mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Why not, if they have 999,999,999 inhabitants in 990 then they'll have a billion by 1065 
You have to consider population multiplyer as well
You have to consider population multiplyer as well
CT Era Spica sector UWP data, by subsector
- Thread starter Flynn
- Start date
M
Malenfant
Guest
well, that is a point. But as you say, it would rather depend on pop multiplier.
I have a post brewing in the seething cauldron of my mind about colonisation and growth patterns.. I have to let it ferment a while longer before I start a thread on it
.
Fortunately I'll be at work today so I can give other people a chance to talk about stuff for a bit .
I have a post brewing in the seething cauldron of my mind about colonisation and growth patterns.. I have to let it ferment a while longer before I start a thread on it
Fortunately I'll be at work today so I can give other people a chance to talk about stuff for a bit
.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Yep, that's about right, and that's what the Earth's pop growth was not long ago. It's been reduced some since the 60's to about 1.5% in the 90's and still declining. Just a little fyi to add to Flynn's random thought above.
since I'm somewhat of a newcomer to Traveller (I've assimilated most of the CT reprints over the past two years in kind of a personal ethnographic project) i probably have a slightly different perspective on UWP.
from what I understand the UWP generation tables were designed as an aid to the ref to help flesh out his/her setting. when the Spinward Marches was developed it seems to me this was a combination of designed areas (Regina, Lunion etc), with the rest filled in so the ref would have some data when the players went off on one (please correct me if I'm wrong). All the other sector projects then followed its pattern.
But the UWP itself is just a loose guide, and with many interpretations so as not to limit the ref.
Back in the day this original stuff was generated under the pressures of a small staff and financial constraints, so random generation to them was a quick way of producing sellable content. And they did not have the help of DTP software nad such.
We don't suffer from such constraints. There's a fairly large group of people involved, we don't have to worry about budgets or deadlines (yet), and we have the aid of modern software and design packages.
We can afford to spend more time and love on than they were able to (and that ain't a criticism). So why should we be beholden to random UWP's when this code was only ever intended as a mental aid?
As we're keeping the original steller distribution, so we know the mains and clusters, and the starports and gas giants, it should start to become apparent which worlds will become major trade hubs and industrial centres.
I also think we should try to design as many interesting worlds as possible and put them in a logical place - for instance, no virgin planets near to high pop marginal worlds (unless there's a very good reason, like ultra savage wildlife).
I have a few ideas of some intersting worlds:
an old gas giant mining station converted into an independent trade centre, where free traders congregate.
an 'amazon' planet, where planetary conditions killed off all the males or turned them female; whose pop can 'imaaculately concieve' (auto-clone), but who are experts at genetics and fertility.
a degenerate colony now run by criminal warlords, used as a pirate haven but close enough to normal trade routes.
Zanzibar, a desert world run by a benign post-Islamic religious bureacracy that's taking in refugees from the war and is respected for its diplomatic skills (not trusted by the Sol party)
a balkanised but high-tech industrial world with a strong corporate presence and big on tech espionage
a klondike style colony world, with massive riches to be had but low law level, a bit wild west with mercenaries.
a warm tropical world with old, possible Ancient, sites and dangerous wildlife, populated by survey teams and a cult lead by a charismatic aristocrat that's attracting lots of young middle class hippy types.
a lost colony off the beaten track, that once had v high technology but suffered some collapse in the long night and now resembles some medieval fantasy, with strange priesthoods in charge on ancient tech and so-called 'sorcerers'.
a toxic world with a rather shady mining operation that also happens to be a popular smuggling hub.
also quite a few newish colony worlds, possibly on marginal worlds, that need support and under constant threat from piracy or slavers.
I think that Traveller products tend to concentrate on the macro (nobles, big history, high politics, interstellar war). I'd like to see some micro stuff too, like smuggling syndicates, small corporate conflicts, settlers and pilgrims, spacer lore, resort planets etc.
coming up with interesting planets might help produce such micro details (like this world has some rare exotic resource, so the route to it from a main is a major pirate target)
As far as names are concerned, I think we should ditch any we want. Some I've seen above are ok, but 'Uggi' is, frankly, rather embarrassing. The silly names in the supplements make me squirm sometimes. Maybe we should create a central list of decent names that we can then apply when we do the UWP's.
btw, the above really only applies to the sollie side, as surely the Hivers would have a very different settling pattern. They would plan their expansion over decades, rather than the more ad hoc way of the sols, and of course, we expect alien names to be wierd.
