Journeyometer 2: Rivendell is live!

[Glorelendil]

Bravo!

Thank you! I'm rather pleased with this creation...I've been envisioning something like it ever since my first experience LM'ing when everybody sat there twiddling their thumbs for 5 minutes while I computed a simple journey.

UPDATE (5/28):
- Added all the locations from Heart of the Wild (page numbers are in the data but aren't appearing in the UI yet.)
- Enabled multi-cell locations, e.g. "The Enchanted Stream".
- Tweaked the color scheme a little bit for hovering and selecting.
- Index now ignores "The" when sorting alphabetically.

UPDATE (5/29):
In case anybody is interested, I'm re-writing the Journey algorithm to break up the journey into legs, with the boundary between legs being zone transitions (e.g. from Ettenmoors to Trollfells, or East Upper Vale to Northern Mirkwood). I think that's closer to how it's done in the LMG.

In order to accomplish that I had to write an algorithm to sort selected cells into order, based on adjacency on the map, not the order in which they were selected. I.e., you should be able to link a bunch of cells, then go back and change part of the route in the middle, and the algorithm should still know the order. I also had to detect for ambiguous (multiple paths) and discontiguous (gaps) routes. That algorithm took me all day to debug (god I'm getting old...) but I think it's pretty solid now. The only non-deterministic bit is direction: I can assume you will select your journey path starting at the beginning, but you might not. So I'll add a "reverse" button to the UI.

Word to the wise: if you ever code for a hex-based grid, use axial not offset coordinates. :-/

Anyway, I just got the new journey algorithm working, but it's only outputting the results to a log for debugging. I still need to format it all nicely into the Journey tab; I'll try to do that tomorrow and push it to the live server.

Oh, and then the next step will be to check cells for non-border locations (e.g. "Beorn's House") and incorporate those into the algorithm and UI.

[Yepesnopes]

Wow!

[Glorelendil]

Ok, I pushed the new Journey code. It now breaks the journey down into legs, one per zone. (Perhaps it should combine zones that have the same type & terrain?) It also detects invalid selections (ambiguous paths, discontiguous selections, or clicking outside the named zones). Here's a screenshot of what it looks like:

[Glorelendil]

Here's another example. Notice that each leg mentions named locations that it passes near (the image is a link to the full thing).

[Morgoth]

Now that I finally figured out how to convert PDFs to JPGs (I only have Adobe Reader... I used Zamzar.com) I can say that this is awesome. Thank you Elfcrusher!

[Valarian]

I think it's breaking the journeys up too much. Journeys are requiring far more rolls than the season tables would suggest.

[Glorelendil]

I think it's breaking the journeys up too much. Journeys are requiring far more rolls than the season tables would suggest.

Agreed. I'm trying to figure out some better rules for breaking up multi-zone journeys into legs.

Any suggestions?

The problem is the rounding, so one solution would be to determine the total # of rolls from the combined trip, then distribute them across the legs, weighted by distance/terrain. That would mean, for example, that you might dip into a zone for one or two hexes but not have to make any rolls.

I could also combine adjacent zones that have the same terrain, but I'm generating corruption test rolls as well, and adjacent zones might have the same terrain but different degrees of blight.

I'm totally open to ideas.

[Morgoth]

Agreed. I'm trying to figure out some better rules for breaking up multi-zone journeys into legs.

Any suggestions?

The problem is the rounding, so one solution would be to determine the total # of rolls from the combined trip, then distribute them across the legs, weighted by distance/terrain. That would mean, for example, that you might dip into a zone for one or two hexes but not have to make any rolls.

I could also combine adjacent zones that have the same terrain, but I'm generating corruption test rolls as well, and adjacent zones might have the same terrain but different degrees of blight.

I'm totally open to ideas.

1) Would it be possible to calculate travel rolls and corruption rolls separately? That way you could match up one or the other without having to worry about matching up both.

2) As it is, it seems like the calculator always rounds ups to find the number of rolls in each leg. What if in between the legs, you took the left-over of both pieces and made it into one roll and take the average (or weighted average) of the two TNs?

For example let's say you're traveling 120 miles in the free land (TN 12), and then 120 miles in the wild lands (TN 16) in the autumn (rolls every 4 days), and it's all easy terrain (20 miles per day). Your calculator would say make two rolls at TN 12 and two rolls of TN 16. But what if you took one roll at TN 12, one roll of TN 14 (40 miles of freeland and 40 miles of wild land, so you take the average of 12 and 16), and then one roll of TN 16.

[Rocmistro]

Now that I finally figured out how to convert PDFs to JPGs (I only have Adobe Reader... I used Zamzar.com) I can say that this is awesome. Thank you Elfcrusher!

Morgoth, did you have to pay for this? I'm dying to try this out but I can't find a free way to get my Maps into a PNG/JPEG format without paying for it....GGRRRRR!!!!

[Morgoth]

Now that I finally figured out how to convert PDFs to JPGs (I only have Adobe Reader... I used Zamzar.com) I can say that this is awesome. Thank you Elfcrusher!

Morgoth, did you have to pay for this? I'm dying to try this out but I can't find a free way to get my Maps into a PNG/JPEG format without paying for it....GGRRRRR!!!!

No, I didn't pay for it. I went to zamzar.com. You upload the file you want, say what kind of file you want, and put in your email. They send you a link where you can download it. Be careful though, there are lots of adds on the site and the adds are tricky and look like buttons to download, but just ignore them.