Ah, well. Against such an impressive display of reasoned argument, who could could continue the discussion? Who would be interested?BZZZZZZT. Nice try but no cigar.
Not me.
Hans
Not me.
Hans
It's not "simple" at all, it is arbitrary.
I think you are missing the point of the discussion here (not the rest of us), which is that there should be more flexibility in interpreting the rules. You are stating that "by definition" a starport can't just be a landing pad with refined fuel available when there is no real reason why that cannot be posssible. Your definition is entirely arbitrary, just like the ones in the books.
If I want to put a starport on a planet with just an automated fuel refinery then the rules can be damned, and I would probably classify it as a D.
As I said, I think you are the one who has been missing the point here. Strict adherence to poorly defined and badly thought out rules and definitions is counter-productive.
Too simple. Ships need refined fuel all the time. They don't need repairs all the time. I'm not prepared to admit that there is a one-to-one correlation between enough traffic to warrant a fuel processor and enough traffic to warrant a repair shop.
Agreed. But on the other hand, I can't figure out why no one in the entire universe would dream of constructing a Class E starport close to a natural source of water. The notion that there is no such thing as a Class E starport with access to unrefined fuel seems completely unreasonable to me.
Hans
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Let me ask you then, what justifies an automated fuel refinery on a world with just a bare patch of bedrock for a starport?
My contention is there is a reason for the elements of the starports as defined being together. They support each other logically. I see no reason for a starport to have refined fuel and no other services, nor does it make any sense that a starport with a shipyard wouldn't have refined fuel. I see nothing poorly defined and badly thought out in the rules in this case. What I see is a failure to appreciate the whole, that one won't find refined fuel on a bare patch of bedrock for good reasons. That one does find refined fuel where traffic warrants it and that all the rest of the defined facilities will also be in place for the same reason. Including a reasonable population to run it all and provide the trade required to support it all. Or would you have a bare bedrock nothing to speak of besides an automated fuel refinery starport with a population of 7 people and 1MKtons of freight piling up daily that is visited by a single Free-Trader every other month?
Refer back to HG_B's original contention and my examples for what is really arbitrary.
Flexibility in interpreting the rules is NOT redefining what a code means. It is in making the code fit the needs in the whole and as a whole. Two Class A Starports may be very different in details based on their situation. Both would have refined fuel and shipyards, but each may have different capacities and quality available. One might only make small low tech ships and have hundreds of tons of refinery capacity while the other might make only megaton ships and have tens of thousands of refinery capacity available. No Class A Starport is likely to be small ships and mega fuel, nor mega ships and small fuel.
You and HG_B aren't seeing this as a whole picture thing so we're never going to agree on what makes sense. No point in continuing two separate universe ideas as a debate. We'll never agree. Your way is going to require far too much rules writing to ever work.
My contention is there is a reason for the elements of the starports as defined being together. They support each other logically. I see no reason for a starport to have refined fuel and no other services, nor does it make any sense that a starport with a shipyard wouldn't have refined fuel. I see nothing poorly defined and badly thought out in the rules in this case. What I see is a failure to appreciate the whole, that one won't find refined fuel on a bare patch of bedrock for good reasons. That one does find refined fuel where traffic warrants it and that all the rest of the defined facilities will also be in place for the same reason. Including a reasonable population to run it all and provide the trade required to support it all. Or would you have a bare bedrock nothing to speak of besides an automated fuel refinery starport with a population of 7 people and 1MKtons of freight piling up daily that is visited by a single Free-Trader every other month?
Refer back to HG_B's original contention and my examples for what is really arbitrary.
Flexibility in interpreting the rules is NOT redefining what a code means. It is in making the code fit the needs in the whole and as a whole. Two Class A Starports may be very different in details based on their situation. Both would have refined fuel and shipyards, but each may have different capacities and quality available. One might only make small low tech ships and have hundreds of tons of refinery capacity while the other might make only megaton ships and have tens of thousands of refinery capacity available. No Class A Starport is likely to be small ships and mega fuel, nor mega ships and small fuel.
