random everything generator

[copycat042]

If you've ever played frontier (elite 2) you know that there is an entire galaxy of stars in the game, each with its own physical, economic, social, and political statistics.
Does anyone know where i can find a random world generator that will give me everything from the world map, to the name of that beggar down the street? Maybe it would suggest some trade items for regions/villages, but it should mainly be a sandbox for the GM to drop plots into.

The game uses some fractal-type calculation (i think), because the whole thing is  a little over 1MB and there are more than that many stars. It is not completely random, because the galaxy is the same for everyone. A particular seed number producing the same world for everyone would be nice.
 What would be really awesome would be a "browser based" app where you could click on a section of map for an increasingly detailed view(like google maps), down to individual village maps with clickable stats for buildings and a list of inhabitants.

I don't want much, do I?
 

any suggestions?

[greywulf]

The Elite 2 generator code was based on the original Elite code by Ian Bell and David Braben which managed to fit 2,048 star systems into a teeny tiny amount of codespace. The source code for the original BBC version is available from Ian Bell's site, but you'll need to be able to read BBC assembler to read it

[randalls]

Does anyone know where i can find a random world generator that will give me everything from the world map, to the name of that beggar down the street? Maybe it would suggest some trade items for regions/villages, but it should mainly be a sandbox for the GM to drop plots into.

I had found a shareware DOS program that did a lot of that circa 1990 or so. I wonder if I could find a copy of it today. It's probably run in DOSBox.  It would even map planets, cities, and buildings as I recall.

[copycat042]

It would even map planets, cities, and buildings as I recall.

what was the name?


why must you torment me so?

 

[randalls]

what was the name?

I can't remember!   If I could I'd have a much better chance of finding it again.

[greywulf]

There's Galactic 2.4, available here. That's a DOS-based Sector Generator for Traveller which is utterly wonderful, easy to use and easy to lose yourself in for hours creating random universes. If I remember correctly, it also includes the entire Third Imperium, all ready to explore.

There's a load of other goodies on that page. Worth a looksee.

[sycarion]

If you've ever played frontier (elite 2) you know that there is an entire galaxy of stars in the game, each with its own physical, economic, social, and political statistics.
Does anyone know where i can find a random world generator that will give me everything from the world map, to the name of that beggar down the street? Maybe it would suggest some trade items for regions/villages, but it should mainly be a sandbox for the GM to drop plots into.

The game uses some fractal-type calculation (i think), because the whole thing is  a little over 1MB and there are more than that many stars. It is not completely random, because the galaxy is the same for everyone. A particular seed number producing the same world for everyone would be nice.
 What would be really awesome would be a "browser based" app where you could click on a section of map for an increasingly detailed view(like google maps), down to individual village maps with clickable stats for buildings and a list of inhabitants.

I don't want much, do I?
 

any suggestions?

It's not everything you want, but if you go here:

http://direpress.bin.sh/tools/system.cgi

It will link to a planet generator for any habitable world. Elsewhere on the site are other tools to generate just about anything. Hope this helps.

[Slortar]

I just remembered in another thread (*cough* was strenuously reminded *cough*) that something I wrote up some time ago can apply to this thread.

It's part of a d20 Modern Star Trek conversion I worked on a ways back.  It was sort of an on-and-off thing that I spent a few years on because it was fun to think about during slow bits at work.    

As such, it doesn't worry about things like planetary density, gravity levels, odd atmospheric composition or anything like that--I pretty much assumed that'd be out of the show's budget.  

[copycat042]

slortar, the trek conversion is awesome. you should write it up (with a very thin disguise for copyright purposes) as a M20 conversion.

[greywulf]

slortar, the trek conversion is awesome. you should write it up (with a very thin disguise for copyright purposes) as a M20 conversion.

Seconded!

[Slortar]

Thanks.  

* http://www.starshipexeter.com/  Or any of the other fan film people for that matter.

[Slortar]

Update:

Okay, I'm officially making second edition m20-based --it's just way more compact and lets you get into the Fun Stuff (tm) much quicker.  

Also, having the rules be so light means you can have a game that's complete (combat, skills, talents, enemies, equipment, other core rules, etc) in one document without necessarily having to take up a bunch of space.  That's pretty cool and pretty much in line with what I wanted the game to be like in the first place.

Case in point, I made a small raft of sample characters.  In d20 Modern, making 1 first level character would take me anywhere from 15-20 minutes, maybe longer, depending on how long it's been since I fiddled with the system.  5th level characters...?  About 5-10 minutes more on top of that each depending on my blood sugar levels.

These 5th level guys, I tossed together in around 5 minutes total...all at once: