Hey Paul, if I may throw a few more of my Cr.02 in, I like the color part a lot, especially the ghost port concept and the mad rush/haste causes accidents extreme. However I'm not thrilled with your percentages, just my own sensibility, there may be nothing wrong with them at all.
This is also related to part of my old notes. Sorry Liam, went to dust them off and well most seem to have turned to dust
still there's my memory, iirc
Anyway, what I had was a simple roll on the old CT actual value table ('cause it was there) for the ports current activity vs capacity. For 90% or less there's no wait for most ships, 100% or more and you're looking at a wait in a far parking orbit till a slot opens up. I used 10% clearing per day, your turn in line to land comes up when the activity level drops to 90%. Note this merely represents your place in line, not neccesarily that the port is actually clearing out.
Of course this could be over-ridden in the case of an emergency, political pull if you're a ranked noble, or in some cases bribery.
Naturally a military port would also be expected to allow emergency traffic and Nobles, detached duty Scouts and the occasional retired Navy Admiral.
If there was more than one appropriate port in system you could divert, presuming they too weren't overloaded (same roll with a DM +1 per 20% overload of the previous port). Of course any passengers and/or cargo offloading will have to be routed to the main port, at your expense naturally.
I think for T20 (and to still be compatible with CT) I'd go with a 3d6 x10% roll for current activity, for 30% to 180%, with DM's of up to +2 or -2, probably based on my old concept of primary, secondary, and tertiary sytem ranking. What the heck, might as well explain that here now too, its related.
Very simply I had each system ranked based on its makeup.
Primary - Sector Capitals, Naval Depots, Scout Way Stations and X-Boat serviced systems rate primary status. DM +2 for current activity vs capacity.
Secondary - Subsector Capitals, Naval Bases and Scout Bases rate secondary status if not already primary as above. No DM for current activity vs capacity.
Tertiary - Any system that lacks all the above is rated teriary. DM -2 for current activity vs capacity.
Hmm, looks like I also had the frequency of ship encouters also related to the above.
Primary systems - Encouters are rolled daily. Number of rolls based on the Starport type (see below).
Secondary systems - Encouters are rolled weekly. Number of rolls based on the Starport type (see below).
Tertiary systems - Encouters are rolled monthly. Number of rolls based on the Starport type (see below).
Starport____#of rolls
class A______5 rolls
class B______4 rolls
class C______3 rolls
class D______2 rolls
class E______1 rolls
class X______0 rolls
Of course this was actual encounters, not a chance of an encouter (as in T20) or the actual traffic (up to the GM) so the numbers will need some work.
Anyway there's a little more inspiration for ya.
