Brainstorming Boughene/Regina (SM 1904)

[Grav_Moped]

Something to consider ...

1. Jump-2 or 3 subsidized starship options:
   • LBB2.81 p19 ... Type-R 600 ton Subsidized Liner
     TL=11, Jump-3, Maneuver-1, Power Plant-3
     Passengers=21, Low=20, 129 tons cargo, 9 crew, MCr 236.97 in volume
   • Rift Courier ... Type-AF 198 tons
     TL=12, Jump-3, Maneuver-2, Power Plant-3
     Passengers=0, Low=0, 65 tons cargo, 2 crew, MCr 89.0704 in volume
   • Rift X-Courier ... Type-AF 194 tons
     TL=11, Jump-2, Maneuver-2, Power Plant-2
     Passengers=0, Low=0, 85 tons cargo, 2 crew, MCr 74.1984 in volume
2. Uakye Transport Partners based out of Uakye on the Efate to Regina circuit.
3. Map of star systems within 6 parsecs of Boughene:
   
   
4. Starport types A+B in Imperial space within 2 jumps of Boughene:
   1. Efate (population: 9)
   2. Alell (population: 8)
   3. Yres (population: 7)
   4. Uakye (population: 5)
   5. Pixie (population: 1)
   6. Boughene (population: 5)
   7. Feri (population: 8)
   8. Kinorb (population: 6)
   9. Heya (population: 7)

---

So here's my idea.

Oligarchs at Boughene set up a Fledgling Line subsidized out of Boughene which is intended for cargo transport between the 9 star systems enumerated above (Efate through Heya) and operate in partnership with Uakye Transport Partners based out of Uakye. Since the Uakye Transport Partners are wanting to corner the market on the coreward/rimward trade volume between Efate and Regina, the Boughene company would be attempting to cover the coreward end of the Regina subsector, with the only overlap between the two companies at Efate, Uakye and Feri. Such an arrangement would allow for better transshipment opportunities from the Kinorb cluster towards Regina without putting the two companies in direct competition with each other (thereby allowing them to become partners of convenience).

With the exception of Pixie (population: 1), all of the other star systems support population codes between 5-9, which is sufficient to make a subsidized merchant route a reasonable proposition in terms of potential passenger and cargo quantities.

Efate, Alell and Feri are the population: 8-9 worlds ... while Yres, Kinorb and Heya are the population: 6-7 worlds.
Uakye and Boughene are population: 5 worlds ... and Pixie is the outlier as a population: 1 world (and usually not worth the jump transit).



In terms of jump capacity, you really only need Jump-3 to reach the Kinorb Cluster from Boughene, which in this instance winds up being Kinorb and Heya, only with Heya being 2 jumps away from Boughene. All of the other 7 star systems are within range by Jump-2 from Boughene, with only Alell being 2 jumps away from Boughene.

What this means, in terms of starships to subsidize, is that a mix of J3 Rift Couriers for the Boughene-Kinorb-Heya runs would be the preferred type, while J2 Rift X-Couriers are put to use servicing Efate-Alell-Yres-Uakye-Boughene-Feri end of the subsidy region. The rationale for doing so would be that for the price of a single J3 Type-R 600 ton Subsidized Liner (MCr 236.97 in volume production) the shipyard at Boughene would be able to construct 2x Rift X-Couriers (MCr 74.1984 each in volume) plus 1x Rift Courier (MCr 89.0704 in volume) for a total construction price of MCr 237.4672 for three starships(!) instead of MCr 236.97 for only one starship (a difference of less than 1% between the two options).



A single Type-R 600 ton Subsidized Liner devotes 84 tons to passenger staterooms, 10 tons to low berths and 129 tons to cargo capacity (total 223 tons revenue generating tons displacement) but has no fuel purification plant (so refined fuel costs at starports will be an overhead expense) and requires 9 crew.

2x 194 ton J2 Rift X-Couriers plus 1x 198 ton J3 Rift Courier devote 225 tons to cargo capacity between all three starships, which all have fuel purification plants for wilderness refueling, and require 6 crew between all three starships (unless the cargo bay is retrofitted for passenger staterooms/low berths, in which case the crew complement needs to increase).



