Non OTU: The dilemma of scale
- Thread starter Golan2072
- Start date
Can someone explain the charm to me of having a map of 4 sectors ... 5,120 hexes ... with 800 to 2000 systems ...
... and about 20-100 of the systems are large/important/earth-like/high-population/interesting?
4 Sectors:
Why would anyone WANT 3720 empty hexes, 1300 low to no population rock ball systems and 100 interesting inhabited worlds?
4 Sub-sectors:
When you could have 53 major systems (each system having 1 'important' and 2d6 'minor' inhabited worlds and dozens of rock-ball moons), 53 low to no population frontier or rock-ball systems, and 214 empty hexes.
What is the attraction for lots of jumps through near empty systems to get somewhere interesting?
Note that, for several campaigns I ran, I used most of the Domain of Deneb. It's a plenty large area — really gives a grand scope when they can fly the whole thing in a 2J4 ship (Megatraveller) — but the OTU has lots of inhabited rockballs. And not all are low population.
For what Golan is proposing, I'd suggest using massively tweaking the population throw; if the world's not size 5-A Hyd 2-9 Atm 5,6,8, don't use 2d-2. If it's Atm 2,3,4,7,9 and any hydro above 1, in the size 5-A range, throw 1 extra die, keeping the lowest 2, then subtract the 2 as normal. Atm 0,1, or A+, or Hyd 0, or size 0-4, B+, or S world, 4d6 keeping only the lowest 2, then subtracting 2. Asteroid belts, due to the large number of small bodies, I'd use 3d, keep low 2, minus 1d; the easy access to heavier minerals combined with lots of space to put people makes up for the higher risks and lack of habitability.
Yeah, it is more work, but it also nicely nips the "populated small rock" problem down to reasonable "This system has unusually rich plotnium deposits"
salochin999
SOC-13
He said he wants a sense of scale with multiple empires and species - which implies sectors - but at the same time wants at least some detail which with hundreds of systems with significant populations is a lot of work.
So a compromise might be rejigging the system gen rules in some way to give you fewer habitable planets or fewer heavily colonized planets so it reduces the total work. That way you have the sense of scale of sectors but with less detailing.
The second option is probably better as it still allows the odd results which can sometimes create interesting exceptions.
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Even without that reason it might be an interesting experiment to see if longer journeys between fewer habitable planets increased the age of sail feel especially if each major planet had a cluster effect with secondary colonies both in-system and on systems within a jump or two of the main one.
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That last bit gave me idea for system gen where you have few physically ideal planets and the following rolls, for population etc, are based on distance from an ideal planet - to tie into the idea from other threads that it would be uneconomic to transport high volume, low value goods long distance so mining colonies and food producing colonies would likely be close to their market.
So for example an ideal planet could have a distance DM of 0 whereas the rest could have a DM-1 per parsec so a rock adjacent to an ideal planet with a DM-1 might still have a population while a more distant rock with a DM-4 might not and an imperfect but habitable distant planet with DM-4 still might.
Sounds like another experiment coming up
Perhaps you could change all rolls for standard breathable-mix atmospheres (i.e. Atm = 3,5,6, or 8) to a new category: Common Atmospheres (of the respective pressures implied by the atmosphere code). Common Atmospheres would be simple CO2, N2, CH4, etc (i.e. what one would reasonably expect to find as common harder-science planetary atmospheres). Make Atmosphere type A (and B and C) then as truly "Exotic" atmospheres (e.g. Chlorine compounds, etc) of increasing hazard from A to B to C (Irritant, Corrosive, Insidious).
That would leave you with the "Breathable-tainted" atmospheres (Atm = 2, 4, 7, or 9) as the ones containing oxygen, but either with contaminants or the wrong partial-pressures of N2 or CO2, etc. (Change some of those at GM discretion to be standard breathable mixes without aid - perhaps due to rudimentary atmospheric terraforming).
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