Odd starports

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

Casting about for an excuse to plausibly explain away some of the far too many starports Traveller's many sysgen systems produce? Look no further than here

It won't explain them all, nothing will do that, but you can use it to explain a few of the ones that especially nag your players.


Regards,
Bill

 

[beowulf2044]

Nice, Whipsnade. Once again, truth becomes stranger than fiction. I think I'll vex my players with them coming into a compleatly abandoned starport. It'll drive them crazy as they try to figure out what horrible thing happend, and will it happen to them? (the place just went out of business due to exterior, economic factors).

 

[lucasdigital]

Gents,

Casting about for an excuse to plausibly explain away some of the far too many starports Traveller's many sysgen systems produce? Look no further than here

It won't explain them all, nothing will do that, but you can use it to explain a few of the ones that especially nag your players.


Regards,
Bill

Good spot Whipsnade! If anything, this illustrates that you can struggle too hard for credibility in your ideas, when there's so much of reality that is incredible.

On the subject of abandonded places, Hashima island always looked like good inspiration for a spooky adventure -

http://www.top-buzz.net/2009/04/hashima-island-photos-hashima-island-japan-abandoned-city/

 

[Whipsnade]

Good spot Whipsnade! If anything, this illustrates that you can struggle too hard for credibility in your ideas, when there's so much of reality that is incredible.

Lucasdigital,

I love the weirdness of reality as much as the next guy. Sadly, too many of the results produced by nearly all of Traveller's various sysgens break even my incredulity meter far too often.

When you need to come up with an exception to prove the rule more often than you use the rule, the rule is broken.

On the subject of abandonded places, Hashima island always looked like good inspiration for a spooky adventure (snip)

Oddly enough, I just saw this on a Life After People episode and you're right, it's extremely creepy. Hashima had a population code of 4, IIRC, and in thirty some odd years it looks like that.

May I also tell you how much I've enjoyed your various deckplans and other illustrations? I downloaded the lot immediately after seeing the first one.


Regards,
Bill

 

[lucasdigital]

Lucasdigital,
When you need to come up with an exception to prove the rule more often than you use the rule, the rule is broken.


Regards,
Bill

Why thank you!

And I do agree. I guess you can't expect a small collection of tables and a few dice roles to substitute for the complexity of real world(s) systems. Mine main gripe has always been the lack of economic and cultural cohesion, rather than the unrealistic number of starports. Big population centres with high TLs couldn't help but dominate the systems that surround them.

 

[Madarin Dude]

I visited the airport in Zhuhai China it was empty like that too. Empty i guess since it is abotu 100 miles or so from Hong Kong there is not much use for it.

 

[rancke]

I visited the airport in Zhuhai China it was empty like that too. Empty i guess since it is abotu 100 miles or so from Hong Kong there is not much use for it.

But the starport in a UWP is per definition the most important starport in the system, so a rival starport getting all the traffic doesn't work as explanation.


Hans

 

[Beech]

Similarly, how about Nicosia airport in Cyprus, it was evacuated in a hurry in 1974 during the Turkish invasion and has sat abandoned in the no-mans land between Turkey and Greece ever since, there were even stories of half eaten meals still sitting on the restaurant tables for years.
Now this I can imagine happening to a disputed border zone starport.

 

[far-trader]

Similarly, how about Nicosia airport in Cyprus, it was evacuated in a hurry in 1974 during the Turkish invasion and has sat abandoned in the no-mans land between Turkey and Greece ever since, there were even stories of half eaten meals still sitting on the restaurant tables for years.
Now this I can imagine happening to a disputed border zone starport.

And TAS or the IN would have labeled it an Amber or Red Zone accordingly

The problem with (practically) abandoned Starports, besides them being THE starport in the system, is there is nothing to say the services are any less. The level of service is the very definition of a Starport. And depending on the rules how many ships the starport sees. AND the associated ship or boat yards where applicable (Class A or B).

Sorry, while it's a neat idea for one or two on a temp basis (surprise, guess what happened while you were in jump enroute ), and a fun one for that, thanks Bill. But as noted there are too many exceptions to the "rule" to make up things for every case. Just try to distract the Players from the problems...

"Hey ref, how can 6 Joes run a Class A starport anyway?"

<behind screen rolls dice>

"Your ship is being fired on! A Vargr Corsair has just dropped out of Jump Space and is attacking!"

"WHAT!? How?! Ummm, BATTLE STATIONS! EVASIVE MANEUVERS! GET ME A TARGET LOCK NOW!"



Yeah, OK, that'll only work so often too...

 

[rancke]

The problem with (practically) abandoned Starports, besides them being THE starport in the system, is there is nothing to say the services are any less. The level of service is the very definition of a Starport. And depending on the rules how many ships the starport sees. AND the associated ship or boat yards where applicable (Class A or B).

