Alternate world generation schemes

[rancke]

Anyone have divergent rules when determining a sector of "wilderness" space?

My current method: When generating population, if the digit is 6 or less, I set it to zero and remove the starport. Otherwise, I demote the starport one letter, in some cases demoting it to a spaceport. (I'm still working on the "best" way to demote a starport).

You can try out a proof of concept (still being developed) of this algorithm here: http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/survey/t5-prog/t5sysgen.pl. Just switch the generation option from "Civilized" to "Wilderness" and press "Submit Query" to see the differences between the two. They generate the same data, but the Wilderness option applies a different filter to the UWP data.

This results in a sector with plenty of populated worlds (one example has 24% of the worlds with a population), and some worlds that are capable of building jump drives (same example, 6% of the worlds at TL9+), with only a handful at TL C-E. Obviously, this is a nascent "sector at war" setting, with population and TL together playing the biggest part on which worlds are powerful and which aren't.

To a certain degree, the above is similar to applying a "hard times" algorithm. So, perhaps a more generalized algorithm that's useful in both contexts would be more useful.

I've been trying to define different kinds of interstellar regions. This is what I have come up with. It is still very tentative.

Wilderness: No local starship production. Many empty worlds. Max TL 8.

Frontier: No more than X (30?) % of ships locally built. Worlds capable of building starships limited in numbers and placed by hand. Max TL 12.

Developing: Populations and economies growing. Scattered backwaters. [This would be the standard world generation rules, more or less.] Max TL 15 (14?).

Mature: Mostly optimum populations. [Have to define optimum.]

Ancient: Many thousand of years' development.

Comments? Ideas?


Hans

 

[aramis]

Hans, if you want a frontier feel, you don't need to limit the tech level so much as the populations.

The maximum sustainable growth rate, given current safe human norms and no artificial wombs...

generational age 16 years minimum
2 years between pregnancies (less is unsafe due to bone loss)
8 pregnancies (for a 14 year difference within a generation.

So, average generational age about 23 years, and add 16 for them to become breeders... 5x the population in about 39 years, so 5^(1/39) so about 4.2% growth in adults per year after year 16... not accounting for the still about 0.6% infant morality rate. And then the about 80 years lifespan...

I could program up a spreadsheet... but it sounds like more of a hassle than it's worth. It looks like a population doubling every 16 years, if I do the math right, once you get the smoothout after the initial 48 year boom cycles and spreadout.

And that's entirely based upon maximum sustained safe human breeding rates. (The odds work out that 8 pregnancies is the average point for damage to the uterus sufficient to prevent further successful pregnancies, but there aren't enough data points for the long end for that to be statistically valid. Some women have managed to give birth to more than 12 children.) And the maximum age for pregnancy is about 74... but that puts it about 5-sigma out...

So, if any given world is settled by 1000 people, in the 100 years of a frontier, it can't be much more than 2^6 x 1000, or 64,000 people, without further immigration.

If we allow 200 years, we can get to about 6 million.

Probably shouldn't exceed half that growth, so about x1.021 per annum, or about 34 years doubling time. Which puts 200 years and 1000 initial at about 76,000, and 100 years at about 7500.

If we add food limits, we can slow that further...

So, really, 1 century or under should be maximum of pop 6, and 2 centuries about pop 7; 3 centuries is enough to be pop 10... and not frontier anymore.

 

[MichaelSTee]

Hans, your ideas are similar to mine. The following text comes from my notes for my system generation rules, which are not finished (and with my new job, I have precious little free time to finish them). Note that I will probably NOT use the Traveller hex grid to map the worlds; I would prefer something that looks more 3 dimensional. Also, Traveller's jump drive is not used; FTL is more like the Alderson Drive from Mote in God's Eye, with jumplines between jump points.

I hope you find it of interest.

Star systems are grouped into Regions. Regions are categorized by the level of development. Worlds close to each other will have a similar level of development.
The average size of a region is about a dozen star systems (use a roll of 2d6+6 for 8 to 18 systems per region).
Population for each world will be determined by a roll of 1d6, with modifiers for each level, and for the physical stats of the world.
Note that giant stars and very small red stars are unreachable by the jumplines, so most systems have sun-like stars.

Region types:
Core: these regions contain the homeworlds of star-faring races, and their largest, most developed colonies. Garden worlds will be well-developed; other worlds will be moderately- to well-developed; homeworlds of minor races will integrated into the larger society.

Provincial: these regions have been colonized for some time. Garden worlds will be moderately- to well-developed; other worlds will by lightly- to moderately-developed; homeworlds of minor races may be integrated into the larger society or may be subjugated.

Frontier: these regions have been recently colonized, usually within the last half-dozen generations of the colonists. Garden worlds will be lightly- to moderately-developed; other worlds will be lightly-developed or not developed at all; homeworlds of minor races may be competing with the settlers (if they have FTL drive), or resentful of the newcomers.

