[Space] System Generator

[Tulonsae]

Cool, guys. Thanks a lot.

I'm working on getting my current work into JavaScript now. It'll probably take a few more days. But at least I'm getting the basics down (JavaScript, that is). So, that should be portable.

And I'll warn you now. I'm going to concentrate on getting the code working rather than how it looks - at least at first. I'm absolutely sure that people here can help me with how the UI should really work.

I think it would be great if we can use each other's work...

And, I'm only up to generating the stars and their orbits. Once I get this into JavaScript, I'll start on the planetary orbits.

But a lot of the comments here have given me good ideas about the interface. I suspect, though, that someone here will end up making in more user friendly. I'm more of a backend person.

thanks,
Tulonsae

[Tulonsae]

And, yes, I'm really serious about adding inclination of orbit.

thanks for the offer.
I'll take you up on it.

Tulonsae

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I've started work on an Excel workbook to automateGURPS Space system generation.

Yep, I did this too, except I used AppleWorks spreadsheets. Some advice I might offer.

1. Generate all random numbers in the top 10 rows above the general area where they will be used. Then you can simply cut and paste values on those rows when you're done to keep any values from accidentally changing later.

2. Think about each chart the book uses for pulling random values. Often, it's easy enough to see they're using a formula, but presented it as a chart to make it easier for people that are afraid of equations. If you can figure out what equation they used to make the chart, you can use that equation in your spreadsheet.

3. Break it up into a few spreadsheets. E.g. One to generate the starts. One to generate the planets around the star. One to generate the planet info.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I have at present a sheet of tables, a sheet of celestial mechanics, and a sheet of physical properties of planets and moons. Later there will be a control and display sheet for the system, a calculation sheet and a display sheet for an inhabited world...

How did you handle calculating planetary rotation periods, which I assume are part of the celestial mechanics, as you need to know about the moons first, which I assume are part of the physical properties of planets and moons?

[Tulonsae]

This sounds great!

Where is your worksheet posted?

I'm still working on mine, of course.

Tulonsae

[Imion]

I did an Excel Sheet using VBA back when Space was published.
If you are interested PM me.

[su_liam]

Originally Posted by Tulonsae

And, yes, I'm really serious about adding inclination of orbit.

thanks for the offer.
I'll take you up on it.

Tulonsae

Don't forget longitude of perihelion and longitude of ascending node. Some of us are a little psycho and calculate true anomaly and distance over time.

G4 laptop, G5 desktop. Want a Mac Pro so I can run leveller, l3dt and wilbur on WINE. Woot!

[Tulonsae]

That's great.

I haven't worked with real phyics equations for over 20 years. And I still have that physics book and the stuff I did somewhere... I had worked out the 2-body stuff, orbits, and things. But I could never find the info on the multi-body equations...

And, of course, things have changed since then, anyway. So, I appreciate any help or corrections that I can get for what I'm working on now.

I'm further behind than I thought I would be. Learning a new scripting language always takes some time... And, of course, I got distracted by working on my website in some other areas.

But if there are any Unix geeks out there, I'd love to post my existing awk script so someone could review it and point out any calculation or assumption problems.

In the meantime, I'll keep looking for everyone else's work, and post mine as soon as I have something portable (i.e., for non-Unix geeks). Even if it's only a few of the calculations.

Tulonsae

[Tulonsae]

And one more thing. Of course, I don't intend to put this out commercially since it's based on GURPS stuff so I'm going to put this into Public Domain (as opposed to any of the license stuff that people use nowadays).

So, anything I post for the space system generator is ok to use, but you have to follow the Steve Jackson Games license and copyright rules for anything dervied from their stuff.

Tulonsae

[Fnordianslip]

Agemegos, if there's such a thing as a roleplaying, space savvy, spreadsheet making, ninja, samurai, cowboy, secret agent, mega-pimp, then you are it. Thanks for the work on this and I can hardly wait to see the results!