Traveller Ringworld
- Thread starter TKalbfus
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Actually the atmosphere is a 7-Std.,tainted. The A is the hydrographic %-100%, a water ringworld.
Oops, I guess I mistaked the Atmosphere digit for the Hydrographics percentage. Still its hard to imagine how a single non charismatic dictator can rule over millions of people considering the enourmous distances involved and Medeval technology. There would have to be only one island for the entire ring world. Lets say 99% of the ringworld is inundated with water. That's 3 million earths of surface area multiplied by 0.01. That's still 30,000 Earth's worth of island archipelagoes. All that vast oceanic space between islands makes one man rule with medeaval technology even more unlikely. According to the Traveller statistic, he's supposed to rule the entire ringworld.
Oops, I guess I mistaked the Atmosphere digit for the Hydrographics percentage. Still its hard to imagine how a single non charismatic dictator can rule over millions of people considering the enourmous distances involved and Medeval technology. There would have to be only one island for the entire ring world. Lets say 99% of the ringworld is inundated with water. That's 3 million earths of surface area multiplied by 0.01. That's still 30,000 Earth's worth of island archipelagoes. All that vast oceanic space between islands makes one man rule with medeaval technology even more unlikely. According to the Traveller statistic, he's supposed to rule the entire ringworld.
ninthcouncil
SOC-11
As Sandman has mentioned above, a Ringworld isn't actually very stable gravitationally; I would have expected a Ringworld system to have been cleared of all other significant objects, and be the only "planetary" object. That's also why I'm puzzled at the presence of a secondary star in the mix.
WarriorKnight
SOC-12
Agreed,that doesn't make since to me neither.
Actually, I`ve just finished reading Niven`s Ringworld early this morning (before going to bed...) and began Ringworld Engineer in the subway today...
There is wayyyy too much similarity in some races way of thinking between Ringworld the novel and traveller
Pierson`s Puppeteer vs Hivers (manipulation freaks)
Kzin vs Aslan...
I just couldn`t *NOT* imagine Nessus WITHOUT hexapodal biology
There is wayyyy too much similarity in some races way of thinking between Ringworld the novel and traveller
Pierson`s Puppeteer vs Hivers (manipulation freaks)
Kzin vs Aslan...
I just couldn`t *NOT* imagine Nessus WITHOUT hexapodal biology
As Sandman has mentioned above, a Ringworld isn't actually very stable gravitationally; I would have expected a Ringworld system to have been cleared of all other significant objects, and be the only "planetary" object. That's also why I'm puzzled at the presence of a secondary star in the mix. </font>[/QUOTE]Well, the original mention of the ringworld says that it's location is considered puzzling. As for its instability, it would be unstable even with no other body in the system (or so I understand). However, the Ancients are not as technologically limited as Niven's Pak. The Ancients obviously included handwavium engines to keep the ringworld on station, and surely another world in the system wouldn't faze handwavium engines.
The main point is that a ringworld wouldn't have a size code less than Z. So if the UWP shows a world with a size code less than Z, it isn't the ringworld.
Hans
ninthcouncil
SOC-11
Of course, I'd forgotten about handwavium - one of the Ancients' most useful inventions
I'm particularly interested in Leenitakot since I'm thinking about running a campaign in the Hinterworlds, and using the ringworld as the underlying plot engine, though the players know nothing about it to start with. I've still got problems rationalising the UWP, however, and the "alternative mainworld" solution doesn't appeal.
What I'll probably end up with doing is having the UWP as a deliberate falsehood; after all, the object is in a backwater region, within the territory of a hostile, xenophobic minor alien power. It may have never been directly surveyed by humaniti; so it shouldn't be too difficult to conceal its existence from general knowledge, and a fictitious UWP would be one step in this process. I'll probably tweak the system details to get rid of the double star, which I still have difficulty accepting.
I'm particularly interested in Leenitakot since I'm thinking about running a campaign in the Hinterworlds, and using the ringworld as the underlying plot engine, though the players know nothing about it to start with. I've still got problems rationalising the UWP, however, and the "alternative mainworld" solution doesn't appeal.
What I'll probably end up with doing is having the UWP as a deliberate falsehood; after all, the object is in a backwater region, within the territory of a hostile, xenophobic minor alien power. It may have never been directly surveyed by humaniti; so it shouldn't be too difficult to conceal its existence from general knowledge, and a fictitious UWP would be one step in this process. I'll probably tweak the system details to get rid of the double star, which I still have difficulty accepting.