So, basically, for almost the exact same construction cost (and annual overhaul maintenance cost) and almost the same total displacement tonnage (a 14 ton difference), the Rift X-Couriers plus Rift Courier combination allows for a better distribution of transport capacity "to where it is needed" while having lower operating costs for both crews (which are smaller and thus less expensive in salary and life support overhead) and fuel expenses (routine wilderness refueling rather than starport fuel purchases). With the ships "dispersed" to spread their capacity to different star systems (helping to ensure they are always running with full manifests!) a broader flow of trade can be established to flow into and through Boughene in a more distributed networking fashion. Additionally, since each of the Courier ships can be fitted with Mail Vaults to carry Mail Cargo to star systems off the Express Boat Network routes, offering communications services that do not rely upon the IISS and (infrequent?) visits by Scout/Couriers for interstellar courier services. And since there would be "three starships for the price of one" all going in different directions, the flow of Mail Cargo to other star systems would also be higher and more "revenue dense" than the alternative of a single Type-R Subsidized Liner providing the same services as an "all in one hull" option that can only be in one place at one time (instead of three different places at the same time).

Such an arrangement of subsidy operations funded by a Boughene oligarch patron (or a group of them together) would help increase Boughene's influence and "soft power" through an economic hegemony with Boughene's neighbors, and with the Mail Cargo option in the 2x J2 plus 1x J3 Courier starships would help cement Boughene's role as both an economic and diplomatic intermediary with influence across a lot of the coreward end of the Regina subsector. Partner up in a symbiotic relationship with Uakye Transport Partners based out of Uakye and that influence could even extend by secondhand means between Efate and Regina, helping to strengthen the ties that bind all of the Regina subsector together with the capital on the border of the Lanth subsector.



Not too shabby of an idea ... even if I do say so myself.

Though to be honest, it's easy to monopolize freight on a J-1 main. Build a fleet of 2000Td J-1 freighters, commit to a hard (though not frequent) schedule, and underbid everyone on non-time-sensitive freight. Use the revenue to cross-subsidize Type Rs to fill in the schedule gaps for cargoes that can't wait for the next big freighter, to crowd out the free traders.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Though to be honest, it's easy to monopolize freight on a J-1 main. Build a fleet of 2000Td J-1 freighters, commit to a hard (though not frequent) schedule, and underbid everyone on non-time-sensitive freight.

Aye ... except there's never a J-1 Main like that around when you need one.

This is why I provided the map to highlight the fact that such a notion wasn't an option ... except for serving Yres, Menorb, Boughene (and there's no point in sending a 2000 ton J-1 freighter to Pixie).

 

[Grav_Moped]

That's sort of my point: Rules as written, there's no point in trying to monopolize a J-2+ route since there's no profit in it at Cr1000/Td/Jump even if you get all of the freight traffic. On the other hand, there are monopoly rents that can be extracted on a J-1 route so it's worth engaging in anti-competitive tactics to do so.

J-2+ has to work on some other basis than Cr1000/Td/Jump unless there's an external subsidy of some sort. Maybe not straight-up per-parsec, but more than a flat per-jump rate. But then you're into house rules (which may be an improvement!)

 

[Condottiere]

You monopolize with state subsides, and make it uneconomical for competitors.

It helps, if the subsidies also support some other aspect of the economy.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Maybe not straight-up per-parsec, but more than a flat per-jump rate.

I prefer the flat rate, myself, because it automatically "sorts" cargoes by desired destination from source.

Let's say, just for the sake of argument that there are 2 starships heading from Boughene to Yres, a distance of 2 parsecs.

One ship is Jump-1 and the other is Jump-2.

