An Astrographic Riddle...

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Hecateus:
"How can this planet have both a government and a Law Level without a Population? Any suggestions what this might mean? A self-perpetuating oligarcy with no citizens? "

This reminds me of a PS1 game I have: Legend of the Dragoon

Therein an abondoned place called Lawcity exists which automagically maintains the city and enforces long dead laws.

Imagine a party of explorers driving their ContraGrav craft through a long abandoned city only to be pulled over by AutoCops and given a ticket for running a red light.

Lovely Hecateus, players beware...

An archeology site on an apparently abandoned world in some backwater system...

"Well Professor according to the first census this world used to be a teeming metropolitan hub with very advanced technology and a thriving starship industry. The government was a little oppressive and maintained the peace with a very strict set of laws."

"That is correct, of course now it is a dead world, those numbers from thousands of years ago are meaningless garbage. Let us begin the excavation and see what we can learn of the society that once lived here."

Digging machines commence with the work, quickly uncovering what seems to be an intact robot which powers up once fully excavated...

"You are in violation of civil code 2389-7610-23. You are under arrest. Cease your activity, shut down your equipment, then lie face down with your hands on the back of your head with fingers interlocked and cross your legs. Comply immediately or I will use necessary force to subdue you until transport arrives." To emphasize its point the robot deploys two menacing looking devices and aims them at the archeologists...

boy are they going to have a long wait for that transport

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Maddog sez:

"I like random rolls - It could be with a pop of 9 people, the world is a semi-private reserve. Maybe the noble owns the planet and has decided to keep it pristine. Maybe they use it for 'fox hunts'..."

Maybe that noble could be me, What?!

I will outline further the politcal situation in the area a bit tomorrow...

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

One rather nifty idea that someone on JTAS came up with when I mentioned this thread (along with 'broken planets' in general

) was that the social side could be explained if the world was in the process of being abandoned. Right now, there's a skeleton crew dismantling the starport, and in a few years time they'll be gone and you'll end up with an E6290000 world.

Adds a nice bit of evolution and 'dynamicness' to the universe, I think.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by hunter:
And the otherway you can end up with a world with no atmosphere but with at least 50% surface liquid or ice. Any world bigger than 5 for that matter will always have some surface liquid or ice. (2-7+6=1 before mods). No big desert worlds.

True. Adding the size rather than the atmosphere always made more sense to me though, but neither is particularly realistic. Currently, adding the atmosphere as the modifer implies that there's some correlation between exotic atmospheres and liquid on the surface, which is exactly the opposite to what one might expect. I'd think it's more reasonable to correlate water with size since water coverage is partly dependant on volcanic outgassing and cometary impacts (both of which depend on mass), and partly on the surface temperature.

It's all a bit of a fudge in the CT system anyway though...

Either way you can end up with rather strange results. The referee should use the generation system as a general guideline and apply any changes they feel needed.

Sound advice for individual campaigns... but it doesn't help us to determine which system the people who made this world used - or indeed any world that's ever been described in the official canon. It makes it that much harder for us to spot which ones seem to be breaking the rules by having hydrographic values that are too high.

Though I'm slightly annoyed now I've become aware of this whopping great ambiguity hanging over part of the CT world design system - but I'm going to continue to use size as the modifier myself. I'm going to assume that Book 6 is an update of Book 3, that was subsequently carried over to the later GDW versions of the game.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
One rather nifty idea that someone on JTAS came up with when I mentioned this thread (along with 'broken planets' in general

) was that the social side could be explained if the world was in the process of being abandoned. Right now, there's a skeleton crew dismantling the starport, and in a few years time they'll be gone and you'll end up with an E6290000 world.

Adds a nice bit of evolution and 'dynamicness' to the universe, I think.

That's a great way to explain it. There is usually some way you can 'explain' certain irregular system UWPs. Though not always of course!

Hunter

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
True. Adding the size rather than the atmosphere always made more sense to me though, though neither is particularly realistic.

I lean towards Atmosphere having more effect on Hydrographics than size, but as you say either way they are both wonky.

Sound advice for individual campaigns... but it doesn't help us to determine which system the people who made this world used - or indeed any world that's ever been described in the official canon. It makes it that much harder for us to spot which ones seem to be breaking the rules by having hydrographic values that are too high.

Heh, as if that's the worst of the problems with many of the Canon UWPs...

But it's what we have to work with.

Though I'm slightly annoyed now I've become aware of this whopping great ambiguity hanging over part of the CT world design system

LOL! Yup we ran into this more than once when porting everything over. Tried to keep it as compatible as possible but choices had to be made. Good or bad, you can blame me for what appears in the THB.