On a side note, and perhaps not quite appropriate to this thread, but since I've written an essay already I might as well, what about a section on Settlers and Colonisation. This is such a staple of sf literature and tv/film, and its not something Traveller has ever properly looked at. Don't you think a Colonist Core class is a glaring omission from the Players Guide?
from what I understand the UWP generation tables were designed as an aid to the ref to help flesh out his/her setting. when the Spinward Marches was developed it seems to me this was a combination of designed areas (Regina, Lunion etc), with the rest filled in so the ref would have some data when the players went off on one (please correct me if I'm wrong). All the other sector projects then followed its pattern.
But the UWP itself is just a loose guide, and with many interpretations so as not to limit the ref.
Back in the day this original stuff was generated under the pressures of a small staff and financial constraints, so random generation to them was a quick way of producing sellable content. And they did not have the help of DTP software nad such.
We don't suffer from such constraints. There's a fairly large group of people involved, we don't have to worry about budgets or deadlines (yet), and we have the aid of modern software and design packages.
We can afford to spend more time and love on than they were able to (and that ain't a criticism). So why should we be beholden to random UWP's when this code was only ever intended as a mental aid?
As we're keeping the original steller distribution, so we know the mains and clusters, and the starports and gas giants, it should start to become apparent which worlds will become major trade hubs and industrial centres.
I also think we should try to design as many interesting worlds as possible and put them in a logical place - for instance, no virgin planets near to high pop marginal worlds (unless there's a very good reason, like ultra savage wildlife).
I have a few ideas of some intersting worlds:
an old gas giant mining station converted into an independent trade centre, where free traders congregate.
an 'amazon' planet, where planetary conditions killed off all the males or turned them female; whose pop can 'imaaculately concieve' (auto-clone), but who are experts at genetics and fertility.
a degenerate colony now run by criminal warlords, used as a pirate haven but close enough to normal trade routes.
Zanzibar, a desert world run by a benign post-Islamic religious bureacracy that's taking in refugees from the war and is respected for its diplomatic skills (not trusted by the Sol party)
a balkanised but high-tech industrial world with a strong corporate presence and big on tech espionage
a klondike style colony world, with massive riches to be had but low law level, a bit wild west with mercenaries.
a warm tropical world with old, possible Ancient, sites and dangerous wildlife, populated by survey teams and a cult lead by a charismatic aristocrat that's attracting lots of young middle class hippy types.
a lost colony off the beaten track, that once had v high technology but suffered some collapse in the long night and now resembles some medieval fantasy, with strange priesthoods in charge on ancient tech and so-called 'sorcerers'.
a toxic world with a rather shady mining operation that also happens to be a popular smuggling hub.
also quite a few newish colony worlds, possibly on marginal worlds, that need support and under constant threat from piracy or slavers.
I think that Traveller products tend to concentrate on the macro (nobles, big history, high politics, interstellar war). I'd like to see some micro stuff too, like smuggling syndicates, small corporate conflicts, settlers and pilgrims, spacer lore, resort planets etc.
coming up with interesting planets might help produce such micro details (like this world has some rare exotic resource, so the route to it from a main is a major pirate target)
As far as names are concerned, I think we should ditch any we want. Some I've seen above are ok, but 'Uggi' is, frankly, rather embarrassing. The silly names in the supplements make me squirm sometimes. Maybe we should create a central list of decent names that we can then apply when we do the UWP's.
btw, the above really only applies to the sollie side, as surely the Hivers would have a very different settling pattern. They would plan their expansion over decades, rather than the more ad hoc way of the sols, and of course, we expect alien names to be wierd.
On a side note, and perhaps not quite appropriate to this thread, but since I've written an essay already I might as well, what about a section on Settlers and Colonisation. This is such a staple of sf literature and tv/film, and its not something Traveller has ever properly looked at. Don't you think a Colonist Core class is a glaring omission from the Players Guide?
