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Tweaking Book 3

Jeffr0

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Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jeffr0:
What's the least you have to do to Book 3 to get rid of the worst offenders?
I don't have a book 3 here, but I got the basic generation table on p25 of book 6, is that the same thing?

Let's see... off the top of my head:

- relate the starport to population and location. It shouldn't be something random.
- have a way to determine which orbital zone the mainworld is in (Inner, Habitable, Middle, Outer), use that as modifiers for other stats too.
- depending on Zone, limit atmosphere types. If not Habitable, atm can't be 2-9 (breathable). Atm is 0 if size is less than certain value, depending on zone (size 3 is minimum in hab zone for atm 1+, size 4 is min for atm 4-9).
- tie population to physical characteristics. Billions of people are not going to be living on tiny airless rockballs - they're going to be living on the garden worlds.
- government has nothing to do with population size - make it independent.
- tweak tech level mods so that uninhabitable worlds with population definitely have enough tech for people to live on them. Also drop starport TL mods - to have an A starport, you should already have a high enough TL, it shouldn't give you more TL itself. Ditto for population - having tens of billions of people doesn't give you high tech, you NEED high tech to have that.

Stuff like that. Maybe you could just assume that all mainworlds are in the habitable zone, but a lot of M stars don't even have habitable zones that fit into Traveller's orbital definitions so that's a problem right there.
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Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
Sorry to be late to the party...

There were some fixes to LBB6's system design done by the guys who worked on T4. The results are located at the Missouri Archive and the two articles are linked below. Give them a look and see if those suit how you envision YTU better.

Alternative World Generation Rules

Book 6: Scouts Update
I'd seen the changes made in GTIW and First In... but Jim's Modified Main-world Generation Scheme seems to be a simple approach to achieving the same result.

Any thoughts on how this approach balances "realism" with "tradition"?
 
Book 3 doesn't generate star types or habitable zones. Adding them later has added extra silliness
to an already dodgy situation.

Only generating mainworlds is actually fine for my purposes - I don't usually have any use for full system details.

If I did, however, I would prefer to generate the main world first, and then make sure that the rest of the system would allow it to make sense. That means, for example, that instead of randomly generating the orbital zone, one would be assigned to match the world. In turn, that would influence the star type.

I suppose what I am saying is that an "ideal" system generation system wouldn't require scientific accuracy so much as the *appearance* of scientific accuracy. In other words, it should deliver results that look plausible, even if they are nonsense.

That means that most uninhabitable worlds should be in systems with M Class stars, and (most?) inhabitable ones in stars that could plausibly support them. That would give an excessively large population of the latter, but that can be handwaved by saying: "Only settled worlds matter. Barren systems and dead rocks aren't that interesting."

I'm not totally averse to the occasional relatively high population uninhabitable world. (Some, incidentally, may be alien homeworlds! This wouldn't usually apply to Vacuum worlds, but could to Exotic atmospheres and so on.) I suppose that means that any adjustments made for such things should be able to allow statistical outliers, rather than pushing everything into a straitjacket.

I actually did once build a couple of subsectors with "relatively plausible" worlds. They ended being pretty dull. Lots of C410566-A worlds. Truly snore-worthy.

At that point, I would consider picking a bunch of important worlds, and eliminating all the rest except for some to serve as refuelling stations for ships travelling between the important ones. (And I would probably make Gas Giant refuelling more hazardous.)

This would still be Traveller, but it certainly wouldn't be the OTU.
 
Alanb,
Check out a copy of GURPS SPACE for 4e - it has precisely what it is you're looking for. You build the world in question first, determine its blackbody temperature, and determine atmosphere mass first - then you determine the world's gravity and diameter and then you determine the world's star type based on the stats for the world in question. All in all, you may find this to be what you're looking for.
 
Hal, I don't have the GURPS Space 4e book but it sounds like the FF&S of system building.

I do tend to agree with alanb though, any reasonable Traveller system HAS to start with the generation of the mainworld and go from there. The mainworld dictates the star and together, they determine the orbit. Other orbits come from the mainworld orbit.

You can still have most of the variety that Traveller provides, while eliminating some of absolutely rediculous stuff fairly easily. It would change the published data, but for someone that wants a more realistic method, it would work and not really change the game that much. Is it for everyone, no, but those that want it could use something a bit more realistic. I tweaked the UWP method right off the bat back in high school. Book 6 helped, but created it own set of problems that needed to be dealt with.

