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	THE CLASSIC TRAVELLER UTILITY  V0.9.1 Beta
	(c)2000-2001
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	Freeware!
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	Written by: Stephen S. Koo
	Email:	    skoo@netcom.ca
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	Copyright (c)2000-2001 Stephen S. Koo
	All Rights Reserved
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	Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises
	Portions of this material are Copyright (c)1977-2001 Far Future Enterprises
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Welcome to the Classic Traveller Utility (CTU).  I hope that you will find this utility useful as either a Traveller GM or player.  Please read through this readme doc as it contains useful information about the CTU and any known limitations.

The CTU is based WHOLLY (for the most part) on the Classic Traveller ruleset.  MT, TNE, and T4 are NOT directly supported in any way, shape, or form.  T4 MAY be indirectly supported only because of its resemblance to the original CT rules.

This release is currently BETA, so bugs are present.  If you find one, please email me a bug report (the basic form is located at the end of this doc).  This program is designed to run in a Win95/98 environment.  Please let me know if it also works (or not) on other Window platforms (i.e., NT/2K/ME).


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	OVERVIEW
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The CTU is designed AS A TIME SAVING TOOL to help GMs and players to generate PCs, NPCs, worlds, animal encounter tables, random encounters, and adventure seeds in as little time as possible.  The CTU is also able to aid in designing star/space ships up to a maximum tonnage of 5000 tons.  Any generated/designed results can be saved to a richtext file (.rtf) or text (.txt) format.

The CTU is also a reference center with an equipment listing, a library data, and a harmonized skills listing.

The CTU is a canonical work with the following exceptions:
   * the NPC generator - this uses a variant of the character generator to simplify the coding process
   * the Ship Encounter generator - this is a personal variant that allows for more variety in ship encounters
   * the Adventure Seed generator - this is heavily influenced by a random adventure seed generator that I once came across on the web.  It's name escapes me for now.


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	FEEDBACK
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I welcome feedback.  It helps me gauge what I'm doing right with this program and what I'm doing wrong.  My hope is to make the CTU as bulletproof as possible so that as many GMs/players can enjoy it as much as possible.  So let me know what you liked/hated about the CTU so I can try to improve on it for the next time around.

If anyone is familiar with how to create printing routines for VB, I would appreciate the help.

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	AVAILABLE FUNCTIONS
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The following functions are available.

THE CHARACTER BUILDER:
This is a random character builder for PCs and major NPCs based on Book 1 and Supplement 4.  Any required information must be filled before character terms can begin.  All user decisions (e.g., selecting between the skill tables for acquiring skills) are performed through dialogue boxes that will only appear when needed.  Characters can be saved via the "save" button.  The Character Builder can be reset at any time using the "reset" button.

THE WORLD GENERATOR (under World Builder tab):
This creates random worlds based on Book 3 rules.  The world location box corresponds to the hex reference numbers found in TAS Form 6.  The generator creates worlds and displays their information both as a UWP and textually.  Results can be saved using the "save" button.

THE ANIMAL ENCOUNTER GENERATOR (under World Builder tab):
This creates animal encounter tables for any of the 22 terrain types described in Book 3, and supports both 1 die and 2 dice encounter tables.  World information can be entered two different ways: the world's data can be entered manually for a specific world; the "use generated world" box can be checked to use a world that was generated using the world generator.  Note that if this option is used, it will use the most recent world generated.  Results can be saved using the "save" button.

THE NPC GENERATOR (under Encounter Builder tab)
Randomly generates the stats for an NPC from any of the 18 character classes; includes determining their initial reactions, and personality traits.  To save, make certain that only its "to be saved" box is checked, and all other "to be saved" boxes are unchecked.

THE PATRON/ADVENTURE SEED GENERATOR (under Encounter Builder tab)
Randomly generates the framework for a patron/adventure.  Includes the patron type and location of the meeting.  To save, make certain that only its "to be saved" box is checked, and all other "to be saved" boxes are unchecked.

THE RANDOM ENCOUNTER GENERATOR (under Encounter Builder tab)
Generates a random encounter based on TL, including the encounter's reaction.  To save, make certain that only its "to be saved" box is checked, and all other "to be saved" boxes are unchecked.

