Sources for sector information

[daryen]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
"The first reason is that he is taking the oldest data as correct, then going from there."

Only where later data is obviously wrong. Look at the examples.

I was primarily referring to the stellar data. He rejects the RS revised stellar data. That is not the direction I want to go.

Excepting the stellar data, I found less than six other notable discrepancies, one where the UWP was completely wrong, and in those cases I rejected the RS data as inappropriate.

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Flynn:
http://www.mu.org/~joe/traveller/archive/General/old_sectors/spinward.txt
http://www.mu.org/~joe/traveller/archive/General/old_sectors/deneb.txt

I used the marches file (or one like it) as the basis, then compared it against the IE and RS.

I am also going to use the deneb file, and compare it against RS and (if I can get the info), against the allegiances shown in the Atlas. (I don't have the Atlas, so I have to rely on the goodwill of others.)

http://www.mu.org/~joe/traveller/archive/General/old_sectors/reft.txt
http://www.mu.org/~joe/traveller/archive/General/old_sectors/trojan.txt

Unfortunately, on the other hand, these two files are completely unusable. They are basically the information from the Atlas backfilled with random information. I plan on using the data from RS and TD20. Hopefully someone with MTJ3 can verify the data in it is the same as the data in TD20, as I don't want to have to rely only on DGP copyright material.

 

[far-trader]

I'm wondering, not having delved deep into all the systems generated, how many of the basic UWPs are badly broken? I mean without the expanded bits.

It seems to me that even if the system is flawed for extremes the very nature of random should produce mostly average results, even with just a 2d6 generation. Of course if the data was generated incorrectly (by the rules, not reality) or with a bad random seed then it should be tossed/ignored.

If the basic UWP is not too far out to lunch in most cases I can live with trashing the stellar data. How many players and referees even use it for much?

Then to explain some of the real oddball UWPs we can drop the mainworld in an orbit that allows the results. Maybe. Like a small world with an atmosphere could be placed so that it is far enough out that it is cold enough to keep its atmosphere. <shrug>

Anyway, just a simplified observation from the gallery.

 

[Malenfant]

It seems to me that even if the system is flawed for extremes the very nature of random should produce mostly average results, even with just a 2d6 generation. Of course if the data was generated incorrectly (by the rules, not reality) or with a bad random seed then it should be tossed/ignored.

Unfortunately it would seem that a lot of the GENII sectors have been generated using dubious random number generators that don't remotely conform to the statistics you'd expect from book 6.

And the default stellar data is mostly broken. Even if you use the proper Book 6 methods, you still end up with most habitable worlds orbiting subdwarfs and white dwarfs, which is nonsense.

Then to explain some of the real oddball UWPs we can drop the mainworld in an orbit that allows the results. Maybe. Like a small world with an atmosphere could be placed so that it is far enough out that it is cold enough to keep its atmosphere. <shrug>

Look at Titan and Pluto in our system - a small world would have to be REALLY far from its star to hold onto any appreciable atmosphere. The problem is that atms 2-9 are supposed to be N2/O2 mixes, and you won't get those at the distances outside the habitable zone that these worlds would have to be to be able to hold on to them. To get it to work you either have to replace them all with atm B (they'd require protective suits for the low temperatures) or change the definition of atms 2-9 in non-habitable orbits.

 

[Psion]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Look at Titan and Pluto in our system - a small world would have to be REALLY far from its star to hold onto any appreciable atmosphere. The problem is that atms 2-9 are supposed to be N2/O2 mixes, and you won't get those at the distances outside the habitable zone that these worlds would have to be to be able to hold on to them. To get it to work you either have to replace them all with atm B (they'd require protective suits for the low temperatures) or change the definition of atms 2-9 in non-habitable orbits.

The frequency of Oxygen bearing worlds produced by the system is a real head-scratcher for me. I would think that in the world generation sequence, if a world has an oxygen atmosphere, it has (or recently had) life. I guess life bearing worlds are all over the place in Traveller.

