The C.S.S.P. Plan Discussion Thread

[Gruffty]

This section of the CSSP board is where the on-going, live, development plan for the sector will be held and up-dated.

Suggestions for modifications to the project plan, suggestions for any sub-plans or modifications to sub-plans should be posted here.

In addition, this topic area will include concepts of a CSSP "vision", CSSP "objectives" and "rules of development".

All contributions are welcome, from whatever source.


MOD EDIT: This thread is now for discussion of the plan, so if you want to talk about how the project is approached and handled, do it here! The current working plan that is determined from this discussion will be posted and updated can on a locked sticky topic at the top of this board ("the Official CSSP Plan" thread).

[ September 11, 2004, 08:37 PM: Message edited by: Malenfant ]

 

[Malenfant]

I figure Gruffy's plans are good here - I also think he's got the motivation, organisational capability and enthusiasm to be a good "ringleader" for this project... so I'd like to propose him as such.

 

[RainOfSteel]

All hail Senior Spica . . . well, I was going to say Scout, by the IISS is a long way off.

All hail Senior Spica Ranger Grufty! Ehh, that's been taken by B5.

Hmmm. <rumages around in thesaurus>

All hail Grufty, Spican Cosmographer!

 

[far-trader]

Hmm, mind foggy, needs more beer nope, not help clear mind, is good though, I ask clearheaded ones and drink more beer

So umm, y'all mentioned travel codes, amber and red zones, but aren't those the provence of The TAS? What I mean is, is this a publication for the Imperials or is it Solomani in origin. I know it's just a generic kinda thing and have a vague recollection of a Solomani equivalent to The TAS (unless that was just an old house rule from wayyyyy back) so maybe it's a moot point (old joke). Anyway, just wondering is all and if maybe we should make the distinction for the sake of flavor, mmmm, Sake of Flavor, better than beer

 

[LcKedovan]

Hi Gruffty,

Glad you got the gist of my one post and opened this seperate topic for the organisational "plan" . I definately would like to have a go with Malefant's system, though a neophyte I think it would be a good learning experience.

One thing on that point of UWP re-generation. Which map should we select the systems from? (Or should we wait till the borders are done?

-W.

 

[Flynn]

I think you'd see better productivity and more world coverage if you farmed out the work by subsectors. Otherwise, some worlds will be left behind, most likely unintentionally.

I would happily volunteer to do a subsector or two.

-Flynn

 

[Malenfant]

Doing it by subsectors is fine by me too. I dunno if people want to wait til I get a realistic UWP generation system done though...

 

[Flynn]

Gruffty,

Do you mind if I tackle Subsectors B and C? They are both general subsectors with a vast majority of them being Non-Aligned, so I'm not stepping on anyone's toes with favorite Major Races, etc. (If I have to be limited to just one subsector, I would prefer to call dibs on Subsector C.)

Most of my work will be automated, of course, testing out some new subroutines I'm writing for my personal Sector Generator application, and this will give me some good feedback on the process. I'm looking at creating UWPs that at least have some internal consistency. (They may not be Malenfant-realistic, but they'll tend to be a lot more playable than just a random set of numbers and letters.)

Thanks for your time,
Flynn

 

[Malenfant]

What's so important about subsector E that we need three people to collaborate on it? Wouldn't it be better to have one person do the UWPs for each subsector? (more people can of course collaborate on actually figuring out the details for each subsector, but we surely only need one person to do the UWPs for them)

Oh and er, can I do B, C, and D?

 

[far-trader]

Just popping in for a couple minutes.

It seems to me that whoever's in charge should be the one deciding who gets what for the build, based on posting desired sytems, subsectors or whatever and then if the work is not forthcoming in a timely fashion they will farm it out to the next interested party.

Personally I think there might be more diversity (granted limited by the scope of UWPs and such) if more people are working on seperate areas. Perhaps a collaborative team to do the main polities (Solomani and Hiver) and seperate individuals or teams to do the groups of other systems (islands).

I also think it might work better if any one person isn't doing a whole clump so the area doesn't have a single flavor.

Of course, as I said this is all more in the history/character nature of the systems to be done later. If we're just talking basic UWPs that's maybe more easily done in bulk by those most qualified to know what looks broken.

 

[Malenfant]

RainOfSteel reminded me of a good point on the UWP world location thread - we probably should be holding back on the UWPs for now since we're doing this from the top-down (ie history/politics/society/races first, then fit UWPs to that).

Besides, I'd rather the UWPs were left for later anyway so I can have time to work on the UWP generation process.

