A Thought On Vetting Weird Population Results.

[jawillroy]

Whipping up a subsector for giggles (LBB3), and got (as one occasionally does) a type A port with population... zero.

This led me to have a look at the wikipedia for JFK International, and Logan. Logan employs about 16000. JFK, about 35000.

Even counting tech 9+ automation, a class A starport can scarcely be smaller!

I'm houseruling that an A port will have a minimum population code of 4, a B port minimum 3, C minimum 2, D minimum 1. I'm undecided as to adjusting any of the other factors (gov, law, tech) to reflect the population number change. Might just.

 

[tjoneslo]

The number of people working at a class A port (or any more) should depend more upon the traffic through the system than the base size of the world.

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Spinward_Marches_Sector/economic

This chart has a table of worlds. In the last column is the "SPA Population", a calculation of the number of people working at the space port to support the cargo and passengers.

The value ranges anywhere from over 140,000 on Fornice down to Farreach with 10, all for places with A class ports.

 

[kilemall]

I say roll with it- totally automated robot starport/shipyard says 'Big Darn Space Future' like few other things.

 

[aramis]

Whipping up a subsector for giggles (LBB3), and got (as one occasionally does) a type A port with population... zero.

This led me to have a look at the wikipedia for JFK International, and Logan. Logan employs about 16000. JFK, about 35000.

Even counting tech 9+ automation, a class A starport can scarcely be smaller!

I'm houseruling that an A port will have a minimum population code of 4, a B port minimum 3, C minimum 2, D minimum 1. I'm undecided as to adjusting any of the other factors (gov, law, tech) to reflect the population number change. Might just.

Anchorage International has all the same available services (including aircraft maintenance, and 747-800 capable hangarage) as JFK with less than 9500 employees, counting all bodies working at the airport. Fairbanks international has fewer still, but far less traffic, tho', it, too, has almost all the services available.

http://dot.alaska.gov/anc/business/communityRelations/ANC-EconomicImpact_1-17-12.pdf

 

[rancke]

It's not the odd results per se I object to (much). Often (albeit not always) you can come up with one or two equally odd explanations, and that's a good thing. My objection is to the sheer number of such odd results. When extraordinary results become common, they lose their luster.


Hans

 

[whulorigan]

There is also the old :CoW: as to whether or not the Population figure includes starport personnel who live within the confines of the port extrality line, vs citizens and/or employees/personnel who live on-world (but outside the port facilities).

If the former, then the port could have personnel who are not considered part of the planetary population proper.

 

[rancke]

There is also the old :CoW: as to whether or not the Population figure includes starport personnel who live within the confines of the port extrality line, vs citizens and/or employees/personnel who live on-world (but outside the port facilities).

If the former, then the port could have personnel who are not considered part of the planetary population proper.

There are canonical examples either way.

The most useful version would be that everyone who contributes significantly to the world's economic footprint counts. This would include temporary residents such as starport personnel but not starship passengers just passing through.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Consider if said A starport also has a naval base - there's a population of a few tens of thousands minimum.

 

[jawillroy]

The number of people working at a class A port (or any more) should depend more upon the traffic through the system than the base size of the world.

I'd agree - (likewise with Aramis, thanks for the examples of population 2 A-airports) with the cavil that since a A port by definition includes a shipyard capable of building starships, that really ought to skew the numbers up from a major 21st century airport.

I'm with Hans on this - the result happens just often enough that it needs some common-sense tempering. While I agree with Kilemall that the fully automated port does scream FYOOOOTURE, once you've docked at the sixth you've found (and you realize you have a week of expensive pleasure-bots, no blue sky, and probably no shots at patronage to look forward to) it's got to be a pretty sterile, plastic future indeed.

 

[nobby-w]

Whipping up a subsector for giggles (LBB3), and got (as one occasionally does) a type A port with population... zero.

This led me to have a look at the wikipedia for JFK International, and Logan. Logan employs about 16000. JFK, about 35000.

Even counting tech 9+ automation, a class A starport can scarcely be smaller!

I'm houseruling that an A port will have a minimum population code of 4, a B port minimum 3, C minimum 2, D minimum 1. I'm undecided as to adjusting any of the other factors (gov, law, tech) to reflect the population number change. Might just.

I've been quite happy to fiddle the results of subsector generation to fit a particular structure I wanted for the universe. For example I've got a setting where I want a preponderance of colonies in a particular region with fairly basic TL4-6 industrial tech (the results of a lo-hi tech economic development programme) and 'colonial' populations in the high 5's to low 7's.

The setting would also have relatively few systems colonised at all past a 'frontier', and less hospitable systems (i.e. ones with no directly habitable worlds) quite likely not to have permanent settlement at all.

So, in my view, frig away.

 

[kilemall]

Shrug. I use the RTT Worldgen system, so this whole thing doesn't come up very often at all, rarely enough to warrant the oddball definitions.

So, despite my flippant commentary, I agree that something ought to be done for normal gen.

 

[mike wightman]

Something was - just most people skip this bit:

At times, the referee (or the players) will find combinations of features which
may seem contradictory or unreasonable. Common sense should rule in such cases;
either the players or referee will generate a rationale which explains the situation,
or an alternative description should be made.
Finally, the referee should always feel free to create worlds which have been
deliberately (rather than randomly) generated. Often such planets will be devised
specifically to reward or torment players.

