Spreadsheets

[Jake]

What spreadsheet is used for the ship roster downloads? I having a problem with it. For some reason, It has converted them over to Adobe Acrobat.

[Charles DeHoag]

The spreadsheet is Excel format. As for a personal problem of mine with it, I am not familiar with Excel and can't seem to produce anything approximating the example crew roster for the Bellerophon which is included in the zip package. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Thanks.

[Aldaron]

Jake: They're in Excel 2000 format, but they're backward compatible with Excel 97 (as to earlier stuff, you're on your own! )
You should be able to simply change the file extension from .pdf to .xls (for the spreadsheet) and .xlt (for the templates - see the readme.txt file in the zip download for which files should be called what).

Charles: What, specifically, are you having a problem with? From your post, it seems like it's the initial generation of the crew. Make sure you click on the appropriate sheet-tab (bottom-left of the screen) for the type of ship you're using (cruiser, explorer, etc).
Then click and drag across the bottom line of cells. Once they're selected, hover the mouse over the bottom right corner of the far right cell (where there's a tiny little cross) and your mouse cursor will turn into a cross-shape. This is called the "fill handle". If you click and drag straight down to as many cells as you want crewmembers, the cells will automatically fill up with randomly generated data.

From here, you can select the data in the grey area only (you don't want the brown stuff, it's just random numbers), copy it (CTRL+C), and then go to the "Ship Roster" sheet tab. Click in the second-from-top, left-hand cell ("A2"), then right-click, select "Paste Special" and make sure the "Values" radio-button is selected before clicking "OK".

This last bit is important - you don't want to paste directly into the Ship Roster sheet, otherwise you'll end up with all the formulae as well, and every time you do anything, the random-number-generator in the formulae will change all your data. By posting "Values", you only get the visible data, not the formulae.

From here, it's a matter of copying/pasting the rank insignia from the "Insignia" sheet into the Ship Roster sheet, and whatever other changes you want to make (personally, I feel I end up with too many aliens, so I tend to chop down the number of unusual races and replace them with Humans, Betazoids and Centaurans, since we see a lot more humans on screen than anything else).

Bear in mind also that this is an interim tool - I only designed it as a stop-gap until I get time to actually create a stand-alone application (in either Visual Basic or Visual C++, I haven't decided yet) which will automate everything. You'll only need to select your ship type, number of crew and highest-ranking officer, and it'll do the rest for you, including throwing in ranks and crew positions - in essence, it will create a database containing every crewmember which you can then edit any way you like.

This, mind you, is still a ways off yet. I'm currently studying full time (learning another goddam programming language - and I haven't even come close to mastering the others I'm supposed to know yet! ), working part-time, organising a Star Trek campaign, an AD&D campaign and a Star Wars/Babylon 5 crossover campaign, plus having to find some time to spend with my wife and my four-year-old son (who is in the "idolise Daddy, spend every waking moment with him" phase - which I love, mind you - it's just a little difficult to get the time, sometimes).

So...now that you've heard my life-story , I hope you'll understand that my RosterGen 1.0 has a while to go. The basic engine is done, but it's certainly nowhere near even testing stage yet - and probably won't be until later in the year.

I hope this helps some...please feel free to ask any more questions - I'll do my best!

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"May I find you with peace, and leave you with hope."

[This message has been edited by Aldaron (edited 04-20-2001).]

[Charles DeHoag]

Aldaron, thanks for the assist. Everything is working fine now.

[Phoenix]

One other question, You mentioned that a person could back down to '97. How about '95?

I would like to get a look at this file.

Phoenix...

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"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
-Napoleon

[Captain Blake]

Nifty Spreadsheet. I spent part of yesterday playing with it. Thanks.

The only comment I have is that I agree it does seem to produce a heck of a lot of aliens. Which is probably accurate for the "real universe" but not based on what I've seen in Trek.

Is there an easy way to change the weighting for the Aliens, in case someone wants a mostly Andorian (for example) ship. Could you incorporate that into version 2.0?

Just some ideas off the top of my head, and thanks again for creating this.

[Aldaron]

Phoenix - I think it will probably work in Excel 95, though I have only tested it for 2000 and 97. Because I did it in 2000, I left the compatibility options on, so it should probably work; no guarantees, tho!

Captain - if you go to the "Tables" sheet, you'll see the alien species table in the top-left of the sheet. Excel has a function called "VLOOKUP" which I used for this - it takes the random number generated on the front page of the spreadsheet and matches it against the numbers next to the alien species in the Tables sheet. If the random number is less than the number given next to the alien, it lists that alien.
You just need to change the numbers in the first column of the alien species table (though you may need to "unprotect" the sheet first - I can't remember off the top of my head whether I protected the tables or not). The numbers are essentially percentages correct to 1 decimal place (ie: 997 = 99.7%).

Hope that helps!


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"May I find you with peace, and leave you with hope."

[Captain Blake]

Thanks, Aldaron.

[Aldaron]

Captain - no problem

Hmmm...trying out my new sig-line.
I like it...

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"Every atom in our bodies was forged in the furnace of ancient stars - it is our destiny to return home..."

[Phoenix]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Aldaron:
Phoenix - I think it will probably work in Excel 95, though I have only tested it for 2000 and 97. Because I did it in 2000, I left the compatibility options on, so it should probably work; no guarantees, tho!

</font>

No Dice, Does this mean I need to (shudder) Up-grade!!!!!

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"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
-Napoleon

[Aldaron]

Phoenix...
No upgrades...send me an e-mail and I'll reply with a copy saved in Excel 95 format.

Be warned, though. It'll ask you if you want to open it in read-only format, or editable. If you open it in editable (which you'll have to, obviously), it will ditch the Excel 2000 formatting options. Now, this may have no effect on it, or make it unusable - I have no way of knowing.

So keep you fingers crossed!

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"Every atom in our bodies was forged in the furnace of ancient stars - it is our destiny to return home..."

[This message has been edited by Aldaron (edited 04-26-2001).]

[Owen E Oulton]

Guys, I really think that this thread should be taken to private E-mail, as it's moved from general questions about the spreadsheets to individual system requirements...

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