None of the Physical UWP data in our setting has been changed from the original material. What we are using comes directly from Marc or other previously published sources.

- but I'm going to continue to use size as the modifier myself. I'm going to assume that Book 6 is an update of Book 3, that was subsequently carried over to the later GDW versions of the game.

It's what you're familiar with so no reason not to stick with it if it works for you.

Hunter

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

It's just funny that I didn't even know the ambiguity existed, because totally by chance I landed up exclusively using all the books that used the size modifier, and none of the books that used the atmosphere mod

.

 

[hunter]

Heh the one that got me that I had never noticed until I went to create the vehicle design system was the flaws in the Air/Raft.

A 4-ton vehicle that carries up to 4 people and...up to 4-tons of cargo.

I guess the passengers get tied to the top of the cargo when carrying a full load?

And where is the powerplant and grav system?

What I REALLY enjoyed was the look Marc gave me when I mentioned it to him

Hunter

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by hunter:
Heh the one that got me that I had never noticed until I went to create the vehicle design system was the flaws in the Air/Raft.

A 4-ton vehicle that carries up to 4 people and...up to 4-tons of cargo.

Oooh, nice one

. Though I must admit, I'm only familiar with the GT version (which I presume fixed this problem), and I don't actually understand any of the stats for that!

. All I need to know is that it's a four-seater flying car

 

[mad13142000]

The really cool thing is how the Air Raft is Orbital capable, but has no enclosure...

But I'm thinking the Water thing is just a math trick to put the bell curve in the right place - it really doesn't 'tie' the figure too much to either number...
median 7, subtract 7, then add median 7 again...
The object being to generate a random number that will almost always fall around 6-7 with 2D6...
But it is odd about book 3 having it along with T20, while book 6 through TNE has it the other way...I would have never noticed

-MADDog

-------------------------------------------------
Cordelia: "It's one thing to be dating the lame, unpopular guy, but it's another to be dating the Creature from the Blue Lagoon."

Xander: "Black Lagoon. The Creature from the Blue Lagoon was Brooke Shields."

 

[TKalbfus]

The tech level table indicates that air/rafts were invented before grav vehicles, does that mean that the first air/rafts were not grav vehicles like Mollier's proposed skycar?

 

[kaladorn]

While on the subject of hydrographic oddity....

I routinely see planets generated (using WBH or some of the other systems) that have hydrographics values listed and whose temperature worksheet reveals at no point does it get cool enough for liquid water to exist.....

That's a little distubring.

Of course, there is a certain argument that extended system generation from UWPs is 'putting the cart before the horse' and will obviously lead to some bizarre results.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
[QB] I routinely see planets generated (using WBH or some of the other systems) that have hydrographics values listed and whose temperature worksheet reveals at no point does it get cool enough for liquid water to exist.....

In which case either move the planet to a more distant orbit, or change the star type. Moving the planet is easier since that wouldn't contradict the UWP in any way (orbits aren't specified there).

 

[kaladorn]

Trying to fill out a system and discovering that the UWP you generate at stage X is really invalid considering the temp results generated at stage X+57
is more than slightly annoying.

You can move the planet... please return to step X and repeat the calculations..... <mucho work>

Or you can (if it isn't a mainworld) amend the UWP.

I can concede (slightly) a hyd > 0 if it is too cold.... that's explicable as ice. Too hot.... haven't found a passable explanation unless subsurface lakes or rivers somehow count, and if the hyd is high, that means subsurface SEAS.

Tomb.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
[QB] Trying to fill out a system and discovering that the UWP you generate at stage X is really invalid considering the temp results generated at stage X+57
is more than slightly annoying.

You can move the planet... please return to step X and repeat the calculations..... <mucho work>

Not necessarily, don't forget you have a fair bit of wiggle room in the albedo/energy absorption and greenhouse effects. if it's too hot, try ramping down the greenhouse value to as low as it can get for that atmosphere type, or decreasing the energy absorption (if you're using WBH).

Like I said, if you make enough systems you eventually get a feel for what the temperatures are going to be like in each orbit. IIRC the temperature equation in WBH was T = LOEG, right? So calculate this for the innermost orbits, using E and G for a standard atmosphere/habitable planet and a barren vacuum world. That should give you some idea straight away what the temperatures would be there.

 

[mad13142000]

Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
IIRC the temperature equation in WBH was T = LOEG, right?

