Evolution of TRAVELLER star generation

[aramis]

Or, for that matter, what happens when unconventional life is considered. A jovionoid gas-giant dweller or vacuum-dwelling open-space species really complicates what is inhabitable in the first place. What about mineral-based life, silicoids perhaps, not based upon meaty carbon-oxygen liquid biochemistries?

Other sci-fi authors have explored those trope and even based entire plot lines and arcs on various differing species (...not your run-of-the-mill oxy-breathing humanoid) wanting different things out of a system of worlds. Some have them coexist (...they mostly want different resources and worlds, right?) , but then others have them find the "other" abhorrent and quickly degenerate to violence. Jihad for fun, pleasure, compulsion, and competitive advantage?

unless that life is spacefaring or technological, humans won't interact with "weird life"... and so it doesn't freaking matter.

It's like the Thekk in McCaffrey's DP/PP 'verse - they can't interact meaningfully, don't share the same worlds, and so almost no one even bothers to try. The only reason they matter is that they can and do travel in space.

Or the Plutonians from Doc Smith's Lensmen... it never occurred to them that Earth might be inhabited. They only crossed paths because of the lensmen.

Planetary Romances are a different genre, one where every system is usually chock full of life forms... You can do PR with Traveller, but like Hard Sci-Fi, it's off-label use.

 

[flykiller]

Of course, this depends what you define as interesting ... but a lot of worlds in the Imperium are low-pop backwaters.

you find low-pop backwaters uninteresting? low-pop "backwaters" are precisely where pc's can have the greatest relative effect.

 

[kilemall]

the planet of lonely star system companion girls.

would you come back?

Dare you to make this a UPP value.

I double dogstar dare you!

 

[kilemall]

True, but it's only an issue when Book 6 comes along.

Is there any reason there couldn't be two entirely independent stars in the same hex? Nope. It's just a rule that's there for simplicity. This simplification gave us a mapping convention that Book 6 chooses not to break.

Some interesting scenarios could come out of generating a mainworld in the companion system. But I think a system with two interesting "mainworlds" is likely to be rare.

I made one on purpose in Alpha Centauri because I was following the two worlds from Imperium. Not our understanding of the system at the moment? Bollocks!

And yes one is Prometheus, but not the one in the official Atlases.

 

[flykiller]

the planet of lonely star system companion girls.

Dare you to make this a UPP value.

I'll think about it this weekend ....

 

[welsh]

you find low-pop backwaters uninteresting? low-pop "backwaters" are precisely where pc's can have the greatest relative effect.

Yes, but my point was that if the "main mainworld" (i.e. the one shown on existing maps) is a low-pop backwater, the other mainworld is going to be even backwaterier. You're not likely to see a lot of in-system commerce, etc., in that case. And a lot of systems would be like this.

If one world is relatively rich and the other is a low-pop backwater then things get interesting. But the interesting cases would be relatively uncommon.

 

[flykiller]

You're not likely to see a lot of in-system commerce, etc., in that case. And a lot of systems would be like this.

ok.

 

[GypsyComet]

Yes, but my point was that if the "main mainworld" (i.e. the one shown on existing maps) is a low-pop backwater, the other mainworld is going to be even backwaterier. You're not likely to see a lot of in-system commerce, etc., in that case. And a lot of systems would be like this.

If one world is relatively rich and the other is a low-pop backwater then things get interesting. But the interesting cases would be relatively uncommon.

Not really. If the Main world is big enough and the system (stars, available orbits, etc) right, you'll get a pile of backwaters in that system, not just one.

The model we have is based on the ready availability of Jump. The backwaters are a jump or two away. You certainly can replace that with a busy system, and there are certain plot advantages and disadvantages to doing so.

 

[Hal]

Yes, but my point was that if the "main mainworld" (i.e. the one shown on existing maps) is a low-pop backwater, the other mainworld is going to be even backwaterier. You're not likely to see a lot of in-system commerce, etc., in that case. And a lot of systems would be like this.

