Well, I was working on my NPC generator (this one's in ANSI C) earlier this
week, tracking down some bugs, when I happened to re-read the example character
they give. Basically this character is a merchant with 5 terms. The
problem involves mustering out benifit rolls.
In the example, and in the rules in the text describing how to, they use
a base of one roll per full term served. However, in the tables giving
details about each service, the left sidebar contains a note about figuring
mustering out benifits stating that it's two rolls per term. Going on an
assumption that the rules and example are correct, I have used the one roll
per term rule.
What this also means is that the characters created for my campaign were
generated wrong, as we did not read the rules as we went but simply followed
the (erronous) tables.
Oh, and about the NPC generator, it creates characters in the same format
found on the last page of the basic character generation system. It starts
out by rolling the characters stats, then the homeworld (in the shortened
format given earlier in the book). It then picks a target number of terms
to serve (2d3) and attempts to serve them out. It ignores the question of
anagathics, as I feel that's a real tough question for a human to decide,
let alone coming up with a simple set of guidelines for the computer. It
correctly handles belters, bureaucrats, and nobles (notable exceptions to
the smooth flow of character generation). It also handles cascades, items
and stat modifications. It has a verbose mode were it describes the actions
its taking, and it allows you to choose the number of characters to create.
It also ranks the services by enlistment throw dms, and chooses from
among the highest. I'll let you folks know when it's ready. The only
porting problem will be to non-ANSI compilers, as I've used both the
stringize(#) and token pasting(##) abilities. Saved typing. I'll remove
these things on my last pass through the files...
Last problem to solve involves tech level of certain skills. I'm getting
a lot of nueral weapon skill users from non-extreme stellar tech levels...
I'll send another message when it's ready for world distribution :-) and
if there are no objections, I'll mail it to those who ask me for it AFTER
I announce that it's ready (I have a terrible memory...). How should I
send it to the TML archives? By sending it to traveller-request? Certainly
not by sending it to traveller!
Well, enough self-grandizement, later folks, back to coding...
chris
- --
/// Chris Olson ([email removed])| [My post, my opinions]
/// ([email removed])|"Death to the unbelievers!
\\\/// | Join me or die!"
\XX/ Amiga - The computer for the best of us... | - Me, playing Talisman.
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