incorrect year length

[EvilDrGanymede]

I notice that the year length column on page 374 (World Orbit generation table) is not correct. A world in Orbit 3 will only have a year the same length as our own if the primary star is the same mass as our sun (orbital period being dependant on primary mass as well as distance from star). The same applies for all other orbits, obviously.

You actually need to multiply the year length by an additional factor of:

Square root of [1/(mass ratio of the star to Sol's mass)].

So a planet (in any orbit) orbiting a star half as massive as Sol (e.g. an M0 V) will have a year that is a factor of SQRT(1/0.5) = SQRT(2) = x1.414 of the Year length modifier shown in the table on p374.

A planet orbiting a star twice as massive as Sol (e.g. an A5 V) will have an additional year length modifier of SQRT (1/2) = x0.707. Thus, it completes one orbit more quickly than a planet orbiting the same distance from Sol, which is what you'd expect.

Of course, you aren't presented with a table of stellar masses in T20, so this is kinda moot, I guess :/.

 

[Commonman]

OH MY BRAIN HURTS!!!!!!

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Yeah, it's terrible isn't it... The trauma of having to multiply something by numbers with a few decimal places! The horror of having to press a "square root" button on the calculator to get it to figure it all out for you!

I probably made it sound more complicated than it actually was anyway (or would you rather I reproduce the formula for calculating orbital period?). But given that if you're reading this then you definitely have access to a calculator that can figure it all out for you (i.e. the one on your computer

) I feel that "Ow, there's maths in it!" is not a valid complaint

.

 

[Commonman]

Now is all this info in the scout re-print? I have that and as suggested in the THB I will probably use this if I create any subsectors, I am using heaven and earth for my CT campain.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Yep, it's all in the Astronomical Data bit of Book 6 Scouts, so presumably it's there in the CT reprints too.

I must admit, I'm rather disappointed in the World Generation system in T20. It's rather... basic - there's lots of stuff missing from it.

 

[tjoneslo]

It was a compromise, and like all compromises there are good parts and bad parts.

The limitation is (an unwarranted perception perhaps) that D20 players can't (or won't) handle math any more complex than simple addition and table lookups. Might be unfair, but read the latest review of T20 on RPG.net. The reviewer complains the starship construction process is complex and difficult.

Ah well. If you want more realistic, Book 6 Scouts has a somewhat better system if a little more outdated. And for truly realistic use GT:First In. But only if you're not scared of square roots.

 

[Solo]

First, my disappointment with T20's World Generation is not in what's missing in terms of actual scientific fact, I'm not a scientist and it's more than sufficient for my role-playing needs, BUT (there is always a BUT, isn't there?) The lack of proofreading or playtesting it seems to show. There is contradictory statements and thin explanations of the tables presented throughout the entire section(This actually a problem in the whole book, but that's another matter...). If someone had simply sat down with the book and tried to build a system from scratch they would have picked up all the mistakes.

Plus, why half-ass it? If your going to tell me that the system in Book 6 is better and I might want to pick that up(!) then just reprint that!

Second, anyone care to explain exactly how that orbital rotation section of World Generation is supposed to work (given the system presented)? What's the year length for my planet in orbit 10 around a main sequence star?

It's gotta be me.

-S.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
The limitation is (an unwarranted perception perhaps) that D20 players can't (or won't) handle math any more complex than simple addition and table lookups. Might be unfair, but read the latest review of T20 on RPG.net. The reviewer complains the starship construction process is complex and difficult.

It is complex and difficult (or at least more so than High Guard was) for the exact opposite reason.

High Guard says a 6-G M drive takes 14 percent of the hull, or 14 tons per 100 tons of hull. T20 tells us first that a 100-ton hull requires 2 drive "units" and then that each 6-G drive unit occupies 7 tons. I assume this was done to avoid using percentages, but I find the resulting two-step process more confusing rather than less.

 

[Solo]

Oh, yeah. How does the 2300AD stellar generation system stack up against T20? Gurps Space? If anyone knows.

-S.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Solo:
Second, anyone care to explain exactly how that orbital rotation section of World Generation is supposed to work (given the system presented)? What's the year length for my planet in orbit 10 around a main sequence star?

I initially looked for World Rotation (as in "length of day") there, and then noticed that T20 doesn't actually HAVE anything that allows you to determine the length of the day on your planets. Er, hello? What were we thinking when we left this out?!

If you mean 'orbital period' (as in how long the planet takes to go round its star) then according to the table on p374 it takes 678 years (1 year x678). I'm not entirely sure why they even put the 'x(number)' in here - the orbital period is simply that many years long in this scheme. Which, as I said earlier, is fine if you're orbiting a 1 solar mass star, but completely wrong if you're orbiting anything else.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Solo:
Oh, yeah. How does the 2300AD stellar generation system stack up against T20? Gurps Space? If anyone knows.

-S.

2300AD system is pretty detailed, and it's considerably more complicated than T20's. It produces good, fairly realistic results though.

