12/3/2007
I had some trouble in Photoshop, working on the Jova province, but I worked that out yesterday. I also found a formula to plug into my names spreadsheet to give me a random name from the long list (around 500 names). I used that to select the 50+ star names for the Capitis district of Jova (the one containing Aldorus). Only problem is making sure I don't somehow duplicate the same names.
I continued working with spreadsheet formulas for automating the star system creation process. This time I was doing the Raw Material, Ag Prod, Ind Prod, and Wealth Index. While doing this, I discovered a problem with the Wealth Index mods and changed that to work better.
12/4/2007
I added the names for the 53 systems of the Capitis district (Jova province), but I'm concerned the names don't have enough variety. I have a large pool of Hindu names with some others mixed in. It's perfectly fine to have mostly Hindu names of course, but it might be better to have a wider variety as well. Not sure I'll change it though.
Also, each star system has a circle with the color of the star. However, if the map is printed in Black & White, you won't be able to see these colors. I could put a fill pattern in each as well, but I'm worried that might look bad (especially in color). Not sure how I want to do this . . .
12/5/2007
As I mentioned yesterday, I need to figure a way for the stars to show the type in case the map is printed in black and white. So, I looked a different fill patterns but none of them looked right. I ended up using the actual letter for the star (ie: M, K, etc.) and put that inside the circle or the star. Frankly, I'm not happy with this solution, but I'm really not sure what else to do. :-(
12/6/2007
I finished assigning stars to the Capitis district last night. It's a very time consuming which begs the question whether its too much of a hassle for the regular player. Of course, a GM may not be doing it for an entire district or province, etc.. However, it's already made me question the validity of doing trade routes which depend on going through all the planets and moons to find the highest level starport for that system. Of course, I could do trade routes differently or just not do them at all since their really aren't that necessary. Once again I'll have to "think about it." ;-)
I've been doing a sample system, including all profile values. It's given me some valuable data that, among other things, shows me some changes I need to make. For example, the Wealth Index is still very out of wack. I got a planet with a 10 for industrial production but with a wealth index of zero. So, I'm going to look at that too.
12/7/2007
I think it's becoming obvious to me that I need to drop the Wealth Index. It's just not working very well or constantly. With that in mind, I also will need to rework the commodities (supply/demand, and prices). Also, I've pretty much decided not to have trade routes: in several games (like Elite), there are no routes and frankly they just aren't that necessary.
Sigh. The more I test the Raw Materials and Ag/Ind Prod stuff, the more I come to the conclusion that it's a terrible mess. I may have to just chuck the whole thing if I can't get it to balance right.
12/10/2007
Good news and Bad news: the bad news is that I've abandoned the whole Raw Materials, Ag/Ind Prod, and Wealth Index process, which means I've wasted a lot of time on it. The good news is that I've replaced it with a much simplified version involving trade modifiers. I had worked so hard on my idea because I wanted something original but I just couldn't get it to work inconsistently. The new system isn't very original, but I know it will work.
12/11/2007
I've completed two practice star systems for the Jova province. I'm not doing the whole province, but I want to have at least one or two samples to include in the rules (including the one with Aldorus since that's the capital).
12/12/2007
After getting a second opinion from a friend, I've decided not to have letters or symbols for the stars on my map. I was concerned that the different stars wouldn't appear different enough in black&white. However, after talking to my friend, it seems that there is enough shading difference to make it work. This will keep the map from looking to "busy" with letters or symbols. Also, there will be another table showing the type of star anyway, so it's not really necessary to have it on the map as well.
12/13/2007
I worked a little bit on the second district for Jova, including the different stars and their names. I noticed something I did incorrectly for the Capitis district so I need to go back and fix that as well. Basically, I had too many M class stars so I will change some of them to different classes.
12/14/2007
I was reading my bio page on the website. I wrote it in September and at the end I say I hope to have the game ready by December. Well, it's the middle of December now and I'm no where near done. :-o On the other hand, I only have another chapter and a half to go, but it's taking longer and longer to get it done. At the moment, I think the most realistic estimate would be summer 2008 before I'm ready, but we'll see.
12/17/2007
Over the weekend I largely completed the second district for Jova (although I still haven't settled on a name for the district itself). I plan to add the image to the wiki along with info on star systems. I will add an image of the big Imperium map as well.
Okay, so now I have a name: Kurai, which is japanese for "nobility". Also, I counted up all the stars (both primary, secondary, and tertiary) and there are 170 total stars in the Jova province. Hurray!
