How Often Do You Use Extended System Generation?

[aramis]

Let me try again. How often do your games involve traveling to/adventuring on non-mainworlds in a star system?

When I use expanded gen...
Let's see... using the EC mentioned above...
New Wisconsin system: Both Racine and Eau Claire have been visited by PC's.

Kamaj system: Both Kamaj and the asteroid belt were potentials, but only Kamaj made it into play

Doylee system: They went to Coatl, Axotl, Xoctomil, and Mixotl. And did so largely by N-space, tho' they jumped the 7 AU from Quetzal to Coatl.

Aurora System: Hail belt and Aurora I. They were investigating a rumor about Aurora I, and n-spaced to the belt (≤0.5 AU)

Ryokan: Only one inhabited body.

Note that I did tweak the pop gen mechanics slightly - sufficiently so that the results are distinct.

 

[Enoki]

A method of generating not only the current distance between bodies/facilities in a system, but the amount and type of traffic between them, would be useful.

I cheat and use this site to get a rough time. After all, it doesn't have to be perfect.

http://utzig.com/traveller/iai.shtml

 

[Enoki]

I cheat and use this site to get a rough time. After all, it doesn't have to be perfect.

http://utzig.com/traveller/iai.shtml

But, once you detail out a system you find all sorts of neat little things that can pop up. There might be the "western frontier town" on some distant satellite or a secondary colony that's a better place to visit. There are more options to refuel than just gas giants like their satellites or a world with water and atmosphere other than the main world.

It also makes it much clearer just how hard it can be to defend an entire solar system too.

 

[kilemall]

I go whole hog. A lot of times the strange UWP results foster a 'how is that possible' thought process, and all of a sudden I have a really weird scifi world that stands out from all the rocks.

 

[sabredog]

Never....every time I think about it I come to my senses and would rather spend all those hours and hours doing something like play the game instead. The campaign universe I have runs on the original system just fine and in spite of having 16 homemade subsectors using LBB3 to generate, most of the action still only takes place in three or four of them among about 30-40 worlds.

Since I made it all up myself - including custom worlds without the random rolls - I know what is needed about them. If I come up with something odd off the top of my head there is plenty of room for off-the-map "lost" worlds. These places were found by Scouts during my campaign future history known as the Golden Age of Scouts, when tons of the them were shot out into the void to find what was out there with the advent of the J2 drives. A lot of them never came back, some were found later (or their descendants) on some worlds, and some kept worlds off the books for their own use. Lots of these places ended up lost in the archives, too, and get rediscovered once in a while by PC's and NPC's (who then hire PC's to go there).

 

[samuelvss]

I cheat and use this site to get a rough time. After all, it doesn't have to be perfect.

http://utzig.com/traveller/iai.shtml

Well, if you are gaming in the Marches, and have your date, it is actually a quite accurate time. I have used the IAI all the time for this, and just seeing what a system had in it. I will use the outer world descriptions and belt descriptions as a starting point/rationale to flesh things out as necessary.

 

[Quint]

I go whole hog. A lot of times the strange UWP results foster a 'how is that possible' thought process, and all of a sudden I have a really weird scifi world that stands out from all the rocks.

This.

Sometimes it's a real PITA, but often it just has me coming up fun and weird adventure ideas - or just simply some fun local color as they pass through.

D.

 

[flykiller]

My question is, how often is a complete system of importance to your game?

the formal answer is, always, every single system the players enter. the realistic answer is that usually the system is skeletal and merely outlined, and I expand it as needed. and of course there is always ...

A lot of times the strange UWP results foster a 'how is that possible' thought process, and all of a sudden I have a really weird scifi world that stands out from all the rocks.

... this.

 

[Enoki]

Well, if you are gaming in the Marches, and have your date, it is actually a quite accurate time. I have used the IAI all the time for this, and just seeing what a system had in it. I will use the outer world descriptions and belt descriptions as a starting point/rationale to flesh things out as necessary.

I usually game the other side of the "universe" in the Glimmerdrift, Hinterworlds, or outward of those. Most of my gaming and stuff is non-Imperial. Not all, just most.

But, that site will quickly give you a decent estimate on the travel time between two system worlds. I always find it funny that players don't realize that moving from one end of a larger system to the other involves a jump rather than just "flying" there as it can take weeks to accomplish with low G ships.

