MT Only: Population Multiplier?

[ShawnDriscoll]

I was told about how the GEnie file format uses a PBG column. So I had to look up what that was, and traced it to MegaTraveller's worldgen. I ended up writing some code the other morning to handle the generation of P B and G data, by reading the chart. The chart didn't explain what the Population Multiplier was used for. It's just something that exists. I didn't read through the rules to see when that field is used (or my search didn't find anything about it other than the use in the worldgen chart).

Is it something to help define more accurate population numbers? Instead of a range from 1, 000 to 9,999, the multiplier can do a 4x or a 8x for that range and get a 4,000 or an 8,000 amount?

 

[GypsyComet]

Yes. A Population Multiplier of 4 on a Pop 6 world indicates roughly 4,000,000 people.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Ok. I remember giving up on this version of Traveller back in the day because of typos. I'm guessing a Population Multiplier of zero is a typo as well? Because the online GEnie files I'm looking at these days have 1 as the lowest value for that column. Or maybe Traveller 5 has taken over assigning that column?

 

[GypsyComet]

A Zero would mean one of two things: either the Pop digit is lying and there really are no people (Mult=0), or the Pop should be one higher (Mult=10).

You should only see a Multiplier of 0 when the Pop is also 0, indicating a truly Barren world.