Starports, the book

[BytePro]

Untrue. ...

Wrong.

'… is most directly dependent on TL' is not an absolute statement, and 'without the TL construction and repair services are a no start' makes no reference to the origin of that tech.

In CT, TL DMs mean a minimum TL based on starport type. It is not only possible to have imported tech, but given the definition of TL also possible to have a starport at a higher level than the world in general.

As to analogies...

• Today, goods from China to the U.S. take an average of 11 days to arrive and 4 or more days in customs - pretty comparable to Traveller jump commerce, no?
• Those goods arrive in U.S. ports that largely do not construct commercial ships.
• Many lack any major repair services.

A very good RW analogy to what the Traveller word gen rules provide. So, much like American ports, Traveller starships can be made and overhauled elsewhere, irrelevant of trade volume.

Remember, there are two ends to any route.

Starport type is defined as a quality stat only, though 'capabilities' would probably have been a better term than 'quality'. The capacity of a port - in Traveller, as in RL - has nothing directly to do with available construction services.

UWPs use limited range and in the RW one cannot pin population size to analogous facilities in water ports. So Starport facilities correlating only to TL is a very good design. Like most of CT's rules that were created by people (largely from wargamer and simulation backgrounds) good at math, analysis and strategy.

Tying starport capacity to starport type is an invalid approach - breaking both the rules and the OTU. On the other hand, adding a separate statistic for startport capacity to fit with trade avoids breaking the rules, not to mention the primary setting.

 

[aramis]

Has anyone noticed that the trade rules as written for tramp traders do not give 10x the cargo as you go from population x to population x+1?

Yes. And it correlates nicely to the effects of colonial establishment in the new world - cargo volumes didn't scale linearly with population there, either. Purchases per capita from trade went down, not up, even as overall volume went up; colonies becoming self-sufficient needing to trade for less. In the 20th century, that pattern seems to have been reversing.

 

[rancke]

Wrong.

'… is most directly dependent on TL' is not an absolute statement, and 'without the TL construction and repair services are a no start' makes no reference to the origin of that tech.

But unless you were talking about dependence on local technology, your statement was meaningless. If you have the trade generated by billions of people, you can afford to import the technology to run a starport, so local tech become almost irrelevant. (Not quite irrelevant; there's the higher economic threshhold imposed by having to pay for imported technology).

As to analogies...

• Today, goods from China to the U.S. take an average of 11 days to arrive and 4 or more days in customs - pretty comparable to Traveller jump commerce, no?
• Those goods arrive in U.S. ports that largely do not construct commercial ships.
• Many lack any major repair services.

A very good RW analogy to what the Traveller word gen rules provide. So, much like American ports, Traveller starships can be made and overhauled elsewhere, irrelevant of trade volume.

A decent analogy, yes, as long as one is careful about which elements one sees as analogous to which. In this analogy, China and America (and Alaska) are analogous to star systems. And starport quality as listed in UWPs refer to the best facilities available in the entire system. Your ships are sailing from the equivalent of secondary spaceports in the China system to secondary spaceports in the America system. From ports whose primary buisness is loading and unloading rather than building ships. But just as there are other ports in China and America that DO build ships, there would be other places in the China system and the America system that did provide repairs and refined fuel for visiting starships, and that would result in a Class A/B or C rating for the entire system, even if the chief passenger port doesn't have shipyards or repair shops adjacent to it. (Refined fuel would, of course, be available).

Starport type is defined as a quality stat only, though 'capabilities' would probably have been a better term than 'quality'. The capacity of a port - in Traveller, as in RL - has nothing directly to do with available construction services.

Actually, the only distinction between Class A and Class B starports is whether the available construction services can build starships or only spaceboats. And the only major difference between Class B and Class C starports is the spaceboat yards. True, a starport with construction but no refined fuel available would get a class C rating too, but refined fuel is pretty easy and very profitable to provide; so much so that I think most Class C starports (of a reasonable size) would provide it.

So it has quite a lot to do with available construction services.

UWPs use limited range and in the RW one cannot pin population size to analogous facilities in water ports.

But it's blindingly obvious that there would be a correlation. The lack of which is a flaw almost as egregious as the lack of correlation between habitability of a world and its population.

Tying starport capacity to starport type is an invalid approach - breaking both the rules and the OTU.