M
Malenfant
Guest
Minor point - we're not keeping the stellar distributions. Existing traveller stellar distributions are pure evil
, because the CT book 6 tables were statistically broken from the start (the way they were set up meant that habitable worlds would actually be more likely around the stars that were least likely to have them - subdwarfs and white dwarfs!).
I wrote a revised stellar generation table that prevents us from having habitable worlds orbiting red giants and white dwarfs and so on and as far as I can tell it's been agreed that we're going to be regenerating all the stars here using that. You might have missed all that, so here's a link to the relevant thread - you can download the PDF files explaining everything there too.
Also, I'm working on a realistic UWP generator too, but I dunno when that'll be done. Soon, hopefully!
EDIT: Oh, I think you meant that we're keeping the hex locations of the worlds, not the star types. Never mind then .
I wrote a revised stellar generation table that prevents us from having habitable worlds orbiting red giants and white dwarfs and so on and as far as I can tell it's been agreed that we're going to be regenerating all the stars here using that. You might have missed all that, so here's a link to the relevant thread - you can download the PDF files explaining everything there too.
Also, I'm working on a realistic UWP generator too, but I dunno when that'll be done. Soon, hopefully!
EDIT: Oh, I think you meant that we're keeping the hex locations of the worlds, not the star types. Never mind then
.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Yes... I was wondering about how to indicate that, since I'm fairly certain Spica will not have any planetary bodies around it. I think the tradition has just been to show the systems of such stars (eg Sirius) as asteroid belts. Or maybe the mainworld will be a random size S planetoid or something like that, that some explorer managed to stumble across.
I think most stars will have planets though. The ones that won't will almost certainly have asteroid belts (well, Oort Clouds, actually). But an extreme like Spica (a multiple B V system) won't really have anything other than the odd captured rock.
I think most stars will have planets though. The ones that won't will almost certainly have asteroid belts (well, Oort Clouds, actually). But an extreme like Spica (a multiple B V system) won't really have anything other than the odd captured rock.
M
Malenfant
Guest
What, the REALLY BRIGHT STAR(S) that everyone can't fail to notice for parsecs around?
It's a fairly obvious place for such a thing - I always envisaged that there'd be a research base there, since it's the only example of its type anywhere nearby.
Though having said that, Spica itself *is* way out in the boondocks (it's at the coreward end of the sector). This isn't the Imperium anymore.
I dunno about it being a *secret* pirate base, but it could well be a good place for A pirate base
It's a fairly obvious place for such a thing - I always envisaged that there'd be a research base there, since it's the only example of its type anywhere nearby.
Though having said that, Spica itself *is* way out in the boondocks (it's at the coreward end of the sector). This isn't the Imperium anymore.
I dunno about it being a *secret* pirate base, but it could well be a good place for A pirate base
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
For Spica, how about a combined and cooperative research facility, a space station, manned and maintained by Imp, Sol, Hive, and Centaur money . . . with a little guy running around in droyne battle armor by the nickname Yasky . . . it'll be, ta-da! Spica 5.
Our last best hope for fusion heat sink theory!
Wait a minute . . .
Maybe that was, "Our last best hope for realistic gas-giant skimming."
No, wait . . .
"Our last best hope for piracy!"
The Captain of the space station will be an ex Sol Confed officer with an eyepatch, billowing cape, and a pistol that could outduel the deathstar (not to mention a cool looking starship with a big skull and crossbones on the bow he can jaunt around the galaxy with whenever the pressing duties of running his own command aren't bothering him).
The First Officer will be an ex Sol Confed officer passed over in her career due to her mother having suspicious psionics institue associations. She's secretly a five-way disciple with a Score of 10 in everything.
The Security Officer is a besotted drunk that has Comp-7 and Electronics-7, and the Captain and First Officer don't dare make a move against him because he's got comprising evidence of them in the alien sector.
The Imperial Ambassador wears ridiculous getups of the finest tailoring and cloth imagineable, and he spends his days dreaming of when he was a Fleet Admiral and led hundreds of ships against the enemies of the Imperium! "Oh, and could you buy me a drink, I'm a little short at the moment!"
The Hiver Ambasador . . . wait, no! Don't shoot!
Our last best hope for fusion heat sink theory!