If one world is relatively rich and the other is a low-pop backwater then things get interesting. But the interesting cases would be relatively uncommon.

Maybe this is a "blind spot" of sorts, maybe not...

Why does the main world of a companion system have to be even more of a backwater planet?

Granted, if you have a binary star system where the first pair is an M2 V and the second is an M4 V, then perhaps we're looking at two marginal worlds where both qualify as backwater. But what if we have a main world in the secondary star system that is almost as good as the main world in the primary? On the presumption that the companion star is a far companion, the only way to travel between the two in a reasonable fashion would be to jump to it as if it were another star system. All that does in game terms is create a "new" star system to track for the campaign, but in all respects, get treated as a standard Traveller star system.

Just a thought.

 

[GypsyComet]

Maybe this is a "blind spot" of sorts, maybe not...

Why does the main world of a companion system have to be even more of a backwater planet?

Granted, if you have a binary star system where the first pair is an M2 V and the second is an M4 V, then perhaps we're looking at two marginal worlds where both qualify as backwater. But what if we have a main world in the secondary star system that is almost as good as the main world in the primary? On the presumption that the companion star is a far companion, the only way to travel between the two in a reasonable fashion would be to jump to it as if it were another star system. All that does in game terms is create a "new" star system to track for the campaign, but in all respects, get treated as a standard Traveller star system.

Just a thought.

This is one case where the Astrophysicists forgot the conceits of the game. Far companion stars might be orbitally related, or they might not, but if one has a better world than the supposed Primary, then it technically *becomes* the Primary, and that world becomes the Main. You would have some 'splainin to do to justify why the mainworld is orbiting a cold star in company with a bunch of old airless husks while the "companion" star has all the gas giants, but it is certainly possible.

 

[mike wightman]

You'll be wanting to make space 3d next, or include all the stars that should fill every empty hex :CoW:

Here is a solution - use the jump 6 hex grid to more finely define the stars with inhabited systems within a parsec.

Your subsector UPP list will grow - a lot - and on the normal subsector scale map put multiple dots and use size and shading to represent star type.

 

[whartung]

A better solution is to stick a big * in the hex and make an entry at the bottom "see Notes".

 

[mike wightman]

You are still going to need to map it for jump purposes.

 

[GypsyComet]

You are still going to need to map it for jump purposes.

It's a Jump Zero from anywhere else in the hex, and a Jump 1 or more from everywhere else, just like everything else in its hex.

 

[mike wightman]

Jump masking, jump shadowing...

here's a thought, by introducing such stuff (the mapping of the extra stars per 1/2ly hex) you are making navigation much more interesting and possibly more fun during a game session.

If all you want to do is jump from world A to world B then you may as well ignore any deeper level of system mapping, but if you want to go exploring then such stuff becomes rife with adventure possibility.

 

[welsh]

Maybe this is a "blind spot" of sorts, maybe not...

Why does the main world of a companion system have to be even more of a backwater planet?

I didn't say the companion mainworld would have to be a backwater, which is what you seem to be responding to. I said that if the main mainworld is a backwater, the companion mainworld would have to be more of a backwater.

The reasoning is simple: the world that's on the subsector map as the "mainworld" will be the one with the bigger economy.

Now, it is true that Book 6 star system generation forces us to the assumption that the companion star will never have the mainworld, which isn't necessarily true. But we can easily houserule our way around that. The main thing is, the "better" of the two worlds is the one we put on the subsector map.

You'll be wanting to make space 3d next, or include all the stars that should fill every empty hex

Wait -- space is 3D?!?!?!?

 

[Hal]

For what it is worth (and it is only my opinion - which, with $5 might get you a cup of coffee these days)...

When using strictly random generation, the "secondary" system may end up being even MORE powerful than the original primary system that was generated back in the day when SCOUTS was just a gleam in someone's eye's mind.