You and HG_B aren't seeing this as a whole picture thing so we're never going to agree on what makes sense. No point in continuing two separate universe ideas as a debate. We'll never agree. Your way is going to require far too much rules writing to ever work.
It's a waypoint for somewhere. No facilities, just a fuel stop, like a gas station in the middle of nowhere. A fuel refiner can just be dropped on the planet, set to refine fuel from a local source (underground aquifer? Nearby ice sheet) and left there for passing ships to use. I doubt that it would be in a high traffic zone, it would more likely be well off the beaten track. But I see nothing unreasonable about that whatsoever.
Or it's a small, limited facility on a low population world that has no room (or skilled labor) for repairs, but they do have a fuel refining plant there that they use to sell fuel to travellers passing through the system. Again, not unreasonable.
Of course if you want to throw your hands up in the air and say that I'm "wrong" then I guess there will be no convincing you, but I would say that you are being too rigid and close-minded in your definitions of what is or isn't "reasonable". I guess the assumptions that you use for your SF settings work differently to mine.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
No, they don't. They do run a small risk of breakdown and misjump, which can be offset in most rules. It's a choice to be made.
A big, I mean BIG, problem/disconnect was the ridiculously small and cheap fuel purifiers introduced in High Guard. That totally breaks all previous (and maintained) notion of any need for a difference in fuel. I think it is the HG (and perpetuated) rule that is broken, not the rest. For simplicity as much as personal taste.
A Class E starport on a world with a natural water source says one of two thing right off (and I'm sure I could come up with more):
The area around the water source is unsuitable for landing. You wouldn't want to set down in a swamp, or a tidal flood plain, or any number of other reasons that could preclude "area close to water" begin "suitable for landing a starship" and all the rest that go with it.
By the way HG_B and Blix (I know I said and should stop, but), there is where one can apply imagination and interpretation imo. Not by saying "Well a Class E Starport on a world with water obviously has unrefined fuel and you know what I'm putting an automated fuel refinery there, and a repair yard run by the 7 people who live on the world, and they build TL5 starships in their spare time." Imaginative yes, but not a Class E Starport, just relabel it a Class A Starport, up the TL to 11 for the Starport bonus, and be done
Last edited:
Right, so try applying some imagination instead of just coming up with limitations.
The water source could easily be pumped up from an underground aquifer (not affecting the surface above it, and so not being a problem for landing). Or it could be an ice sheet or lake nearby, and the pad could be built on bedrock. It absolutely does not have to be a swamp or flood plain or anything else like that.
Not by saying "Well a Class E Starport on a world with water obviously has unrefined fuel and you know what I'm putting an automated fuel refinery there, and a repair yard run by the 7 people who live on the world, and they build TL5 starships in their spare time." Imaginative yes, but not a Class E Starport, just relabel it a Class A Starport, up the TL to 11 for the Starport bonus, and be done
Nobody is saying that though. You don't even need people there. Essentially, it could be a forecourt with a couple of gas pumps and a credit card reader.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Again, big picture. Yes I have different assumptions in MTU I guess. That waypoint won't stay a waypoint for long if it is of real value. A settlement will spring up attached to it. Which will mean more supplies brought in. Meaning more traffic. Attracting more settlement. In short it'll grow. It won't stay a simple waypoint for long and in no time (relatively speaking) you have a good population and a fully developed Starport. It won't long stay just a fuel purifier in the middle of nowhere.
Or, it won't be used, will fall into disrepair, and be entirely bypassed for that much more useful developed Starport over there as a way to Arglebargle 7. The starship unlucky enough to go there hoping to find refined fuel will be out of luck as the find a stripped down rusting non-functioning refinery. And maybe a ghost town around what hoped to become a real Starport.
My TU has a history. The codes define that.
The problem is with existing materials, eg the Marches.
eg if the Canon UWP says that this is an airless world with a population of about 300,000 people who are at an iron age tech level, then there is a problem. Or if we have a desert world with a class E port (no fuel available). So how do ships get past along the Jump-1 main?
