Ay-Tee-You

[Supplement Four]

One of the interesting aspects of the OTU is that Known Space is dense with population in almost every system! The system itself may not be dense with colonists or indigs, but there is almost always one world in every system that is settled and populated.

This about the ramifications: MOST of the people in the Traveller universe (not just in the Imperium--in all of Known Space) do not spend their lives on a world that can support human life.

MOST have one factor or the other that precludes the existence of an earth-like world, whether that be temperature, atmosphere.

That means, MOST people in the Traveller universe are not like us. They don't know what it's like to feel the sun on their skin, a real breeze move through the air, to have vast, open spaces to move around and discover.

MOST people in the Traveller universe are used to living inside.

Even if you place a world in the habitable zone when creating a system, by the time you go through extended world creation, there's usually some factor that makes an earth-like environment impossible.





That makes you wonder, why? Doesn't it? I know it makes me scratch my noggin. Obviously, its easier to enclose and house people, having their food delivered instead of grown, their air recycled, and have temperature controlled than it is to go farther to the next truly earth-like world.

In science fiction, there are all kinds of "universes". Where Traveller's universe happens to be dense, with at least one world in almost every parsec populated with people, the Firefly universe is set all on one solar system (from what I've heard). Then, there's universes like that for Dune and the original Battlestar Galactica that sets the "universe" in multiple galaxies. Star Trek and Star Wars use many worlds--mostly human capatible--spread out in just one galaxy.




What if...

What if you set up an ATU where making Known Space as dense with populations as the OTU would be commerically and practically improbably?

I'm talking about only using the worlds that can support human life. As must happen in the Alien, Star Trek, and Star Wars universes, there are several star systems that simply are not colonized because no world in the system will support human life.

If you set up an ATU like this, you'd have to do something with the J-Drive. It would have to run on different fuel, or the quanties used to go into and out of jump would be greatly reduced.

Or, you'd have to change the length of distance possible by jump-capable craft, because, with the official rules, it would take years, in a lot of cases, to reach the next destination.





The universe may resemble the Aliens universe. I think an ATU like this would be interesting.

1. You'd use the normal system/subsector/sector creation rules.

2. You'd have to change the length of jump by removing the 6 pasec limit. Once you're in jump, you stay in jump until programmed to leave.

3. Because it still takes a week to travel one parsec or six, depending on the drive, Travellers are going to use the Aliens model by making use of the lowbert while in-between worlds.

4. Low berth technology would have to have a higher survival rate than what is shown in the official CT rules.





Generate a sector, and then start looking for the worlds that can support human life. Those are the only planets that can be colonized. We'll throw in a gas giant moon or frozen world with no atmosphere here and there just to keep the landscape lively.

Mark I Jump Drives take one week to cover one parsec. So, if there is to be a jump between worlds that are three subesctors away from each other, one would count the number of hexes, and that would reveal the number of week required for the trip in lowberth.

A Mark VI Jump Drive could make the exact same jump in 1/6th of the time--still most likelyu requiring the PC to submit to lowberth to get anywhere.



This would be an interesting ATU to build, wouldn't it? I think it would.

 

[Cryton]

LOL! Oddly enough I am working on something similar already, only I am using the MgT variant Warp Drive for my FTL drive system (pg109 of the core rulebook) as it makes both the range and fuel requirements easy to overcome without having to resort to cold-berthing the crew.

I'm also using a more "realistic" hard sci-fi world generation system developed by Aramis for generating the worlds. It generates less 'strange' habitable worlds.

So far things are coming along nicely, despite a few snags.

 

[Supplement Four]

I just did a quick count (and I could be off since my count was quick) and found 205 parsecs between Terra, in the Solomani Rim, and Vanejen, in the Spinward Marches--two worlds that can sustain life under somewhat "earth-like" conditions.

A ship would leave Terra and make Jump Space. Fuel requirements are the same as in the vanilla game. All we're changing is the limit of the jump. We'll allow a ship to stay in jump for as long as it wants to (it will always travel in a straight line?).

The Mark I drives cover 1 parsec per week. The Mark II's, cover 2 per week. Etc.

Oh...yeah...and lowberth has got to be more reliable then what's shown in the Traveller Book.





A vessel with a Mark I drive will take 205 weeks to travel from Terra to Vanejen. Wow! That's over 4 years!

Most civilian craft have either Mark I or Mark II drives. A Mark II equipped vessel could make the trip, one way, in half the time--2 years!

Commerical concerns operate Mark III (an occassionaly, Mark IV) drives. So, the 205 parsec trip would take the Mark III vessel could make the trip in a year and three months.

The Nostromo would have a Mark III drive.