I know that it would break the rules and the setting material. Since I'm arguing that the rules and the setting are flawed on this point, I don't quite see the point in bringing that up. It's not like it shouldn't be abundantly clear from my previous posts that I'm perfectly aware of it.

Just to make it perfectly clear: I'm not saying that starport rating and population size isn't completely independent according to the rules. I'm saying that it is a flaw in the rules (and any setting that is based on those rules) that starport rating and population size is completely independent according to them.


Hans

 

[BytePro]

Your ships are sailing from the equivalent of secondary spaceports in the China system to secondary spaceports in the America system.

Wrong.

I am referring to the primary ports in America (equivalent to Class B at best). America, for six years in the late 80's to early nineties did not lay down a single commercial ocean going vessel. Today America accounts for less than 1% of all commercial ship building, but a significant percentage of world trade and the third most populous nation. The Chinese side (equivalent to Class A) is a different matter - hence the reminder that a route has a minimum of two ends.

Global ship production is centered in China and South Korea. A new commercial vessel takes as long or longer to get to America as a starship takes to get between systems in Traveller. Major repair is often not available at large U.S. ports - they don't build ships, so often lack the facilities and infrastructure.

To provide another RW analogy - I've worked with billion dollar retail where inventory is stocked at distribution centers around the U.S. They support massive numbers of truck deliveries and pickups (several hundred locations per center delivered several times a week, handling over 1/6th of a million SKUs). I couldn't tell you how many truck bays are available at each location - but I can tell you that none of them can build a truck! And the best you could hope for in terms of 'repair' is some jumper cables and whatever you are hauling.

Actually, the only distinction between Class A and Class B starports ... has quite a lot to do with available construction services.

Yes - glad you realized this - and such has absolutely nothing to do with capacity for trade. Just like in RL, the number and size of ships that can be handled for trade has no direct correlation with having local construction nor major repair facilities.

Sure, there is a potential market - but the margins, capital investment and politics often preclude it being significant enough in the RW. This is simulated pretty well by Traveller's random system that is unrelated to population. Construction and repair are separate businesses to trade. Ports make money on trade. This is the stated purpose for starports in Traveller.

But it's blindingly obvious that there would be a correlation.

Between 'population size to analogous facilities in water ports' as you quoted? Not from realworld experience and knowledge.

In a Traveller analogy a large country can be seen as a set of nearby systems instead of a single world, so an irregularity like one shipyard in a highly affluent or strategic location is not equivalent to 'best in a world' rationale. Over half the world's largest populations are poor and largely equipped with poor facilities, though in abundance. Norway with less than 1/4 of 1% of the worlds population sports as many shipyards as India with near 20% - and India's are a fairly new development. This doesn't match any simplistic 'population relates to starport facilities' concept.

What, exactly, is this correlation you are blindingly seeing and how, within the limits of the UWP and isolated world generation, do you propose it be represented?

The lack of which is a flaw almost as egregious as the lack of correlation between habitability of a world and its population.

Well, we are definitely agreed on that last part.

Since I'm arguing ...

I am very specific in what you quoted - that it is a mistake for starship type to pull double duty to include capacity.

• The world gen rules are not flawed with respect to starport facilities and relating them only to TL.
• Using a starport capacity rating rather than its facilities to correlate to trade is not flawed.
• Setting starport type for setting purposes is also not a flawed idea (i.e. - starship construction and major repair should be available within a certain range).
• The idea that one can fix population/trade rules/setting combinations via multi-purposing starport type is flawed.

Just to make it perfectly clear: ...

• Population size in the RW has absolutely nothing significant to do with whether a superfrieghter can be built or fixed in any particular port.
• Population ~ relates to trade ~ relates to system traffic ~ relates to capacity/size of a starport.
• This thread is about MgT Starport book and my posts are in reference to posts about starport type pulling double duty to indicate size as well.

 

[far-trader]

• Population size in the RW has absolutely nothing significant to do with whether a superfrieghter can be built or fixed in any particular port.

Wrong...

...or at least not yet. In the RW. It may come true in some far future ultimate utopia robotic society where people are reduced to nothing but indulging in leisure.

Mitsui (to grab a quick Japanese example from your suggestion) for one has some 10,025 employees (not counting executives, in 2012). Granted the website mentions only about half the business is shipbuilding with the rest being other manufacturing* but still that is SOME (even significant) population size without which Mitsui would build NO ships. And that's not counting the support population required for the workers (all the spin-off trades, food production, etc. etc... and of course non-working family members)

* I wonder how much of that is parts for ships? Engines, etc.