GURPS Space's planet design system is not great as far as realism goes. It's OK for your Star Wars type settings, but if you want realism then look elsewhere.

"GURPS Traveller: First In" has a VERY good, detailed, and fairly accurate planet design system. It's probably the best of what's out there. Only problem is that it's not inherently geared towards producing Traveller UWPs - you have to do that yourself from the data it produces.

"World Builders Handbook" is DGP's old equivalent to First In - the Scouts/Worlds book. Its system expands the basic UWP generation system presented in MT and CT Book 6, and is fairly good as far as it goes but it's not greatly realistic - it still allows you to make silly systems though (like planets orbiting high mass stars). But it's the best of the basic Trav world generation systems IMHO.

"CT Book 6: Scouts" has the original worldgen system in it, and it's pretty good as far as it goes (though again, silly systems can be produced in it).

The more I look at the T20 worldgen system, the more I think it's the weakest of the lot.

 

[Commonman]

Well, I hate to say it but this is just one of the things about T20 that disappoint me. I had such high hopes that T20 would become the Preimere Sci-Fi game for D20, the game that had all any GM would need, but it would seem that few are completely satisfied with the end result that we waited so long for. So I will Probably use alot of the old CT reprint rules.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

I think you're being a bit harsh on T20 there, Commonman. Sure, T20 does have some problems, but then I thought Mage 1st Edition had a lot of (more serious) problems too - but I saw the potential there. There was a really good game locked up in that weird, slighly broken system, so I sat down and fixed the flaws I found, and in the end Mage became one of my favourite games.

Personally, I think T20 is the way to go even if it does need a fair bit of fixing up and tweaking in places. My own feeling is that CT has had its day as a system - it's nice for those who want to relive the good ol' days, but to be blunt Traveller is not going to move on and get along in today's RPG environment if it sticks to CT.

I firmly believe that T20 has potential, which is why I'm finding the holes in it and pointing them out and - where I can - attempting to fix them here. Whatever your personal preference may be, I don't think T20 is going to disappear, and I want to do my bit to keep it going and make it better. It still can be (Heck, I think it *is*) the best Sci-fi game for D20.

 

[Commonman]

Doctor, now don't get me wrong, T20 has the potential -still- to be the standard Sci-fi D20 system, but the ball is now in Quicklinks court. We had to wait and wade thru all the delays because the publisher was *supposed* to be printing a product with as few flaws as possible. Many of the gliches that are in the book are just sloppy editing, paragraph examples that dont jive with the tables, missing information, and typos. Now, granted T20 was quite an undertaking because two parties had to be happy, old Traveller players and the new D20 player. As a die hard Traveller fan I think T20 is a great addition to the long and distinguished Traveller line, but I also thought the same of Imperiums T4 even with all of its typos and problem and look where it went. Yes there were alot of great supplements but it later died.
Quicklink has got to get on the ball and fix the errors, get out the supplements and craft some slick products or the new D20 people, will not get on board.
I guess my real disappointment is a mask for fear that T20 will not take off and then die on the vine.
CT will not fly in this modern gaming enviroment, but neither will a poorly produced D20 product.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Commonman:
We had to wait and wade thru all the delays because the publisher was *supposed* to be printing a product with as few flaws as possible. Many of the gliches that are in the book are just sloppy editing, paragraph examples that dont jive with the tables, missing information, and typos.

.

To be fair, it's a rare product that hits the shelves without any errors. T20 could have done with more checking, but that would have delayed it further no doubt. But what's done is done, let's deal with what we've got rather than wish we had something else

.

Quicklink has got to get on the ball and fix the errors, get out the supplements and craft some slick products or the new D20 people, will not get on board.

They *are* getting on the ball though. Admittedly, the errata that they've produced so far only really cover the basics - typos, missed out text, incorrect values in tables... I'm hoping that a more detailed set is on the way covering the various imbalances, things that don't really make sense, and so on.

If you look at D20 though, there are some products that barely have any support at all, to the point that they don't even have *settings* available for them despite monster books being out for months - "Iron Kingdoms" for example. I think the D20 fans are used to waiting around for more developed books to hit the shelves.

Let's just give QLI some more time to sort things out. The book's only been out a few months.

 

[Commonman]

Your positive attitude collides with my cynicism

I will have to give QL all the time they need to produce supplements, but I am getting a certain amount of flak from some of the less patient gamers I know who criticize Traveller in general and T20 specifically and the problems T20 is having is not helping.
And I am not wishing for anything else, to me what works in T20 works well and what has problems I can fix with the help of this board (remember the good old days before Al gore invented the internet) But I am having trouble selling T20 to some people because of the errors and comments the read on this board and others.

 

[rambler]

Now, I've managed to sell T20 to a gaming group that had declared that they were done learning new game systems.

Granted, I bought it for most of them for Christmas, but having seen it (and the published corrections list) they seem to be looking forward to the game.