A meta-thought about determining Traveller traffic is here:
http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/RJStarportNew.html
The numbers may not agree with your preference, but the method seems to work well.
Starport drawings wanted!!!!!
- Thread starter trader jim
- Start date
http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/RJStarportNew.html
The numbers may not agree with your preference, but the method seems to work well.
robject,
I would agree with you except that you are assuming that the planet (or gas giant) does not change as it loses its water and other material.
Since water (and gas) must be refined to be good usable fuel that must mean that there are other things in it besides H2. Even assuming that the none of needed materials are dumped (put) back on/into the planet the balance will still be upset over time.
I would say that you should cut your estimates in 1/2 at the min. Yes 15,000 years is still along time.
Now assume that a population lives on that planet (not gas unless alien) and what they use/abuse in resources. Again the lack of balance after a while will catch up with the system/planet.
So overall being the fact that the Ancients were around a lot longer than we have been and that we have determined that they used some of the same fuels that we have and that there was a galactic (at least extremely large scale) war that took place 1,000s of years ago,
I still say that explains a good reason for a lot of dead planets.
Dave
I would agree with you except that you are assuming that the planet (or gas giant) does not change as it loses its water and other material.
Since water (and gas) must be refined to be good usable fuel that must mean that there are other things in it besides H2. Even assuming that the none of needed materials are dumped (put) back on/into the planet the balance will still be upset over time.
I would say that you should cut your estimates in 1/2 at the min. Yes 15,000 years is still along time.
Now assume that a population lives on that planet (not gas unless alien) and what they use/abuse in resources. Again the lack of balance after a while will catch up with the system/planet.
So overall being the fact that the Ancients were around a lot longer than we have been and that we have determined that they used some of the same fuels that we have and that there was a galactic (at least extremely large scale) war that took place 1,000s of years ago,
I still say that explains a good reason for a lot of dead planets.
Dave
Dave,
Yes, good points both (and of course I don't really know how much water a world has, so I could easily be off by a factor of 10 to 100 either way), especially the Ancients part. They must have used up a lot of worlds. And don't forget about all the asteroid belts resulting from said wars...
Rob
P.S. This reminds me of one scenario where I spent a lot of time calculating how much water it would take for my planetary engineers to turn Shush (a size 4 world right on the edge of the Rift in Corridor) from a hydrosphere 2 to a 4... just enough to become an Agricultural world with the right population.
I don't remember the numbers, but they were large. We would have to have scads of harvesters hurling reasonably-sized ice chunks at reasonable speeds into the planet's atmosphere for decades. The atmosphere would be in turmoil as it tried to accomodate the water added to the system.
Wild Assumptions
Size 4 world = radius 4 000 000 m. Avg water depth at 2 000 m, but only 20% water on world... Assume a pan of water 400m deep, 8 000 000 m on a side, yields 3 200 000 000 000 000 cubic meters, or 228 000 000 000 000 tons. So to make this a 40% water world, we need 228 trillion tons of water...
To do it in 10 years, you deliver 28 trillion tons of water each year, which is 76 billion tons a day.
Ooookaaay. Let's break that up into 76,000 million-ton blocks of ice. Now I'm starting to see how impossible it is without amazing technology. Even over 100 years, that's still 7600 blocks of million-ton ice cubes per day, and now you have the administrative nightmare of guiding the project over a century of changing workforces. Talk about a pain.
The only hope lies in some fab units that churn out a huge number of automated scavenger bots over a period of years whose only goal is to hurl ice to the mainworld.
Or a kind referee that lets us harvest hydrogen from a gas giant and oxygen from somewhere else.
Yes, good points both (and of course I don't really know how much water a world has, so I could easily be off by a factor of 10 to 100 either way), especially the Ancients part. They must have used up a lot of worlds. And don't forget about all the asteroid belts resulting from said wars...
Rob
P.S. This reminds me of one scenario where I spent a lot of time calculating how much water it would take for my planetary engineers to turn Shush (a size 4 world right on the edge of the Rift in Corridor) from a hydrosphere 2 to a 4... just enough to become an Agricultural world with the right population.