Yes sir, you are correct. Although its is one of 15 steps in determining the atmosphere.
T= World's base mean temperature in degrees Kelvin
L= Luminosity of the central star
O= Orbital factor for world
E= Energy adsorbtion factor for world (based off how thick the atmosphere is and hydro %)
G= Greenhouse effect for world

For example: A world around a class F5V star gives L= 1.37...It is the 4th planet - O= 295.693... The world has UWP XX23XXX-X, so E= .767...and G= 1.00... Giving the planet a mean temp of 310.7 K or (subtracting 273 to convert to Celsius) 37.7 degrees C...
With the mean temp, the WBH goes on to account for Rotation, Axial Tilt, and even multi-star system effects. Then you get to build a table with Latitude Effects...So, say Hex Row 5 (using standard hexmapping of the planet) would give a high and low temp along with the base...For example: 2 degrees base, high of 20, low of -25

It's pretty cool, but H&E does do it faster than I can by hand...
-MADDog

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by MADDog:
For example: A world around a class F5V star gives L= 1.37...It is the 4th planet - O= 295.693... The world has UWP XX23XXX-X, so E= .767...and G= 1.00... Giving the planet a mean temp of 310.7 K or (subtracting 273 to convert to Celsius) 37.7 degrees C...

Was that an example of a world you were having trouble with? Hrm. The '23' atm/hyd combo there plus the temperature is a bit odd. If the pressure's low, water can't exist on the surface. But if the temperature's between 0 and 100 then it can't exist as ice. I'd guess it'd want to sublimate instead and exist as water vapour. Though are the poles cold enough to allow the temperature to drop below freezing? If so, you can have ice caps. Otherwise, I'd say the hydrographics there would have to be in liquid form under the surface if they're to exist anywhere - if that can't work then just say the hydrographics percentage is zero, because there's no other way for it to exist.

It's pretty cool, but H&E does do it faster than I can by hand...

I have WBH, and it was a pretty good book, though the temperature calculation is actually fairly wonky. GT: First In is by far and away the most realistic SF RPG world generator out there - the calculations are all realistic there.

Assuming your world is at 1.6 AU from the star, then according to FI it should have a blackbody temperature of 287 K. Taking into account the feeble greenhouse effect and the albedo, it should have a final temperature of about 282 K (9 C) at hex rows 4-5. That's rather colder than your temperature of 37.7 C! Though FI does use different stellar luminosities. In fact, WBH uses the fourth roots of the luminosities stated in CT Book 6, and the latter are in the right ballpark.

The WBH temp calculation is a bit screwy since it uses the fourth root of the luminosities, the Orbit Factor (an indeterminate fudge factor, determined by [O = 374.025/(square root of orbital distance in AU)] ), and directly applies the energy absorption and greenhouse effect. It's not particularly accurate, whereas First In's is very accurate

.

 

[Spinward Scout]

The world could be an Ancient Artifact. And the little population a remnant of a research team that got left there. They made it a home, started a family, etc... Well, it's plausable enough, right?

Later,

Scout

 

[mad13142000]

Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
Was that an example of a world you were having trouble with?

Nope, its the sample from WBH...

GT: First In is by far and away the most realistic SF RPG world generator out there - the calculations are all realistic there.

Yeah...IF YOU CAN FIND IT....

Assuming your world is at 1.6 AU from the star, then according to FI it should have a blackbody temperature of 287 K. Taking into account the feeble greenhouse effect and the albedo, it should have a final temperature of about 282 K (9 C) at hex rows 4-5. That's rather colder than your temperature of 37.7 C!

nope, right in line with what I said...
Hex 5: base temp 2 degrees, high of 20, low of -25

The WBH temp calculation is a bit screwy...

Yeah, but obviously not as screwy as the JTAS BBS...

-MADDog

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by MADDog:
GT: First In is by far and away the most realistic SF RPG world generator out there - the calculations are all realistic there.
Yeah...IF YOU CAN FIND IT....

http://e23.sjgames.com

It's not up and running yet, and I have no idea when it will be, but that bodes rather well for finding OOP GURPS books (including GT books)...

Assuming your world is at 1.6 AU from the star, then according to FI it should have a blackbody temperature of 287 K. Taking into account the feeble greenhouse effect and the albedo, it should have a final temperature of about 282 K (9 C) at hex rows 4-5. That's rather colder than your temperature of 37.7 C!

nope, right in line with what I said...
Hex 5: base temp 2 degrees, high of 20, low of -25

So it is. Though the base temperatures are rather different.

The WBH temp calculation is a bit screwy...

Yeah, but obviously not as screwy as the JTAS BBS...
[/QUOTE]

Meh. They'll fix it eventually, so long as .delphi doesn't go down, I'll survive