Indeed. I've used the "<some kind of trouble> is preventing this starport from delivering full service in a timely manner" explanation for class D starports on high-tech, high-population worlds quite a few times. I mean, just how can a starport on a high-tech world with a population above a pretty low threshhold NOT be able to manage at least the services of a Class C starport?

There's the "the world is deliberately not providing adequate service" explanation, but once again there's a limit to how many times you can reuse that one.


Hans

 

[ThunderChilde]

Once upon a time in a different game sysem, I had cooked up the idea of semimobile starports having been built in excess profusion by a failed corp using automated factories. Big dreams of economic boom that went bust.

A number of star systems had hulked orbital ports, some where marginally operating and a few were properly maintained and in use across a space of 45 star systems. It was know as the Burris Expanses, for the corp that built all the stations, Burris Starports and Shipping Corp. All the stations have the Burris Logo on them and look more or less alike.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Over the course of hundreds of years one location can fall out of favor maybe a disaster destroys a city near the starport or people move to where the jobs are due to the finding of mineral rights etc. over the course of the centuries things change. Library data does not get updated etc.

 

[rancke]

Over the course of hundreds of years one location can fall out of favor maybe a disaster destroys a city near the starport or people move to where the jobs are due to the finding of mineral rights etc. over the course of the centuries things change. Library data does not get updated etc.

Why wouldn't library data get updated? And how would the lack of updating explain an implausible starport rating? Even if the UWP hasn't been updated recently, the implausible starport rating must have existed back when the UWP was last updated.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

With regards to UWPs, I view them as being closer to "snapshots in time" than "constantly updated pilot guides". A starport, or for that matter a world, could experience a great number events before anything official about those events is promulgated.

This is all the more reason to "work the street" when travelling in regions you haven't visited before.


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

I've often explained those "D-Port High-pop" myself as simply "not participating in the interstellar economy"...

and there are a great many things that could cause this. Religion, paranoid governments, reactionary cultures, eco-nuts, anti-immigrant hostility, ostracism by the imperium in the past, having fallen upon hard times during a prior "night" ...

 

[rancke]

I've often explained those "D-Port High-pop" myself as simply "not participating in the interstellar economy"...

and there are a great many things that could cause this. Religion, paranoid governments, reactionary cultures, eco-nuts, anti-immigrant hostility, ostracism by the imperium in the past, having fallen upon hard times during a prior "night" ...

And in order for any one of them to prevent a world from having at the very least a class C starport rating, those conditions have to apply from one end of the world to another. Think for a moment about how little it takes to provide the services you need to get a class C rating. As for not participating in the interstellar economy, you'd think something like that would affect the passenger roll, the freight roll, and the speculative trade roll...


Hans

 

[rancke]

With regards to UWPs, I view them as being closer to "snapshots in time" than "constantly updated pilot guides". A starport, or for that matter a world, could experience a great number events before anything official about those events is promulgated.

Why wouldn't any world on a trade route have its library data updated every time a regular liner or freighter arrived from it?

A backwater world, now; data from a backwater world could be weeks or occasionally months out of date. Years? I very much doubt it, except for a very few extraordinarily backwater worlds.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Why wouldn't any world on a trade route have its library data updated every time a regular liner or freighter arrived from it?

Hans,

Updates would arrive with every liner and freighter, but would they be official? Also, as you point out, these updates, official or not, would only be as timely as the traffic carrying them.

Then there's the very real chance of someone not sharing information for various reasons...

Am I suggesting that Mora's or Regina's UWPs will experience regular un-noted changes? Of course not. Am I suggesting that the players may find that Noctocol or Singer don't exactly match their UWPs? Possibly.

It's all a matter of degree, not kind.



Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

Updates would arrive with every liner and freighter, but would they be official? Also, as you point out, these updates, official or not, would only be as timely as the traffic carrying them.

Sure, but I'm also saying that for high-population worlds there will be frequent traffic to carry updates. Population implies trade and tourists, and that implies liners and freighters. Also, lots of small details may easily not be included in such updates. I don't see any reason not to slip in a few surprises for PCs every now and then. But a UWP isn't exactly small detail, is it? And a change of starport classification will, by definition, be official.

Then there's the very real chance of someone not sharing information for various reasons...

That works (or may work) for secrets. For anything you could read in a newspaper (like the condition of the local Imperial starport), how would you go about not sharing that information?

Am I suggesting that Mora's or Regina's UWPs will experience regular un-noted changes? Of course not. Am I suggesting that the players may find that Noctocol or Singer don't exactly match their UWPs? Possibly.

Possibly. That's the difference between mainstream worlds and backwater worlds. But if a UWP is implausible, it doesn't help to claim that it's old and un-updated, because it would also have been implausible back when it WAS updated.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

But if a UWP is implausible, it doesn't help to claim that it's old and un-updated, because it would also have been implausible back when it WAS updated.

Hans,

Couldn't an UWP have been plausible during the Second Survey and then updated into implausibility?


Regards,
Bill