Toward a T5 Pocket Empires

[Drakon]

Many of the questions I have about Lemish cannot be answered completely in T5 yet. I fully understand that technically, what I am asking is not really part of Traveller, as Traveller is about adventures, player characters braving the unknown and such, but I would like to do a decent job of fleshing out Lemish.

My understanding of economics is somewhat limited to a couple of books from Thomas Sowell and PJ O'Rourke

Problem: Calculating government and military budgets for Lemish. T5 does not go into that amount of detail yet, and probably will not for some time. Marc's workload is already pretty large, and as this subject is rather ancillary to the main focus of Traveller.

Solution 1: Look at how the subject was covered in T4 and see what the differences are.

T4 uses 4 Economic Extentions; Resources, Infrastructure, Labor and Culture.
In T4, one rolls 2D on a yearly basis the Total Demand, based on Resources. Also, once a year, roll on Resource Trade Benefit. Resources available = Resources-Total Demand.

Total Demand is the amount of Resource Units the economy can process in 1 year.

If Resources Available is positive, multiply the surplus by the Export factor obtained from Resources Trade Benefit Table, and add to Total Demand. The world has more resources than it can process so they get processed off world.

If Resources Available is negative, multiply the deficit by the Resouce Trade Benefit Table Import Benefit, and add to Total Demand.

This number multiplied by (Tech Level * 0.1) gives Resources Exploitable by the economy of the planet. Base Gross World Planet = (Resources Exploitable * Labor Base Factor * Infrastructure)/(Culture + 1)

As you can see, it is a bit of an involved process under T4. Once you get Base GWP, there are Finished Goods and interstellar Demand multipliers based on Starport class and number of markets/worlds a planet can trade in/with.

Tax Codes are based on Government type, law level and culture. Total Tax base = Base Tax Rate (by government type)+Social Tax Rate (=(Law Level + Culture)/100) + Discretionary Tax Rate (GM discretion)

In T5, we have RU's = Resources * Pop-1 * Infrastructure * Efficiency. The cultural extension are not used, Efficiency is a straight up Flux roll. This is a lot simpler proceedure.

Also, note that in T5, we use Pop-1 for a Labor Value. In T4, we bounce Labor Value through a table to get a "Labor Base Factor" Labor base factor of 7=1, A labor base value of 5=0.01 This makes the relationship between T4 RUs and T5 RUs a bit more complicated.

 

[robject]

Magnus should chime in here with his thoughts.

 

[rancke]

Magnus should chime in here with his thoughts.

Just Magnus?


Hans

 

[Drakon]

Lemish example

The first problem is that T5 divides the cultural extension into 4 parts. Lemish's 4 factors [988F] average out to 10. We will use Culture = 10 for this example.

Lemish's UWP = A 7 9 5 6 8 C – C, and has as its economic extensions Resources = 9, Labor = 5, Infrastructure = 6. Law Level = C = 12, Government = 8, Tech Level = C =12.

Resources > Infrastructure, and Pop > 3 therefore Base Demand = Resources = 9. Rolling 2D on Total Demand Table gives me a 4. Because Culture = 10, DM=+1 therefore Demand = 8. Therefore, this year, Lemish produces 1 more RU than it can process. Lemish exports this RU and rolling on the Resource Trade Benefit table, (rolling 6) yeilds an Export Benefit of 0.5. This give Lemish a total for this year =8.5

Resources Exploitable = 8.5 *12 *0.1 =10.2
Labor Force Base = 0.01, Infrastructure = 6, Culture +1 = 11
Base GWP = (10.2 *0.01 * 6)/11 = 0.05563636 RUs

This is radically different from the 560 RUs T5 says Lemish has. Even if we use the Economic Extention instead of the labor force base, one ends up with 27.8 RUs. This is very different.

Did I do something wrong?

 

[tjoneslo]

Did I do something wrong?

Well, I would say first that the T4 Pocket Empires Gross World Product (measured in RUs) is completely different from the T5 Resource Units, and comparing them is invalid. Pick one or the other to describe Lemish's economy, but don't expect to have one convert to the other.

And I would offer this as general advice across the Traveller versions. Pick one to do your analysis and stick to it. The ones I would suggest are:

T4 : Pocket Empires
GT : Far Trader, Ground Forces (Starports)
CT : Striker, Trillion Credit Squadon

MT has some of the rules, but not well placed for ease of use. Mongoose has a set of empire rules in their Dynasty book, but I can't speak to it.

 

[Drakon]

Well, I would say first that the T4 Pocket Empires Gross World Product (measured in RUs) is completely different from the T5 Resource Units, and comparing them is invalid. Pick one or the other to describe Lemish's economy, but don't expect to have one convert to the other.

As I said at the beginning, I would prefer to do this all in T5, however, there is no T5 Pocket Empires, yet. And probably won't be for a while unless someone works up those rules. Looking at prior art is a key step. Understanding how T4 does it, is a first step in figuring out what those rules for T5 could be.

Going in, I had no idea there would be such a mismatch.