 

[mike wightman]

And what if your ship construction workers are foreigners brought in for their shipbuilding expertise and therefore don't count for the world UPP code?

Here in the real world a lot of engineers and craftsmen from the ship building yards here in the north east of england found very lucrative work in the developing yards of the far east when the shipyards here were closed.

You could have a strategically located world where a type A star port exists at TL15 - with a population digit of 0 (this can be legally generated)

 

[far-trader]

Pull the other one

...my belief suspenders snap every time someone suggests that Pop 0 means X migrant workers who don't count as local population are busy there building ships, harvesting crops, or whatever else generates the Y tons of trade goods and Z passengers monthly.

A Class A TL15 Starport with Pop 0 may be possible through random generation. It is still exceedingly implausible (even in a far future society of robot slaves)... IMO of course, but I think reasonableness and logic are on my side in this.

Likewise imo Pop does mean the total people* living on that world, temporarily or longer. Any other definition is a twisting of the rules that leads to nonsense.

The only thing it doesn't count are those just passing through. And one of two things needs to happen with the extreme cases. Either there is more Pop (increase the rolled result) to account for the infrastructure and trade to support the starport and TL generated. Or the low Pop means a poorer infrastructure (decrease the rolled results for starport and TL).

* by whatever definition of "people" suits your image of the universe. If it doesn't include Chirpers, fine, but I hear they make poor labourers. If it doesn't include slaves, fine, but the Imperium at least doesn't go in for that. If it doesn't include robots (aka metal slaves), also fine, but note that as an exception and you still need some executives to manage them (and oops, there goes your Pop 0 anyway )

 

[far-trader]

For clarity (maybe, maybe not, too tired to know ) and specific responses...

And what if your ship construction workers are foreigners brought in for their shipbuilding expertise and therefore don't count for the world UPP code?

Nope, not going to happen in the otu. The travel costs/risks are such that any imported labour is going to be a permanent population. They will be tallied in the next census as residents. The operating fallacy here is that the UWP Pop digit is static over time. It's not. It's a snapshot, and a very blurry one at that. It should however have been taken at the same time that the rest of the picture was developed and jive with it. So no, no Pop 0 TL15 Class A Starport UWP. That's broken.

Here in the real world a lot of engineers and craftsmen from the ship building yards here in the north east of england found very lucrative work in the developing yards of the far east when the shipyards here were closed.

Here in the real world did those workers commute daily between England and the far east? Or did they move there, live there, eat there, pay rent or buy homes there, have family there, etc. etc...

They may have kept their nationality but for all real purposes and definitions they were residents.

And of course, the real world and Traveller's Imperium are too different for such simple comparisons.

You could have a strategically located world where a type A star port exists at TL15 - with a population digit of 0 (this can be legally generated)

You could, in your TU. In my opinion this is one of the cases where the official rule of "change the UWP" is obviously meant to apply.

Sadly the "official" examples ignore this vital bit of the rules and so we have "official" UWPs that make no sense or require mind-boggling inane (and typically unsupplied, resulting in no two the same) explanations. Every ref is left to their own devises to "explain" the weird "official" UWPs and there's no consistency. What's worse it led to the (mistaken) belief that silly random results had to be accepted as is by many. They read the bit about "make something up to explain it" and never glanced at the next bit about "or change it" which is imo the more valid, vital, important, and useful bit.

...but enough ranting ...gotta get some sleep.

 

[mike wightman]

Robots.

The TL15 type A starport is entirely populated by robots.

Plus the migrant workers who live elsewhere and pull 6 week shifts.

And the 9 one year term managers.

There was an article in a JTAS about interpreting the UPP by the Keith brothers - if this sort of fiddle is good enough for them its good enough for me

 

[mike wightman]

For clarity (maybe, maybe not, too tired to know ) and specific responses...

Go to sleep, go to sleep, la la la la lah la la lah.... ok I may edit that out

Nope, not going to happen in the otu. The travel costs/risks are such that any imported labour is going to be a permanent population. They will be tallied in the next census as residents. The operating fallacy here is that the UWP Pop digit is static over time. It's not. It's a snapshot, and a very blurry one at that. It should however have been taken at the same time that the rest of the picture was developed and jive with it. So no, no Pop 0 TL15 Class A Starport UWP. That's broken.