I don't remember the numbers, but they were large. We would have to have scads of harvesters hurling reasonably-sized ice chunks at reasonable speeds into the planet's atmosphere for decades. The atmosphere would be in turmoil as it tried to accomodate the water added to the system.
Wild Assumptions
Size 4 world = radius 4 000 000 m. Avg water depth at 2 000 m, but only 20% water on world... Assume a pan of water 400m deep, 8 000 000 m on a side, yields 3 200 000 000 000 000 cubic meters, or 228 000 000 000 000 tons. So to make this a 40% water world, we need 228 trillion tons of water...
To do it in 10 years, you deliver 28 trillion tons of water each year, which is 76 billion tons a day.
Ooookaaay. Let's break that up into 76,000 million-ton blocks of ice. Now I'm starting to see how impossible it is without amazing technology. Even over 100 years, that's still 7600 blocks of million-ton ice cubes per day, and now you have the administrative nightmare of guiding the project over a century of changing workforces. Talk about a pain.
The only hope lies in some fab units that churn out a huge number of automated scavenger bots over a period of years whose only goal is to hurl ice to the mainworld.
Or a kind referee that lets us harvest hydrogen from a gas giant and oxygen from somewhere else.
Check the mars exploration sites. There are several ways to make oxygen.
But this hurling ice into the atmosphere. Your tech needs to convert other compounds onworld into H20.
Also, 10 years. It'll be a slush bowl. I'd say your lucky to get it done in a century.
Just a few thought,
Savage
But this hurling ice into the atmosphere. Your tech needs to convert other compounds onworld into H20.
Also, 10 years. It'll be a slush bowl. I'd say your lucky to get it done in a century.
Just a few thought,
Savage
mad13142000
SOC-13
I think S'bow missed a point in his post. The UWP lists the MAIN starport on a world. When you generate the details of the world, other things pop up.
Look at Earth. With it's A code for starports, Earth ends up having 3 class A ports. But why would England need a class A if there are already 3 downs, plus the orbital highport? (not to mention the beanstalk in Central America)...
They would have a class C or D - big enough to handle the amount of volume (passengers and cargo) yet not needing more than refueling and MAYBE some minor repair ability... or even a lower class spaceport. A fartrader with cargo for England would put in to the Highport, uload its cargo, and a lighter would ferry it down to the spaceport outside London...No need for THAT many Starports...
just a thought
-MADDog
Look at Earth. With it's A code for starports, Earth ends up having 3 class A ports. But why would England need a class A if there are already 3 downs, plus the orbital highport? (not to mention the beanstalk in Central America)...
They would have a class C or D - big enough to handle the amount of volume (passengers and cargo) yet not needing more than refueling and MAYBE some minor repair ability... or even a lower class spaceport. A fartrader with cargo for England would put in to the Highport, uload its cargo, and a lighter would ferry it down to the spaceport outside London...No need for THAT many Starports...
just a thought
-MADDog
robject,
Mechanoid's (Pallidum) could suck up an entire world in 3 months, of course there was nothing left of the world when they were done.
So in reverse assuming that it is always easier to destory than create, I would say a factor of 1000 (or 250 years) that an very organized force could possibly convert a stable dead planet in to a living 'eden' (genesis project) type planet.
What I was think about is a scenario where scouts are re-surveying systems on the edge of controlled space and find a system that has at least one viable planet but the last survey mission 300+ years ago showed is a dead (possibly only a small gas giant) system.
At first they assume that it was just falsely reported but during their survey on the ground they discover some plants (or variants of) that have only been around/known of for the last 200 years. They also discover some very specialized planet that are not 'native' to this planet and some that would never be found on the same planet (at least according to bio division).
The oldest living planet is not over 250 years.
The geology subsurface has been changed/added to so that planets (animals) can live on the surface
Later they come across an extreme high technology device that after deciphering the text/video telling them/PSI that says
To replace what we removed, one planet at a time.