Wilderness: the regions have not yet seen large-scale colonization yet (there may be a few settlers with no support from their original worlds). Worlds without minor races will not be developed, although there may be small unknown colonies. Homeworlds of minor races without FTL have probably not been contacted by other races.

Options: Regions may have one or more of these options, in addition to the level of development. (A region cannot be both War-torn and Shattered.)
War-torn: these regions have been heavily involved in recent wars. A sizeable percentage of the population has perished, the tech level has dropeed some, and the people are re-building their society.
Shattered: Like War-torn, but worse; these regions have been brutally affected by recent wars. Inhospitable worlds have lost most if not all of their population, and garden worlds have lost a large percentage of their population. Cities have been bombed, space stations have been destroyed, and most population lives at the subsistence level.
Backwater: these regions were usually Provincial, but the trade routes have bypassed the region, leaving it to slowly decline in population, influence, and technology.
Lost: a special case, these regions were somehow cut off from the rest of the society for a long time, and left to develop on their own. They may have recently been re-discovered, or the PCs' ship may have accidentally jumped to the region, or the campaign may take place in the Lost region (similar to Clement Sector).

If FTL has recently been discovered, then a homeworld may be considered Core, and the rest of the region may be Provincial, Frontier, or Wilderness.

Here are four sample types of backgrounds, based on how long the dominant race has been travelling among the stars.
Colonial Space: Dozens of worlds have been colonized; dozens more have been surveyed, but not settled yet. Few aliens have been contacted, if any. The home world is Core. Some surrounding worlds are Provincial. Other settled worlds are Frontier. The home world controls the other worlds in the setting, or at least claims to. The average tech level is Early Stellar. Similar to 2300AD, Babylon 5.
Federal Space: Hundred of worlds have been colonized; hundreds more have been surveyed, but not settled yet. A handful of other races, maybe a dozen, have been contacted. The home region and possibly several surrounding regions are Core. A band of regions around those are Provincial, with a wider band of regions around those being Frontier. The average tech level ranges from Average Stellar to High Stellar. Several regions may be self-governing, although the Core regions still claim to control the area. There may be multi-race governments. Similar to early Star Trek, or Humanx Commonwealth.
Imperial Space: Thousands of worlds have been colonized; thousands more surveyed. Many races have been contacted and integrated into the larger society. Regions around homeworlds and well-established colonies are Core. Many other regions are Provincial. Depending on how many major races there are, there may not be as many Frontier regions as Provincial regions; or the Frontier regions are much further out. The average tech level ranges from Average Stellar to High Stellar. There may be Backwater areas, where trade routes have bypassed a region and the tech level has dropped. Similar to Traveller's Third Imperium.
Galactic Space: Much of the galaxy has been explored. There are millions of inhabited worlds, and thousands of races. Most worlds are in Core or Provincial regions. There may be few Frontier regions, and almost no Wilderness regions, but there are many Backwater regions. Possibly several Lost regions. Similar to Star Wars, Asimov's Foundation.

 

[salochin999]

Those (wilderness, frontier etc) are the kind of distinctions I'd make.

Beyond that I'd think of adding

1) Foundation

Assuming the base premise is a species develops space travel and expands then you could add options for the type of space they expanded into

e.g.

sparse life : the systems being expanded into have little life and very little or no sentient or pre-sentient life

abundant low life : many systems have native life but very few sentient

aliens r'us : lots of sentient species mostly low tech or non-expansionary or extinct (would depend a lot on previous expansions see point 2)

so for example (wilderness + sparse life) would be very different to (wilderness + abundant low life) which would be different to (wilderness + aliens r'us)

2) fall and rise

Similar to the first but adding a past i.e. is this the first expansion in this region of space and if not then
- is it a re-expansion from the same system
- is it a re-expansion from a system that was colonized by the first group
- is it a re-expansion from a system that wasn't part of any earlier expansions
- have there been multiple expansions

something like (2d6)
2-8: 1st expansion
9-12: 1-4 previous expansions

if previous expansions then roll 2d6 for each previous expansion, somethign like:
2-5: same species and system as current home world (fall and rise)
6-7: same species / different system (current home world is colony of previous civ)
8-10: different species (current home system wasn't a colony)
11-12: different species (current home system was a colony of alien civ that fell)

(on second and subsequent rolls of different species odd numbers indicate same alien species as previously, even numbers represent a different alien species)

so then you'd start with premises like

wilderness - sparse population - first expansion

or

wilderness - sparse population - second expansion - first expansion was alien - current home world was colonized by aliens in the past

etc

#

obviously this starts to get complicated quite fast but could create some interesting outcomes

 

[kilemall]

RTT Worldgen, a system I assume most of you are familiar with, has a Settlement code which denotes how many centuries it's been. Set the Settlement code for 0, meaning first century of exploration and colonization, and it tends to make for minimalist population. TL is also a factor.

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/RTT_Worldgen#Populations