And if I can find canonical examples...

Here in the real world did those workers commute daily between England and the far east? Or did they move there, live there, eat there, pay rent or buy homes there, have family there, etc. etc...

Some of the high up engineering managers did indeed commute - they jetted out there for two week stints, usually longer.

Most of the craftsmen and real engineers got 6 month contracts.

They may have kept their nationality but for all real purposes and definitions they were residents.

They didn't pay local taxes or taxes here - what's that tell you about residency

And of course, the real world and Traveller's Imperium are too different for such simple comparisons.

Very true, and yet we keep trying to use real world examples to explain stuff 3000 years from now in a culture as far removed from us as we are from the cavemen.

You could, in your TU. In my opinion this is one of the cases where the official rule of "change the UWP" is obviously meant to apply.

I agree.
Unless you want a robot or slave run starship construction facility for adventuring purposes .

Sadly the "official" examples ignore this vital bit of the rules and so we have "official" UWPs that make no sense or require mind-boggling inane (and typically unsupplied, resulting in no two the same) explanations. Every ref is left to their own devises to "explain" the weird "official" UWPs and there's no consistency. What's worse it led to the (mistaken) belief that silly random results had to be accepted as is by many. They read the bit about "make something up to explain it" and never glanced at the next bit about "or change it" which is imo the more valid, vital, important, and useful bit.

...but enough ranting ...gotta get some sleep.

Very true - my original copy of SM has pencil "corrections" all over it. The Keith's article is ok for the odd world but there are just too many oddities that random chance can throw at you.

Perhaps an averaging die could be used for parts of random generation...

anyway - go get some sleep.

I promise - no more singing.

 

[aramis]

Remember, Dan, Pop "0" is anything UNDER 10 Sophonts... could be 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9.

 

[BytePro]

How many Type A/0 digit populations occur that this is such a stretch of the imagination?

I think we are talking two limited things there...

And UWPs are a rather limited 'snapshot' of an entire world - one would have to strip away all the other elements except size to truly avoid stretching any believability.

The rules are written in plain English and can readily be interpreted in a fashion that supports starports and 0 populations:

• The rules state starports are 'generally extraterritorial'. No legal jurisdiction and thus no local vote nor taxation - reasonable not to be counted in local population.
• The rules do not state that at any given time a shipyard is manned. Only that annual overhaul is available and a shipyard is capable.
• Population is for the main world. The world and the starport could very well have no residences - only workers who commute from other planets, orbital stations, etc. Even ignoring extraterritoriality, two competing in-system polities could very well not want the other to have any claim of the local starport via resident populations.
• While the OTU has Robot prohibitions, the rules are not setting specific. Further, factory automations are not prohibited - so as long as the robotics are limited to manufacturing and not running the shipyard there is little need of any locally resident personnel.

The CT rules used the phrase 'No inhabitants' for Pop 0 in the tables in Bk 2 & 5, but the description uses exponents of 10 - as aramis effectively pointed out. A poor editorial choice, to be sure. In this case it seems reasonable that body text should override terse reference table entries.

For the meaning of 'Population' - you can use one that works, or make up your own that doesn't. So for this aspect of the UWP, it is broken or unbelievable only if one chooses to make it so.

 

[aramis]

How many Type A/0 digit populations occur that this is such a stretch of the imagination?

6/36 SP are type A
1/36 systems are Pop 0
so 1/216 should be SP A Pop 0.
That is about 2 per average sector.

B is 9/36. 1/4
So that's 1/144 - about 3 per sector.

 

[BytePro]

Yeah - doesn't take much imagination to deal with such a small number of exceptional situations.

No imagination at all if one just uses RW analogies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_fewer_than_ten_residents

 

[far-trader]

Yeah, now add any TL above that which is sustainable and producible by the population to the list of "difficult" to swallow UWPs and you'll find yourself looking at a lot more than a small number of exceptional situations. In my opinion Pop 0 cannot sustain or produce above TL 0. I don't believe Pop 1 or Pop 2 can maintain/produce a moderate TL base either (limited to perhaps TL 1 or 2). And the higher TLs require an even higher population. Which is not to say that the opposite (High Pop & Low TL) is as unbelievable.

Even without considering TL, as for the RW analogies you linked, do any of them claim mega-production like shipbuilding? Or even smaller production capabilities like auto-building? How about massive tourism? Or major trade distribution? Find me someplace with less than 10 people that does any of that. Then find me about 400 more (an approximation at the average 5 Class A and B Pop 0 per sector listed above) to cover charted space and I'll consider buying the premise.

