I started making Traveller: Interstellar Wars Ship Creation Spreadsheet. Its doing well so far. The reason I moved to this project instead of the character sheet is because, I don’t need to learn (libreOffice database) Base to finish this project.
The ISW Spreadsheet is mostly putting all the tables in One Sheet (tables) and learning how to use some reference functions like Vlookup.
There is a little problem with the Forms Control. When you choose a reference cell, a cell that will be linked to the forms list (a clickable list of options) the exported value has an apostrophe before it. This ruined the vlookup values when there was a comma seperator with some of the values, causing error.
I figured out a way around it is by giving it a formula that allow its to recalculate it self =(datalinked cell)*1. It removed the apostrophe from the result and allowed the vlookup to operate normally.
Currently i’m having second thoughts about using the Hull Precalculated Table and allow the player to determine the exact hull size he/she wants, since I already have the formula for most aspects (surface area and cost).
The spreadsheet follows the ship creation steps. I plan to break from the ISW book in terms of ship type conventions since it is not as consistent with Mgelis’s Jtas articles and doctrines. I will borrow some aspects from Honorverse wikia (like allowing for the construction of Q ships).
I am influenced by Lost Fleet in the definition of Auxiliary ships (which is not the same as Honorverse). I want to emphasize the automation that brings down manpower requirement. Basically making automation a late TL10 option, this is standard and an improved feature of TL11, with the option of further enhanced automation features. I don’t know how I’m going to implement this yet, but I’m very open to suggestions. These non-cannon options will be given a special place in the table so that people can easily take or leave it.
Another part of the Ship Creation system is the option of Carrier Role. How many small ships it can carry and figuring out all the logistics for that.
One of the last steps in ship creation is the Job Loading or the Manpower needs of the ship. I find this another fun part to look forward to because it is a easier iteration of Time and Motion study. I think I need to finish the basic Canon version before implementing the automation changes.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.