Take care of these small gifts, for we are watching.
What do the scouts do:
Report what they find (think of the uproar with those in power)
Report that the system is dead and retire there
Tell no one
And if they do tell some one think of the treasure hunters
Just a thought of a scenario
Who gave the planet a make over:
Ancient who still lives
Some unheard of race of super advance technology
Gods?
Zhodani trick
Dave
Mechanoid's (Pallidum) could suck up an entire world in 3 months, of course there was nothing left of the world when they were done.
So in reverse assuming that it is always easier to destory than create, I would say a factor of 1000 (or 250 years) that an very organized force could possibly convert a stable dead planet in to a living 'eden' (genesis project) type planet.
What I was think about is a scenario where scouts are re-surveying systems on the edge of controlled space and find a system that has at least one viable planet but the last survey mission 300+ years ago showed is a dead (possibly only a small gas giant) system.
At first they assume that it was just falsely reported but during their survey on the ground they discover some plants (or variants of) that have only been around/known of for the last 200 years. They also discover some very specialized planet that are not 'native' to this planet and some that would never be found on the same planet (at least according to bio division).
The oldest living planet is not over 250 years.
The geology subsurface has been changed/added to so that planets (animals) can live on the surface
Later they come across an extreme high technology device that after deciphering the text/video telling them/PSI that says
To replace what we removed, one planet at a time.
Take care of these small gifts, for we are watching.
What do the scouts do:
Report what they find (think of the uproar with those in power)
Report that the system is dead and retire there
Tell no one
And if they do tell some one think of the treasure hunters
Just a thought of a scenario
Who gave the planet a make over:
Ancient who still lives
Some unheard of race of super advance technology
Gods?
Zhodani trick
Dave
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
Hmmmm, 70M tons per cubic km lasts a long time even at profligate Traveller consumption rates. Only about 0.01-0.02% of available fusion energy is converted; in Traveller fission uses less fuel (but requires higher component mass by a significant percentage).
And mecha isn't exactly scientific (not to beat you up about it… it's just entertainment. Traveller is one form of entertainment that makes a passable attempt at being scientific, and it doesn't do to mix children's science fantasy with hard scifi )
__________
QM2: a nice little boat.
76k tons mass empty, 150k tons gross mass (somewhere around 20k-30k dT)
1253 officers and crew
2620 passengers
£550M (275MCr) goes a whole lot further on a planet surface—wouldn't even buy the engines for a 30k dT spaceliner.
And mecha isn't exactly scientific
(not to beat you up about it… it's just entertainment. Traveller is one form of entertainment that makes a passable attempt at being scientific, and it doesn't do to mix children's science fantasy with hard scifi )__________
QM2: a nice little boat.
76k tons mass empty, 150k tons gross mass (somewhere around 20k-30k dT)
1253 officers and crew
2620 passengers
£550M (275MCr) goes a whole lot further on a planet surface—wouldn't even buy the engines for a 30k dT spaceliner.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
If the UWP list only the main Starport, then how many are there? Can I check for passengers, cargo, and spec goods at each one, each week and take the cream of the crop?
[drat, this bb doesn't have a greed smiley]
It sounds good to explain it as the main Starport, but the game mechanisms aren't in place to support it.
We should do something about that.
It sounds good to explain it as the main Starport, but the game mechanisms aren't in place to support it.
We should do something about that.
Straybow,
Your 100% correct. I do believe someone came up with a universal star system profile...don't recall where it is at and its unofficial. Perhaps someone else remembers.
I think the issue was that the existing sectors needed to be populated taking the UWP into consideration...
Savage
Your 100% correct. I do believe someone came up with a universal star system profile...don't recall where it is at and its unofficial. Perhaps someone else remembers.
I think the issue was that the existing sectors needed to be populated taking the UWP into consideration...