Face it, while random UWP generation is useful as a seed for the imagination it was never meant to be slavishly applied as a straight-jacket to whole subsectors, let alone sectors and empires. It produces too many implausible combinations to make a believable background. As the rules initially stated, if you can't explain it, change it. Or as they should have been stated, if you can't easily explain it, change it, and keep the oddities to 1 or 2 per sector, or less.

 

[far-trader]

Yeah - doesn't take much imagination to deal with such a small number of exceptional situations.

No imagination at all if one just uses RW analogies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_fewer_than_ten_residents

Actually, how do ANY of those apply?

Do any of them support anything analogous to even the lowest Starport? Or anything for that matter? I've actually been to at least one of those places (and probably driven past/through a couple more without noticing them) and I don't even recall a gas pump... unless you count asking the resident in a pinch (running on empty for a few miles) if you could buy some of their personal diesel (usually dyed, farm gas, aka purple gas around here) to get you to the next town with a service station... if they were home at the time and not down the road shopping in the "real" community

 

[mike wightman]

Yeah, now add any TL above that which is sustainable and producible by the population to the list of "difficult" to swallow UWPs and you'll find yourself looking at a lot more than a small number of exceptional situations. In my opinion Pop 0 cannot sustain or produce above TL 0. I don't believe Pop 1 or Pop 2 can maintain/produce a moderate TL base either (limited to perhaps TL 1 or 2). And the higher TLs require an even higher population. Which is not to say that the opposite (High Pop & Low TL) is as unbelievable.

I have a hard time imagining that the populations of TL12+ worlds produce anything at all. Their machined do all the work.

The Imperium does not recognise robot rights, so a TL15 type A port could be have a population of one billion robots but count as zero to Imperial census takers.

Face it, while random UWP generation is useful as a seed for the imagination it was never meant to be slavishly applied as a straight-jacket to whole subsectors, let alone sectors and empires. It produces too many implausible combinations to make a believable background. As the rules initially stated, if you can't explain it, change it. Or as they should have been stated, if you can't easily explain it, change it, and keep the oddities to 1 or 2 per sector, or less.

Yup, I agree completely.

 

[aramis]

Actually, how do ANY of those apply?

Do any of them support anything analogous to even the lowest Starport? Or anything for that matter? I've actually been to at least one of those places (and probably driven past/through a couple more without noticing them) and I don't even recall a gas pump... unless you count asking the resident in a pinch (running on empty for a few miles) if you could buy some of their personal diesel (usually dyed, farm gas, aka purple gas around here) to get you to the next town with a service station... if they were home at the time and not down the road shopping in the "real" community

Umiat is a private flight service station, and one of the two residents at the time I last had reason to look was an A&P. The other was a buddy of mine, hired to man the weather station. That was in about 2002. I'd call it a D-port - it's literally a runway and some relocatable atco buildings on concrete pads. There's also a hangar with tools - but no spares of note. At the time, population was 2. Summer hab was closer to 20. Winter, just the two, with the rare visitor. (usually either lost or diverting due to weather.) The hangar was actually used to keep the plow from becoming cold-soaked to the point of inoperability.

 

[BytePro]

'Some may be virtually deserted and others may be places where people work, but do not live.' - direct quote from second body sentence in link.​

How is that not applicable? Sorry, let me make it clearer:

'Some starports may be virtually deserted and others may be places where people work, but do not live.'​

Such alone - and there are over a half dozen more reasons, based on RW analogies alone, that I, with limited imagination, can easily think of in under the time it will take me to type this - can readily account for the handful of Pop 0 starport A/B systems one will find in a nominal sector.

The original rules were setting independent and don't have any constraint that starport facilities require manning and that such manning must come from the population digit in the UWP. If half a dozen such occurrences in a sector is too much for personal beliefs - one can just change it. That's what the rules say to do.

Inhabitation and trade rule issues associated with UWP and historically entrenched un-intelligent backgrounds in setting designs are a completely different topic set.

 

[far-trader]

Inhabitation and trade rule issues associated with UWP and historically entrenched un-intelligent backgrounds in setting designs are a completely different topic set.

True, and we have been spraying shots rather wide of the original target That seems to happen a lot with Traveller topics