Agreed and very good points!
How many subsectors have you hand-created from scratch?
- Thread starter robject
- Start date
Agreed and very good points!
I answered 5 - 16 but it’s probably more. I still roll dice when starting a new campaign area but honestly these days I mainly use trade codes and simple tags, and save the UWP generation until I actually need it. For instance:
0304 Ascension Ag, Lt; Orbital starport, Scout Base
I have an idea of conditions on the world (the trade codes define the UWP for the most part) and even though it's Low Tech the Scout base could be the reason for the highport. Or not, we will see when I need to develop it further. Maybe it’s a megacorp shipping facility?... Saves me a lot of time and creativity by breaking things into manageable chunks.
I allow the players to input things as well. If a Scout was stationed at Ascension Base the player can design the base, or flesh out the world or system. Again, saves me time and creativity and the players are engaged and invested in the campaign area.
0304 Ascension Ag, Lt; Orbital starport, Scout Base
I have an idea of conditions on the world (the trade codes define the UWP for the most part) and even though it's Low Tech the Scout base could be the reason for the highport. Or not, we will see when I need to develop it further. Maybe it’s a megacorp shipping facility?... Saves me a lot of time and creativity by breaking things into manageable chunks.
I allow the players to input things as well. If a Scout was stationed at Ascension Base the player can design the base, or flesh out the world or system. Again, saves me time and creativity and the players are engaged and invested in the campaign area.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
How are you determining the timeline of any of this?
starship_captain62
SOC-7
I can only recall one. After that I used computers. Wrote my first subsector program in Atari Basic in early 1980's.l:devil:
The thing about generating a sector this way is that there's such a level of understanding that comes about from toiling over the data. Making revisions to UWPs so they're not just legal but fit into the thematic and narrative intent of the expanse of space that the systems fit within. This isn't to say that the original UWPs weren't randomly generated, but doing so with dice generates quite a different feel to when I've just had a subsector generated by automatically. The place tells a story.
I found my old, hand-created quadrant from college (I only got as far as 4 subsectors 35 years or so ago apparently). Redid the data as SEC & uploaded to TravellerMap and so I get the best of both worlds. Still working on the pilots guide off & on, and last last game actually took place there.
Bravesteel
SOC-12
I don't think I have ever actually generated any subsectors. I started with Mongoose 1E, so I always just used the 3rd Imperium and the subsectors already available via the excellent Traveller Map.
Do you always use the world descriptions as written?
You go to Traveller Map, pull up a subsector, select a system, and a link to the dumpster fire known as the Traveller Wiki is part of the displayed details. Do you use that system exactly as presented by the UWP or the Wiki entry? Or do you tweak what you've read to better suit your needs and the needs of your group?
If you tweak, you're hand-creating. You may not be raw rolling system locations, UWPs, and all the rest, but you're not playing straight "out of the box" either.
yea, I honestly don't know if I ever rolled one by hand, frankly.
Even the Trader Game I've run on a programmable calculator.
The most significant thing I did by hand long ago was a friend of mine and I sat down one afternoon, and rolled characters. We basically filled up 2 packs of index cards with them.
I don't think I've rolled a character since.
That said, there's an intimacy of rolling up a world or a character vs pushing a button and having a 100 of them a few milliseconds later. The generators kind of lose their charm quite quickly.
See, my misspent youth is lost because I didn't know Traveller then. If only I had! Then I could have burned long hours writing Traveller BASIC on my Commodore 64. Alas!
From the comments.
Granted, COTI has lots of old timers.
So, call it a locally scoped timeline...
Does revisions count?
I've made from scratch only one subsector. However, in revising the duplicate worlds of Knoellighz Sector, I believe that I've revised from scratch more than four subsectors worth of worlds. Then came the individual worlds' write-ups that struck my fancy to do such.
Maybe someday, some Zhodani-Gvegh group of Travellers will make it that far coreward to partake of Knoellighz Sector. Or maybe not.
I've made from scratch only one subsector. However, in revising the duplicate worlds of Knoellighz Sector, I believe that I've revised from scratch more than four subsectors worth of worlds. Then came the individual worlds' write-ups that struck my fancy to do such.
Maybe someday, some Zhodani-Gvegh group of Travellers will make it that far coreward to partake of Knoellighz Sector. Or maybe not.
Long ago I created a full Sector. All by hand. It was a lot of work. It took a lot of time. It was sort of fun as a meta-game exercise.