Military vessles have Mark IV, Mark V, and Mark VI drives, though you'll probably never see a Mark VI drive. Those are top secret.

The Sulaco would have a Mark V drive. If would make the trip in 9.5 months.




Relativity

We know speed. We know distance. We could figure how much time passes on Earth as the Sulaco takes nine and a half months (their time) out to Vanejen.

I'm not sure the forumla. I'm sure some of you smart citizens do.

If the Sulaco left Terra for Vanejen, taking 9.5 months to get there, spending a week at Vanegjen, then another 9.5 months to get back, how much time would have elapsed on Earth when they return?

 

[Colin]

With an FTL drive, relativity doesn't really come into play. The formulas for time-dilation are for as you approach the speed of light. So any sort of time-dilation effects would be what you wanted them to be. Given the travel times, I would suggest no weird time effects, or maybe time goes faster in the outside universe.

Base it on the drive type, if you want. Something like for a Mk V drive, it takes 9.5 months to go Vanejan, but the time elapsed on Earth is only 50% of that time (4.75 months).

 

[rancke]

One of the interesting aspects of the OTU is that Known Space...

Charted Space. Known Space is what Larry Niven writes about.

This about the ramifications: MOST of the people in the Traveller universe (not just in the Imperium--in all of Known Space) do not spend their lives on a world that can support human life.

Due to the biggest flaw in the world generation system: The total lack of correlation between physical characteristics of the world and its population. IMO this is a bug, not a feature.

That means, MOST people in the Traveller universe are not like us. They don't know what it's like to feel the sun on their skin, a real breeze move through the air, to have vast, open spaces to move around and discover.

Some of the worlds I've written up have vast environmental domes that cover all kinds of artificial landscapes.

Even if you place a world in the habitable zone when creating a system, by the time you go through extended world creation, there's usually some factor that makes an earth-like environment impossible.

What sort of extended world creation? A fair number of Traveller worlds have breathable atmospheres; some are Terran-prime, and some of them are Terran-norm.

That makes you wonder, why? Doesn't it?

Not really. World generation throws up a number of worlds capable of sustaining life without too much technology. The big mystery is why the exact same percentages of each class of habitability has the same population sizes. And the answer, I feel, is that it makes no sense at all.


Hans

 

[aramis]

My system needs a couple tweaks in stellar size distribution. It just adjusts the core MGT system to extended gen. I need to fix the stellar sizes table.

 

[dean]

I think the fact the humans have lived equally successfully in the middle of the Sahara and above the Arctic Circle (Say Hi! Aramis), shoots a hole in your theory.

Humans will live and settle where ever they can get a foothold. Hospitable or not.

Personally, I like the approach CJ Cherry uses in her "the Beyond" setting (the Company Wars) where there's really only one habitable world besides Earth (Pell - well, two if you count Gehenna, but that's later), one world in the process of being terraformed (Cyteen), and a bunch of folks eeking out a living on stations and mining the belt.

CrImp .02

 

[Supplement Four]

IMO this is a bug, not a feature.

I'd call it a feature. Space Opera neatness.

Some of the worlds I've written up have vast environmental domes that cover all kinds of artificial landscapes.

Makes sense.

What sort of extended world creation? A fair number of Traveller worlds have breathable atmospheres; some are Terran-prime, and some of them are Terran-norm.

Pull out the Spindward Marches and start counting. Not that many worlds capable of supporting human life unaided relative to all total worlds.

The extended world creation I refer to are the systems (Book 6 and DGP's books) that create temperature templates.

 

[Cryton]

My system needs a couple tweaks in stellar size distribution. It just adjusts the core MGT system to extended gen. I need to fix the stellar sizes table.

Please do! I've got my Astronomy texts to dig through if you want some assistance as well.

 

[Supplement Four]

I think the fact the humans have lived equally successfully in the middle of the Sahara and above the Arctic Circle (Say Hi! Aramis), shoots a hole in your theory.

What theory? I'm just speculating about an ATU. Notice the name of the thread.

And, the Arctic Circle, as cold and unhospitable as it is (not too many humans living there) is nothing compared to what lies out in space. -800 degrees is damn cold. Ever read Haldeman's The Forever War?

Personally, I like the approach CJ Cherry uses in her "the Beyond" setting (the Company Wars) where there's really only one habitable world besides Earth (Pell - well, two if you count Gehenna, but that's later), one world in the process of being terraformed (Cyteen), and a bunch of folks eeking out a living on stations and mining the belt.

I've got a couple of her books, though haven't read them yet. One of these days, I'll dig into them. They look good.

 

[aramis]

I think the fact the humans have lived equally successfully in the middle of the Sahara and above the Arctic Circle (Say Hi! Aramis), shoots a hole in your theory.

