Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- traveller:worldgen [2014/01/19 21:39] – sam
+++ traveller:worldgen [2018/08/16 21:20] (current) – sam
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== Traveller Worldgen ======
+====== Traveller WorldGen ======
-//Worldgen// is a project that started over ten years ago, and began as an attempt to get Traveller UWP data into Celestia. The original idea was to produce a unique (random) world map for every world in the Traveller universe. It has evolved somewhat from that time.
+**WorldGen** is a project that started back around 2004, and began as an attempt to get //Traveller// UWP data into [[https://celestia.space/|Celestia]]. The original idea was to produce a unique (random) world map for every world in the //Traveller// universe. Since that time, it has gone through several iterations.
-A basic description is that Worldgen is a Java web application, backed by a database, which displays a Traveller style 2D map of space, allowing users to navigate the map and view details on the stars and planets within that area of space. It also provides code to generate the initial map, either completely randomly, from a star density map or from actual Traveller UWP data.
+There were several versions of it over a course of about ten years, re-writing bits of the backend technology and working towards a goal of simulating the economics and trade of the //Imperium//, by modelling the movement of individual ships and the purchase and selling of goods.
-The current status of the project is that a major re-write started of it about two years ago, but it has been on hold for over a year now. It is not forgotten though, and work will hopefully begin again before the end of the year.
+There was then several years where it was left untouched, but in 2017 there was an attempt to re-start it, by re-writing it almost entirely from scratch. This time the focus has been less on the UWP parsing, and more on the world generation.
-===== Mapping Traveller Worlds =====
+There is a current development version running on a [[https://dev.glendale.org.uk/|development server]], but that is not guaranteed to be stable, nor to have a stable set of data. The source code is available at [[https://gitlab.com/samuelpenn/worldgen|GitLab]], under a BSD style license.
-The first aim was to map all the worlds of the Imperium. Since Traveller condenses everything there is to know about a star system into a single line //Universal World Profile//, the first requirement was to extend this to provide more complete information on a star system. This included:
+The primary source of documentation on WorldGen is available on its [[https://worldgen.glendale.org.uk|wiki]].
-  * Individual detail on each world within the system.
-  * For multi-star systems, detail on the arrangement of the stars and the orbits of the planets.
-  * Details on moons for some of the worlds.
-  * Textual description for each world, rather than just limiting the description to raw statistics.
-To simplify things, a [[classification]] system was used. This classes worlds into broad types, such as CryoJovian, EoGaian, Enceladean etc. The system generation can work out how many planets there are, and what the types of those planets are, and then leave it to a planet generator to work out the details.
-The textual descriptions are randomly generated from seed files. Each world type has its own set of possible phrases, which can be strung together and can also include simple conditional statements. For example, a world might be described as a "A small airless rock", though the word 'small' could have a conditional around it to select from 'small', 'average sized' or 'large' depending on the radius of the planet. Individual words or whole phrases can be given random variants to help make the description unique.
-For example, one world's physical description could read:
-//This is an Earth-like planet with a fully developed ecology. Irkhi III is a beautiful planet of colourful forests which cover much of the world. The oceans are filled with giant killer fish. Irkhi III is heavily populated.//
-For worlds which have a civilisation, further details are generated for different parts of the society. For example, the same world, with a law level of 4, could have a further description of:
-//The laws here are many, and quite restrictive. Off-worlders may find themselves subject to investigation if they step out of line, though the legal system is still capable of standing up to the government. There are no laws allowing free speech, and journalism is heavily monitored. There are religious leaders who think the government should increase its power in order to reduce off-world interference.//
-The idea is to flesh out every planet and moon in Traveller to a high level of detail.