Changes for TravGen version 6.5

New Features

• Optional Skill Capping. If the "Cap Skill at 6" option is switched on, the notification message now allows the user to override the decision and allow the skill to go above 6. This is mainly for use with the don't split cascades option, where a cascade skill can legitimately have more than 6 points recorded ready for the player to split out when he gets the character.
• True 2D Stat Generation. An option on the Options screen allows the user to generate character stats by rolling 2d6, rather than the standard of roll 3d6 and take the best two.
• Dolphins! As detailed in the excellent Travellers' Digest number 13, and inspired by David Brin's Uplift series, TravGen can now produce Dolphin characters. I have added them as a Solomani-based race rather than an Imperial one, because that's what they are, though the article doesn't quote rules for them as such and they're not mentioned in DGP's Solomani and Aslan. DOLPHINS.ERI, DOL*.SCH and DOL*.EAI files are new.
• Restart with this character. Paul B asked for this one; if you rolled a really good set of numbers on the first screen, and the subsequent career of that character was total pants, you can click this option either at the term end screen or the post-muster screen, and flip back to the moment before you committed him to his career.

Fixes

• SolSec Special Assignments. SolSec characters would get "Specials not defined for career type" errors. This has been fixed.
• Schools file failures. Scouts and Police schools are stored in seperate data files; if the data in the branch file indicated a non-existent school, the program would crash. This has been patched (sort of) in that if the school can't be found, the character gets a normal skill roll instead.

Changes for TravGen version 6.4

New Features

• None.

Fixes

Hoo boy. Here's what I get for saying "nothing" last time. Thanks to the people who spotted some spanking bugs this time.

• Command for officers. The number required throw to designate Command or Staff for military characters was not loading from the EAI file, resulting in all officers being in command all the time. This is now fixed.
• TL-based DMs on Service and Branch Skill Tables horked up. These weren't being applied, fixed.
• Military Officers allowed both Staff and Command skill tables. Basically, the program checked to see if the tables  were allowed because of rank and set a "yes" flag, then reset it to "yes" if they were allowed because of Staff or Command entries in the year's history. This is now fixed; only if the officer serves Staff or Command will the tables appear.
• SolSec Assignments missing: The number of assignments in SOLSEC.EAI for some branches was wrong, resulting in no assignments being loaded. This is fixed. NB SolSec still hasn't got any Special Assignment coding, sorry, this will be addressed.
  

Changes for TravGen version 6.3

New Features

• Imperial Ministry of Justice. An enhanced Imperial Police career, written up at Freelance Traveller (http://www.freelancetraveller.com) and coded to TravGen by Tony Moran (mailbag at ayahuasca.net) - thanks Tony! Mainly a data change but the specials required some code changes so the .EXE has changed as well.

Fixes

• Nothing as far as I know

Changes for TravGen version 6.2

New Features

• burble. Does x.

Fixes

• Rank Capping failures. The Rank Cap feature was only checking for "violations" when the character was promoted normally; so things like OCS and Naval Attache would push the rank higher unless the character was promoted again afterwards. The program now checks after every assignment.
• Rank Cap selection option. When the check box is selected, the lowest rank avaiulable for the service loaded is automatically selected as a suggestion. If no service and branch have been selected, a message warns the user, and the check box is unselected again.
• Skill Array Increased. When TravGen was first written, it seemed to me that no-one would be likely to create characters with more than about 20 different skills. So the number of skills it can handle was pegged at 25. I was wrong! Version 6.2 and up will support up to 55 seperate skill names for each character.