I'm particularly interested in Leenitakot since I'm thinking about running a campaign in the Hinterworlds, and using the ringworld as the underlying plot engine, though the players know nothing about it to start with. I've still got problems rationalising the UWP, however, and the "alternative mainworld" solution doesn't appeal.
That UWP isn't the Ringworld as for an uninhabited ringworld. What is the Point? I think that is such a cop out. If your going to have a ringworld with 3 million Earths of living space you at least ought to have something living their otherwise there is no point. The Star Trek Dyson sphere is another pointless artifact, it exists solely to tractor beam unwary starships inside itself. The actual Dyson Sphere was completely lifeless. The whole thing was just Starship bait good for only one episode. That is such a waste for such a large object. A flooded ringworld, one with an unbreathable atmosphere, or a lifeless ringworld is a "one trick pony" or "starship bait". The starship lands on its lifeless surface, determines that its lifeless, then the robot cockroaches attack, the PCs blow up all the cockroaches and then its on to the next planet. So much potential is waisted.
That UWP isn't the Ringworld as for an uninhabited ringworld. What is the Point? I think that is such a cop out. If your going to have a ringworld with 3 million Earths of living space you at least ought to have something living their otherwise there is no point. The Star Trek Dyson sphere is another pointless artifact, it exists solely to tractor beam unwary starships inside itself. The actual Dyson Sphere was completely lifeless. The whole thing was just Starship bait good for only one episode. That is such a waste for such a large object. A flooded ringworld, one with an unbreathable atmosphere, or a lifeless ringworld is a "one trick pony" or "starship bait". The starship lands on its lifeless surface, determines that its lifeless, then the robot cockroaches attack, the PCs blow up all the cockroaches and then its on to the next planet. So much potential is waisted.
ninthcouncil
SOC-11
Trust me, I've no intention of using a lifeless ringworld
In this particulate case the point is to stay consistent with previously published material. The original reference to the ringworld (in SotA, I think) said that it was unfinished. It lacks soil and (IIRC) air (I'm not sure about the air). The UWP for the system is for an ordinary world, not a ringworld. The obvious explanation is that the ringworld has a smaller population than the world the UWP describes.
IIRC it orbits a red dwarf, so it would be quite a bit smaller than Niven's ringworld.
The original author apparently thought otherwise.
Hans
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If your going to have a ringworld with 3 million Earths of living space[/QB
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IIRC it orbits a red dwarf, so it would be quite a bit smaller than Niven's ringworld.
quote:
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[QB]...you at least ought to have something living their otherwise there is no point.
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The original author apparently thought otherwise.
Hans
That's nice a lifeless incomplete ringworld. So what? They haven't finished it yet. There wouldn't be much room for both the planet and the ringworld as the life zone for a red dwarf is very thin. A red dwarf is about the size of Jupiter but with 80 times the mass and a gravity field of 200 G at its surface. The planets of this system would be at the same scale as Jupiter's moons. Each of the planets would be tidally locked with a permanent dayside and a permanent night side. So the civilization on one of these planets is building a ring world but hasn't finished it yet by the time the PCs get there. Do they therefore tell the PCs to come back later when their finished? Or in a similar vein, they encounter an mad scientist who is in the process of creating a monster but he hasn't finished yet, the monster is still a lifeless corse the lies on the table and the scientist is still working on ways to animate the corse but has not yet suceeded. The PCs look at the mad scientist, look and the corpse and conclude that the mad scientist is crazy. The PCs start to head out of the laboratory when the referee suddenly buts in and says, "Wait! Aren't you going to attack the Mad scientist? I rolled up stats for him and everything? The PC leader says, "Why should we, the guys obviously crazy, and were not in the habit of attacking mentally deranged individuals without good reason." The PCs space ship takes off from the planet and on they way they encounter a Pirate ship whose Captain radios in his greetings and says, "By they way I'm a Pirate!" The PCs then tell the Pirate captain to have a good day and then they enter Jump space.
If your going to have a ringworld with 3 million Earths of living space[/QB
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IIRC it orbits a red dwarf, so it would be quite a bit smaller than Niven's ringworld.
quote:
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[QB]...you at least ought to have something living their otherwise there is no point.
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The original author apparently thought otherwise.