1. The Jump-1 ship will need to jump to Menorb (or Pixie) first before jumping to Yres.
2. A company agent wanting to book shipment to Yres would need to purchase cargo space for their goods being shipped to Yres.
3. The cost of that booking would still be Cr 1000 per ton from Boughene to Yres, but would occupy cargo tonnage that could not be swapped out for a new shipment at Menorb (or Pixie) and thus represent a potential "loss" of revenue for the starship (single payment for 2 jumps, not two payments for 2 jumps).
4. Since the transit would require 2 jumps (functionally 3-3.5 weeks in trading time) so the delivery delay may be of concern to the company wanting to book the cargo for transport.

In other words, the Jump-1 ship is "not competitive" from the cargo booker's point of view, nor from the starship captain's point of view.

1. The Jump-2 ship will make a single jump from Menorb to Yres.
2. A company agent wanting to book shipment to Yres would need to purchase cargo space for their goods being shipped to Yres.
3. The cost of that booking would still be Cr 1000 per ton from Boughene to Yres.
4. The transit would require 1 jump (functionally 1-1.5 weeks in trading time) which is a minimal delivery delay for the company wanting to book the cargo for transport.

In other words, the Jump-2 ship is the "best fit" from the cargo booker's point of view and from the starship captain's point of view.

So a kind of "self sorting" happens upstream of the starship opening their cargo hold for bookings.
The company wanting to ship from Boughene to Yres declines to book on the Jump-1 starships in preference for booking on the Jump-2 starships instead. In other words, the "market" for transporting cargo to different places is not nearly as fungible as it might at appear at first blush. This in turn means that starships with different jump capacities work in different market segments and essentially aren't competing to transport the same cargoes.

Or to put it another way ... Jump-1 merchants have trouble competing for 2 parsec cargo transport against Jump-2 merchants ... such that the 2 parsec cargoes are rarely offered to the Jump-1 merchant starships because they're often times "too slow to deliver" (or whatever).

This is where astrogation on the map (where the stars are) and the merits of navigation come into play. If you've got a Jump-1 starship working a Jump-1 Main, you're very limited in where you can go next from where you are. But if you've got a Jump-2 starship, the range of possible destinations widens out DRAMATICALLY, allowing a merchant to "pick and choose" where to go next in tramp freighter fashion (which can wind up being more lucrative in the speculative cargo trade where the REAL money is to be made!).

Take a look at the Boughene map again.

A Jump-1 merchant ship can only reach Menorb and Pixie from Boughene (2 systems) in a single jump.
A Jump-2 merchant ship can reach Efate, Yres, Menorb, Uakye, Pixie and Feri from Boughene (6 systems) in a single jump.
A Jump-3 merchant ship can reach Louzy, Efate, Alell (Amber), Yres, Menorb, Uakye, Whanga, Pixie, Feri, Psicias (Red), Kinorb, Beck's World (Amber) and Enope from Boughene (13 systems) in a single jump.

That wider range of destinations as jump capacity increases helps with speculative cargo profits because the more places you can reach in a single jump the more markets you have available to you for maximum arbitrage profits (buy low/sell high) to finance your starship and support your business.

The "real" profits to be made in interstellar shipping aren't to be found in cargo transport (Cr 1000 per ton) nor in passenger services (net Cr ~1500 to 1800 per ton), but rather in speculative cargoes which can net kilocredits to megacredits per ton when you're able to "link up" the correct markets to each other as quickly as possible.

In other words ... as jump capacity goes up, the lucrative potential of "tramp" freight operations increases due to the wider options available for destinations.

So "absent a map" to work with, in an "all other factors are equal" on an accounting spreadsheet ... Jump-1 bulk cargo freighters may seem like the best/most profitable option ... until you "take them out of the lab" and need to put them to work out in "real space/real markets" in which they need to compete for real cargoes, at which point the "wild card potential" of speculative cargoes starts to outweigh the predictable bulk cargo advantages, with higher jump capacity starships capable of realizing those speculative cargo profits more often/more routinely simply due to the sheer variety of markets they can access in a single jump, optimizing their arbitrage potential of buy low/sell high.

That increase in "options of where to go next" has a ... value ... which is exceedingly difficult to calculate in any "sterile" spreadsheet analysis in which there are no variables other than passenger and cargo capacity to deal with.