Savage
Straybow,
Yep, the UWP lists the best starport there. If you wanted something that was generally useful for others, you could use a traffic-distribution model to programmatically figure out how many starports there are likely to be:
First, figure out the traffic T through the main starport. This would be some percentage of the traffic through the system as a whole -- 50% for example -- or it could be equal to the official traffic volume through the system. This lets you tune your traffic volume, too.
Next, apply a city-population rule like this:
Starport 1 handles T traffic.
Starport 2 handles T/2 traffic.
Starport 3 handles T/3 traffic.
Starport 4 handles T/4 traffic.
Do that until you reach some threshold traffic number that's too low to bother with, and scatter some number of small starports around to pick up the leftovers.
The article that I'm thinking of which talks about demographics and settlement sizes is here:
"Medieval Demographics Made Easy":
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm
For example, a world that has a volume rating of one million passengers per week might actually have starports like this:
Starport 1: 500k passengers/wk
Starport 2: 250k p/wk
Starport 3: 160k p/wk
Starport 4: 125k p/wk
Starport 5: 100k p/wk
Starport 6: 85k p/wk
Starport 7: 70k p/wk
Starport 8: 62k p/wk
Starport 9: 55k p/wk
Starport 10: 50k p/wk
Note that by this point, starports aren't so significant compared to the first few, but still are quite substantial. At 10% we also might prefer to proceed linearly:
Starport 11: 45k p/wk
Starport 12: 40k p/wk
Starport 13: 35k p/wk
Starport 14: 30k p/wk
Starport 15: 25k p/wk
Starport 16: 20k p/wk
20,000 people per week is about 3000 per day, which is about 120 per hour. That's one 600t liner every 15 minutes. At this point I'm ready to call all this remainder traffic as insignificant, to be subsumed by the ports shown above and smallish ports not worth enumerating.
Yep, the UWP lists the best starport there. If you wanted something that was generally useful for others, you could use a traffic-distribution model to programmatically figure out how many starports there are likely to be:
First, figure out the traffic T through the main starport. This would be some percentage of the traffic through the system as a whole -- 50% for example -- or it could be equal to the official traffic volume through the system. This lets you tune your traffic volume, too.
Next, apply a city-population rule like this:
Starport 1 handles T traffic.
Starport 2 handles T/2 traffic.
Starport 3 handles T/3 traffic.
Starport 4 handles T/4 traffic.
Do that until you reach some threshold traffic number that's too low to bother with, and scatter some number of small starports around to pick up the leftovers.
The article that I'm thinking of which talks about demographics and settlement sizes is here:
"Medieval Demographics Made Easy":
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm
For example, a world that has a volume rating of one million passengers per week might actually have starports like this:
Starport 1: 500k passengers/wk
Starport 2: 250k p/wk
Starport 3: 160k p/wk
Starport 4: 125k p/wk
Starport 5: 100k p/wk
Starport 6: 85k p/wk
Starport 7: 70k p/wk
Starport 8: 62k p/wk
Starport 9: 55k p/wk
Starport 10: 50k p/wk
Note that by this point, starports aren't so significant compared to the first few, but still are quite substantial. At 10% we also might prefer to proceed linearly:
Starport 11: 45k p/wk
Starport 12: 40k p/wk
Starport 13: 35k p/wk
Starport 14: 30k p/wk
Starport 15: 25k p/wk
Starport 16: 20k p/wk
20,000 people per week is about 3000 per day, which is about 120 per hour. That's one 600t liner every 15 minutes. At this point I'm ready to call all this remainder traffic as insignificant, to be subsumed by the ports shown above and smallish ports not worth enumerating.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
That kinda raises another thing that bugs me.
Class C & D starports having no refined fuel. How much economic incentive is needed for that?
"Gee, we only get 50 ships a week through here, and they only need 2500 dT of H2. Nobody wants to make a fifty grand a week refining fuel to sell to these guys. That sounds like a lotta work."
I would think only some E ports would lack refined fuel, simply because they have no infrastructure at all. Other E ports would have refined fuel to support in-system traffic and non-starship uses for fusion fuel, like power plants for the town.