Personnally, I NEVER liked the fixed orbital distances that Traveller uses. I find it inconceivable that EVERY SINGLE planetary system in the entire universe will have a planet at 0.4 AU, 0.7AU and 1.0 AU. Empty Orbits might change that occasionally, but come on. No planets at 0.9 AU instead of 1.0? Never made sense to me.

BUT, if you start by determining the mainworld orbit based on temperature and star type, then you can build inward and outward to create a varied but realistic planetary system.
 
Originally posted by Plankowner:
...Personnally, I NEVER liked the fixed orbital distances that Traveller uses. I find it inconceivable that EVERY SINGLE planetary system in the entire universe will have a planet at 0.4 AU, 0.7AU and 1.0 AU. Empty Orbits might change that occasionally, but come on. No planets at 0.9 AU instead of 1.0? Never made sense to me.
...
You question Bode's Law!? Well so do I, but I do like the standard orbit idea so just expanded it out with with a modified Bode's law.

I actually prefer the Star first approach for random generation. Roll up the number of bodies, thier size, and with the new data on gas giants anywhere, randomly assign them orbits. If the right size body lands in the right orbit, it may be habitable.

If I really want a habital world somewhere I'll choose the star and place it accordingly. Then just use LBB3 which does a nice job of providing random inhabited world statisitcs IMO.

Then I get really fancy and pull out Space Opera's planetary descriptions based on where you are in the habitable zone, the eccentricty of your orbit and the planets axial tilt.
 
The problem with Bode's Law is that:
1. It's not a Law, it's a "Best Fit Formula"

2. It obviously does not apply to other planetary systems (none of the known multi-planet systems follow this formula).

3. It doesn't account for elliptical orbits, which many extra-solar planets seem to have.

OK, off my soapbox now... ;)

The idea of rolling the Mainworld first is actually pretty handy if you are trying to roll up a large quantity of systems. Imagine having to roll up the entire planetary system for a Sector sized play area! :nonono: Even a Sub-Sector with 40 stars in it will take a while. Sure, modern programs might be able to handle that pretty quickly, but they are still a bit of a pain.

I like the continuation method because I only have to roll the data that I need for a particular game.

Mainworld
Star System General Layout
Details of Particular World

No additional data when it isn't needed.
 
Yep. Bode's Law clearly is no such thing. While we've not necessarily seen ALL of the planets in any other system, it's very clear that they don't fall into nice tidy 0.4,0.7,1.0,1.6 AU etc orbits.

The problem with doing the mainworld first is that you have to then fit the rest of the system (and the star!) around it. Of course in reality it doesn't work like that - heck it doesn't even work like that in the setting either. After all, explorers would find all worlds in a system as being equal first, then one of those becomes a mainworld over time.
 
Like Alanb, I think that adding things like star types and orbits pushes a dodgy situation into outright silliness; hence my focus on merely tweaking book 3.


I've been thinking that the high pop hellholes can be explained by underground society's such as the Moon colony in John Varley's Steel Beach. What is the minimum tech level to maintain a society like that?

Low pop garden worlds can be explained by environmental laws and/or indigenous cultures.

It seems like the most essential fixes are to increase world size to match atmosphere-- or reduce atmo to fit size. The other thing would be to increase tech to allow for survival in a hellhole.

Another thing that might be done is to pick one world to be the 'nothing' world and one to be the capital. Swap the pops on these worlds with the lowest and highest pops rolled for the subsector....

My goal would be to maintain the feel of Book 3 as much as possible, but to make a few key changes in order to get rid of the worst realism errors. If anyone can see how to express this in a really conscise set of optional rules, I'd appreciate it.
 
Originally posted by Malenfant:
The problem with doing the mainworld first is that you have to then fit the rest of the system (and the star!) around it.
I don't see that as being a problem in principle.

Of course, my preferred way of doing things generally involves using quick fudges to approximate the results of more elaborate/"realistic" systems. I'm happy with relatively stereotyped outcomes, as long as they're not too obvious.

Of course in reality it doesn't work like that - heck it doesn't even work like that in the setting either. After all, explorers would find all worlds in a system as being equal first, then one of those becomes a mainworld over time.
Completely true and completely irrelevant.

What matters is the results we get, not how we get them. It is, after all, a game.
 
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