With the advent of Scouts, I can't help but wonder why the people at GDW didn't go further with it and incorporate it within subsequent publications? MegaTraveller with its Civil War aspect, came to the fore, but that doesn't explain why the astrographical nature of SCOUTS should have been ignored entirely. That is...

Until you realize that it involves potentially violating the material that had been initially published under the older brand such as the Spinward Marches supplement etc. Then came the Spinward Marches Campaign, which did something really ghastly... it created star types for established worlds that did not match the rules given in either of MegaTraveller or SCOUTS - and forever set in motion things that caused problems for even such as GURPS TRAVELLER BEHIND THE CLAW. All because people didn't want to invalidate previous work!

Ah well, that's neither here nor there. T5's incarnation has finally resulted in the upgrades to the stellar types for the various main worlds, along with world diameter changes required for worlds to retain atmosphere etc.

Yes, I KNOW that any GM can take their Traveller Universe in any direction they see fit, but my thread was basically a comment on the fact that Traveller has retained its blind spot for YEARS despite the evolution in Astrographical knowledge, and even the implementation of perhaps better rules for simulating realistic star systems. Sometimes, the saying "never let the facts get in the way of a good yarn" is true, and as has been alluded to elsewhere, Traveller is SPACE OPERA for all that it sort of puts in realism for its setting.

In the end, people will do what they intend to do, and that's that. As for space being 3D in Traveller? I nearly choked when I saw the jump shadow and jump masking rules introduced by GURPS TRAVELLER and subsequently used in other game system rules...

If the star systems are truly three dimensional, some of those Jump masking rules make no sense. For instance, how do you know that all of the star system's plane of the elliptic are parallel with each other? What if the nearest star system to the one you're in, is top on to your system (ie, looks like you're atop of its elliptic instead of edge on)? That is if it were REALLY 3D.

In the end, IMTU rules, and what people incorporate into their games from OTU becomes a sort of "commonality" with other people's universes. I mentioned the blind spot because it seems decidedly odd to me that after nearly 40 years of existence, there are STILL some blindspots in the Traveller Universe! Sort of a "wow, look at that!" kind of thing.

 

[GypsyComet]

With the advent of Scouts, I can't help but wonder why the people at GDW didn't go further with it and incorporate it within subsequent publications?

Star types and other elements of extended UWPs *did* get incorporated following Scouts, but detailing an entire system is one to two orders of magnitude more information per hex.

The full system UWP for the Regina system is in Scouts. It takes an entire page. The later DGP planetary data pages were prettier but only skimmed the rest of the system. A sector's raw details, never mind all the history and non-UWP Library Data, changes from a 32-page digest sized booklet to a tome the size of the T20 hardcover.

This would have gotten underway in the mid-80s.

Personal computers, the only hope of organizing that much data, still kinda sucked at the time. The first commercial GUIs were just getting up to speed. Wrangling a lot of data needed tools that were still developing and processing space that was still tight.

Even now, 30-odd years after Scouts, with computing power and storage completely off the scales we imagined in the 80s, Traveller still operates on what Marc now refers to as MOARN. "Make Only As Really Necessary".

Why?

Try generating just a subsector to that level as more than just numeric spew. "Why" will quickly become apparent.

 

[welsh]

Star types are other elements of extended UWPs *did* get incorporated following Scouts, but detailing an entire system is one to two orders of magnitude more information per hex. etc. etc.

Agreed on all this.

And while you could generate this stuff by computer, you run into two problems in doing so: first, the random generation will occasionally result in nonsense because of gaps in the Book 6 rules, and second, most of what is generated is barren little rocks.

Two mainworlds in a system is a cool idea, but to me, it's best done by throwing out random generation and building the worlds to fit your idea.

 

[creativehum]

Traveller still operates on what Marc now refers to as MOARN. "Make Only As Really Necessary".

I'm currently working on a blog post about the improvisatory expectations of early Traveller play. And this quote seems completely in line with all the design philosophy of the original rules and early adventures. Can you tell me where it first was introduced or where I can find it?