THE SHIP ENCOUNTER GENERATOR (under Encounter Builder tab)
Randomly generates a ship encounter along with its reaction and current mission.  To save, make certain that only its "to be saved" box is checked, and all other "to be saved" boxes are unchecked.

THE SHIP BUILDER
This allows for the design of any ship type up to 5000 tons in displacement (Book 2 rules).  Designs can be updated and modified on the fly.  The "cost" section can be fully determined once all fittings have been made on the design by pressing the "calculate" button.  Most of these costs (i.e., expenses and revenues) are approximations, but do give a good indication of long term operating costs.  Any designs can be saved, and will save as a hybrid descriptive paragraph/technical data form.

THE EQUIPMENT DATA
Covers all the weapons that were presented in Book 1 and Supplement 4, ships from Book 2 and the Traveller Adventure, equipment from Book 3, and a few items from the TAS journals.  This section will be updated as more canonical equipment references are uncovered.

THE LIBRARY DATA
Harmonized libary data from Supplements 8 and 11, the adventures, etc.  This section will be updated as more canonical Traveller data is uncovered.

THE SKILLS LIST
Harmonized skills list broken up into a basic set (covering only those skills that appear in Book 1), and an advanced set (covering skills from Book 1, 4-8, Supplement 4)


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	LIMITATIONS
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Printing - no direct printing methods have been implemented yet.  It is coming, however.

Help Files - none at present; what you are reading is it for the time being.


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	KNOWN BUGS
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MINOR - The saved .rtf and .txt files for the Animal Encounter Generator contains extraneous information that is based on information within the displaying box (it's a richtext box, for those who know Visual Basic).  I don't know what's causing this problem, and I'm still looking into it, and if anyone out there knows why this is occurring or how to get rid of the garbage info, let me know how to fix it so I can kill this bug dead, dead, dead.  One workaround is to delete the extraneous information and reformat the data until everything looks alright (usually 8pt works well, and a word processor's Find/Replace can get rid of a lot of unwanted data).  A second workaround involves copy/pasting the contents of the display box into a word processor document, and resizing the font to 8pt (the faster and more preferred method).  

MINOR - the Patron/Adventure Seed Generator suffers from the same bug as the one for the Animal Encounter Generator.  See above for the workaround.

MINOR - occasionally, in the Character Builder, the skills gained and displayed in the "term events" box will differ from the results in the "skills" box.  This is an internal program error that I haven't had time to fix yet.  The skills shown in the "skills" box are the correct ones.


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	FUTURE STUFF
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The CTU is only one of a set of utilities that I have planned.  The others are:

The Advanced Classic Traveller Utility (ACTU) - featuring an advanced character generator (Books 4-7), a star system generator (debatable, since H&E already does that task quite well!), a Merchant Prince trade calculator (Book 7), abstract combat calculators based on Mercenary and High Guard combat rules, and more equipment/weapons.

The Advanced Classic Traveller Hardware Utility (ACT-HU) - featuring an advanced vehicle designer (based on the Striker rules), an advanced starship designer (based on High Guard), a robot designer (Book 8), and (if available) a canonical vehicle/robot library.

The Advanced Classic Traveller Non-Canonical Utility (ACT-NU) - featuring all those cool design rules that have grown up over the years and are not canonical, but are still useful to have around.  Credit will be given where credit is due.

If you would like to be notified when utilities have been updated, when new utilities are made available, or to participate in future beta testing, email me at the above address and I will add you to my mailing list.


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	BUG REPORT
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Bug reports should be emailed to the follow address with "CTU BUG" followed by a short bug description in the email's subject line

	skoo@netcom.ca

Copy and paste the following into th email's message area, and fill in the blanks.

------>> copy/paste below this line<<-----

1. Severity of Bug (pick one):
	Show Stopper(crash) / Major / Minor / Typo

2. Short Description of Bug (what happened to the program/OS):




3. Long Description of Bug (detailed method so I can reproduce the bug):








4. Your Operating System (pick one):
	Win95 / Win98 / WinNT / Win2000 / WinME

