[panton41]

Originally Posted by Langy

I'd be interested in helping! I'm not a professional programmer by any means, but I have some decent experience with Java, including an aborted attempt at making a Java-based ship building program myself and I'm currently working on an implementation of GURPS Space's star system generation sequence. I've also done a lot of tinkering with the Spaceships system - my Ships of Arbitrary Size thread should be helpful in looking up the various formula needed for each system.

Using vectors or lists instead of static arrays is probably a good idea - it'll certainly help when dealing with Smaller or Larger systems later on. No need to have a Core vector, though - just include that in the Front/Central/Rear vectors, since a Core system is still considered part of those sections.

As for data files, tab delineated files are perfectly adequate unless you want to get fancy and put all sorts of complicated bits in the data files rather than hard coding them into the program. It would probably be best to hard code various 'base' system types into the program (things like Generic Armor, Generic Factory, or Generic Reaction Drive) and then have the data file specify what generic system each system is and the specifics of it.

I'd have to go through my notes and remember all my options. We had to actually implement our own version of arrays, vectors, linked lists, trees, etc. just so we'd have a better understanding of how they work.

Like I said before, I'd rather hard code as little as practical and throw off as much functionality as possible to the data files but I suppose there are some minimums of what can be done like that. I'll probably dissect Eric's spreadsheet to see what all can be done like that, but I'd rather have a single System object type rather than an Armor object, Powerplant object, etc.

On the second thought, a single System object type extended to be a ArmorSystem, PowerSystem, etc. would be more elegant and flexible. How many different major system types are there to do like that?

Chances are I'd eventually want to implement your arbitrary sized ship as an option simply because about the only easy way to do it is in software and it would fill a major hole in the Spaceships system. It would be great if Mr. Pulver could help verify some number to give it a semi-official blessing.

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Depends on what you want to do. If you're looking at extending SM beyond SM+15 then you're going to need to implement some extrapolation anyway, and most of the systems follow the standard progressions. In my spreadsheet I used formulas to fill out most of the information in a giant table, then replaced the formulas with the values.

It's not a huge issue to just follow the standard progressions; it's mainly an issue because you need to be able to introduce some systems at some SM's that don't follow the standard progressions, or that have their own progressions.

Incidentally, all of the information from the systems tables in Spaceships (and several other books) is already laid out in my spreadsheet. There's no need for you to go about recreating most of that work.

I'll probably export the tables from your sheet to use as a raw master data file since the grunt work is largely done, but I'm not well versed on how to use Excel at the level you do to pull out things like the equations and stuff.

At some point I'm still going to have to analyze each entry in the entire series with a microscope so I'll find the non-standard progressions and flag them for special consideration. There's probably still a progression to them that can be used so I'll figure that out when I get to it. If the standard progressions work for all but a handful of systems I'll focus on that first.

Edit: Just saw Langley's reply to Eric, I'll look into it, but the above is probably still true.