would indeed be the most awesome thing ever. I'm just not sure that a book about sentient bodies of water in a different spiral arm is ideal for the present market.


With apologies to Captainjack and others who have actually sent me rational proposals and legitimate queries... some of the above is not as distorted as you might think.

 

[captainjack23]

Since this button has been pushed... The following generic response might indicate why I can be a little sensitive to this sort of thing:
I'm just not sure that a book about sentient bodies of water in a different spiral arm is ideal for the present market.


With apologies to Captainjack and others who have actually sent me rational proposals and legitimate queries... some of the above is not as distorted as you might think.

You do have my sympathy, although it may not be entirely obvious due to my convulsive giggling about sentient water in another spiral arm.....

LBB 10: the liquoid invasion. 126-1105/ Geminii/Remulak Sources over the border indicate that the Solomani navy has as yet no explanation for the sudden arrival of seemingly automated water tankers around several rimward planets. Nonetheless, having filtered out the minor impurities and used the water to relieve the acute drought conditions of sandhell IV and Bonedry, and terraform several marginal worlds, authorities are hoping to find and thank their mysterious benefactors. Remaining supplies of the water have been sold to SolEvian ("water as pure as the solomani genome") That is all.

 

[MJD]

Some people are really obsessive that I/we/they should do a sourcebook on their favourite combination of rules and setting. The more outlandinsh, the more rabid the mails.

So a guy who would like to see Foreven sector using CT, fairly rational. Somoene who wants Lishun sector before the Ziru Sirka, to run with an updated version of Chainmail... very rabid.

BTW - sentient oceans are one of Marc Miller's throwaway lines about wierd stuff beyond Charted Space.

 

[GhostWolf69]

Oh boy,

I realise I must have made a complete ass of myself here. Please accept my most sincere apologies. I'm so so sorry to have pushed your buttons like that.

All I can say is; I was never really that upset about the delay in communication as you seem to think. Maybe it was a poor choice of words or maybe it was just temporary insanity that made me comment it at all here in this thread. English is not my first language, and sometimes neuances and implications are lost to me. I apologize for comming off like a complete jerk.

I was hyped up, excited and happy about finnising 40+ hours of work on this thing and wanted immediate and possitive responses in a very ego-centered and childish way. I have kids of my own and nothing is more frustrated than having them pull my sleve when I'm working on something important. That was foolsih of me and I'm sorry about that.

I have never been involved in this industry, I have little understanding of the legalities and rights back and forth and just tried to get a handle of it or a place to start, because I wanted it to be done the right way. Unfortunatley I see now that my way of doing it was clumsy at best and outright offensive at worst. My bad.

I'll try to maul all this over before deciding if I should continue trying to get an official approval for this thing or not.

I seem to have burned my bridges with you here Martin, and that makes me sad. Again; I apologize.

/wolf

 

[Anonymous]

As an admin on the TAS site, I can say that no message came to me.

I will check that out, sorry about that.

 

[MJD]

Heh, fair enough. I wasn't very impressed at being criticised for not replying within 24 hours (which is a silly-short time to expect a reply in) to a mail I never got. But we all have the odd attack of over-enthusiasm.

Don't worry about it.

 

[peelseel2]

Ghostwolf,

Are you going to post this bad-boy or not? I can give you space on my server. I am anxious to get a hold of it....

 

[GhostWolf69]

... weird... the problem here now is that the fear of making a fool of myself again starts to outweigh the fear of being caught breaking some license...

I can't find any way to contact FFE through their .net site... am I missing something? Does anyone now a good way of sending a request to them?

/wolf

 

[GhostWolf69]

Got an answer from Matt!

Thanks Matt!

I'll be awaiting the new Fair Use Policy him and Marc are working on. Hopefully it will cover what I would like to do here and I can proceed after that.

We're just gonna have to be a little patient. (I'll work on that, trust me )

In the mean time, I'll also work on the Ship-Sheet (there has to be a better word for that... Vessel-Form... Boat-Registry... any takers?).

/wolf

 

[Myrm]

I think I have seen assorted ship related forms listed as a Registry of some kind in the past. Vessel Registry Form seems to fit to me.....

 

[GhostWolf69]

I think I have seen assorted ship related forms listed as a Registry of some kind in the past.

Register maybe? As in Llody's Register?

Edward Lloyd helped his shipping industry clientele to exchange information by printing a sheet of all the news he heard. In 1760, the Register Society was formed by the coffee house customers and it printed the first Register of Ships in 1764 to give underwriters and merchants an idea of the condition of the vessels they insured and chartered.

/wolf

 

[Myrm]

I actually meant in previous editions of Traveller forms, but the concept for vessels would be why the Lloyds Register and presumably the sci fi stuff came be named that way.

 

[GhostWolf69]

So, reading the new Fair Use Policy etc.

I can have the maps and Sector data, using the FUP.
I can have the Universal World Profile Decoder, using the SRD.

What I CAN'T have is the Ship Builder part... am I right?

So I'll remove that or change it into a simple Sheet for filling out data manually.

So... who wants one?

/wolf

 

[GhostWolf69]

It's up there now!

GhostWolf69's - Traveller SM Campaign Helper

Feel free to drop me a line if you have requests for changes or find bugs.

I removed all Automation around Ship Building for now, because I'm not sure what License they would fall under. I mean the data used are all in the SRD, but I have a feeling the "software" clause could kick in there.

Oh and a final note; since the map and sector info are from 1130... it will not be 100% accurate according to MGT. They still have one Frontier War to fight. But it is good enough.

/wolf

 

[Kilgs]

Wow! Very impressive. I love it as a quick reference for players who have everything right at their fingertips. Very nice work.

Frankly, I would think the Mongoose/FFE people would realize that fan-built software and aids are the ONLY thing that kept Traveller going for a couple decades... and would give their blessing to a Shipyard, character generator. But that's just me...

On a dumb note, I can't switch between subsectors on the Subsector page. It just highlights the toggle button. Any ideas?

 

[GhostWolf69]

On a dumb note, I can't switch between subsectors on the Subsector page. It just highlights the toggle button. Any ideas?

Hmm... If you are unable to manipulate the spin-button it sounds like you are running it in "design mode" then...

Do this to verify:
Click: View Menu --> Toolbars --> Control Toolbox.

Once the new Toolbar pops up make sure (by clicking the Design Button) that you are NOT running in Design Mode. (If you are the button says "Exit Design Mode" before you click it.)

After this you should be able to manipulate the spi-button again.

Question; Are you using OpenOffice or MS?

/wolf

 

[ZobMan]

I had to enable the macros to get it to cyxle subsectors...

 

[GhostWolf69]

Frankly, I would think the Mongoose/FFE people would realize that fan-built software and aids are the ONLY thing that kept Traveller going for a couple decades... and would give their blessing to a Shipyard, character generator. But that's just me...

Yeah, I'm still a little confused by the new Policy. I mean this forum is full of World Generators and Character generators and such... Am I the only one who thinks this might not be allowed?

Maybe Matt could prove me wrong? Are generators for like Ships, Characters, Worlds etc. allowed (using MGT rules)?

/wolf

 

[Kilgs]

Ahhh... stupid new Excel. They tried to make it dumbie proof and just made me into a dumbie. Thanks!