Also, if hull code: 1 with 2 crew just "isn't your style" as a merchant prince in the form of a TL=11 194 ton J2 Rift X-Courier (MCr 74.1984, 85 tons capacity) or a TL=12 198 ton J3 Rift Courier (MCr 89.0704, 65 tons capacity), both of which can reach the Jewell Cluster with a reduced cargo capacity for a double jump to Lysen/Jewell from Louzy, Efate or Alell ... ... might I offer the TL=11 320 ton J2 Great Rift Jumper (MCr 157.3776, 136 ton cargo capacity) or the TL=12 320 ton J3 Great Rift Pouncer (MCr 167.6016, 104 ton cargo capacity) as potential higher capacity (at higher cost) alternatives that could be built by Imperial shipyards to Imperial technology specifications in order to meet the needs of Boughene to import/export their goods/services and spread their influence over the coreward end of the Regina subsector through a subsidized shipping company?

I could easily make the case that TL=11-12 starship designs that are CENTURIES old and have been in continuous use for centuries are hardly a "state secret" of any kind, if it will help ...

 

[Grav_Moped]

I disagree that different Jump Numbers constitute different markets. The commodity involved is "transport cargo to a distance of X parsecs". Some cargo will have a significant time premium attached (perishables, fast fashion goods, passengers, and cases where the cargo will satisfy the world's demand for that good indefinitely) but most won't.

This would tend to result in large slow ships (bulk cargo) and small fast ones of precisely the required Jn (priority cargo). The thing is, under CT, the "large slow ships" optimize around 2000Td for J1, and 1000Td for J2 unless you can get the TL-15 drives (W-Z), in which case they're a bit larger and higher Jns become inexpensive in high capacities.

The breakdown in the freight rules its that they (mostly) optimize for J-1 ships with 200Td cargo holds, while the ship design rules optimize on ships with larger cargo holds than that. At the time, it worked well enough for the intended purpose: a plausible mechanic for providing cargo for PC-level ships.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Just between you, me and the Boughene oligarchy ... there might be an opportunity for a 400 ton TL=11-13 series of J2-4 merchant ships based on my prior research efforts in the hull code: 1-3 grouping (Spinward Courier, Rift Courier, Great Rift Stalker) that might settle into an interesting niche product. Might be worth a looksee and a bit of fiddling around with to check on potentials.



Oh and speaking of the Boughene oligarchy, that could potentially be one other factor going for the system's government from an economic draw perspective. Both Efate and Boughene are self-perpetuating oligarchies, both have TL=13 and type A starports ... but Efate is law level: 0 while Boughene is law level: 1. By contrast, Uakye is an impersonal bureaucracy with TL=13 and a type B starport as well as law level: 8. Pixie is basically a prison ship, an automated TL=13 type A starport used by the Imperial Navy, has no government to speak of, a law level: 3 and a population of next to nothing.

So Efate, Pixie and Boughene are the highest technology type A starports in the Regina subsector, but only Efate and Boughene will have a "sufficiently stable" government structure to work with that will be relatively "permissive" in matters of domestic law. However, Boughene has a minimalist body of laws to work with (making legal requirements simple) while Efate effectively has no laws that are binding in a lot of areas, which isn't necessarily the most stable of systems for economics to work with. So if the sparsity of laws "on the books" is a problem for your business being based out of Efate, Boughene becomes a rather attractive high tech alternative for financial and corporate services in terms of interstellar basing (for tax purposes, of course).

Could explain why General Products still has offices there, rather than moving their HQ operations to a Rich world such as Regina, Feri or even Kinorb where they can maintain shirtsleeve garden world habitat conditions for their staff without needing to pay life support costs for the privilege.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I see Pixie's population code as excluding the Naval Base and its personnel. Not sure what the in-universe reason for that is, but I'm also not sure why Boughene, which by rights should have the stats of the station (size 0 atm 0 hyd 0), instead has that of the planet it orbits.