I've never actually crossed the Arctic Circle. Nor the Antarctic. But I do know people who have.

I also know guys who have spent weeks in a can under the ocean... and not all of them in the Navy (Here's to Slime-Ron! Squidliest Civvie I know. Underwater Welding Inspector... and self-proclaimed slimeball).

I also know a guy who spent a year in Umiat. Population 2, and when he left, it dropped to 1. Umiat was also way off the grid. Sat-com, airfield, 4 vehicles, handful of buildings, and stupidly cold in the winter. NA NI Lo. And just south of the Arctic Circle.

I've also met a guy who was stationed at McMurdo. Met him through the SCA. (Saw him in photos from McMurdo after I met him. Asked him about it...)

People can and will live in the damnedest places. We're as bad as cockroaches.

@S4: I'd keep the normal limits on jump, and just reduce the fuel use to Jn% per jump, and autmatic jumps in sequence... if only to prevent the rare 1 parsec from being only a day, and jupiter a minute...

 

[Supplement Four]

With an FTL drive, relativity doesn't really come into play. The formulas for time-dilation are for as you approach the speed of light.

In the Aliens, Ripley returns to earth 50 years after the first film. It is stated that she drifted out in space before being found for much of (all of?) that time, but I always wondered if time dilation was considered.

Of course, you're right, with a game, and FTL travel, it's just plain easier to forget about time dilation.

 

[Supplement Four]

I also know a guy who spent a year in Umiat. Population 2, and when he left, it dropped to 1. Umiat was also way off the grid. Sat-com, airfield, 4 vehicles, handful of buildings, and stupidly cold in the winter. NA NI Lo. And just south of the Arctic Circle.

Did they find the alien spacecraft from The Thing?

 

[rancke]

Pull out the Spindward Marches and start counting. Not that many worlds capable of supporting human life unaided relative to all total worlds.

That depends on what you mean by unaided. There are many places on Earth that won't sustain human life completely unaided. For instance, the Traveller rules about what it takes for a world to be Terran-prime or Terran-norm ignores the difference between tainted and untainted atmospheres, so it would seem that filter masks doesn't count.

Be that as it may, I'm not going to go through all 400 worlds in the Spinward Marches, but just looking at Regina Subsector, 21 out of 32 worlds have breathable atmospheres.

The extended world creation I refer to are the systems (Book 6 and DGP's books) that create temperature templates.

Temperature is not a problem. You just fiddle with the luminescence or the orbital radius or the albedo until you get a suitable temperature range.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

Temperature is not a problem. You just fiddle with the luminescence or the orbital radius or the albedo until you get a suitable temperature range.

Heh I thought I was the only one who did that

Of course my first step is CT LBB old school, I make the mainworld in the habitable band where it should always be if it's at all habitable UWP wise, not orbiting some distant gas giant

 

[Supplement Four]

Temperature is not a problem. You just fiddle with the luminescence or the orbital radius or the albedo until you get a suitable temperature range.

Sure, you can "fiddle" with anything and get it to where you want. Instead of rolling a die, you pick a number. Cheat here. Tweak there.

Doing it that way, though, why even use the system? Why not just use your GM judgement and call it as you want it? No use working through the numbers.

Follow the process as written, though, and temperature is an issue a lot of times.

 

[Supplement Four]

With an FTL drive, relativity doesn't really come into play. The formulas for time-dilation are for as you approach the speed of light. So any sort of time-dilation effects would be what you wanted them to be. Given the travel times, I would suggest no weird time effects, or maybe time goes faster in the outside universe.

In the Aliens, Ripley returns to earth 50 years after the first film. It is stated that she drifted out in space before being found for much of (all of?) that time, but I always wondered if time dilation was considered.

Curious, so I dug out my trusty Aliens Technical Manual. It says:

The problem with the tachyon shunt is the way it screws around with conventional physics. Given that your mass and gravitational constant at supralight fluctuate with speed, so does the relative flow of time. Instead of the time dilation experienced at high sublight velocities, the occupants of vessels in hyperdrive flight suffer the effects of time expansion, a phenomena which is directly proportional to the square of the speed. This places a practical limit to the maximum speed you can travel at before subjective journey times become untenable; it also makes starships ever more reliant on hypersleep freezers to prevent excessive crew aging."


That's kinda nifty. So, the reason for the lowberths really isn't the long journey so much as it is the effects of traveling at supralight speed. That "excessive aging" part is interesting.



Just how does the FTL on the Sulaco work?