12/19/2007
I'm done with Jova now and so I need to turn my attention to finishing out the Star System chapter. The main thing left are the commodity/trade rules which should be just a few pages long. However, I still need to wrap up the Jova content to make it nice and clean and understandable. :-)
12/27/2007
Although I was gone part of the last week for the Christmas holiday, I did get some work done. I had added the Imperium map to the rules, but I was unhappy with how it looked. Yesterday, I added a lot more to the map (surrounding countries and the Magna Supremacy) and now I'm a lot happier. I also put descriptions into the rules for the different regions, etc. Next, I plan to include the Jova province info.
12/28/2007
I redid the Imperium crest in photoshop, again using the 5 arrow motif. I then redid the header in the rules by including the new crest and redoing the lettering. It looks a lot better now. Yesterday, I added the Jova province info. Now, I need to add the Aldin star system info, and then do the commodities/trade section. Once that's done, I'll be finished with the chapter.
12/31/2007
I've been trying to think of a prose piece for the beginning of the Star System chapter. I had written one already but it doesn't really go well with the chapter, so I may move that prose to the next chapter.
I've made a large update to the wiki, adding the info on star systems and their creation. I included the Imperium main map and the one for the Jova Province.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Imperium Map - Complete
Here's the Imperium and the surrounding space. I decided to add the other neighboring countries/empires as well as regions.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Jova - Complete
Okay, here's the complete Jova province. I elected not to include things like trade routes in the game so they're not on the map. Same goes for other symbols used in other sci-fi games, such as Traveller. The goal was to make it attractive, functional, and simple.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Jova Province (WIP)
Here’s the current work-in-progress for the
Friday, November 30, 2007
Game Diary Summary - November
11/2/2007
I made a post on another website for my game, and got a few hits on my site from it. So, at least a few people took the time to take a look. ;-)
11/5/2007
Over the weekend I made a good start on the planet's section (ie: planet stats). I outlined what each stat represents and then I created a graphic to show how the stats are presented in the system profile. I'm a little stumped on figuring out the size of moons for the planets. Since the moons cannot be larger than the parent planet, I must either figure a way to make the moons smaller than the parent by either rolling on the planet size table or by having a different size table for moons.
11/6/2007
I over came the moon-size issue, and got as far as atmospheres last night. However, I need to redo that graphic I mentioned in the previous post. Although it looked okay at first, now it looks like crap. I'll probably have to redo it from scratch. *Sigh*
11/7/2007
I'm happy with what I got done yesterday: I got as far as the governments, including descriptions for each one.
11/8/2007
I worked on the Law Level section. I'm following the basic d20 rules for licenses (restricted, military, etc.) and tying them into the level of law enforcement on a planet. For example, more restrictive governments will outlaw military licensed items, whether the characters have a permit or not. Also, I'm combining this with additional info like how much police enforcement takes place, ID checks, etc.
11/9/2007
I've completed the different tables for the planet profiles, although I may need to add one or two others for modifiers. I just need to add them into the rules themselves which I will try to do tonight and this weekend. Really happy with the progress I've been making lately.
11/12/2007
I got a lot done over the weekend, but of course I couldn't gotten more done. I completed the carts up until the Starports. After that, I'll turn to commodities/trade, which is the other big part of this chapter.
I've been going over commodities, and I'm wondering if I need to simplify some of the later planetary profile values. Right now I have Raw Materials, Agricultural Production, Industrial Production, and Wealth Index. Each has a number between 0 and 10, with the original belief that this would impact trade (supply and demand). However, this maybe be too complicated so I need to think more about it . . .
11/13/2007
I think I have a handle on commodities now, although it's going to be a chore to test it all. Also, I'd like to incorporate random events which will impact quantities and prices: otherwise, these will be too static instead of changing from time to time.
No, I'm wrong. I need to work more on it (the commodities). Once I started doing some rudementary tests, the system fell apart. :-(
11/14/2007
Okay, I'm cautiously optimistic that I've gotten the commodities working now, and I also added random events and their descriptions. Now, I need to do more experimentation with both systems and planets, and then see how well it works with the commodities, etc.
11/16/2007
I haven't had a chance to do too much the last couple of days, but I should be able to work on the game tonight. I did look at some images on the Daz3d website to get some ideas for additional creatures for the Encounters chapter however.
Tonight and during some of the weekend, I plan to test the whole system creation process (as mentioned in my previous post). I just haven't had a chance to do it yet.
11/19/2007
I did a lot of testing over the weekend, and found a few things I need to evaluate. The main issue are the trade related stats (raw materials, ag production, ind production, and wealth index). Also, I need to look at the modifiers, because they seems a little harsh. One interesting thing I found was that, even in a system without many planets, the moons for the gas giants were able to support life as well, acting as mini-planets in their own right.
