Traveller - random world generator, work in progress

[isomage]

To go along with my random subsector generator I've started working on a random world generator.

My goal is for it to be able to either randomly generate a UPP or accept one as input, generate UPP-appropriate terrain, city locations, etc., and render either in grayscale or color. Output will be vector PDF.

So far I've managed to have my program duplicate the classic world map form, and for a test I've manually specified some hex contents; the random generation code is up next.

My tiles are only very rudimentary at this point, so if anyone wants to make any suggestions about types or style that would be great. I think I like them somewhat abstract, like with the filled equilateral triangle for the mountain; it reminds me a bit of old star frontiers maps (which I should probably look at for inspiration, now that I think of it).

[BeRKA]

Nice! This is something that I actually has considered doing myself. I am happy that you do it, since I don't have any time to do it right now, and I really like to see this generator in action.

Suggested inputs (except for UPP):
Temperature - to determine the amount of ice.
Age - to determine mountains.
Tidal lock - for dark/bright side.

[Valarian]

The maps are looking good. It's going to be a challenge to get a decent looking map through random generation. You'll have to put in some heavy weightings for the surrounding hexes to get terrain that doesn't look strange. Good luck with this. I'll be looking on with interest.

[Redrobes]

Thats looking superb iso. Will be following this one too... not that I play Traveller any more but its interesting.

[ravells]

I'll echo Redrobes! Superb idea! The icing on the cake would be to make the map editable so that the GM could put in star ports, cities with name labels, make tweaks to the landscape etc if required. Repped!

[Steel General]

Cool stuff!

[Jexl]

Keep it up, I've been looking for something like this for a personal project. I'll be following this thread.

[isomage]

I've got the geometry sorted out (mapping the hexes to points on the surface of a 3D icosahedron) and have started generating rudimentary random planetary surfaces consisting only of land and water tiles (by sampling 3D noise at those points: high values = land, low values = water).

The edges where triangles join up still need some correction, and with only two tile types being shown the results are unspectacular, but here's an example anyway.

Next steps: edge correction, terrain generation based on UPP.

[isomage]

I fixed the bug with the edge-rendering. Here are a couple of random examples. All I need to do now is generate UPP-relevant terrain and wrap a web interface around it

[BeRKA]

Looks fine!
Will the output be png as well?
I like png better than the pdf you have for your subsector generator.