Software from Mongoose

[Somebody]

gone

 

[Raalle]

I love the idea of cross-platform generators for this iteration of Traveller.

The good thing about Traveller is that so much is table-based, it should be pretty easy for clever (i.e. not me) programmers to whip up simple generators pretty quickly.

I'm eagerly waiting the appearance of these sorts of tools.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I would really like to see a nice software release, that has all the major systems (chargen, starship, planet, star systems, animals, encounters, trade) done in a good, computerised format. Would buy it 'like that'.

The Metacreators used in other games, would be fine, it's just there is so much more that can be done in the Traveller game this way.

 

[Jame Rowe]

+ Character/NPC display and commenting (Preferably for PDA and workstation)

+ Task/Combat/Travel resolution (Preferably for PDA and workstation)

+ Display and commenting for ships/vehicles (Preferably for PDA and workstation)

This way it will work for those who bring laptops to their games.

 

[Ommadawn]

I'd echo the request for PDA compatible software (though I know such is rather unlikely). My Axim X50v pocketpc is my constant companion and to have more useful tools on it would be great.

 

[lastbesthope]

Mapping software for their major franchises, B5, Traveller, etc.

LBH

 

[simonh]

I'd have thought the PDA market would be too small to be economically viable, especially given it's fragmentation. For example the iPhone won't run J2ME software, and while there are solutions Sun doesn't officially support J2ME on Windows Mobile.

Open, documented file formats so that output files can be imported into standard utilities on devices such as PDAs might help bridge the gap. For example character sheet exports in RTF formatted for a PDA screen form factor. Or perhaps exports to a format easily imported into a mobile database application. Would that help?

I can see a similar story for full desktop apps. Frankly the sun workstation customer base isn't exactly huge. Even if a commercial application were built in a cross platform way, the additional work and cost of testing and supporting a small market segment might make it difficult to achieve.

Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

I'm a Python guy myself. That's reasonably good froma portability point of view, the only caveat being GUI toolkits. TKinter sucks badly, and wxWidgets is better but still painful. I'm very impressed with PyQT though. That would get you on Windows, Linux and the Mac.

Series 60 phones run Python, but I'm not sure about any other PDA platforms. Whatever you do though, a PDS would require a complete rev of the GUI, which is not a trivial matter.

I'm a Mac user myself, but as a consumer and developer I have to accept that Windows is the dominant platform.

One possibility I have actively investigated is IronPython. I think that will be a viable platform in a year or so, but right now it's not ready for prime time IMHO. It's attractive though because the WinForms GUI is a pretty rich environment, and through Mono it'll run on Linux, Mac and even Solaris.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Raalle]

Simon,

Would something like Jython perhaps bridge the gap between Python and Java? I'm not a programmer, so don't know, but was poking around and found the site.

Here's how it's described:

Jython is an implementation of the high-level, dynamic, object-oriented language Python written in 100% Pure Java, and seamlessly integrated with the Java platform. It thus allows you to run Python on any Java platform.

<shrug>

 

[simonh]

Jython is Ok I suppose, I ran a few scripts on it a few years back, that's it. I'm not a Java guy though, and never realy got on with it. Whenever I have to use anything java based it just seems so clunky and awkward. Other's mileage may vary considerably. I klnow people who swear by it and never want to use anything else.

Simon Hibbs