Changes for TravGen version 6.1

New Features

• Imperial Psionic Researcher was getting +1 PSI and psionic talents, even when not actually a psionic. I have split the career into two;
  • Imperial Psionics Researcher remains a scientist learning about PSI in an environment where it's forbidden. All skill table results involving actual PSI powers are removed, though the character has the normal chance for an Imperial human to blunder into training in their career. (IPSIRES.EAI)
  • Imperial Psionics Institute Researcher is a technician/scientist working in a PsiInst studying Psionics. The career remains as the original version, with the addition of Psionic Training as a pre-enlistment option - which allows the user to confer psionics on such a character without me (the programmer) actually having to do any work. (IPSIRESI.EAI)
  • The Imperial race file is tweaked to show the new career (IMPERIAL.ERI)
• Rank Capping. New option setting to allow you to prevent the character rising above a certain rank. Ever wanted a seasoned platoon of Privates and ended up with a dozen Majors? This is the answer.
• Statistic Capping. For those who want control of the primary statistics, the program will now by default reject updates to statistics that take them over 15 plus the number added to the basic dice, if any (so for a Vargr, maximum Dex is 16, for example). An option check box has been added to Options to disable this (which is how the program used to work!)
• Cascade skill lister. On the character generation screen, under Show, you'll find an option to list cascade skills. It will create a file called CLIST.HTM in the TRAVGEN\DATA folder and then attempt to open it with Internet Exploiter. This will list all the loaded cascade skill trees for the race and service chosen as well as the standard ones, allowing players to have a list to choose from if the characters were generated with the Don't Break Cascades switch. The format isn't fabulous, unfortunately, a bad decision a long time ago on my part. Sorry!
• Adjustable Tech Level. The random TL of the character's training is now displayed on the Generation screen; clicking on the value allows an override value to be entered.
• HTM Output Templates. This idea, I freely admit, is stolen from the excellent PCGEN, available from http://pcgen.sourceforge.net/. If you play D&D 3^rd Edition as well as Traveller, go and get this; it rocks! Anyway, this feature allows the user to create their own character sheet to use for output. Create a character sheet formatted the way you want it, with Word, Frontpage or Notepad, whatever. Place tokens in the document, such as |NAME| and select the appropriate option when saving the completed character, and the tokens will be replaced by the appropriate values. A full list is included in the file TOKENS.HTM. My suggestion for creating templates is TextPad, the best editor in the world!
• Latent PSI. If the character has received no PSI training during their career, a standard 2D-terms throw is made and displayed in the HTM notes as their "latent PSI". This is a house rule and can be disregarded!
• Extended Education. Strictly an optional rule. An option box in Options allows the user to make the inbuilt Academic options normally dealt with in pre-enlistment available as an alternative to a rolled Special assignment. To use this,
  1. Add a block to the EAI file for the career in question like this
     [PLUSEDU]
     1111111000
  2. The 1 and 0 entries indicate which of the Academic options are going to be made available if the "Offer Academic as Specials" check box is selected. In order they are: College, Military Academy, Merchant Academy, Naval Academy, Graduate School, Medical School, Flight School. The final 3 are reserved for future possibilites!

  In order to prevent failures breaking out the Science skills conferred by the Graduate School option, they have been added to the file CASCADE.DAT

• Granted Skills. This is for those who create or modify their own data files. It allows you to specify up to 10 skills and their levels to automatically grant when a character enlists in a service branch. Note that they won't be granted if the character transfers to the branch. Here's how:
• 1. Edit the Arm file for the career you want (eg IARMY.EAI for Imperial Army).
  2. Locate the Branch section you want to grant skills for (eg Infantry, which is in the block headed *IARMINF.ECI).
  3. Track down to the bottom of that section; I recommend putting this option last above the [END OF FILE] statement (the one for the branch not the last one in the file).
  4. Add a [GRANT] header.
  5. Add the skills below, one to a line. Cascades and stat bonuses are acceptable, make sure to get the syntax right!
     Here's an example:
     [GRANT]
     Battledress-1
     Computer-2
     GUN COMBAT-2
     [END OF FILE]

Fixes

• Psionic Training was giving the skills Teleport instead of Teleportation and Telempathy instead of Telepathy, resulting in "two" skills when the latter values came up in the career tables. This is fixed.
• Data folder location. Previous versions were very shaky when it came to correctly locating their DATA folders so as to create TRAVGEN.INI. This has been improved with a file open dialog which invites the user to confirm where they put the DATA files.
• Solomani Police generation was causing crashes because it was trying to assign Schools for which there were no files. This is fixed, new version of SCOPS.EAI.
• Inconsistent warning of death.Characters "dying of old age" were sometimes not warned of their demise at the right point. The warning has been moved to take place immediately after aging rather than at the start of Year 1 of the next term.
• Imperial Psionic Researchers and Psionic Institute Researchers were getting Purple Hearts. Tweaked versions of IPSIRES.EAI and IPSIRESI.EAI.
• Imperial Marines and Marine careers based on their data file, rank E3 was incorrectly listed as Sergeant; it has been changed to Corporal. Changed IMARINE.EAI, DMARINE.EAI and XMARINE.EAI. (I can't believe no-one noticed this one!)

Changes for TravGen version 5.8

New Features

Fixes

• Careers with less than 20 ranks now get +1 on material muster rolls if Basic Rank is 5 or 6.