Even then, WBH doesn't assume that native life exists automatically if you have an O2 bearing atmosphere, which it probably should. The only alterntative would be to trot out the ancients and assumed that among all the other wacky things they did, they seed a number of worlds with some sort of oxygen producing algae. (shrug)

 

[Malenfant]

What's interesting is that most stars (realistically) should be M V stars, and most of those don't even have Habitable Zones in Traveller's fixed orbits scheme - the habitable orbits for M3 - M9 V stars are within Orbit 0 (0.2 AU). It's possible that tidal-locking might make worlds in Orbit 0 more habitable but I suspect that would only work for the stars nearer M0 V. So if you looked at the full distribution of stars, a majority of the most common star types (M V) shouldn't have habitable planets.

But I'm kinda veering offtopic here...

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Psion:
The frequency of Oxygen bearing worlds produced by the system is a real head-scratcher for me. I would think that in the world generation sequence, if a world has an oxygen atmosphere, it has (or recently had) life. I guess life bearing worlds are all over the place in Traveller.

Even then, WBH doesn't assume that native life exists automatically if you have an O2 bearing atmosphere, which it probably should. The only alterntative would be to trot out the ancients and assumed that among all the other wacky things they did, they seed a number of worlds with some sort of oxygen producing algae. (shrug)

Yeah, when it was originally "just" a simple Mainworld generation system it was understandable that the world chosen represented the best or most desirable world in the system. This would naturally gravitate to "friendly" worlds (average size and average O2 atmospheres) while allowing the chance that the "best" place for the Mainworld was a frozen planetoid in the far reaches of the system.

Expanding the simple generation to include every world in the system really broke the model. Suddenly you had to wonder why the Mainworld was a lifeless rocky speck if it was in the habitable zone all along rather than imagining it was in the outer system. And it looked really screwy if you generated a sub-world that turned out to be better suited for life.

Then there was the sudden population explosion of the Imperium with all these sub-worlds being added. At the very least the population of the Mainworld should have been taken as inclusive of any and all other inhabited worlds in the system just to maintain the status quo. Oh sure there were modifiers and if the sub-world generation gave a result equal or greater than the mainworld you were to reduce it to Mainworld pop-1 but you were still adding population. Not good enough in my book.

Ah well, their hearts were in the right place

and the game has given more enjoyment than pain even with its flaws. For that I thank them for sharing.

I'd still like to see some considered and gentle fixing

Oops, right you are Malenfant, this has strayed into another field... moving along now

 

[alanb]

Random comments:

(1) Supp 3 is correct for the period before the FFW. Nothing has invalidated it.

(2) According to one or other of the Ancients, the Spinward Marches were computer generated, and then manually tweaked. The original files were long since thrown away.

(3) Traveller is not a church. Canon is for writers, not for referees.

(4) If someone has copies of both AotI and RSB, it would probably take about 5 minutes to see how much the borders differ between those in AotI and the 1117 data from RSB. Unfortunately my copies aren't here, so I can't do it.

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by alanb:
Random comments:

(1) Supp 3 is correct for the period before the FFW. Nothing has invalidated it.

There are other changes than the allegiances of some former Sword Worlds. There were a few actual UWP changes. It has been superceded by later material. Consequently, it is much better to just use the later material.

(3) Traveller is not a church. Canon is for writers, not for referees.

I am not doing this exercise because I am going to referee. While I will be doing the Spinward Marches "correction" for fun, the other effort I am doing with the Domain is with another goal in mind.

(4) If someone has copies of both AotI and RSB, it would probably take about 5 minutes to see how much the borders differ between those in AotI and the 1117 data from RSB. Unfortunately my copies aren't here, so I can't do it.

Unfortunately, I don't have the AotI. I will also not be getting it until FFE decides to finally produce the Modules Reprint. Fortunately I have found some sector files which were obviously made from AotI data. I still want to double check the info, though.

Also, it takes quite a bit more than 5 minutes to go through a sector's worth of worlds. But the goal is to have a single set of what appears to be canon data that can be worked from.

 

[alanb]

Uhh, well, I'm not so sure about the UWP changes. I would be surprised if there is anything much beyond the changes which are attributable to the changes in government, plus time. I doubt there are any changes in size, atmosphere or hydrographics, for example. Anything else is _not_ a contradiction in canon.