You can of course change the setting (make the world habitable, change the TL, give it a decent port run by outside agencies like a company that operates such trade-facilitiating ports) but that means ignoring canon UWP data.
Or you can alter the meanings of the things set out in the rules (Class E port is defined as no facilities, but this one has a fuel station and whatever else is needed to run that).
Either approach can work, but both require that some aspect of the games's canon (rules definitions or the setting derived using those rules) be altered.
The problem is simply that the setting as it exists can't work with the rules as they are.
eg if the Canon UWP says that this is an airless world with a population of about 300,000 people who are at an iron age tech level, then there is a problem. Or if we have a desert world with a class E port (no fuel available). So how do ships get past along the Jump-1 main?
You can of course change the setting (make the world habitable, change the TL, give it a decent port run by outside agencies like a company that operates such trade-facilitiating ports) but that means ignoring canon UWP data.
Or you can alter the meanings of the things set out in the rules (Class E port is defined as no facilities, but this one has a fuel station and whatever else is needed to run that).
Either approach can work, but both require that some aspect of the games's canon (rules definitions or the setting derived using those rules) be altered.
The problem is simply that the setting as it exists can't work with the rules as they are.
For you perhaps. The point is that the codes as they stand are limiting. They are fine if you accept no variation from what is prescribed in the books, but if you have other situations like the ones I mentioned that are perfectly reasonable in your own setting then those situations cannot be classified using that system.
Which brings us back to the point that the definitions are too rigid. Some things cannot be summarized in a simple one-letter code. Perhaps it would be better to have some kind of points system, where varying degrees of repair facilities, shipyards, and fuel availability are given a number between 1 and 5. Then you add the points up, and that gives you a code for the starport.
So if you have 5 pts of repair facilities, 5 pts of shipyards and 5 pts of fuel avaiability then you will have a class A starport. But perhaps if you had 5 points in just one of those and low points in the others (i.e. good repair facilities, OR good shipyards, OR good fuel availability) that would be a class C shipyard. At least that would be more flexible, though it would require more supplemental explanation.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Well and succinctly put.
I still don't agree that changing the definition of a code is the proper approach when changing the element to an appropriate code seems more logical and simpler. i.e. If a Class E Starport is a deal breaker change it to a Class B Starport (or whatever), not call it a Class E Starport, oh but this one has this and that and some other things too (essentially a Class whatever Starport). I don't seem to be doing the succinctly too well
Which, imo, is the setting is broken(ish). The rules are (mostly, self-contradictory and poorly meshed bits excepted) ok but too much treated as engraved on iridium.
I don't agree with changing the definitions either; I was just mentioning all the options.
The codes created for the setting need changing to make them workable, leaving the rules as they are (though they could be cleaned up a bit as noted).
But of course, when I considered the possibility of suggesting that we might do something like that it was the worst possible thing anyone had ever done. Then FFE went and did it anyway a year after stomping all over me for thinking about the possibility.
Got to wonder about that...
The codes created for the setting need changing to make them workable, leaving the rules as they are (though they could be cleaned up a bit as noted).
But of course, when I considered the possibility of suggesting that we might do something like that it was the worst possible thing anyone had ever done. Then FFE went and did it anyway a year after stomping all over me for thinking about the possibility.
Got to wonder about that...
It's not such a small risk compared to the consequences of a misjump. But let me rephrase it: There are more ships who prefer to buy refined fuel whenever they can than there are ships that need repairs. And let me restate the crux of my argument: I simply don't believe in a one-to-one correlation between enough traffic to warrant a fuel processor and enough traffic to warrant a repair shop.
Small and cheap? Cr200,000 for a 50T installation? Maybe you're thinking of something in MT?
It also has to make sense. If fuel purification is nothing more than separating water into hydrogen and oxygen, then it's a minimum size of 50T and cost of Cr200,000 that is unbelievable. I'd say that a smaller plant and a big (1000T) tank would be much more reasonable.