 

[Malenfant]

well, at the moment the main additions are to (a) figure out where the world is in the planetary system (Inner, Habitable, Middle, or Outer zone), (b) figure out the world density given that (dividing them into Icy, Rocky, Earthlike, or Cannonball), and (c) redefine the atmosphere types (I ditched a few and put some new ones in too) and make them dependent on location and more realistically dependent on mass.

The density and location can be added as extra bits to the UWP (like pop multiplier, number of GGs and belts) by the first letter of the classifications above.

 

[far-trader]

I think the presumption in LBB 6 is that the main world is always in the habitable zone of whatever star type, and that the world gen was therefore somewhat skewed to creating more habitable worlds. Of course none of that really worked perfectly and besides it's kinda boring (besides unrealistic, though it is a game) to always have a world (or even the best world) in the habitable zone of the star(s).

So is "Earthlike" molten core (i.e. a "living" world: tectonically active, magnetic field, etc.)?

And what is "Cannonball"?

 

[Malenfant]

Yeah, the assumption before is that it's in the habitable zone, but there's no reason it has to be really (particularly if the world is not habitable anyway).

Earthlike is density 4500-6000 kg/m3. So in our own solar system (in density terms) Venus, Earth, and Mercury are Earthlike. Mars, Io and Europa are Rocky. Titan, Ganymede and Callisto are Icy.

"Cannonball" is a high density world, between 6000 and 8000 kg/m3 in density. They're only found in the inner zone and rarely in the habitable zone - the name comes from Stephen Gillet's "World Building" book - they're basically a huge iron core with a thin layer of silicate on top. From what I know about internal structures, I suspect that they'd either be small worlds that are the remnants of volatile-poor planetary cores (like Mercury, but worse) or very large worlds (bigger than Earthsize) with high pressures in the core that increase the density. The larger Cannonballs might be rare as they'll be more likely to become gas giants... I haven't got that far in figuring stuff out yet...

 

[Malenfant]

Gruffty - I've made this a "sticky" thread so it always appears at the top of the board, so you don't have to post notes to all the threads here that you've updated it now (which is fairly unecessary anyway, plus doing that means that all the threads go to the top of the Active Topics list and the last discussion post on the threads gets lost).

Also, seeing as you made the first post here, you can edit the first post and change the subject line to include say when it was last updated to make it more obvious (I've used my Moderator abilities to edit it for now).

EDIT: Even better, you could put something in your sig that says when the page is updated...

 

[far-trader]

Have a good dig Gruffty

HEY! btw, what happened to your short marines story? If you deleted it because it was off topic post it again somewhere else. I'd say Random Static but it might be too good for that

 

[RainOfSteel]

Okay, ah, ahem, well.

I guess I better grab ss H while there's something left in the Beta Quandrant.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I would like to say that divying things up by ss is not exactly how I was envisioning this would all work. I wanted to work on 1-5 separate worlds in the border between Hiver and Solomani Space, but not on Hiver or Solomani Worlds themselves (at least, not right now). Do I have to claim ss J, K, N, O to do that? Also, I wanted to do a single 3-4 world polity in the independents, but I guess as long as my grab of subsector H sticks, I can manage that, at least.

 

[mike wightman]

I agree with RainOfSteel here, many of the jump 1 separated na clusters cross the borders between subsectors.
Also, how can you decide on the history and politics of pocket empires in isolation of what's around them?

Some examples, taken from AotI:

Hyborea (0803) [starport A, navy base, military base high pop]looks idealy suited to having interaction with/control of 0903 and 1002, both of which have type C starports.

There is a cluster of worlds in the lower half of subsector B, whose central world appears to be 1207 which has a starport A and military bases. This world could control the cluster.

There is a world between the Hyborean cluster and the ssB cluster at 1104. It has military bases, starport A. Who is it allied with?
Is it independent? Is it a forward colony from Hyboria to defend its boder with the ssB cluster? Does it belong to the ssB cluster to defend against Hyborean expansion?

Unless I know how surrounding subsectors are being developed then I can't expand on any of these ideas.
Now add the fact that if we are changing all UPP data then we don't even know where to draw these pocket empire boundaries until we have the new data.

 

[LcKedovan]

Hi All,

far-trader, RainOfSteel and Sigg Oddra all make exceptionally good points regarding just divying up ss v.s. single worlds, islands, or polities. I would agree with them that perhaps it is better once we agree on the politics of the region and the other details we then slice up all the pie and each take one.

I know far-trader has started on some brainstorming for M and N, and if you are in agreement Dan, I would really like to work with you in some capacity in that region.

-Will