How terraformed is your Traveller Universe

[kafka47]

Reading through the cannon there is an abundance of habitable worlds in close proxmity to one another? According to the known laws of probability and looking at our own Solar System and things like the stellar conditions in our local stellar neighbourhood...the likelyhood of habitable planets drops significantly.

How are we to reconcile this with a Traveller ruleset. Do you fudge and say the Ancients are responsible for making most of the worlds in the OTU habitable then the 3I came around and did the rest. Or do you favour really exotic locales? Furthermore, would people favor more of a harsher environment for future Traveller products?

 

[sandman]

I'd say that for the majority, yes it would be the Ancient. For a minority there was genuine 1st/2nd/3rd Imp Terraforming.

The reason being that a universe based exclusively on "known facts" would be quite boring. Just generate many starsystems uwing GT: First In and you'll see.

Lots of Dead worlds.

Lots of bored players...

 

[marginaleye]

I'm willing to accept a two-dimensional universe, but I'd prefer hospitable planets to be a lot rarer. There ought to be a lot more iceballs, airless rocks, and terrestrial planets with unbreathable exotic (carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, nitrogen, and so on) atmospheres. A planet with liquid water and a breathable atmosphere ought to be unusual (a handful per subsector). Planets where you can breath the air, drink the water, and digest native biological macro-molecules ought to be ever rarer (no more than one per subsector). Densely-populated inhospitable hell-planets ought to be rare, too.

As a compensatory change, starships could move a bit faster... but the fact that space is big and basically hostile should be emphasized.

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by marginaleye:
As a compensatory change, starships could move a bit faster... but the fact that space is big and basically hostile should be emphasized.

I think we all agree on that, but it would make for many boring games where players have to jump 10 times in a row to find an hospitable planet where they can go for vacations...

They didn't want to play Cargos and SpaceStations, but to play Traveller. Too much airless Iceball/Dirtball/Rock would be very boring indeed. I know I'd find it boring.

That is why I accept this Brief Inhalation of Handwavium Compound.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Using Classic Traveller's UWP generation system, most of my worlds are habitable, but not all are inhabited.

IMTU: I apply a negative modifier to the POP for worlds that are different from Earth (867-xxx). The more difference, the greater the modifier. Of course, this makes for fewer industrial worlds (and Psionic Institute branches), but making the POP threshold 8+ instead of 9+ solves that.

I also like the idea that players should realize that space is both big and inhospitable.

 

[Whipsnade]

"IMTU: I apply a negative modifier to the POP for worlds that are different from Earth (867-xxx). The more difference, the greater the modifier."


Sir,

You may find the idea of 'maximum sustainable population' found in both GDW's 'Survival Margin' and GURPS:Traveller-First In (GT:FI) interesting. They propose very similar mechanics to one you use IYTU.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[TKalbfus]

Have you ever considered rolling 1d12s to generate the UWP instead of 2d6s? 2d6s biases the results toward size 7 habitable planets. By rolling 1d12s in their place you get more 0 and B size worlds just roll 1d12-1 instead of 2d6-2 for diameter.

 

[mad13142000]

I think not...If you have the ability to travel from star to star, surely you have the ability to make a house on a planet that is NOT an earth type world. If the system is in the commercial corridor, and it has a gas giant, It wouldn't matter how crappy the rest of the worlds in system are, the scouts (or whoever) would plop down a settlement somewhere. Imagine Sol without an Earth. If a major world was A.Centauri, and the rest of the Imperium continued on, They would have developed Mars..or one of the moons..or Venus.. Point is, there would be a main world, because pressure would put one here - Jumps require fuel. Commerce requires CHEAP fuel. Thus we have worlds where there is not much sense in having lots of worlds.
Just a thought
-MADDog

 

[TKalbfus]

Ah, what does that have to do with rolling 1d12 for planetary diameter and population?

 

[Ran Targas]

I think one thing everyone is forgetting is that humans (and probably Vargr, Aslan, and Hivers too) are very resilient and willing to endure considerable hardship for profit.

IMTU, there are not millions of "M" class worlds but there are many thousands of space stations, domed or underground cities, asteroid bases, etc. Most systems import some sort of life support compounds or equipment.

Where there are valuable resources to exploit or defend, people go there and establish habitats. Robotics have advanced significantly to allow large scale, automated construction. And with population pressure as it is, creating new habitats is very profitable. What can't be lived on is mined for building material.

Planets that can support human life are used to produce food and great care is taken to maintain the environment (some are even blockaded to prevent contamination). Mining and heavy industry are not allowed on these worlds; either its done in orbit or imported to the world. This has the added benefit of greatly simplifying the economics IMTU too.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Maybe this will help. It's my world-classification and population adjustment system.

