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Information Please: Maximum Sustainable Population

Whipsnade

SOC-14 5K
Gents,

I'm off on another series of weary waddles and have brought a small project along with me to pass the time. Naturally, I was too stupid to bring everything I needed!

Could any kind soul post some information regarding the various maximum sustainable population "fixes" suggested for Traveller sysgen? What I'm babbling about has to do with those sadly canonical hi-pop hellhole worlds. You know the type, 15 billion people on an airless, waterless rock the size of Ceres?

Several "corrections" have been suggested for this and I'm interested in all of them.

Thank you all in advance.


Regards,
Bill

P.S. This is the project I'm tackling during my multi-month road trip. It will also be a distinctly non-OTU setting.
 
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silly response...

What if there were 10 billion well-maintained low berths (and/or many massive "freeze rooms"), so only 5 billion people are "awake" at any one time?

(the glowing crystal in your palm means you must go to sleep, not die ala Logan's Run ;) )
 
Well, if the Earth's current population only inhabits the 30% or so of dry land, then I figure with more availible "surface" area (even though it's all underground) your livible space goes up accordingly. The main problem is the food/waste/breathable air supplies (fungus farming? CO2 and human waste in-oxygen and consumable food out).

If your consumables are supplied, then all humans require is living space and gravity (and protection against stellar radiation).
 
Who says they have to be in residence on the Hellhole in question... perhaps there are orbital facilities, hab-units, or other types of stuff spread out through the entire system...? Or... nefariously, is someone trying to hide something beneath all that "life" - Who surveyed the system? Did they actually, accurately count the lifeforms, or was there a sensor "error" on that particular vessel that skewed the results (or were they "encouraged" to do so)...

I think that's part of the fun... creating a reason... and I like the thought of spreading the population throughout the system (their "registered" address being the main world... )

What do you think?
 
Gents,

While I'd normally discuss all your ideas about how to "explain" high-pop hellholes, that's not what I started this thread for so take that discussion elsewhere. You can start your own thread with a few mouse clicks.

Several people have come up with MSP corrections for Traveller sysgen, I don't have those notes with me, and I'd like someone to either post them or point me in the right direction to find them.


Regards,
Bill
 
Bill, see my post on your retro-tech thread. I think this is where you need to be inventive in how you explain such oddities. Maybe there's a huge agri-farm moon (or several) orbiting said world. Maybe food shipments jump in system on an hourly basis from the next system over. It may be that a good chunk of the population are actually AI/SI androids, or some alien that hasn't been defined by the CT canon.

A vacuum world does pose some problems. But at least it doesn't have a hydrosphere as well :)

Woops, I just read through the entire thread. My apologies for posting a verboten conversation.... oh well.
 
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I've been wracking my brain most of the day trying to recall who and where I saw some on this posted. EDG on the Comstar Traveller board maybe? Or was it on the Mongoose Traveller boards? Or here before he left?

Or was it someone else? Sorry, still largely drawing a blank :(
 
The only other thing I'm finding easily is what I assume is a post to the TML from about 95 or so, with some sort of extension or customization to the TNE tables. Hunting down a Google trick for pointing at a specific site that's handy for sifting through forums.

EDIT: found it. Enter your search terms, then add site:<website_url> - for example, "maximum sustainable population" site:www.travellerrpg.com.

Searching here found a link to something on Peter Trevor's site that looks promising: http://www.trisen.com/sol/default.asp?topic=20, scroll down to the world generation rules, originally compiled for 2300 it looks like.

Also a post from Keklas Rekobah from 2003 that may help: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=4850&page=2
 
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Aramis, Dan, and John,

Thanks for all the pointers! I'm sure I'll find what I need in your various suggestions.


Regards,
Bill
 
Oops, Sorry

Gents,

While I'd normally discuss all your ideas about how to "explain" high-pop hellholes, that's not what I started this thread for so take that discussion elsewhere. You can start your own thread with a few mouse clicks.