The only allegiance changes in Deneb will be those along the Vargr border. Checking those would be trivially easy. The rest of the sector will be fine. Hence my five minutes comment.

 

[daryen]

Here is what I found in the Spinward Marches.

First, what I did is find a .SEC file for the Spinward Marches on the net. (I honestly don't know which one I took. There are several to choose from.)

I then went through it world by world, comparing the information in the file to the information in the RSB. Anytime I found a discrepancy, I checked it against the Imperial Encyclopedia. (I would have prefered to use the Spinward Marches Campaign, but I don't have it. I believe the info between the IE and SMC is the same, except for allegiance changes.)

[Side note: This is not the "corrected" Spinward Marches. I am only trying to collate "canon" data. I am not worried if it makes any sense.]

These are the descrepancies I found. Do note that there aren't a whole lot. Unfortunately, there are enough to force me to go through world-by-world. (Note that, with the exception of Uniqua, I am not mentioning any of the stellar data changes. I use RSB stellar data across the board.)

- Uniqua (0129). The stellar data is just stupid-weird. The RSB itself lists it as K9V M2D in 1117, but as K9V M9D in 1202. I went with K9V M9D, as it is what the file and IE had.

- Andor (0236) and Candory (0336). I don't know when it was decided that they were Droyne worlds. Even the RSB lists them (effectively) as non-Droyne in 1117, but full Droyne worlds in 1202. I decided to go against all of them and list both worlds as full Droyne worlds. I don't care what "the public" knows. They are Droyne worlds and should be noted as Droyne worlds.

- Entrope (0720). Both the RSB and IE give Entrope's PPG info as 110. But the file had it as 720. I went with 110, but I would really like to know where that 720 info came from. Every Spinward Marches file on the internet uses 720. Probably more DGP silliness.

- Bowman (1132). The RSB gives its PPG as 801, but IE gives it as 811. Does anyone have the Bowman module? What does it say? Right now I am going with 811.

- Victoria (1817). The RSB gives it a TL of 3, but IE has a TL of 2. I went with 3 just to be nice to them.

- Craw (1939). RSB gives it a UWP of C573674-6. IE gives it a UWP of C574645-3. I went with IE on this one.

[Edit]
- Enos (1130). Just exactly what type of base it has is still quite the mystery. I ignored them all and just gave it a standard "military" base.

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by alanb:
Uhh, well, I'm not so sure about the UWP changes. I would be surprised if there is anything much beyond the changes which are attributable to the changes in government, plus time. I doubt there are any changes in size, atmosphere or hydrographics, for example. Anything else is _not_ a contradiction in canon.

I know of two changes between Supp3 and SMC/IE:
- 886-945 (0230). Changes from 800000 to 833000.
- Regina (1910). Its TL changes from A to C. There is no way the planet is going to improve 2 TLs in 6 years (1105 -> 1111). This was a canon change, not a "time" change.

Those two worlds alone mean that I would have to check all of the others just in case. So, it is just easier and makes more sense to ignore Supp3 and use SMC/IE instead.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by daryen:
Those two worlds alone mean that I would have to check all of the others just in case. So, it is just easier and makes more sense to ignore Supp3 and use SMC/IE instead.

Yeah. Least necessary hassle.

Supp 3 is still good for the pre-FFW borders, though. Although SMC also covers it, I think.

SMC also has the border changes that occurred during the previous Frontier Wars. One of the CT Library Data Supplements had dot maps of the early settlement of the Marches.

This kind of stuff could be useful when you are working on the history of individual worlds. Of course, GT: Behind the Claw invalidates pretty much all of this.

But you really don't need to worry about any of this. Just pick some numbers you're happy with and play...

 

[Malenfant]

There's the Sword Worlds book for that part of the Marches too. I think we had to change some of the stellar data to make it sensible though (IIRC one of the Metal worlds was habitable but orbiting a white dwarf according to the RS)

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by alanb:
But you really don't need to worry about any of this. Just pick some numbers you're happy with and play...