The law level and government types explain a lot about Boughene Station.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The law level and government types explain a lot about Boughene Station.

"Cash rules everything around me."

 

[Spinward Flow]

So, basically, for almost the exact same construction cost (and annual overhaul maintenance cost) and almost the same total displacement tonnage (a 14 ton difference), the Rift X-Couriers plus Rift Courier combination allows for a better distribution of transport capacity "to where it is needed" while having lower operating costs for both crews (which are smaller and thus less expensive in salary and life support overhead) and fuel expenses (routine wilderness refueling rather than starport fuel purchases). With the ships "dispersed" to spread their capacity to different star systems (helping to ensure they are always running with full manifests!) a broader flow of trade can be established to flow into and through Boughene in a more distributed networking fashion.

Having given this notion some additional thought ... the difference between one 600 ton starship versus two 194 ton starships plus another 198 ton starship (so 600 tons vs 586 total tons) becomes even more stark when you think about it from the "commodore" perspective of a merchant prince.

A single 600 ton starship can make port to negotiate for any speculative cargo once per jump cycle.
But three 194-198 ton starships can make three different ports of call to negotiate for three different speculative cargoes per jump cycle.

In other words ... by employing three starships instead of one (at roughly equivalent build cost) the three different starships generate TRIPLE the opportunities to profit from speculative cargo arbitrage (buy low/sell high elsewhere) relative to the single starship option ... meaning that there may be "hidden value" in operating a larger number of smaller starships at roughly equivalent construction cost and crew manning requirements.

2x J2 Rift X-Couriers + 1x J3 Rift Courier = MCr 237.4672 (194+194+198=586 tons total) (minimum crew: 2+2+2=6 armed)
1x J3 Type-R Subsidized Liner = MCr 236.97 (600 tons) (minimum crew: 9 unarmed)

So ... basically ... for an extra Cr ~500,000 spent on construction/purchase costs you can wind up with three starships instead of one that are able to realize triple the opportunities for favorable speculative cargo deals relative to the single starship option. At the same time, because the three starships option "scatters" in different directions, carrying Mail Cargo to different destinations as couriers, the revenue fraction from mail deliveries also increases relative to the single starship option. Basically you get what amounts to 15 tons of mail deliveries spread among 3 starships going 3 different ways, instead of only 5 tons of mail delivery from a single starship going 1 way.



Sounds like something that oligarch patrons at Boughene might be interested in funding ... if they get a 50% cut of the profits from sales of the speculative cargo arbitrage to help defray the cost of paying off the starship(s) upon delivery from the shipyard (so no bank financing interest).



One of those "the demonology is in the details" kinds of things ... where just because one parameter aligns as being almost exactly equivalent (construction prices, tonnage, revenue generation tonnage fraction, etc.) does not ipso facto mean that ALL parameters wind up being exactly equivalent once those starships begin operations.

All things considered, now that I see that particular bit of hidden potential, I'm thinking that from a pure profit motive perspective the 600 ton Type-R would be an inferior option to the alternative of 2-3 Rift (X-)Couriers instead, in terms of potential profit return rates from speculative cargo (the REAL moneymaker!) over time.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm not intimate with the economics and geography in this particular part of the Imperium, but going by the map as given, you could set up Boughene as entrepôt, and set up Boughene Starlines with jump factor three Starbuses, to hub on it's starport, and and jump factor one Bongs to spoke the neighbouring hexes.

 

[Spinward Flow]

you could set up Boughene as entrepôt

Aye, that's what I'm thinking.

Boughene makes for a convenient "crossroads" location simply due to ... location, location, location. It is "conveniently located" to act as a jump nexus for most of the coreward end of the Regina subsector for starships with a 3 parsec range capability (either 2+1=3 double jump capacity or straight up Jump-3) in order to reach the Kinorb Cluster as well as Beck's World and Enope from Boughene (so basically, coreward/trailing). In the other direction, you only need Jump-2 to have rapid access to Yres (and Menorb and Pixie), Efate, Uakye and Feri in a single jump from Boughene.