Sorry, misunderstood your intent. :oo:

~M
 
Bill, if your project involves rolling up a subsector that doesn't have that total disconnect between habitability and population that is a feature (although some would call it a bug) of the world generation system, I have a rather unscientific, rough and ready way of doing that which does not involve die modifiers. OTOH it is simple to use and easy to remember:

1) Roll up starports for the subsector, as per the rules.

2) Roll up X sets of physical stats and X sets of social stats, X being the total number of systems in the subsector.

3) Arrange the physical stats in an ordered list according to habitability (i.e. Terran-norm worlds at the top, followed by Terra-prime worlds, worlds with both breathable air and water, water worlds and desert worlds, airless worlds, worlds with atmosphe A, worlds with atmosphere B, and worlds with atmosphere C.

4) Arrange the social stats in an ordered list according to the population size, from the highest to the lowest.

5) Take the top set of physical stats on your list and combine it with one of the top six sets of social stats, chosen by rolling a D6. Remove the two sets from the respective lists.

6) Repeat until all physical stats have been combined with social stats.

Either: 7a) Assign the combined stats to the systems in accordance to which ones deserve which class of starport. When in doubt, roll a die. Go to 8a.

Or: 7b) Roll tech levels for each system, ignoring the starport modifier. Go to 8b.

Either: 8a) Roll tech levels for each system according to the rules.

Or: 8b) Assign the stats to the systems in accordance to which ones deserve which class of starport. When in doubt, roll a die.​

Note that it is, in fact, perfectly possible to get high populations on crappy worlds (though not low populations on good worlds) with this system. Just not as likely.


Hans
 
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Hans,

Thanks for that.

I think I'll have the time to roll up my "sandbox" using both your method and MT's "Hard Times".


Regards,
Bill
 
Here's how I usually figure a world's UWP.
I make a dm using on atm and hyd% and basing the dm on how far from the 'standard' eartk-like UWP values that humans like. I also go into an alternate way of determining tech levels and starport type using social profiles generated from World Builder's or Pocket Empires ( the difference between those 2 concern PE's usage of "culture".

http://moukotiger.googlepages.com/my_uwp.doc

But the UWP value for pop is NOT carrying capacity.
Because this affects my experiments with population growth and sex ratios ( from the Aslan thread ), I will guess that a world's carrying capacity is based on food availability from agriculture production and food imports. I will also guess that agriculture growth is constrained by atm and hyd% to some degree and thus limit food production. I would also use incoming solar radiation as a limit on plant growth ( in the absence of massive arrays of artificial lighting ); this may not matter so much on worlds within the habital zone, but may be a costly bit of infrastructure on worlds in the outer zones.

(1-(ABS(Hyd%-6)/10))*(1-(ABS(Atm-6)/10))
*from a spreadsheet I'm working on...pretty much*

neat thing about carrying capacity and population growth rates... in some circumstances, they can become chaotic.
 
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Hope I'm not pushing the thread too far afield, but I still think the anomolies are great opportunities for immagination to take over. Just my two credits worth.
 
Hope I'm not pushing the thread too far afield, but I still think the anomolies are great opportunities for immagination to take over. Just my two credits worth.
You probably are, so I'll just give you a general reply: A few anomalies are definitely great opportunities for imaginations. Nobody is disputing that. But when the anomalies become numerous enough to be the norm, something is definitely wrong.


Hans
 
Hope I'm not pushing the thread too far afield, but I still think the anomolies are great opportunities for immagination to take over. Just my two credits worth.


BG,

I probably love anomalies more than the next guy. Figuring out what seems to me are plausible reasons for them is one of my favorite "pen & pencil" Traveller activities. One man's plausibility, however, is another man's implausibility and the reasons that work IMTU will not work IYTU.

As Han's correctly points out, Traveller's older sysgen methods produced too many anomalies. A few "head-scratchers" per subsector provide just the right amount of "otherness". After that you reach a tipping point and begin to realize that the system doesn't work as well as it should.

Normally, I wouldn't be putting much effort into "corrected" population codes but this little project of mine might prove useful to others. Because of that, I can't make things too "twee".


Regards,
Bill
 
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