Which Edition? World Generation

[ShawnDriscoll]

When making worlds for your subsector, which book rules from which edition(s) do you make use of when generating your systems? Right now I am mixing Mongoose and T5 together when making just the main world for each system. I haven't done the minor worlds yet.

 

[egor045]

When making worlds for your subsector, which book rules from which edition(s) do you make use of when generating your systems? Right now I am mixing Mongoose and T5 together when making just the main world for each system. I haven't done the minor worlds yet.

I use Cepheus as the base ruleset, tweaked T5 for world-building. T5 gives me a better feel for what the world might be like, but I ignore nobility as it's not relevant in my TU.

Tweaks I use:

- revised atmosphere roll for small worlds (makes them less likely to have standard or dense atmosphere)
- cap population at A
- cap TL at empire-building value
- scrutinize travel zone and base assignment to ensure they fit the "geography" of the region

I also have a set of DMs to starport and population rolls for designated backwater and frontier regions. They keep tech levels relatively low and make class A starports very unlikely in frontier space.

 

[The Pakkrat]

T5 and a Pair of Dice

As I was regenerating world for Knoellighz Sector, I began with Mongoose 1E rules. Later, I learned that the TravellerMap was aiming for Traveller⁵ Second Survey criteria, I changed to that generation and used dice, real, in your hands dice to regenerate the duplicate worlds. It's been quite a ride trying to proofread each subsector for compliance to the Trade Classifications.

From the Cartography Department high above Roethoeegaeaegz, this is the Pakkrat.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

CT-based generation system, with a tweak to keep the POP score down for human worlds that deviate from SAH = 867 ... "Billions of Inhabitants" on a small, vacuum world with no water seems counter-intuitive to me.

 

[Ishmael]

My system is house-ruled beyond recognition, so its a home-brew system mostly.
The parts of it that I've put on-line are here;
https://sites.google.com/site/moukotiger/sf-rpg/rules/uwp-1

I'm using it for a non-OTU version of the Spinward Marches ( mainly because I had a .svg map with stellar types already made up ) and converting OTU rolls to my own system, just to see how things work out.

 

[robject]

Also T5 and a pair of dice... and sometimes, paper

When I roll a subsector, I roll the subsector!

My first pass is old-school, leaving the CX and EX and non-mainworlds for later as needed. But I do like generating the primary star and mainworld orbit -- if there are natives it helps prime that toolset.

Granted I'm biased towards T5, but besides that, the data is also primed for Travellermap.

 

[Ulsyus]

In order to ensure everything is kosher with Traveller Map I'm sticking to T5 these days, though I still draw from MT and CT. The book I really love using at times is the World Builder's Handbook from Digest Group. I had a look for it online - does anyone know if it's available?

- cap population at A

Had you thought of just adding the extra bods onto other planets or belts in the system?

 

[mike wightman]

For planet of the week adventure CT LBB:3.
I may even add more worlds to the system if needed by using LBB:3 and fudging the rolls to suit:
players decide to leave main world and travel to the next world in the system - I quickly roll it up but usually make sure the population and TL are lower than the main world (although there was one instance where the next world I generated was both high population and a higher TL than the 'mainworld' - I decided that the 'main world' is maintained for trading with folks from out-system, while the home world maintains its separation from aliens).

If I intend a system to be the focus for an extended stay then I use GURPS Space 4th edition.

 

[robject]

At one point, I preferred to do it backwards:

(1) Gather all of the official(?) worlds of the OTU. Or auto-generate a bazillion of them.
(2) Sort them into buckets by Trade Code.
(3) Create a d1000 roll that would randomly select one of these based on the distribution of occurring groups of trade codes.

'Cause it turns out that there aren't oodles and oodles of unique combinations of trade codes.

Use CT and the list of unique combinations is even shorter (like maybe 50).

 

[Timerover51]

Basically, I am generating a sector using the Classic Rules, with a few modifications. One being that I generate size, atmosphere, and hydrographics first, then add some modifiers based on those to the population roll, do a government roll and see if that feels right and fits with how I want the world to look, and then figure law level. Finally, I put in the star port based on population and world characteristics. Then comes the Tech Level, modified by the size, atmosphere and hydrographics, along with the star port. Lower populations have lower class star ports, somewhat like smaller cities having smaller airports. Then there are a few X star port worlds, possibly with natives and possibly with ruins, and possibly with a few other surprises. Beware the Krell, and watch out for Bald Space Rover survivors.