Hans
That's nice a lifeless incomplete ringworld. So what? They haven't finished it yet. There wouldn't be much room for both the planet and the ringworld as the life zone for a red dwarf is very thin. A red dwarf is about the size of Jupiter but with 80 times the mass and a gravity field of 200 G at its surface. The planets of this system would be at the same scale as Jupiter's moons. Each of the planets would be tidally locked with a permanent dayside and a permanent night side. So the civilization on one of these planets is building a ring world but hasn't finished it yet by the time the PCs get there. Do they therefore tell the PCs to come back later when their finished? Or in a similar vein, they encounter an mad scientist who is in the process of creating a monster but he hasn't finished yet, the monster is still a lifeless corse the lies on the table and the scientist is still working on ways to animate the corse but has not yet suceeded. The PCs look at the mad scientist, look and the corpse and conclude that the mad scientist is crazy. The PCs start to head out of the laboratory when the referee suddenly buts in and says, "Wait! Aren't you going to attack the Mad scientist? I rolled up stats for him and everything? The PC leader says, "Why should we, the guys obviously crazy, and were not in the habit of attacking mentally deranged individuals without good reason." The PCs space ship takes off from the planet and on they way they encounter a Pirate ship whose Captain radios in his greetings and says, "By they way I'm a Pirate!" The PCs then tell the Pirate captain to have a good day and then they enter Jump space.
And since 'they' were the ancients, they never will.
If there is no mention to the contrary, I generally assume that what we're talking about on these public forums is the Official Traveller Universe (both alternates), mostly because I usually don't have the necessary knowledge to discuss other peoples' variant TUs and I don't expect other people to be much interested in the variant features of my TU. If you want to discuss a universe where the Scouts ignore a civilization capable of building a ringworld (or, better yet, a universe where a civilization of a couple of million TL 1 people are busy building a ringworld right now), go ahead. But please let the rest of us know ahead of time so that we can decide whether or not the discussion interests us enough to get involved in it.
Hans
If there is no mention to the contrary, I generally assume that what we're talking about on these public forums is the Official Traveller Universe (both alternates), mostly because I usually don't have the necessary knowledge to discuss other peoples' variant TUs and I don't expect other people to be much interested in the variant features of my TU. If you want to discuss a universe where the Scouts ignore a civilization capable of building a ringworld (or, better yet, a universe where a civilization of a couple of million TL 1 people are busy building a ringworld right now), go ahead. But please let the rest of us know ahead of time so that we can decide whether or not the discussion interests us enough to get involved in it.
My point is where is the story potential? An incomplete ringworld is not really a ringworld that matters. Yes sure it may be a part of the OTU but why? Why should the PCs be interested in it? Its kind of like encountering a Space Pirate who doesn't feel like attacking you right now because he's on vacation. Or Travelling on a planet and encountering innocent harmless herbivores and friendly natives. Where's the challenge and sense of adventure in this? Its kind of why we play the game in the first place. Imagine encountering a Dyson sphere that is completely empty and acts as nothing better than a starship trap for the PC's starship. There is nothing on the inner surface of the sphere but an endless, featureless gray plane in a hard vacuum with no gravity. There is nothing to encounter and the PCs spend weeks traveling along it surface until they find a hole in it and leave. Is that a pointless encounter or what? Also why would you need such a huge thing to trap the PCs starship when something smaller and more believable would do. I think a ringworld like Larry Niven's would be more interesting than a lifeless one orbiting a red dwarf unless the referee can somehow find a creative way to make an adventure out of it. I don't know, If I was going to have a TL 1 civilization I'd put it on the ringworld, not on another planet in the same system. I just don't know what the author who made this up was thinking, was he just trying to be different from Larry Niven. I don't have the work in front of me, so I can't tell, and from what I've been reading here. A primitive planet with a by the way a ringworld is here too doesn't sound too interesting. It may be part of the official Traveller Universe, but if I wanted to use a ringworld in Traveller I'd introduce another one that's closer to the one Larry Niven introduced in generalities if not specifics. My idea was to have a Traveller Ringworld campaign, and thats not possible with a dead lifeless ringworld with nobody living on it and a bunch of primitives on a nearby planet who worship it as a god, and perhaps decide to make a burnt offering to it of the PCs when they visit. You can still set up the situation without the massive work of incomplete astronomical engineering in the sky. People have been known to worship alot less such as volcanos for instance. I figure everything in the OTU is there for a reason, and the ringworld especially was put there on purpose for a reason and is not the result of random die rolls.