Wait a minute . . .
Maybe that was, "Our last best hope for realistic gas-giant skimming."
No, wait . . .
"Our last best hope for piracy!"
The Captain of the space station will be an ex Sol Confed officer with an eyepatch, billowing cape, and a pistol that could outduel the deathstar (not to mention a cool looking starship with a big skull and crossbones on the bow he can jaunt around the galaxy with whenever the pressing duties of running his own command aren't bothering him).
The First Officer will be an ex Sol Confed officer passed over in her career due to her mother having suspicious psionics institue associations. She's secretly a five-way disciple with a Score of 10 in everything.
The Security Officer is a besotted drunk that has Comp-7 and Electronics-7, and the Captain and First Officer don't dare make a move against him because he's got comprising evidence of them in the alien sector.
The Imperial Ambassador wears ridiculous getups of the finest tailoring and cloth imagineable, and he spends his days dreaming of when he was a Fleet Admiral and led hundreds of ships against the enemies of the Imperium! "Oh, and could you buy me a drink, I'm a little short at the moment!"
The Hiver Ambasador . . . wait, no! Don't shoot!
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I was thinking again looking at the map of Spica. There's not that much Sollie space really, 4-5 subsectors. And in a frontier that means not that many hi-tech worlds etc. The hiver space would have a different character, so maybe that could be done seperately.
I was thinking instead of worrying about generating UWP's we could come up with planets we'd like to see here. Just the worlds not the locations. With the amount of people here all with their own pet planets, we might find we've filled most of the availiable slots, and then we can assume the rest are new colonies or mining camps. It should be more or less obvious where to place them by looking at the sector map, mains and clusters.
This would also means the worlds had more background. One thing I find problematic with UWP's is that they end up limiting, without having any character. Sometimes I've had a planet adventure in mind and I look for a suitable world on the map, and its parsecs awy from where I want it to be, or in some polity when I want and independent worlds. This way all the planets could have some descriptor beyond the raw numbers.
One other point, QLI added a couple of new parameters to UWP: world resources and biosphere. I think its crucial we include these in our UWP's, as they give at least as much info as the rest of the numbers!
I was thinking instead of worrying about generating UWP's we could come up with planets we'd like to see here. Just the worlds not the locations. With the amount of people here all with their own pet planets, we might find we've filled most of the availiable slots, and then we can assume the rest are new colonies or mining camps. It should be more or less obvious where to place them by looking at the sector map, mains and clusters.
This would also means the worlds had more background. One thing I find problematic with UWP's is that they end up limiting, without having any character. Sometimes I've had a planet adventure in mind and I look for a suitable world on the map, and its parsecs awy from where I want it to be, or in some polity when I want and independent worlds. This way all the planets could have some descriptor beyond the raw numbers.
One other point, QLI added a couple of new parameters to UWP: world resources and biosphere. I think its crucial we include these in our UWP's, as they give at least as much info as the rest of the numbers!
M
Malenfant
Guest
Well, the idea I think is that people do have the opportunity here to design planets from top down rather than from the UWP up.
That said, I wouldn't like to see random "Star Trek Episode" worlds that are just invented for some plot without much thought for how they got that way in the first place. A lot of those worlds are cases of "here's an interesting extreme social situation, deal with it" rather than "here's a world that could - with any reasonable social model - have actually become what it is today". That's what I meant by wanting realistic societies here.
I don't think we're obliged to have a planet for every kind of adventure that anyone can think of here though (but it's probably going to naturally turn out that anyway). After all, if we were designing the Core sector, would you expect a world on which you can run a wild frontier adventure there? But that said you can do whatever you like if you take the material and use it in your own game anyway
.
As for adding things to the UWP, at the moment I've got world density (icy, rocky, earthlike, and cannonball) and world location (inner, habitable, middle, or outer zone) that I figured could be added to the PBG part of the UWP. I guess we could have code for the resources and biosphere too if we can wrangle those out of it...
That said, I wouldn't like to see random "Star Trek Episode" worlds that are just invented for some plot without much thought for how they got that way in the first place. A lot of those worlds are cases of "here's an interesting extreme social situation, deal with it" rather than "here's a world that could - with any reasonable social model - have actually become what it is today". That's what I meant by wanting realistic societies here.
