[TML] Has Anyone Heard Of "Astrosynthesis?"

[John Appel]

Richard,

I've also been using it since version 1.-something.  There's quite a
bit of discussion about it over on the Citizens of the Imperium board,
under the "Software Solutions" forum.  Here's what I had to say about
version 1.10 and the contemporary version of Peter Trevor's "Traveller
Universe" back in August 2005:

"I own both Universe and Astrosynthesis, though I've only had the
latter for a couple of weeks. Here's my CR 0.02:

Universe is great for mapping out a traditional Traveller region. It
does not (in this incarnation) perform any system generation, but it
is rules-aware as far as UWP elements go. For example, the UWP editing
screen shows the rules-legal value ranges for the various elements -
for example, next to the TL rating it shows the possible minimum and
maximum TLs, given the other characteristics.

Universe uses an Interbase DB as it's back-end repository which gives
tremendous flexibility. You can specify political affilitations (seems
like Peter included every canonical polity, but you can easily create
your own for the home-brew and ATU crowd), select from a plethora of
base designations (and edit/add your own), etc. It can take input from
Galactic, World Builder and H&E, so you could easily use H&E to
generate the sector, then use Universe to manage it.

The maps are excellent, with various colored icons for the mainworlds
based on general types. I believe in the latest version you can
specify your choice of black or white backgrounds for print maps.

For the most part the program is very easy to navigate and use.
Universe can be started in one of two modes - Referee's mode, where
items can be edited and everything is displayed, and Player mode,
where things are read-only, and potentially things can be hidden by
the referee (for example, systems can be marked by the GM as
"unexplored" and the PCs get little data on them). You could easily
through this on a laptop and keep it handy during a game. GMs can add
text notes at the sector, subsector and world level - both public
"player's notes" and private GM notes only accessible in Referee mode.

I've exchanged several emails with Peter Trevor (the author) regarding
bugs or feature requests and he's been very responsive and receptive.
Peter has released 2 .X upgrades since I've purchased the program,
which were free and painless to implement. The current version is 1.7,
I believe.

Cons: the documentation is a little thin, and there are a few key
operations that are pretty obtuse, like setting up an import filter
for one of the supported file types (like *.SEC). In only runs on
Windows NT/2K/XP etc. I've had difficulty printing a side-by-side
subsector listing and map, a la Supplement 3 style, though that could
be a quirk in my printing set-up.

Peter posts here at CotI as Hemidan or Hemdian, I believe, though I'm
not sure how often he visits.

Astrosynthesis is a rather different beastie. As others have said,
it's not intended for Traveller, but rather for generating and mapping
3-d stellar regions. The generation is supposed to be based on current
science, though the program will do a bit of minor "terraforming"
behind the scenes if a planet is close to the border between
"habitable" and "hospitable". It's worth noting that "hospitable" does
not mean "Earthlike" - Mars, for example, might fit the bill. The
planetary generation is very detailed in some areas, but if you modify
a planetary characteristic (for example, albedo) the program won't
recalculate the affected values (or at least I haven't found a way to
do so). One thing that is generated is atmospheric content, a nice
touch, along with temperature ranges, hydrographic percentages, and
the other usual items.

Astrosynthesis does generate populations for inhabited systems but
nothing further in the way of government type, tech levels etc. It
will occasionally place space stations as the sole point of habitation
in a system. Inhabited systems may have their populations spread
across multiple bodies in the system.

You can specify a cubical or spherical region to be generated and can
select between several different levels (e.g., star positions only,
stars, stars & systems, etc.) for the bulk generation. Generating a
200x200x200 parsec cube took about 10 minutes on my 1.8 GHz Pentium 4
w/ 1 GB of RAM.

You can specify allegiances for at least systems (I'm not sure if you
can split the worlds of a system between different allegiances) and
routes between systems can be designated. One feature I've found handy
when playing around is the "proximity routes" feature, which will
automatically generate and display routes based on criteria you enter.
For example, you could have the system mark routes only between
inhabited systems no more than 4 parsecs apart; the cross-roads
systems will really leap out at you then.

While Universe's mapping stops at the subsector level, Astrosynthesis
itself will generate contour maps for bodies (or at least cloud images
for gas giants). You can export the contour maps to NBOS' Fractal
World Explorer or Fractal Mapper.

You can add notes to planets and systems. I'm not sure if there is a
feature analogous to the dual Referee / player modes of Universe.

There's a data import facility but I haven't looked into that at all yet.

Sooo... apples and oranges. For pure Traveller mapping, Universe is
excellent. If you want to play around with a 3-D universe,
Astrosynthesis might fit the bill, though I haven't looked into the
freeware programs mentioned up-thread."

This link will show you threads containing Astrosynthesis over on CotI:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/search.php?searchid=43984&photoplog_searchinfo=1&photoplog_searchquery=Astrosynthesis

Cheers,

John