For commodities, I've been debating about the base quantity available versus needed. Even if I use the same number for both as the base, the actual result will depend a lot on an individual planet/moon. I'm still not sure I want to use the same base number for both, but I'll do some testing and see how it works out in practice.
11/20/2007
I made more adjustments and did more testing last night. I found that raw materials were a little too frequent, so I changed that slightly. I'll try to do more testing tonight if I can.
11/21/2007
Perhaps I'm getting old, but sometimes I see the results of a decision I made a week or more ago and now I can't remember why I picked that choice or what I based it on. In this case, I have the GM roll a 1d8 for the size of a planet instead of the 1d10 he rolls for all the other stats. I'll need to look at this more, but I believe it was just an oversight. It would be better to have them consistent (ie: everything roll 1d10).
11/26/2007
During the Thanksgiving holiday, I mostly worked on a map of the Imperium. Basically, I took a map of a real country (in this case, China), flipped it upside down in Photoshop and then traced the borders, including provinces. I had to modify some of the borders so they would work better, and then added color and a hex background for scale. It came out pretty good and it was the correct size that I had envisioned.
I decided not to use sectors and subsectors, which is what the Traveller games (among others) use. I decided I wanted something more "organic" looking. That's why I used the map above with the provinces, both of which give a very organic look. I may go back and follow hex sides for the borders instead of the lines that are currently used. I'm not sure if I want that, however, a) because it would remove some of the organic feel, and b) it would be a real pain to do. ;-)
11/27/2007
Well, I tried to use the hex sides last night a couple of times and it was a serious pain. However, I just thought of another message to do it, so I'll try that tonight. Even so, doing the entire Imperium map would be very challenging and time consuming.
I had wanted to have the map organized by region/province/district, but I wasn't sure about the regions. Then it came to me last night in bed that I used to talk about Core and Rim regions (plus a middle one which I forget), so I'll use that. I will group the provinces that way.
11/28/2007
Last night I worked on the province in which Aldorus, the capital planet lies. I don't have a name for the province, or the two districts within it, but I'll figure that out later. Meanwhile, I did roll to see which hexes had star systems (a total of 92). Btw, the three regions of the Imperium are Imperium Core, Middle Rim, and Frontier Worlds. Using the main map, I made a rough outline of how many provinces are in each region.
11/29/2007
I decided on the 26 province names, including the one for Aldorus (called Jova). I also updated the main map to include the region names and then numbers for each province (which will refer to a list of the names).
11/30/2007
I've been working on Jova: first I rolled 1d20 for each hex to see which ones held star. Since there were over a 100 hexes, that took forever. So, I decided to add formulas to an excel sheet, which allowed me to create as many random numbers (which is what the die roll is) as I wanted within the range I wanted (1 to 20). I then added some additional sophistication to the process by adding some more complicated formulas. Anyway, long story short: it allows me to work much faster. Of course, it would be even faster if I had a computer program to do the whole thing, but this works for me and my lack of programming skills. ;-)
I made a post on another website for my game, and got a few hits on my site from it. So, at least a few people took the time to take a look. ;-)
11/5/2007
Over the weekend I made a good start on the planet's section (ie: planet stats). I outlined what each stat represents and then I created a graphic to show how the stats are presented in the system profile. I'm a little stumped on figuring out the size of moons for the planets. Since the moons cannot be larger than the parent planet, I must either figure a way to make the moons smaller than the parent by either rolling on the planet size table or by having a different size table for moons.
11/6/2007
I over came the moon-size issue, and got as far as atmospheres last night. However, I need to redo that graphic I mentioned in the previous post. Although it looked okay at first, now it looks like crap. I'll probably have to redo it from scratch. *Sigh*
11/7/2007
I'm happy with what I got done yesterday: I got as far as the governments, including descriptions for each one.
11/8/2007
I worked on the Law Level section. I'm following the basic d20 rules for licenses (restricted, military, etc.) and tying them into the level of law enforcement on a planet. For example, more restrictive governments will outlaw military licensed items, whether the characters have a permit or not. Also, I'm combining this with additional info like how much police enforcement takes place, ID checks, etc.
11/9/2007
I've completed the different tables for the planet profiles, although I may need to add one or two others for modifiers. I just need to add them into the rules themselves which I will try to do tonight and this weekend. Really happy with the progress I've been making lately.
11/12/2007
I got a lot done over the weekend, but of course I couldn't gotten more done. I completed the carts up until the Starports. After that, I'll turn to commodities/trade, which is the other big part of this chapter.