My point is where is the story potential? An incomplete ringworld is not really a ringworld that matters. Yes sure it may be a part of the OTU but why? Why should the PCs be interested in it? Its kind of like encountering a Space Pirate who doesn't feel like attacking you right now because he's on vacation. Or Travelling on a planet and encountering innocent harmless herbivores and friendly natives. Where's the challenge and sense of adventure in this? Its kind of why we play the game in the first place. Imagine encountering a Dyson sphere that is completely empty and acts as nothing better than a starship trap for the PC's starship. There is nothing on the inner surface of the sphere but an endless, featureless gray plane in a hard vacuum with no gravity. There is nothing to encounter and the PCs spend weeks traveling along it surface until they find a hole in it and leave. Is that a pointless encounter or what? Also why would you need such a huge thing to trap the PCs starship when something smaller and more believable would do. I think a ringworld like Larry Niven's would be more interesting than a lifeless one orbiting a red dwarf unless the referee can somehow find a creative way to make an adventure out of it. I don't know, If I was going to have a TL 1 civilization I'd put it on the ringworld, not on another planet in the same system. I just don't know what the author who made this up was thinking, was he just trying to be different from Larry Niven. I don't have the work in front of me, so I can't tell, and from what I've been reading here. A primitive planet with a by the way a ringworld is here too doesn't sound too interesting. It may be part of the official Traveller Universe, but if I wanted to use a ringworld in Traveller I'd introduce another one that's closer to the one Larry Niven introduced in generalities if not specifics. My idea was to have a Traveller Ringworld campaign, and thats not possible with a dead lifeless ringworld with nobody living on it and a bunch of primitives on a nearby planet who worship it as a god, and perhaps decide to make a burnt offering to it of the PCs when they visit. You can still set up the situation without the massive work of incomplete astronomical engineering in the sky. People have been known to worship alot less such as volcanos for instance. I figure everything in the OTU is there for a reason, and the ringworld especially was put there on purpose for a reason and is not the result of random die rolls.
Because someone writing an official sourcebook decided that that's the way it is... in the OTU.
That's an entirely different question. For what it's worth, I agree with you about the lameness of this particular ringworld (Though I think it should be possible to come up with some way to get a bit of mileage out of it. It's unfinished, so maybe there are neat Ancient construction machinery stored in an Ancient 'connstruction shack' (a pocket universe) somewhere?)
Heh. As it happens, I'm working on an adventure just like that at the moment.
Well, I agree, but I don't think that's relevant to the original question (Which was 'why does the UWP show a a non-ringworld world?').
Quite possibly. It was a throwaway reference to the strange and incomprehensible things the Ancients did. Such as making an empty ringworld around a red dwarf instead of a live ringworld around a proper star.
Go ahead and do that. No one's stopping you.
My guess is that it is there for a reason, but that the reason is to illustrate that the Ancients did many things that appear nonsensical to us.
If you want to introduce a Nivenish ringworld in YTU, and for some reason don't want to just paint over a corner of the OTU, make it a second, hitherto undiscovered, ringworld. That's what the GMs of the legendary TML PBeM did (see http://www.ssgfx.com/traveller/ for details).
Hans
So that's the ringworld you were talking about. I see, its about 1.5 million km in radius from its star or almost 4 time the distance between Earth and its moon. Looks to be about the right size for a ringworld orbiting a red dwarf. A ringworld can really orbit any star, but I think its less of an engineering challenge to build a small ringworld around a small star. Its still fairly huge. Another sort of ringworld would be one about that size, but with no star in the center. Instead it would be sized just right so that it makes one complete rotation in about 24 hours while providing 1 G of pseudogravity on its surface. The ringworld itself orbits a sunlike star as a planet would while rotating to produce day and night as well as gravity at the same time. Thr ringworld might be tilted in its axis with repect to its revolution around the star to produce seasonal variation. It might be desirable to use a brighter star than the sun, have the ringworld further out than 1 AU so that a complete revolution would take 2 years instead of one. That way you can simulate the temerate region of Earth and have a year long 4-season cycle so that at two points during its revolution the angle of sunlight to the rings inner surface would be shallowest and that would correspond to winter. At the point in its revolution where the sunlight comes straight down at right angles to the ringworld's surface would correspond to summer and in between those two times would be spring and fall. The entire ringworld would experience the same season at once. The width of the ringworld band wouldn't be so wide as to undully shadow the opposite side when the ringworlds axis is at right angles to the incidence of solar radiation. I once calculated how big such a ringworld would have to be. I don't remember precisely what it was. The formula is Force = mass * Velocity squared / radius The amount of time in seconds to make one complete revolution is the circumference of the circle divided by velocity or 2 * radius * 3.1415... Assuming a Mass of 1 kg, the force to be generated is 9.8 newtons for 1 gravity, the time period of revolution is 24 hours or 86,400 seconds. We now have to solve 2 equations with two variables.