I also allow, with a better navigator aboard or better navigation software, (2+ levels) for a ship to jump into a system where it chooses rather than just to the primary. The basic nav programming with a competent but not particularly skilled navigator gets you a jump to the primary. You can try for other spots but the results are sort of like a mini-miss jump. You can come out considerably off your expected position as a result.

 

[Spartan159]

Because of this thread I decided to have another go at getting Heaven & Earth to run on my system. Finally managed to get it running, but I'm going to have to manually edit the sector information from TravellerMap aren't I? Unless someone happens to have up to date .HES files? Maybe?

By chance does anyone have version 1.08 of Heaven and Earth? The only one I could find was 1.04.

 

[Nightshade]

Because of this thread I decided to have another go at getting Heaven & Earth to run on my system. Finally managed to get it running, but I'm going to have to manually edit the sector information from TravellerMap aren't I? Unless someone happens to have up to date .HES files? Maybe?

By chance does anyone have version 1.08 of Heaven and Earth? The only one I could find was 1.04.

Did you ever come across v 1.08?

 

[GypsyComet]

how often is a complete system of importance to your game?

Currently playing in the outer system of somewhere. The freedom of being on the map and yet off of it at the same time is quite liberating.

Let me try again. How often do your games involve traveling to/adventuring on non-mainworlds in a star system?

Back in the day I used a secondary GG moon (with the mainworld also being a moon) for my stock "this is Traveller" scenario. More recently I did a "life during wartime" campaign set in the Rebellion, and the PCs spent a fair amount of time and effort running around the back country of the system they got stuck in.

 

[Redcap]

Because of this thread I decided to have another go at getting Heaven & Earth to run on my system. Finally managed to get it running, but I'm going to have to manually edit the sector information from TravellerMap aren't I? Unless someone happens to have up to date .HES files? Maybe?

By chance does anyone have version 1.08 of Heaven and Earth? The only one I could find was 1.04.

Which OS are you using? I couldn't get it to run under Linux

 

[nobby-w]

I've used it quite extensively

All the various versions of Traveller allow for the generation of whole star systems. My question is, how often is a complete system of importance to your game?

At one point I wrote a utility for running the CT book 6 extended system generator and I've used it to produce worlds for a fall-of-2I campaign, so I guess you could say I used it.

I like the ability to produce many nooks and crannies that your party can explore and hide away in. You can build little local economies and communities around pop 3-4 secondary worlds, such as:

• Independent prospectors and miners
• Folks running intra-system barges and support industries
• Little spaceports
• Industries placed away from populated areas, probably with good reason
• Secret 'don't go there' research facilities that everybody knows about
• Communities of people living there and working the industries
• NPCs (or PCs) running away from something with back stories that can inform adventures
• Smugglers and various other shady characters
• Things that can be located and scavenged
• The local law enforcement (a la Outland)
• High security prisons (and prison breaks)
• Grungy noir (or bright and high-tech if you want) settings for adventures in 50-100 year old moon-bases.
• Dungeon stomps in abandoned bases, space stations or spaceships.
• Deckplans, Deckplans, Deckplans
• However, be careful where you shoot ...
• ... and, of course, dangerous life forms getting loose somehow.

They can be a great destination for a little independent free trader to pick up or drop off cargo or passengers. You can also have a patron hire the party to go out to one of these places and do something - pick up somebody or something, find someone, racing with the antagonists to find your goal first, followed by a showdown out in the hard vacuum.
In space no-one can hear you scream.
Plus, because they're normally fairly uninhabitable, they have an inherent sci-fi element.

 

[Darkhstarr]

Rarely, unless the system is a major campaign setting.

 

[kilemall]

I have a system that came up uninhabited except for an emergency supply beacon, it's just a refuel at the gas giant and go sort of place, but I already have a Dark Secret From Character's Past on one of the planets and WHY it's outpost is abandoned...

 

[Enoki]

Well, if you are gaming in the Marches, and have your date, it is actually a quite accurate time. I have used the IAI all the time for this, and just seeing what a system had in it. I will use the outer world descriptions and belt descriptions as a starting point/rationale to flesh things out as necessary.

I tend to use the Glimmerdrift and Crucis Margin for games. So, I have to do the systems myself. Have a good number detailed out too.

 

[Hemdian]

By chance does anyone have version 1.08 of Heaven and Earth? The only one I could find was 1.04.

Sorry, I didn't notice this. If anyone's still interested, I have a copy on my site:

http://sol.trisen.com/downloads/HE108Beta.zip

 

[Redcap]

Thanks; downloaded and saved Now to try to get this version to work on my system!