Trust me on this: If this was just for a campaign, I would simply pick one without checking anything and run with it.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
There's the Sword Worlds book for that part of the Marches too. I think we had to change some of the stellar data to make it sensible though (IIRC one of the Metal worlds was habitable but orbiting a white dwarf according to the RS)

That would be Mithral. Steel isn't much better, as it orbits a red giant which should have baked everything. The only one of the four Metal Worlds with a decent star is Iron.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by daryen:
That would be Mithral. Steel isn't much better, as it orbits a red giant which should have baked everything. The only one of the four Metal Worlds with a decent star is Iron.

Yep. Mithril was an FD star originally. We changed it to an F V.

We explained Steel by saying it was a rocky world from the inner system that got tossed out into the outer system by an inward-spiralling gas giant when the system was very young. We made the star a Mira-class variable too.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by daryen:
I am looking for the sources for some sector data on the Spinward Marches, Deneb, Trojan Reaches, and Reft. I am specifically interested in pre-Rebellion, post-5FW data.

Spinward Marches is easy, if somewhat aggravating. I have the Regency Sourcebook and the Imperial Encyclopedia. (Those are the relevant sources; I am ignoring the earlier stuff.) I am half-way through the sector, and there is a surprising number of inconsistencies. (Not including the revisions to the stellar data in RS.)

Where else were the UWPs published? The only other book I know of is the Spinward Marches Campaign, which (I believe) is identical to the information in the Imperial Encyclopedia, with the exception of the allegiance codes where the Aslan "took over".

Well, if you're ignoring the earlier stuff, then the answer is: Nowhere else. Most of the adventures contained a map and UWPs of the subsector where the adventure took place (Twilight's Peak had an 8x10 map that covered parts of four subsectors), but they're all 'earlier stuff'.

When I work on a world's history, I get UWPs for 1105 from The Spinward Marches, for 1111 from The Spinward Marches Campaign, and for 1117 and 1202 from The Regency sourcebook. I'm not aware of any other canonical sources (other than the aforementioned adventures).

I've written two historical campaign settings featuring the Sword Worlds. They've been published on JTAS Online, which may or may not count as canonical for you. The Sacnoth Dominate ( http://jtas.sjgames.com/login/article.cgi?124 ) contains UWPs for the Sword Worlds for -105 and The Five States ( http://jtas.sjgames.com/login/article.cgi?433 ) has UWPs for 55.

Deneb is a little more problematic [...] What I specifically need are the original allegiance codes before the Vargr "invaded" and took over some of the worlds.

That's easy. They're all Imperial. I speak subject to correction by anyone with an Atlas of the Imperium, but I'm 99% sure the pre-Rebellion Imperium-Vargr Extents border runs along the sector border.

(I'm also pretty sure the post-Rebellion border ought to run there, having the impression of Norris' character that he'd never abandon any of the worlds in his charge to Vargr invaders, but that's a different subject, and one that fortunately doesn't affect any earlier period of Deneb's history.

)

Getting back to your question, the Pretoria subsector was featured in The Travellers' Digest #1 and I think that TD#2 was set in either Antra or Million subsector, but I may be misremembering.


Hans

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Not all Deneb is Imperial. There are a couple of dozen Vargr, CS, and NA worlds along the edge.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
Not all Deneb is Imperial. There are a couple of dozen Vargr, CS, and NA worlds along the edge.

Pre-Rebellion? AotI shows this? Could you please give me a list?


Hans

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by rancke:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
Not all Deneb is Imperial. There are a couple of dozen Vargr, CS, and NA worlds along the edge.

Pre-Rebellion? AotI shows this? Could you please give me a list?</font>[/QUOTE]I have a dot-map that shows the worlds outside the Imperium, but not their allegiances. If someone with AotI could list the non-imperial worlds and their allegiances, I would be greatly appreciative. To keep things easy (since most won't be named in AotI), please just list the sector hex number and allegiance of the non-Imperial worlds.

Thanks.

(Oddly enough, the only data files I can find for Deneb are all rebellion era. Meanwhile, all of the ones for the Spinward Marches are pre-5FW.)