I don't think we're obliged to have a planet for every kind of adventure that anyone can think of here though (but it's probably going to naturally turn out that anyway). After all, if we were designing the Core sector, would you expect a world on which you can run a wild frontier adventure there? But that said you can do whatever you like if you take the material and use it in your own game anyway
As for adding things to the UWP, at the moment I've got world density (icy, rocky, earthlike, and cannonball) and world location (inner, habitable, middle, or outer zone) that I figured could be added to the PBG part of the UWP. I guess we could have code for the resources and biosphere too if we can wrangle those out of it...
Malenfant,
As an actual player of Traveller, I'm not interested in changing the format of the UWPs. I don't mind a "realistic" (at least as far as we can guess things work this year) method of generating UWPs, but I still want to be able to read them and use them with applications like Galactic or Heaven & Earth. Adding, deleting and modifying the format of the UWP removes that possibility, and makes the data unusable for that purpose.
Your comment above indicates that this isn't your desire or intention. Please clarify for me: Is it your intention to modify the UWP format itself?
Thanks in advance for your time,
Flynn
As an actual player of Traveller, I'm not interested in changing the format of the UWPs. I don't mind a "realistic" (at least as far as we can guess things work this year) method of generating UWPs, but I still want to be able to read them and use them with applications like Galactic or Heaven & Earth. Adding, deleting and modifying the format of the UWP removes that possibility, and makes the data unusable for that purpose.
Your comment above indicates that this isn't your desire or intention. Please clarify for me: Is it your intention to modify the UWP format itself?
Thanks in advance for your time,
Flynn
don't think we're changing the base UWP format, just tagging parameters to the end.
ie:
SSAHPGL T B Trade PBG DRB
A641525 A S Ni Po 412 766
S- starport
S- size
A- atmo
H- hydro
P- pop
G- gov
L- law
T-tech
B-base
Trade
P-pop mod
B- belt
G- giant
D- density
R- resources
B - biosphere (with however the numbers pan out-will think on it)
we're not touching the core rules, just adding optional rules where sensible. If you don't wanna use the additional data you don't have to. I think that's part of what Traveller is.
As to world types, different worlds should be a bit different. Native biosphere's should be quite different to each other. Some worlds will have been partly or wholly terraformed either recently or in the distant past, with various degress of success and failiure. Sometimes people will be happy in tents and domes. Some are just harsh mining colonies (Outland?). there maybe one or two resort worlds (Vegas? Flosten Paradise?). Actually planets are a bit like city states: all cities are the same but different. So one could have a flavour of NYC, one Cairo, a colony maybe like Anchorage etc. Some will have advantages, others problems.
I think we're gonna able to satifsy most of what we all want out of this
ie:
SSAHPGL T B Trade PBG DRB
A641525 A S Ni Po 412 766
S- starport
S- size
A- atmo
H- hydro
P- pop
G- gov
L- law
T-tech
B-base
Trade
P-pop mod
B- belt
G- giant
D- density
R- resources
B - biosphere (with however the numbers pan out-will think on it)
we're not touching the core rules, just adding optional rules where sensible. If you don't wanna use the additional data you don't have to. I think that's part of what Traveller is.
As to world types, different worlds should be a bit different. Native biosphere's should be quite different to each other. Some worlds will have been partly or wholly terraformed either recently or in the distant past, with various degress of success and failiure. Sometimes people will be happy in tents and domes. Some are just harsh mining colonies (Outland?). there maybe one or two resort worlds (Vegas? Flosten Paradise?). Actually planets are a bit like city states: all cities are the same but different. So one could have a flavour of NYC, one Cairo, a colony maybe like Anchorage etc. Some will have advantages, others problems.
I think we're gonna able to satifsy most of what we all want out of this
That probably won't bug Galactic, but the Heaven & Earth fans will go nuts, since the "DRB" is right where stellar data is supposed to be. Then again, the stellar data format itself will already drive H&E nuts, because Malenfant's stellar data presentation is non-standard as well. (Computers are such finicky things... )
Let's see if this is what Malenfant had in mind, though, first...
-Flynn
)Let's see if this is what Malenfant had in mind, though, first...
-Flynn