No other star system has the location, location, location factor going for it in the coreward end of the Regina subsector that Boughene does in combination with a type A starport and TL=D support (albeit Non-industrial) that can be leveraged into a pass through port of call for almost the entire coreward half of the subsector while requiring relatively modest investment on the part of merchant lines.

That kind of "soft power" is almost certainly the primary factor in why Boughene Station has grown to the size that it has by 1105 ... just in time for the Fifth Frontier War to come along and roflstomp the coreward end of the Regina subsector and wreck Boughene's peacetime economy and markets during the war. However, once the war is over and there is (lots and lots) of mopping up to do in the Kinorb Cluster and elsewhere in the Regina subsector, Boughene and Boghene Station will once again emerge as an important "crossroads" nexus for goods, supplies, people, information ... such that the the old notions of a space station being a "port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepeneurs and wanderers" can become true, once again, in the aftermath of the Fifth Frontier War.

Boughene's location is simply too strategic for Boughene Station to be abandoned ... and its capacity as a trade and networking "hub" for so many of the "lesser worlds" in the Regina subsector in need of development is too important to ignore.

 

[Grav_Moped]

So, what are the stories that one can tell about the Station? (Or in the context of the game, what kind of scenario hooks does it present?)

I'm seeing conflict between the short-term orientation of the Executive Council and the longer-term orientation of the Imperial governance. There might be infighting amongst the Executives, and the perennial efforts by General Products to reassert ownership (more from habit than from spite at this point). There's also a difference in governance style between Boughene Station and Efate, with Efate letting Boughene take the lead (or rather, not reining them in) and to some extent using the Station as a "relief valve" destination their more restless human citizens.

Trade should be a major economic driver, though this doesn't seem to be reflected in the writeup or extended UWP. This brings in all the merchant tropes (ranging from smuggling to piracy to trade wars to cargo running amok in the warehouse bays).

There's the dirtside resource-extraction industry (not a major employment source, but it's there). There ought to be some for the other planet-sized bodies (2 of them) orbiting the same gas giant as well. (Note that those planets probably "didn't exist" when the world was first written up, since Travellerworlds came along well after canon had established Boughene.) This means new resource discoveries (and conflicts over claims), industrial or geological/weather mishaps, maybe labor disputes.

Apparently one of the Adventures (which I don't have) places an Ancients Artifact in the gas giant -- that's a few nights of gaming right there. Probably seemed more plausible before the extended system generation put Boughene in orbit around it... and before we figured out that there would have been a couple of centuries of fuel-skimming runs into the gas giant just to keep the station itself powered up. How do you not notice something like that?!

Society there is homogeneous and stable; your average Enri in the Concourse is "aloof" (I read that as "reserved" rather than "rejecting outsiders" -- they accept people who make the effort to fit in.) There ought to be conflicts between locals and visitors.


Anything else?

 

[Spinward Flow]

So, what are the stories that one can tell about the Station? (Or in the context of the game, what kind of scenario hooks does it present?)

Courier runs (both licit and illicit) transporting "stuff" between star systems.
"Diplomacy" of either noble courtly politics or boardroom business politics (up to and including even bedroom politics!).
Strike busters and/or claim jumpers in the unexplored regions of the star system.
"Shady Dealings" between interests that are keen to avoid any Imperial entanglements ...

Rumors, bargains and lies.
A place where names are made, fortunes are won ... and lost ... every year.

So long as you keep the "frontier boom town located on a crossroads" feeling for Boughene Station itself, you should have a reasonably good sense for where the cash rules everything around me cultural imperatives can take you as a Referee.

And then there's the opportunities for smuggling.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I recently obtained an Adventure that includes Boughene.

It lists the UWP as given in Wiki and Travellermap, but describes it thusly:

Located on the fringes of the subsector, Boughene is a lightly inhabited system, home to a single Scout Service base and a few other space stations orbiting the mainworld. It sees little traffic, apart from scouts and ships on their way to the naval outpost at Pixie.