...hyperdrive tachyon shunt is used to accelerate the vessel through the light barrier. The hyperdrive initiates tachyon quantum jumps by creating an intense virtual mass field while at sublight velocity. As the mass field expands to supercritical levels approaching infinity, a sub-quantum transition to a tachyonic state takes place, and the mass of the starship is converted into mirror image tachyons of the same energy. In a tachyonic state, the vessel can travel no slower than the speed of light whilst remaining in real space. Speed is controlled by altering the energy state and mass of the ship--shedding mass will speed the ship, whilst increasing mass will slow it. Hyperdrive field density and the intensity of the virtual mass field is controlled from a bank of...tachyon field accelerators.

For regular operations, the system is capable of sustaining high cruising speed of 0.74 light years per sidereal day.


That's some cool mumbo-jumbo. So, on the molecular level, the mass of the ship is actually changed*. Einstein remains correct. And, the ship travels FTL.

Cool beans.





*This must mean that everything on the ship is changed, too, including the people, even if they are in hypersleep. But, since the ship uses the same system for sublight speeds, there is no noticable difference between states to the people aboard.

Fascinating.





EDIT: In the Aliens RPG, the designers seem to have stolen from Traveller and 2300. A ship has a powerplant and two main drives: The Displacement Drive (which is akin to the M-Drive) and the Jump Drive.

The Displacement Drive is taken from 2300 (IIRC, it's been a long, long time since I've read that game). The drive displaces space immediately in front of the ship, and this naturally draws the ship into it. (Isn't this akin to stutterwarp?). Power is the restricting element, so ships capable of faster speed require bigger and bigger power plants. (If one were using the Classic Traveller rules to create these vessels, I'd simply consider the fuel tank space as required space for the powerplant).

This drive rarely accelerates the ship faster than 1/3 the speed of light.

The second drive, the Jump Drive, seems to be copied straight from CT. Similar to my idea in the OP, the Jump number represents 5 light years. So, a Jump-1 vessel travels 5 ly per jump. A Jump-2 vessel travels 10 ly per jump. And, so on.

The Jump Drive cannot be activated unless the ship is traveling at least 1/5 the speed of light. The J-Drive draws it's power from the PowerPlant/Displacement Drive.

Each jump takes one day, but upon arrival, a ship requires 6 days to recharge. So, like Traveller a jump really takes one week. Unlike Traveller, most of that time is spent in normal space after the jump with the drive "recharging". Unlike the description above from the Colonial Marine Guide, (and like Traveller), the ship acutally breaks into jump space (but the book doesn't really go into detail how this works).

In the third post above, my Sulaco with the Mark IV drive made the trip from Terra to Vanejen in 9.5 months. The Sulaco in the Aliens RPG, with its Jump-4 drive, can cover 20 ly in a week. The trip woud take that vessel almost 8 months to complete. Hey! Look at that! The two systems are fairly close!

 

[rancke]

Sure, you can "fiddle" with anything and get it to where you want. Instead of rolling a die, you pick a number. Cheat here. Tweak there.

Doing it that way, though, why even use the system? Why not just use your GM judgement and call it as you want it? No use working through the numbers.

Random generation is a good servant but a lousy master. Use it as a springboard for your imagination and you can get a wonderful, useful collection of worlds with lots of features you wouldn't've thought of on your own. Use it as a straight-jacket for your imagination and you get a collection of silly, self-contradictory worlds with silly, belief-breaking explanations or no explanations at all, like Pixie.

And that's goes double for the tacked-on addition to the system that assigns star types to a world without any consideration to the fact that the basic system already established that the world was habitable before the star was determined, leading to such silliness as habitable worlds orbiting outside the habitable zone around M-class stars (Because orbit 0 around M-class stars is already in the outer zone).


Hans

 

[atpollard]

Pull out the Spindward Marches and start counting. Not that many worlds capable of supporting human life unaided relative to all total worlds.

The extended world creation I refer to are the systems (Book 6 and DGP's books) that create temperature templates.

What about minor terraforming?
It seems within reach of current technology to alter some of the basic stats of a world:

change the surface reflectivity through color (a thin coating of aluminum foil over dark rock to cool the world or tar sprayed over ice to warm the world).

change hydrographics (bombardment with water-ice asteroids)

change atmospheric composition (simple chemical processes to release or sequester elements, or engineered microbes to perform similar tasks).

My point/question is "How many of those 'advanced worldgen' disqualifiers are within man's power to alter with modern or near future technology?"

 

[Supplement Four]

Use it as a straight-jacket for your imagination and you get a collection of silly, self-contradictory worlds with silly, belief-breaking explanations or no explanations at all, like Pixie.

See, the difference, though, is that I embrace those peculiarities and don't find them unbelievable or unexplainable. Nature, buy itself, is sometimes not logical (until you dig farther to understand).

Those interesting situations that are created are a joy of the system.