9.8 = V^2/R and
86,400 seconds = 6.2832 * R / V
Solve for R in the second equation
R = 86,400 seconds * V (m/sec) / 6.2832 m and substitute the formular for R in the second for R in the first equation:
9.8 N = V-squared/ (86,400s * V (m/sec) / 6.2832 m) This equation then becomes
9.8 N = V-squared / (13751 * V)
and is reduced to
9.8 N = V (m/s) / 13751 rearranged to V (m/s) = 9.8 N * 13751
The tangential velocity of this ringworld is
134,760 meters per second In 86,400 seconds the ring must complete a circle of 11,643,246 km which produces a diameter of
3,706,160 km or a radius of 1,853,080 km which is not much larger than the 1,500,000 km radius ringworld orbiting the red dwarf star.
9.8 = V^2/R and
86,400 seconds = 6.2832 * R / V
Solve for R in the second equation
R = 86,400 seconds * V (m/sec) / 6.2832 m and substitute the formular for R in the second for R in the first equation:
9.8 N = V-squared/ (86,400s * V (m/sec) / 6.2832 m) This equation then becomes
9.8 N = V-squared / (13751 * V)
and is reduced to
9.8 N = V (m/s) / 13751 rearranged to V (m/s) = 9.8 N * 13751
The tangential velocity of this ringworld is
134,760 meters per second In 86,400 seconds the ring must complete a circle of 11,643,246 km which produces a diameter of
3,706,160 km or a radius of 1,853,080 km which is not much larger than the 1,500,000 km radius ringworld orbiting the red dwarf star.
Peter Newman
SOC-12
A dead lifeless Ringworld is fairly uniteresting. However what if this Ringworld
is just a 'scale model' for a bigger, better, inhabited by trillions of Droyne Ringworld in a pocket dimension nearby. The Ancients built this one first as
_practice_ for the bigger one. When they were done with the 'real' one they pulled it into a pocket universe for safety.
The clues on how to access the more interesting ringworld are in the hidden 'construction shack' on the lifeless ringworld. The PC's are a group of Imperials (mostly Scouts and Scientists) who have received permission from the Outcasts of the Wispering Sky (probably in return for a _massive_ bribe) to explore this ringworld. If you've got a really weird/skilled player then have him be a Whisperer monitoring the expidition. When they do so they find the clues to the other ringworld. Naturally they'll want to explore it too - for the thrill of adventure, the glory of the Emperor, in order to get tenure on the strength of the papers they write about it, whatever. . . .
That's your campaign.
is just a 'scale model' for a bigger, better, inhabited by trillions of Droyne Ringworld in a pocket dimension nearby. The Ancients built this one first as
_practice_ for the bigger one. When they were done with the 'real' one they pulled it into a pocket universe for safety.
The clues on how to access the more interesting ringworld are in the hidden 'construction shack' on the lifeless ringworld. The PC's are a group of Imperials (mostly Scouts and Scientists) who have received permission from the Outcasts of the Wispering Sky (probably in return for a _massive_ bribe) to explore this ringworld. If you've got a really weird/skilled player then have him be a Whisperer monitoring the expidition. When they do so they find the clues to the other ringworld. Naturally they'll want to explore it too - for the thrill of adventure, the glory of the Emperor, in order to get tenure on the strength of the papers they write about it, whatever. . . .
That's your campaign.
If you can build a pocket universe you might as well build an artificial planet. One way to make a pocket universe is to make a planet of very low density, but is so huge that its escape velocity is near the speed of light. It is almost a black hole but not quite, but it is so huge that its surface gravity is only 1g. The planet as it turns out is a few light years in diameter. Light is bent near its surface so that the planet almost resembles a hollowed out sphere with a hole where all the light from the rest of the universe shines down from directly above. This planet would have more mass than many Galaxies. Would this fit the definition of a pocket universe? I think that this would have to be located outside of the Milky way. Perhaps the ancients could have connected it to known space using a wormhole. That way the PCs don't have to spend centuries in their spaceships just getting there.
mad13142000
SOC-13
No, I think the 'haunted ruins' add atmosphere to the setting. It's important to remind players from time to time that they are VERY tiny, and QUITE young in relation to the rest of the cosmos...An unfinished ringworld adds this needed reminder...
-MADDog