You might, if you examined enough worlds, be able to find one with a hydrography score of 1-9 that didn't have anywhere on the surface where you could construct a rudimentary starport next to a source of water, but I doubt it. No, I wouldn't want to set down in a swamp or a tidal plain or anywhere else without a decent spot of bedrock, but rain falls on mountainsides and runs downwards, so the juxtaposition of rock and water is hard to avoid completely unless all you have is rock or all you have is water.
But be that as it may, what does a bare spot of bedrock next to a ready source of water say to you? To claim that some worlds may not have any suitable place to construct such a starport is one thing; to claim that no such no place exists on any world in Charted Space is plainly ridiculous. So it can exist. What starport class is it?
Mind you, I wouldn't mind at all if TPTB change the definition of Class E to an unmanned starport, making that the crucial difference between Class E and Class D. (No, I don't believe in unmanned automated repair facilities and shipyards).
Hans
Last edited:
The problem is that the code definitions as they stand are unable to cover every situation.
The solution is that either more codes should be added to cover those situations, or the definitions should be changed to incorporate those situations. The solution should not be "well, those situations just can't/don't exist".
The solution is that either more codes should be added to cover those situations, or the definitions should be changed to incorporate those situations. The solution should not be "well, those situations just can't/don't exist".
Quite. This is something I've suggested before.
But without changing the rules we're stuck with 5 starport and 5 matching spaceport codes, and there are situations that those codes can't cover, ie situations that can't exist if you generate a world using the rules and believe what the rules say the codes mean.
So again, it comes down to a discrepancy between the rules as written and the setting as generated from them.
Not terribly difficult to fix by amending the rules, I guess. Or playing the setting straight as the rules dictate, though that makes some other aspects of the setting unworkable.
But without changing the rules we're stuck with 5 starport and 5 matching spaceport codes, and there are situations that those codes can't cover, ie situations that can't exist if you generate a world using the rules and believe what the rules say the codes mean.
So again, it comes down to a discrepancy between the rules as written and the setting as generated from them.
Not terribly difficult to fix by amending the rules, I guess. Or playing the setting straight as the rules dictate, though that makes some other aspects of the setting unworkable.
No, they're not. You simply assume that any starport that doesn't fit all the requirements of a given code counts as the lower classification. That the facilites listed for each code are the minimum necessary for that classification instead of assuming that it means only those facilities mentioned are allowed to exist there.
It's true that I advocate tweaking the codes because I think the difference between "annual maintenance available" and "vessel construction available" is more relevant than the difference between "ships built" and "boats built". But that's an entirely different issue.
Hans
Why does a Class A port have to have a shipyard?
By definition, you're not class A if you don't have a yard. What about a port that's a huge freight and passenger nexus and really really good to boot, but has no yards for whatever reason. The designations are a bit rigid for my taste.
By definition, you're not class A if you don't have a yard. What about a port that's a huge freight and passenger nexus and really really good to boot, but has no yards for whatever reason. The designations are a bit rigid for my taste.
I agree that such a starport is quite possible and that labeling it a Class C is unreasonable. As the codes are defined by the Rules As Written, I'd be compelled to do so (if I was writing for publication). But I would like it. That's why I think it would be a good idea to change the definitions and make Class A a port that has a yard and Class B a port that has all the facilities except a yard.
Hans
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
That (splitting yard from port) seems a simple elegant solution. Especially as there's already a disconnect between the two with planetary govs being able to build without a Class A or B Starport rating. And making it an extra code bit would work well enough I think, it could even be easily classed by hull size capability then, rather than non-starship or starship (as I see no reason to differentiate on that either, let it be TL and hull size that determines that).
I wonder too if maybe the Starport TL mod wouldn't be more appropriately a Shipyard TL mod? Not that talking such ideas out on the forum is going to influence anything official of course...
I wonder too if maybe the Starport TL mod wouldn't be more appropriately a Shipyard TL mod? Not that talking such ideas out on the forum is going to influence anything official of course...
Similar threads