Class C & D starports having no refined fuel. How much economic incentive is needed for that?"Gee, we only get 50 ships a week through here, and they only need 2500 dT of H2. Nobody wants to make a fifty grand a week refining fuel to sell to these guys. That sounds like a lotta work."
I would think only some E ports would lack refined fuel, simply because they have no infrastructure at all. Other E ports would have refined fuel to support in-system traffic and non-starship uses for fusion fuel, like power plants for the town.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Hi Straybow, this kinda bugged me too. So much that I came up with a mtu ruling a while back. There's three kinds of fuel quality in mtu:
Refined - The stuff you pay the big bucks for at better starports. It requires extensive treatment but is worth it since it doesn't muck up your delicate jump drives and fusion powerplant. Game rules: No effects. Cost of purchase is Cr500/ton, available at class A and B starports.
Purified - This is what comes out of those small and inexpensive ship installations of fuel scoops and purifiers. It does pose some risk of damage to the jump drive and fusion powerplant but with careful monitoring should prove safe. Game rules: Slightly increased temporary chance of jump drive and/or fusion powerplant failure. Imposes -1 on checks until refueled. Cost of purchase is Cr100/ton. Some mid level starports will offer this purifier treatment as a service. Available at class C starports and class D starports with Scout Bases.
Unrefined - This is the rawest usable state, practically fresh from the source. Available right through the fuel scoops or at worlds with next to no infrastructure. It is not suitable for use as is but may be employed in an emergency. It is illegal to use this fuel on commercial ships. Game rules: Increased and cumulative permanent chance of jump drive and/or fusion powerplant failure. Initially imposes a -2 on checks with each additional use adding a -1, until the affected systems receive an overhaul. Such an overhaul takes one week and costs 0.001 x the new cost of the systems. Cost of purchase is Cr20/ton. Available at class D starports and class E starports of TL8+
Or something like that, its as always a work in progress
Refined - The stuff you pay the big bucks for at better starports. It requires extensive treatment but is worth it since it doesn't muck up your delicate jump drives and fusion powerplant. Game rules: No effects. Cost of purchase is Cr500/ton, available at class A and B starports.
Purified - This is what comes out of those small and inexpensive ship installations of fuel scoops and purifiers. It does pose some risk of damage to the jump drive and fusion powerplant but with careful monitoring should prove safe. Game rules: Slightly increased temporary chance of jump drive and/or fusion powerplant failure. Imposes -1 on checks until refueled. Cost of purchase is Cr100/ton. Some mid level starports will offer this purifier treatment as a service. Available at class C starports and class D starports with Scout Bases.
Unrefined - This is the rawest usable state, practically fresh from the source. Available right through the fuel scoops or at worlds with next to no infrastructure. It is not suitable for use as is but may be employed in an emergency. It is illegal to use this fuel on commercial ships. Game rules: Increased and cumulative permanent chance of jump drive and/or fusion powerplant failure. Initially imposes a -2 on checks with each additional use adding a -1, until the affected systems receive an overhaul. Such an overhaul takes one week and costs 0.001 x the new cost of the systems. Cost of purchase is Cr20/ton. Available at class D starports and class E starports of TL8+
Or something like that, its as always a work in progress
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
E basically means there isn't a starport, just a beacon and an X painted on the ground. In most cases the planet doesn't have the TL/pop to support - or the traffic to justify - a 'port.
D gets a bit more traffic, so it's actually worth making a bit of an effort. Most are going to be Scouts and free traders, though - with their own purification plants - so there's no point selling refined fuel.
C is a proper 'post, so it should have refined fuel for sale in most cases.
D gets a bit more traffic, so it's actually worth making a bit of an effort. Most are going to be Scouts and free traders, though - with their own purification plants - so there's no point selling refined fuel.
C is a proper 'post, so it should have refined fuel for sale in most cases.
The Hinterworlds Rambler
SOC-14 5K
What would be some governing guidelines if one were to have a "Multicellular" Downport Complex?