1) Roll SIZ, ATM, and HYD as you normally would.
2) Whack the minus signs off 8-SIZ, 6-ATM, and 7-HYD (thus taking the absolute value thereof).
3) Add the three values together and consult the following chart:

Result:   PopDM:  Class:
0 to 1       +1       M
2 to 4        -0       L
5 to 7        -1       K
8 to 10      -2       J
11 to 13    -3       I
14 to 16    -4       H
17 to 19    -5       G
20 to 21    -6       F
   22+       -7       E

Applying the PopDm makes a world's population more dependant on environmental conditions, and provides a +1 DM to all POP rolls for worlds that have the same SIZ, ATM, and HYD as Earth.

Using the 'Class' (as in 'Class-M World') is stricktly optional, and provides no real benefit to anybody. If used in the UWP, I would place it between HYD and POP, as: "X-000-F-000-0".

Other adjustments may be made, such as to TEC, whereby a human colony on a Class G world would be using their industrial output more for providing and maintaining living quarters than for trade - part of the idea behind a "Non-Industrial" rating.

ANYHOW, as a result of this method, I still have as many AG-rated worlds as without. It just gives me a reason for a marginal world's low POP score other than relying on a single dice roll.

The less a world is like Earth, the less it's Humanati population should be. What kinds of worlds would Hivers, K'kree, and Droyne thrive on?

 

[mad13142000]

Originally posted by Keklas Rekobah:
What kinds of worlds would Hivers, K'kree, and Droyne thrive on?

That was kind of what I was going for...
Domes, etc go far to opening up many not-Earth worlds for settlement.
Here's a handy table I picked up somewhere
Relevant UWP Hiver Hiver Terran Terran
Normal Prime Normal Prime
SIZE 4-6 1-6 7-9 6-9
ATMOSPHERE 6-7 4-7 6-7 4-9
HYDROGRAPHICS5-7 3-9 5-7 3-9

I think its from a couple of GDW sources....
later
-MADDog

argh- my carefully crafted table is all messed up...

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by marginaleye:
I'm willing to accept a two-dimensional universe, but I'd prefer hospitable planets to be a lot rarer. There ought to be a lot more iceballs, airless rocks, and terrestrial planets with unbreathable exotic (carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, nitrogen, and so on) atmospheres. A planet with liquid water and a breathable atmosphere ought to be unusual (a handful per subsector). Planets where you can breath the air, drink the water, and digest native biological macro-molecules ought to be ever rarer (no more than one per subsector). Densely-populated inhospitable hell-planets ought to be rare, too.

You do realise that there *are* a lot more of those worlds than there are habitable ones, right? If each system has 5 - 10 worlds in total, and one of them (at most) is remotely habitable, then there's a lot of rockballs and exotic worlds out there.

Throw in the Brown Dwarfs and the Rogue Planets (which are now believed to be very widespread) in the 'empty hexes', and the total world count goes up even more.

As for 'dead worlds being boring'... yeah right. Doesn't stop billions of people settling on them in Trav, does it?

 

[mad13142000]

Originally posted by thrash:
Try the "code" tags:

Thank you Thrash...

-MADDog

 

[trader jim]

to make a very long statement short---I perfer live, living worlds, most people would want to colinize living worlds insteat of "Rock Balls".
Minors and explorors would of course be an exception.

 

[mad13142000]

Originally posted by trader jim:
to make a very long statement short---I perfer <snip> Minors...

I knew it - ya cradle robber!


-MADDog

 

[Redleg58]

Originally posted by MADDog:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by trader jim:
to make a very long statement short---I perfer <snip> Minors...

I knew it - ya cradle robber!


-MADDog </font>[/QUOTE]From "Galaxyquest":
(Lt Madison) Are they the miners?
(TSG Chin)Yeah they gota be, what, 12.
(Dr Lazzarus) No Miners not Minors!You .
(TSG Chin)What?

 

[Starspawn]

Originally posted by trader jim:
to make a very long statement short---I perfer live, living worlds, most people would want to colinize living worlds insteat of "Rock Balls".
Minors and explorors would of course be an exception.

Unfortunately this also conflicts with the motivation that most people will do anything for money, including living in strange situation and conditions (witness all the reality shows these days). If they can make money every parsec, then there will be people making money at every parsec they can build on (and probably even some they can't).

 

[marginaleye]

What I don't understand is why anyone bothers actually settling on barren rock-balls and hell-planets at all. If you're willing to live in a completely artifical environment (breathing filtered air, drinking recycled water, eating hydroponic food), why bother with planets at all? Space has everything you need -- icy asteroids for water, metallic asteroids for building materials, gas giants for hydrogen (and no gravity well to haul yourself into and out of -- although with the kind of maneuver drives in the Traveller universe, that's not a serious problem). Yes, a few inhospitable planets might have unusual resources ("handwavium" and "unobtainium"), but I think this ought to be very rare (and given those cheap and effective maneuver drives, everyone probably lives in orbit, and visits as infrequently as possible, esp. when corrosive or insidious atmospheres are involved).

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Come to Sidur Haski, Milord, and see how valuable some "Rockballs" can be... I heard that it was rough settling the system for the first colonists, but its pretty cushy for us now that all is automated, what?