However, ultimately, it was not really useful. The time would have been better spent completely detailing all of the planets and moons in a single system and then doing the same for the systems within J2 of there. That would have given me a more in-depth local space in which to place a wide variety of different adventures that allowed characters to return to familiar places and meet people they knew while exploring places that they had never been to.
A full sector is typically just a string of numbers for systems that are mostly irrelevant to any story unfolding for the players. Even those that they visit are often little more than a layover at an airport while waiting for your next flight. When you never leave the airport, all cities start to look alike. When you hop from starport to starport, all worlds start to look alike.
Just my 2 cents (in 1984 dollars).
However, ultimately, it was not really useful. The time would have been better spent completely detailing all of the planets and moons in a single system and then doing the same for the systems within J2 of there. That would have given me a more in-depth local space in which to place a wide variety of different adventures that allowed characters to return to familiar places and meet people they knew while exploring places that they had never been to.
A full sector is typically just a string of numbers for systems that are mostly irrelevant to any story unfolding for the players. Even those that they visit are often little more than a layover at an airport while waiting for your next flight. When you never leave the airport, all cities start to look alike. When you hop from starport to starport, all worlds start to look alike.
Just my 2 cents (in 1984 dollars).
All of mine are done by hand. I export Cosmographer Traveller icosohedron maps from Fractal Terrains 3, give them names, add them to sector and sub-sector spreadsheets then maps. Upload the png files, type up the articles, most of which just have name, hex, sub-sector, sector, UWP, and the png file.
I have 140 planet surveys where I come up with star name, zone the planet is in exports/imports, etc., and a few solar system maps.
No idea how many sub-sectors/sectors I've done, but the number of planets and UWPs is in my .sig.
I have 140 planet surveys where I come up with star name, zone the planet is in exports/imports, etc., and a few solar system maps.
No idea how many sub-sectors/sectors I've done, but the number of planets and UWPs is in my .sig.
I tend to agree with this, there is usually plenty within a local system to allow multitudes of different settings - with much faster transit times.
D.
16+
My ATU has 16 subsectors that have been built up since the beginning, adding a few here and there until I had a full sector map. Probably 70% of it is not random rolled with the rest mostly random but 'evolved' stats over time to match historical developments between campaigns. Each time I run a campaign I have advanced the future history based on some of the events the prior campaign generated (new worlds discovered, brushfire wars, changes in leadership, etc..) or involved.
The whole thing has had a 60 year in-game lifespan that has changed the maps and borders, as well as added new races and worlds discovered. In fact, some worlds have been lost and then rediscovered depending on events with the players finding the old lost colonies.
I also have about 4 subsectors that are part of a region separated physically by a 16 parsec gap, narrower in some spots but still really difficult to cross with Jump Drives. This region has rarely been encountered by players but was a focal point for the recent campaign. It is entirely custom designed with no random rolling. Due to historical events it is sparsely inhabited and with not as many worlds per subsector as the others, but that is also by design.
My ATU has 16 subsectors that have been built up since the beginning, adding a few here and there until I had a full sector map. Probably 70% of it is not random rolled with the rest mostly random but 'evolved' stats over time to match historical developments between campaigns. Each time I run a campaign I have advanced the future history based on some of the events the prior campaign generated (new worlds discovered, brushfire wars, changes in leadership, etc..) or involved.
The whole thing has had a 60 year in-game lifespan that has changed the maps and borders, as well as added new races and worlds discovered. In fact, some worlds have been lost and then rediscovered depending on events with the players finding the old lost colonies.
I also have about 4 subsectors that are part of a region separated physically by a 16 parsec gap, narrower in some spots but still really difficult to cross with Jump Drives. This region has rarely been encountered by players but was a focal point for the recent campaign. It is entirely custom designed with no random rolling. Due to historical events it is sparsely inhabited and with not as many worlds per subsector as the others, but that is also by design.
ShawnDriscoll
SOC-14 1K
Did about half a sector worth by hand. Then got a computer.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Trouble is computers just roll the dice for you - you still need to put in the creativity to explain the numbers.
Not sure how many of mine have explanations. Probably not more than about 20.
Most of the sectors that appear under my name on TravellerMap/Explorerbase I created by hand from scratch (my revisions-to-T5 of some older data in the Vargr and Aslan regions being the main exceptions), so I definitely created more than sixteen subsectors by hand! A few of them are mostly barren or mostly a rift and so not very interesting, but Amderstun Sector is neither, and that sure took a long time for me to make!
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