In order to work out Lemish's defenses, I have to know what resources are available. Not just for the tax base but also the "catalog" of military and security hardware, infrastructure, and units that can be purchased in resource units available and taxed from the populace. Because of the severe mismatch between T4 RUs and T5 RUs, one cannot use T5 derived or designed units with T4 GWP numbers, and vice versa.

The T4 model, while complicated, is easy to see what they are doing. Supply =resources, Demand = how many resource units the economy can process.

For the T5 model, I am not sure. Bundling the cultural, and political factors into a single efficiency rating may be in the right direction. But the biggest factor in the mismatch is the labor figure. Where T4 bounces Labor through a lookup table, translating labor into a logarithmic scale, T5 uses the raw population figure (minus 1).

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Hold on, hold on...

I am here, I work today so I am getting to this late, and will give what thoughts I have when I get a chance to get a bit of time to digest this. But yeah, this is a subject close to my heart and I have some notes for some basics around somewhere.

Well, I got to go...

 

[Dagrill]

As I said at the beginning, I would prefer to do this all in T5, however, there is no T5 Pocket Empires, yet. And probably won't be for a while unless someone works up those rules. Looking at prior art is a key step. Understanding how T4 does it, is a first step in figuring out what those rules for T5 could be.

For the T5 model, I am not sure. Bundling the cultural, and political factors into a single efficiency rating may be in the right direction. But the biggest factor in the mismatch is the labor figure. Where T4 bounces Labor through a lookup table, translating labor into a logarithmic scale, T5 uses the raw population figure (minus 1).

Hi,

I don't have pocket empires. but I have an interest as I want to try and develop Mount as a setting as well.

I make it Mount has 616 RU's, with a population 300 times the size of Lemish, but 4 TL's lower. The fact the RU's don't have a set value could indicate Mount produces 300x the output as Lemish, but due to different TL's it's value is reduced by a similar amount.

I'm not at all happy with the efficiency factor being determined solely by flux.
I think my government type of C, would be more efficient than a government type of B, D, E, or F. I'm also convinced the worst inefficiencies would occur with a government type of 0. I also think law level would effect efficiency as more laws equals more bureaucracy and wasted effort.

All in all I prefer to have an Imperial MCr value for world output, so I can calculate how much the Government can spend on defence and other projects.
I'd really like to increase the TL of Mount...

Kind regards

David

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

My very rough notes...

So, take two!

I have decided since there is such interest in the subject, I thought I would break my habit of keeping my project notes private/limited distribution and post the very rough and no where complete notes I have for a T5 PE. If you have comments, suggestions or think it bites, please post your responses.

Enjoy: Craig's T5 Pocket Empires Notes.

Well, I am work and it is busy, must dash...

 

[Dagrill]

I have decided since there is such interest in the subject, I thought I would break my habit of keeping my project notes private/limited distribution and post the very rough and no where complete notes I have for a T5 PE. If you have comments, suggestions or think it bites, please post your responses....

Hi,

Just had a very quick look and on page 7 (item 5 what do you get for a RU?),
someone (Aramis?) mentioned elsewhere an Azhanti HL class Cruiser cost 60 RU's, so I'd say 1 RU could purchase 1kt worth of TL14/15 ship, or a very decent Yacht to travel between your holdings.

OK I saved it to my drop box and will read thoroughly

Kind Regards

David

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

That was me.

Hi,

Just had a very quick look and on page 7 (item 5 what do you get for a RU?),
someone (Aramis?) mentioned elsewhere an Azhanti HL class Cruiser cost 60 RU's, so I'd say 1 RU could purchase 1kt worth of TL14/15 ship, or a very decent Yacht to travel between your holdings.

OK I saved it to my drop box and will read thoroughly

Kind Regards

David

I was the one that brought up the AHL and its cost.

Second, I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts when you have given a good read.

 

[Drakon]

Hi,

I don't have pocket empires. but I have an interest as I want to try and develop Mount as a setting as well.

Welcome to the club

I'm not at all happy with the efficiency factor being determined solely by flux.
I think my government type of C, would be more efficient than a government type of B, D, E, or F. I'm also convinced the worst inefficiencies would occur with a government type of 0. I also think law level would effect efficiency as more laws equals more bureaucracy and wasted effort.

I disagree. I don't think the form of government has anything to do with its efficiency. A totalitarian dictatorship can be just and inefficient or sloppy economically as any democracy. Possibly more so since central decision making authority is concentrated.

All in all I prefer to have an Imperial MCr value for world output, so I can calculate how much the Government can spend on defence and other projects.
I'd really like to increase the TL of Mount...

Kind regards

David

Agreed, and eventually we'll need to work out exactly what the credit to RU exchange rate is.

I think I see what they are trying to do. There should be two factors here, Supply, or resources available, and Demand or how many RUs the economy can process/consume. The sign apparently tells us whether the planet produces enough or if it has resources for export. But the magnitude confuses me, is it how big the ecomony is? How many RUs the planet has available? I think the information is encoded there, I just am not sure how to decode it.