 

[rancke]

Something was - just most people skip this bit:

At times, the referee (or the players) will find combinations of features which may seem contradictory or unreasonable. Common sense should rule in such cases; either the players or referee will generate a rationale which explains the situation, or an alternative description should be made.

And a very good rule it is, too. The problem that the OTU has struggled with for 35 yeaqrs is that GDW and its successors never did apply this rule to the UWPs they published. From The Spinward Marches and on they've generated bunch after bunch of completely random UWPs and published them without vetting them first. A process that does require some extra work, granted, but not so very much. From personal experience I can say that it takes a man about four to eight hours to vet a subsector's worth of UWPs and fix the contradictory or unreasonable ones.


Hans

 

[jawillroy]

Something was - just most people skip this bit:

Indeed they do.

And I get it - I go through periods of "let the dice speak!" But sometimes the dice speak nonsense.

 

[mike wightman]

Population is the one stat that I think could use a lot of common sense applied to.

I quite like the idea of looking at the other stats for the world to modify the population...

 

[tjoneslo]

Pupulation is the one stat that I think could use a lot of common sense applied to.

I quite like the idea of looking at the other stats for the world to modify the population...

GT:First In made a stab at this with the Maximum Sustainable Population Rating (MSPR). I think a version of this would be useful in more Traveller generation systems.

The other big flaw in the entire system is there is no consideration of population (or TL or starports) in relation to other nearby worlds.

For example, if you have two high population worlds J4 apart with a small, underpopulated world with a low grade startport exactly between them. In a real world economy there will be investment in improving the starport, building out infrastructure (increasing the TL) and more people arriving at the small world all the time.

A small population world in isolation is fine. But in the some circumstances the world becomes harder to explain. And we need a system of modifying population, starport, and TL based upon relationships to other worlds.

 

[jawillroy]

Population is the one stat that I think could use a lot of common sense applied to.

I quite like the idea of looking at the other stats for the world to modify the population...

My first pass, when vetting a subsector, is looking at what populations can't be expected to survive their own climate at their given tech: often, by adjusting the population down and consulting the tech table, it'll nudge the tech up a point - which is sometimes enough to give the world enough tech to arguably survive on their own, and also brings the population down in such a way that it makes sense as well, and helps me build backstory more convincingly than just a read of the raw numbers.

A world with an unbreathable atmosphere and insufficient tech to maintain oxygen tanks, and the above adjustment won't save 'em? I look around and see if a neighboring world has any good reason or means to maintain the neighbor - sometimes I'll just go ahead and depopulate the place: relegate the pop, gov, law and port number to deep history and ruins. "Before the fall/long night/interregnum/whatever, Wapapitame 7 maintained an equivalent to a C port, and a population in the hundreds of thousands - but once isolated, fell into savagery, and eventually died off as their habitat domes decayed." Might be a good place for adventurers to look for Old Empire Artifacts, or what have you.

 

[Scratches]

It could be bureaucrats. Once some pencil pusher has decided what the main world in a system is the IISS is never going to change it even if future development favors another planet in the system. It'd be like the Imperium cruising through Sol system and picking Venus X8B0000-0 as the main planet. By 1115 they'd be reporting Venus D8B0168-E even though Terra A867A69-F is right next door. Try getting that paperwork changed.

 

[rancke]

It could be bureaucrats. Once some pencil pusher has decided what the main world in a system is the IISS is never going to change it even if future development favors another planet in the system. It'd be like the Imperium cruising through Sol system and picking Venus X8B0000-0 as the main planet. By 1115 they'd be reporting Venus D8B0168-E even though Terra A867A69-F is right next door. Try getting that paperwork changed.

Leaving aside how likely that is, it would require game rules that takes this effect into account. Tramp traders visiting the Terra system would have to roll for cargo and passengers as if the population level was 10 and not the 0 the UWP claims.


Hans

 

[kilemall]

My first pass, when vetting a subsector, is looking at what populations can't be expected to survive their own climate at their given tech: often, by adjusting the population down and consulting the tech table, it'll nudge the tech up a point - which is sometimes enough to give the world enough tech to arguably survive on their own, and also brings the population down in such a way that it makes sense as well, and helps me build backstory more convincingly than just a read of the raw numbers.

A world with an unbreathable atmosphere and insufficient tech to maintain oxygen tanks, and the above adjustment won't save 'em? I look around and see if a neighboring world has any good reason or means to maintain the neighbor - sometimes I'll just go ahead and depopulate the place: relegate the pop, gov, law and port number to deep history and ruins. "Before the fall/long night/interregnum/whatever, Wapapitame 7 maintained an equivalent to a C port, and a population in the hundreds of thousands - but once isolated, fell into savagery, and eventually died off as their habitat domes decayed." Might be a good place for adventurers to look for Old Empire Artifacts, or what have you.

RTT handles this, through the mechanism of how many centuries the planet has been visited/inhabited, and rules for Long Night scenarios.

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/RTT_Worldgen