I understand the narrative reasons for this description. First, when the player party in the Adventure gets there, they are slightly pressed for time so there's no point in making the station interesting. And the writers already had a fairly well sketched out space station setting (at Regina/Regina) earlier in the Adventure, and another one would be redundant. That said, it's in conflict with the Wiki description that puts most of the system's population in the orbital station.

Also:

It is 400 million kilometres from the scout base at Boughene to Komesh...

Which means that they're not using the Travellerworlds description of the system; 400Mkm distance pretty much means the gas giant Komesh is in a different orbit around the M1V star rather than being the primary for Boughene (the planet, not the station).

I prefer the Travellerworlds version of the system with three moons around Komesh (two world-sized, one worldlet-sized): it's weird enough that it might not have occurred naturally, but not so weird it had to have been engineered.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I prefer the Travellerworlds version of the system

<_<

>_>

Link?

 

[Grav_Moped]

<_<

>_>

Link?

This is what Travellerworlds generates for Boughene: LINK
Within that, in the top menu bar, the star system details are the second item under the "View" drop-down menu.

The link to Travellerworlds for a world can be found on the Travellermap world-detail dropdown, at the bottom of the drop-down at the "Generate World Map c/o Traveller5 World Builder" link.

It does T5 extended world generation, basing the seed for the random number generator on the hex location (so it's always consistent). It retains the UWP (from Travellermap, which is from canon sources, in some cases scrubbed for T5 compatibility and plausibility), but has no way to link back to the wiki (or other canon source) descriptions to bring the output of the worldgen sequence into alignment with them.

I totally lack the coding skills necessary, but one could add a "worldgen-tweak" code to wiki entries that would provide the necessary adjustments to the Traveller5 World Builder (travellerworlds) to force the worldgen to produce results compatible with the text. Ideally, this would be directly readable by travellerworlds, but having it as a text string that could be pasted into the travellerworlds page would suffice. One big one would be to set the "main world is a satellite" (of a gas giant or other large body) or its opposite, and another would be to control whether the mainworld is tidally locked. Making the climate match the description (when given) by adjusting the albedo and greenhouse factors would be another.

 

[Spinward Flow]

This is what Travellerworlds generates for Boughene: LINK

Hydrosphere: Hydrochloric Acid over 100º C everywhere
Roasty, Toasty, Burn You Mostly!

Natural resources: Ore + Gem and Crystal
So my guess on that score looks like it was right, with gems and crystals forming the most common valuable mining strikes on the moon itself.

Manufactured resources: Information
Now THAT is an interesting insight, since it means that Boughene might be a scientific research hub as an attempt to begin diversification of the economy (into mining knowledge, not just matter) which could then lay the groundwork for future advancement of the society.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Yep. Much more interesting.

The nasty atmosphere/ocean explains why everyone's in a space station instead of dirtside.
I'm still trying to figure out what a good-sized city worth of people all do there in the space station.
They're not all working at the shipyard or the freight docks. Wiki says that not many are dirtside miners on Boughene -- but some of them could be "commuting" or part-time/seasonal/rotating crew for resource extraction from the other moons of Komesh, or even some of the other worlds in the system (though most are outside the habitable zone, and many have unpleasant atmospheres as well).

The "scientific research hub" idea fits. They're holding a TL equal to their likely patron world (Efate) despite their economic inefficiency. Looks like R&D investment to me... and goes along with the shipbuilding headquarters. Pity that GP has a well-earned reputation for... um... "sub-par manufacturing" is the polite way to put it (they were responsible for a few notoriously-underperforming Kinunir-class ships). Maybe they're trying to get their mojo back, and doing it out here on the edge of the Imperium so nobody notices that they're just now trying to get their house in order?

 

[Grav_Moped]

Which, in crossing the streams a bit, means that the "day in the life" PC party is going to get an offer to do the (stars only know how long overdue!) annual overhaul on Annic Nova for free. General Products really wants a look at that technology! Mind you, in the end they won't get a whole lot out of it, except maybe giving Efate the ability to build "Early Collector-1" drives at some point. But it'd be worth it to them.