I've been going over commodities, and I'm wondering if I need to simplify some of the later planetary profile values. Right now I have Raw Materials, Agricultural Production, Industrial Production, and Wealth Index. Each has a number between 0 and 10, with the original belief that this would impact trade (supply and demand). However, this maybe be too complicated so I need to think more about it . . .
11/13/2007
I think I have a handle on commodities now, although it's going to be a chore to test it all. Also, I'd like to incorporate random events which will impact quantities and prices: otherwise, these will be too static instead of changing from time to time.
No, I'm wrong. I need to work more on it (the commodities). Once I started doing some rudementary tests, the system fell apart. :-(
11/14/2007
Okay, I'm cautiously optimistic that I've gotten the commodities working now, and I also added random events and their descriptions. Now, I need to do more experimentation with both systems and planets, and then see how well it works with the commodities, etc.
11/16/2007
I haven't had a chance to do too much the last couple of days, but I should be able to work on the game tonight. I did look at some images on the Daz3d website to get some ideas for additional creatures for the Encounters chapter however.
Tonight and during some of the weekend, I plan to test the whole system creation process (as mentioned in my previous post). I just haven't had a chance to do it yet.
11/19/2007
I did a lot of testing over the weekend, and found a few things I need to evaluate. The main issue are the trade related stats (raw materials, ag production, ind production, and wealth index). Also, I need to look at the modifiers, because they seems a little harsh. One interesting thing I found was that, even in a system without many planets, the moons for the gas giants were able to support life as well, acting as mini-planets in their own right.
For commodities, I've been debating about the base quantity available versus needed. Even if I use the same number for both as the base, the actual result will depend a lot on an individual planet/moon. I'm still not sure I want to use the same base number for both, but I'll do some testing and see how it works out in practice.
11/20/2007
I made more adjustments and did more testing last night. I found that raw materials were a little too frequent, so I changed that slightly. I'll try to do more testing tonight if I can.
11/21/2007
Perhaps I'm getting old, but sometimes I see the results of a decision I made a week or more ago and now I can't remember why I picked that choice or what I based it on. In this case, I have the GM roll a 1d8 for the size of a planet instead of the 1d10 he rolls for all the other stats. I'll need to look at this more, but I believe it was just an oversight. It would be better to have them consistent (ie: everything roll 1d10).
11/26/2007
During the Thanksgiving holiday, I mostly worked on a map of the Imperium. Basically, I took a map of a real country (in this case, China), flipped it upside down in Photoshop and then traced the borders, including provinces. I had to modify some of the borders so they would work better, and then added color and a hex background for scale. It came out pretty good and it was the correct size that I had envisioned.
I decided not to use sectors and subsectors, which is what the Traveller games (among others) use. I decided I wanted something more "organic" looking. That's why I used the map above with the provinces, both of which give a very organic look. I may go back and follow hex sides for the borders instead of the lines that are currently used. I'm not sure if I want that, however, a) because it would remove some of the organic feel, and b) it would be a real pain to do. ;-)
11/27/2007
Well, I tried to use the hex sides last night a couple of times and it was a serious pain. However, I just thought of another message to do it, so I'll try that tonight. Even so, doing the entire Imperium map would be very challenging and time consuming.
I had wanted to have the map organized by region/province/district, but I wasn't sure about the regions. Then it came to me last night in bed that I used to talk about Core and Rim regions (plus a middle one which I forget), so I'll use that. I will group the provinces that way.
11/28/2007
Last night I worked on the province in which Aldorus, the capital planet lies. I don't have a name for the province, or the two districts within it, but I'll figure that out later. Meanwhile, I did roll to see which hexes had star systems (a total of 92). Btw, the three regions of the Imperium are Imperium Core, Middle Rim, and Frontier Worlds. Using the main map, I made a rough outline of how many provinces are in each region.
11/29/2007
I decided on the 26 province names, including the one for Aldorus (called Jova). I also updated the main map to include the region names and then numbers for each province (which will refer to a list of the names).
11/30/2007
I've been working on Jova: first I rolled 1d20 for each hex to see which ones held star. Since there were over a 100 hexes, that took forever. So, I decided to add formulas to an excel sheet, which allowed me to create as many random numbers (which is what the die roll is) as I wanted within the range I wanted (1 to 20). I then added some additional sophistication to the process by adding some more complicated formulas. Anyway, long story short: it allows me to work much faster. Of course, it would be even faster if I had a computer program to do the whole thing, but this works for me and my lack of programming skills. ;-)
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