What would be easier to defend?
If it was one Giant Downport, its loss would cripple the system that did not have adequate "backup" Spaceports.
What if it was a network of smaller sub-downports? Each independent but connected units of a larger complex. Is this possible? Practical? (besides the obvious of having to spead defense forces out more)
What would be easier to defend?
If it was one Giant Downport, its loss would cripple the system that did not have adequate "backup" Spaceports.
What if it was a network of smaller sub-downports? Each independent but connected units of a larger complex. Is this possible? Practical? (besides the obvious of having to spead defense forces out more)
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
I don't see any particular reason to have 3 grades. For example, if you are taking up water and electrolyzing it for H2 you are going to get pure H2. Separating H2 from CH4 and NH3 is a bit trickier, but would mostly be done through fractional condensing. If you can make LH2 you can condense out the other gasses on the way down.
I would say that more realistically purifiers would need to be rather large to process fuel in a timely manner, or smaller and take so long to process the mass of fuel necessary for jump drive that it would be impractical except as a true emergency supply.
They put purifiers into play because of the fuel availability rules and because they decided fuel purification could be done quickly with equipment that wouldn't take much room.
I would say that more realistically purifiers would need to be rather large to process fuel in a timely manner, or smaller and take so long to process the mass of fuel necessary for jump drive that it would be impractical except as a true emergency supply.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
They put purifiers into play because of the fuel availability rules and because they decided fuel purification could be done quickly with equipment that wouldn't take much room.
I would say that more realistically purifiers would need to be rather large to process fuel in a timely manner, or smaller and take so long to process the mass of fuel necessary for jump drive that it would be impractical except as a true emergency supply. </font>[/QUOTE]Except where in nature do you find H2O water? Or is that not an issue? Won't your tanks have a lot of other junk mixed in there to foul things up? I don't mean just other simple gases, but minerals and who knows what else.
As far as I can tell from your post you answered your own question with pretty much my own reasoning
The reason I went for 3 qualities was to restore some reasoning as to why purified fuel was so much more money and not more widely available after HG introduced the smallish and cheap fuel purifiers. A move which I believe was made to quantify the simple CT (LBB 2) rules for military and scout ships having bonuses to offset using unrefined fuel.
So I went with "refineries" being required for "refined" fuel, and like you I think they would be large, costly, and slow; so you only find them where the traffic requires it, class A and B starports. Meanwhile "purifiers" as an option for ships, and always included in military and scout ships imtu, result in "purified" fuel; safe enough to use and cheap enough to process that some smaller starports will have it.
I agree it may not be the most scientific of reasoning but it was made as much for game balance as anything in an attempt to maintain the rational of the fuel costs and availability after the introduction of "purifiers".
I'd handwave the defense issue away, since that also falls under the plantary security issue. (Deep meson gun sites? Missiles on tracks? Laser emplacements? Tracking satellites? Near-C rocks? Etc etc etc)
And yes, I think a large enough downport would have backups. Tureded has four class C downports, equispaced along the equator. I'm sure the world would function fine if it lost one or two of them.
Guidelines would probably be more political than practical. This saves the referee (me) from having to learn (or make up) more rules. On the other hand, examples...
Redundancy and Backups
Some airports today are cobbled-together, made up of newer terminals built next to smaller, defunct terminals which are still fully functional but just too small or too primitive to manage all the traffic. If a terminal gets blown up, the starport relies on redundancy to keep going.
Politics and Economics
Politics and economics would probably favor a single central starport... they seem to do that for airports here. Even more so, then, for places where the customers are very few and generally powerful. But I'm not sure. Again, high TL worlds have the on-planet transportation problem solved, so maybe 'central' no longer means 'location' in those cases...
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Mind you lads, an airport of today with landing field, etc is rather still an E-class port- but say, LAX, or one of the larger Asian or European cities aiports has many shops and tourist attractions. E-class ports can lots of attractions, based on population, let us not forget!