 

[robject]

... I generate size, atmosphere, and hydrographics first, then add some modifiers based on those to the population roll, do a government roll and see if that feels right and fits with how I want the world to look, and then figure law level. Finally, I put in the star port based on population and world characteristics. ...

I seem to remember something like that method before. Maybe Jeff Zeitlin wrote about doing it like that?

 

[egor045]

In order to ensure everything is kosher with Traveller Map I'm sticking to T5 these days, though I still draw from MT and CT. The book I really love using at times is the World Builder's Handbook from Digest Group. I had a look for it online - does anyone know if it's available?



Had you thought of just adding the extra bods onto other planets or belts in the system?

There's an exponential issue. You'd likely have to distribute something at least ten times the mainworld's population to other worlds in the system. That'd make the mainworld look not too main.

I should have mentioned that myTU is small-ship. I don't use High Guard, so supplying all those people could be difficult.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

... Had you thought of just adding the extra bods onto other planets or belts in the system?

DING!
Now why hadn't thought of that before? "Tens of Billions of Inhabitants" might be for the entire system, and not just for one world!
Of course, there's still that matter of the largest world in the system being SIZ 2-, with no air or water to speak of...

 

[Timerover51]

I seem to remember something like that method before. Maybe Jeff Zeitlin wrote about doing it like that?

I assure you that I have come up with that idea independently of anyone else.

 

[kilemall]

I built mine sideways to most.

First I used the Imperium boardgame map.

Used this list of real life analogues to the mapped systems.

https://www.prismnet.com/~thrash/known.html

Started each system with the 'correct' star type as the basis, including whether it is known as a flare star.

Used [Mongoose Traveller Worldgen], with the input that it is a frontier and only settled 100 years or less.

[Mongoose Traveller Wordgen on RPGnet wiki]

So, all those red stars in the neighborhood usually only have pop 4 or so, little communities of hardscrabble eking out a settlement.

A major plot point is that the collective willingness to keep deficit funding these colonies for prestige is waning, with the result that some of them will be cut loose and find their own natural TL- or be abandoned.

More habitable planets of course get bigger populations. It comes out a lot more organically and logically.

Another plot point is that many planets end up with their own biosphere. So there is a tension between real estate/opportunity and whether mass biocide is acceptable, complicated by the pharmabanks that see alien native biomes as a huge new source of templates leading to products to monetize. And of course all the attendant diseases/deadly animals/ongoing conditions that make life hard on a non-sterilized planet.

 

[Ulsyus]

Of course, there's still that matter of the largest world in the system being SIZ 2-, with no air or water to speak of...

That becomes a bit of an issue, when it's possibly more feasible to build in a belt than around a planet. But it could be that with a Siz 2 planet that large orbitals simply shelter in its magnetosphere, particularly if they're from a lower-tech society. By lower tech I mean here 9-10. The BBB TL tables list under the Science column at TL11 Magnetics, which I'm taking to mean the manipulation of magnetic forces. If they're weak even at TL11-12, that could still give a justification for putting orbitals in orbit or at La Grange points around those planets.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

... magnetic forces. If they're weak even at TL11-12, that could still give a justification for putting orbitals in orbit or at La Grange points around those planets.

That would be a LOT of orbitals around a rock not much larger than Ceres.

Intrinsic conditions that might influence the attractiveness of a world to colonization are not limited to SAH conditions, but stellar class and luminosity, orbital radius, and proximity to nearby "Hi Ri"worlds and jump routes. Thus, an X232000-0 world in an OZ orbit around an M8-V star that is 6 parsecs from the nearest world or space lane might not be as attractive as an X232000-0 world in an HZ orbit around a K4-V star that is 1 parsec away from a "Hi Ri" world on the Merchants' Main jump route.

While the first world might have only a one-line entry in the IISS's Sector Data catalog, the second world might soon experience a boom in its population.

 

[flykiller]

which book rules from which edition(s) do you make use of when generating your systems?

I just use lbb 6.

lbb6 system generator in quick basic
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=35183

 

[Timerover51]

In order to ensure everything is kosher with Traveller Map I'm sticking to T5 these days, though I still draw from MT and CT. The book I really love using at times is the World Builder's Handbook from Digest Group. I had a look for it online - does anyone know if it's available?

Paul Elliot of Zozer Games has a good world building handbook for the Cepheus Engine that you could use for a lot of basic work.

 

[Ulsyus]

Paul Elliot of Zozer Games has a good world building handbook for the Cepheus Engine that you could use for a lot of basic work.

Thanks for that, I've got thatone, it's a neat book. It's nowhere near as detailed, nor does it have the extended extended UWP that's in the Digest Group book.