Pocket Empires - Developing Ba Worlds

[Merxiless]

Recently started a new Mongoose game, but using Pocket Empires from T4 to establish a new colony world as the starting point for a campaign.

This is set up to be a small scale near future one-way exodus to say Epsilon Eridani or Tau Ceti at TL 8-9 where the colony ships go forth into the darkness (with no other support) and arrive at a world that is Ba, but has native life, perhaps small animals, or some other biology where there is at least enough microbes and soil quality that farming could be done. Since the TL is 8, I'm thinking Gas Giants and belts might be mined with great difficulty, but it's there.

My problem is that the world in question is Ba, no population, thus Culture can start out as maximum of 1.

Most everything needed for the improvement rolls such as starport, etc. rely on
(Culture Roll), roll less than 2.5D

With the culture random drift, that might change by up to +1 or +2 every ten years.

the Pocket Emperor can push it, with a DM of +1 by spending RU.

But I am seeing (Okay, I might be doing this wrong, but) need I wait for 20 years and lucky culture drift rolls to even get from a Chance at a Class X to Class E Starport?

Ids there a better rules set or way to work out the numbers for this? it's for the backstory of a game set a few hundred years after the initial colony is established. I don't want to just handwave it, and I'd like to get some idea of the flavor of the challenges the initial colony had to go through to land, establish manufacturing, and a small starport.

Thanks for any responses. This is about the only place to go to get some answers for this.

- Merx

 

[Whipsnade]

I think TNE's World Tamers Handbook might be a better guide for this situation than Pocket Empires.

While neither WBH or PE are true 4X1 rule sets, WBH handles more of the start-from-scratch colony stuff while PE presumes already existing populations and infrastructure that only lack technological/economic development.


1 - Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate.

 

[Merxiless]

Thanks, I had not really considered it that way, but with you saying it, it's sort of obvious. use WBH to establish the thing, then PE to go on from there as the polity is establish. Truly had not considered that.

 

[Whipsnade]

Truly had not considered that.

Neither had I until I tried to use PE for the same sort of colony founding campaign you are!

 

[Merxiless]

Just makes me wonder though since there are rules for Truly desolate Ba worlds but working it out, you end up can't get Culture 1 or less with 2.5D.

I thought maybe there was some update or someone must have come across this. but that works and thanks again.

 

[Ishmael]

I'm sort of working on something similar
I've posted the sporadic work I'm doing with the rules here although I'm doing more than I'm showing for now.
http://www.sfrpg-discussion.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=2628#p29986

Its a struggle to include the things the seem right to me without adding too much that it'd bog everything down completely.

I'm sort of stuck on redoing 'popularity' at the moment.
The RAW don't make so much sense to me...

it is no longer 'official' in any sense of the world and will use my own UWP system to boot.

 

[Cryton]

I think you may have gotten one thing wrong.

Once you set down a colony, you have to re calculate the trade codes..especially with Pocket Empires.

Ba worlds have 0 pop, drop a 10 000 person colony and the world is no longer Ba....

Just saying...

~Cryton

 

[Merxiless]

Hm. outside the box thinking. I like it. Maybe year 1 it is culture 1 max, then year two, I figure domes or whatever established, local materials, and the completion of a class E Port, then it takes off from there, an elegant suggestion, I'll see what it brings forth and report back.
Edit:

Pre-Colony
Osis X574000-0 Ba Ga Lo Lt Ni
Atmosphere: Standard, Tainted
Hydrographics: 40%
Life: Proto-Sentient (could change)

 

[pennshome723]

Well if I were doing this I would do the following:

A) Define the sun type and brightness, then determine what orbits are the life supporting ones within the solar system
B) Determine what is in each orbit and come up with a basic UWP for each orbit that has something in it. Make sure to place your main colony world in a orbit that falls in the life zone for the solar system.
C) Come up with the complete UWP for your colony world and map out it's surface in some detail. Consider where the colony will be set up on the planet and why. Next work out some of the plant and animal life local to the planet
D) Decide if the solar system or any of the orbits have anything in them from another culture, that you want to add in hidden to the plot lines.
E) Work out the culture and reason why the population came to this world in the first place and what drives them. Are there any different sects or political view points that might further divide up the population as they develop. These relate to plot lines that could work into your campaign concept.
F) Determine the resources of this world and define what type of resources and style the colony would pursue these resources. Remember the colony might be more interested in being GREEN and want to develop a very well balanced society and supporting superstructure.
G) If you are setting the time line at 300+ years after the first colony was set up and the TL is like 9-10 average, then define how much growth has happened in the population. Where are the new cities at, and what is the form of mass transportation between these cities and within the cities. Also if your talking about Domed cities, then define why and how they are set up.
H) Go into designing the culture and how they think and what beliefs they might have. I would try to flush this out more completely, because the more details you have the better off you will be to role play the background culture that the players will come from.
I) I would work out a calendar and some holidays for the culture. How many weeks and months are in a year, how many hours in a day. The more details you have the better for everyone.

If all the above details are flushed out, the world would have the basic needed intel to flush out deeper details for game play.