Changes for TravGen version 5.7

New Features

• Homeworld codes generated and added to the save file.
• New Option checkbox to "cap" skills at 6; results leading to skills of 7+ are re-rolled. Option is on by default!
• Now supports override values for psionic skill chances; add a PsiRolls entry to the ERI file, so:
  
  [OTHER]
  Yearsperterm=04
  Ageat=34
  Baseage=18
  PsiRolls=455679
  [CASCADES]
  
  List in order, Telempathy, Clairvoyance, Telekinesis, Awareness, Teleport and Special. Use Hex numbers for values over 9.
• HTM output colours modified to make page more legible when printed.
• Zhodani SORAG career now properly implemented; updated ZSORAG.EAI. Special assignments and Security Clearances are catered for as per the module.
• Option Sets allows you to save the current settings on the Options checkbox screen, plus the current Preferred Skills settings. You can then reload these with one click.
• Options are now accessible from the "Select Skill Table" Screen, so you can change them mid-term rather than just at the end of a term.
• Imperial Human characters can now select a variable amount of Vilani blood, and get a relevant DM to the aging rolls, allowing the generation of Vilani characters of appropriate ages.

Fixes

• "Assignment not matched" errors because of trailing space on assignment name (eg in SolSec) fixed.
• Crashes if more than 15 terms served have been fixed, although 26 terms will still cause this.
• Clumsy home-grown save file select dialog screen replaced by proper Windows one - long filenames now available.
• SPECIAL assignments fixed or added where necessary for Droyne Navy, Aslan Explorer, Sol Party, SolSec.
• Zho characters can't endlessly select Psionic Training at the Academic Options step.
• Crashes on converted "basic" careers caused by (invisible) invalid promotions happening each year.
• "Cascade failure: VICE" errors with Imperial Nobles fixed (new INOBLE.EAI file)
• Merchant exams were all the same (doh!) a coding error in the branch loading routine, that's now fixed.
• The "force academic success" cheat option, which has never worked except for Naval Academy, now works. It applies to Psionic training as well!
• Non-functional Race List Entry for I'Sred*Ni removed; simply delete ISREDNI.ERI (only) from the DATA folder.
• Aslan get odd results if the cascade SPACE is rolled (new ASLANM.ERI and ASLANF.ERI).
• "Allow Any Transfer" cheat option now allows any branch to be selected at any stage of generation.
• "Scrap and restart" after Transfer earned (eg Commando) doesn't leave the transfer available.
• Warning message about character dying of old age only comes up once a term; doesn't happen until a stat drops to -1, rather than 0.
• Crash ("Run-time error '400' Form already displayed; can't show modally") when re-selecting a skill that's been rejected for being greater than 6, when running without Automatic Generation enabled, fixed.
• Droyne Sport Military skill error "Zero G Comabat" fixed (new DSMIL.EAI)
• Erronous choice of "Hunting" for ANIMAL HANDLING cascade altered to "Hunting Beasts".
• Aslan Female Military Security "Assignment not matched" errors on Ship's Troops removed; they shouldn't get Ship's Troops!
• Droyne Leader Navy Command; mustering out could roll a "benifit" of "Material benefits: Max=6". This is fixed (new DLNAVY.EAI)
• Aslan female Journalists now have access to the Tolerance skill (new AFJOURN.EAI)
• Hiver Scientists were getting Satisfaction every year, they now have to roll for it! (new HSCIENT.EAI)
• Some careers were getting "Electronic" instead of/as well as "Electronics", which was being treated as a seperate skill. (New DCOAFCPD.EAI, DCOAFCSD.EAI, DNAVY.EAI, ZVNAVY.EAI, HNAVY.EAI, INAVY.EAI, SNAVY.EAI, VNAVY.EAI, XNAVY.EAI, ZNAVY.EAI, IENTERT.EAI, ZVCOAFCS.EAI, NCOAFCSD.EAI, ICOAFCPD.EAI, ICOAFCSD.EAI, NCOACFPD.EAI, SCOAFCPD.EAI, SCOAFCSD.EAI, VCOAFCPD.EAI, VCOAFCSD.EAI, XCOAFCPD.EAI, XCOAFCSD.EAI, ZCOAFCPD.EAI, ZCOAFCSD.EAI, ZVCOAFCP.EAI, ZSORAG.EAI.)
• Hiver Merchants and Free Traders were getting Brawling and Blade Combat skills (new HIVER.ERI, HFREETR.EAI, HMERCH.EAI).
• Scientist characters couldn't go through the Graduate School pre-enlistment option; this now works.
• Aging routines tidied up for I'Sred*Ni, Virushi and Newts.
• Newts now can't roll Str or End of -1 or -2 and crash the program.

Many thanks to David Smart for some pretty thorough Beta Testing!