Herein follows the February 1993 discussion caused by original
bitch/moan :-)

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Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 09:25:42 EST
From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski)
Subject: New World Generation

I had something similar I whipped up (then left alone when the game prospect
dissappeared).  I was more extensive in some ways, and not all of them
would "fit" the normal traveller scheme.  Some of the quickies:

  1) Low pop worlds (I forget the definition of "low pop" in this sense...I
     can check the program at home tonight and get back to you) rolled on
     a smaller government table that included some of the "high pop" 
     governments...it was not a straight 2d6-7+pop deal.  The way it worked:
         Low Pop (Pop 5-) : Roll on subset table to find government.
         Mid Pop (Pop 6-8) : Roll on "mid" table.
         High Pop (pop 9+) : roll on "high" table.

     The Low table has some high entries, like religious oligarchy, etc.
     The mid table and high tables did not have Anarchy.  The High table
     removed some of the governments that really do not work well with high
     populations, and added a higher chance of balkenization.

   2) Tech limits
     I also imposed limits on survivability for worlds.  If too nasty to live
     on for the tech, it becomes empty.  I tweaked population similar to
     how you handled it, though.

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Date:     Wed, 10 Feb 1993 04:04:50 -0500
From: Arthur Green <ARTHUR@cclana.ucd.ie>
Subject: Re: TML nightly: Msgs 5175-5177 V51#14

One major factor -- local sun type. Looking through the stuff in
Imperial Encyclopedia, you see lots of Ag worlds orbiting M V suns.
Without some major fudging World Builder's HB gives sub-zero equatorial
temperatures for these.

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From: mcknight@etcetc.fidonet.org (Chuck McKnight)
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 08:43:50 -0600
Subject: Modified UWP system

JV> Sonthert      1918 X6266AB-3    Ni              R  314 Im

JV> Here we have a couple million folks making a living with their 19th
JV> century technology, and look what they have to breathe: a very thin
JV> (and tainted) atmosphere. For all intents and purposes, a vacuum. I
JV> know... I know... they can get by with combination
JV> respirators/filtermasks, right? All couple million of them? With
JV> technology which is over a century old? I can just see it now.
JV> "Don't go outside, son. Yer might have to breathe or somethin'."
JV> Hey, at least TAS had the sense to classify it as a red zone (don't
JV> go there if you're addicted to oxygen).

    Let me offer an alternative for Sonthert.  Like many other worlds during
the Long Night, Sonthert was cut off from the Imperium mainstream.  As an
underground colony, isolated from the rest of the subsector it's inhabitants
lost much of their knowledge regarding their technology.  The atmosphere
generators continued to provide the underground habitations with adequate
oxygen, and the colonists also found several variety of fungi that produced
small amounts of gases that were breathable and began using them to supplement
the atmosphere generators.  As time progressed, the society grew more
structured along the lines of 19th century England (Earth).  Although the
starport at Sonthert has been reestablished, the general populace retain the
societal views developed during the long night.

JV> Okay, all kidding aside, the thing that gets me about planets like
JV> this is that anybody decided to colonize them in the first place.
JV> Agreed, with a bit of technology, people can survive just about
JV> anywhere they want to survive, but why bother? I see a nice dirtball
JV> only five parsecs trailing.

Why colonize a planet with a difficult environment?  Why look for gold or oil
in Alaska? <grin>  Seriously, there might have been something of value there
when the colony was set up or it might have been a strategic point to occupy.

JV> #PlanetName   Loc. UPP Code   B   Notes         Z  PBG Al.
JV> #----------   ---- ---------  - --------------- -  --- --
JV> La'Belle      2416 C564112-4    Lo Ni              701 Im

JV> Now this is sweet. We're talking primo-atmosphere (none of that
JV> chewable Los Angeles gunk). And lo and behold, who shows up to catch
JV> the view? A whopping seventy people. We have more folks on the TML
JV> than this. Yes... I know... the planet is corporate owned, but who
JV> really cares? Why waste a virtual paradise (at least compared to
JV> that other place) on seventy stinking corporate losers (or maybe
JV> corporate winners in this case). Ah, yes... I can see some cool
JV> scenarios... the corporate paradise. The wooing ground for potential
JV> investors. Perhaps it's just one big golf course. You tee-off from
JV> orbit.

JV> But the fact is, this would never happen. When the place gets
JV> colonized way back when, people are gonna zoom in on this little
JV> speck of rock like nothing you've ever seen, and any corporation
JV> that wants it is gonna have to pay through the nose (and a few other
JV> choice orifices) to get it.

Unless the corporation got there first.  And was capable of providing enough
mercenaries to keep it private.

JV> My point: this situation shouldn't happen. It goes not only against
JV> intuition and common sense, it goes against the principle of greed,
JV> the fundamental root of human nature (yes, I'm down on humanity, but
JV> that's not the point here). The point is that this rule system is...
JV> flawed, no other way to put it. (I can see several people shaking
JV> their heads and saying "you mean you just figured this out?") Hey,
JV> I've always been a big believer in classic traveller, and the
JV> spinward marches are about as classic as you can get. But the point
JV> stands, there's something rotten in the Lanth subsector, and it
JV> mostly likely extends from the whole set of rules on UWP generation.

I disagree.  Greed would be precisely why both might be the way they are. 
However, I lean far more toward space opera than hard sci-fi when I'm running
FRP/SFRPs.  However, there might be other factors as to why there are only 70
people on La'Belle.  How about the only safe area in this paradise will house
about 70 people?  I look upon the current system as the engine that makes me
use my imagination, to try to reason why an otherwise inhospitable world would
be colonized.  However, that's my viewpoint and nobody else's.  <grin>

JV> Think about it. You roll up some dinky little ice-ball as the main
JV> world in your star system and then you try telling me that the fact
JV> that this tiny speck of crud has no atmosphere, that it has no
JV> liquid water, and that it hasn't even a modicum (I like the word) of
JV> elbow room.... and then you try telling me it's just as likely to
JV> have 50 billion people on board as that garden terra-prime paradise
JV> just a couple of parsecs down the road. I don't think so. Yes... you
JV> can explain it away. You can say, "Oh, there's this wonderful
JV> lanthanum mine." Or you can say. "These people live here... because
JV> it's their home" (and then smile convincingly). But it doesn't work.
JV> This isn't a little inconsistency. This is whopping big one. It's
JV> gigantic. It's glaring. It's pesky and annoying (like me), but most
JV> of all, it's just plain stupid.

Nah, I'd say the little ice ball was the spiritual center of a culture and all
the populace lives ship board packed around the little ice ball either in
space stations or some other technological marvel that masks the true nature
of the ice ball (it's actually a size A world with one hell of a spacial
distortion <grin>).  :-)  Of course, if it's pesky and annoying to you, you
always have the option of changing the UWP.  After all, when was the last time
the IISS came through here?

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Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 23:13:29 PST
From: jimv (james vassilakos)
Subject: Cold suns & soft science: UWPs revisited

In this article I'm addressing points made with respect to the
modified system for UWP (main world) generation which I presented
in the previous night's mailing. In the first segment, I am
replying to Arthur Green, who feels that the local sun type should
also be considered when determining main world features,
particularly population. In the second segment, I am answering
Chuck McKnight, who views the bizarre results which are generated
by the unmodified system to be an indispensible source of
inspiration for his soft-science approach to the game.

** Section 1 **

Arthur Green <ARTHUR@cclana.ucd.ie> writes:
> One major factor -- local sun type. Looking through the stuff in
> Imperial Encyclopedia, you see lots of Ag worlds orbiting M V suns.
> Without some major fudging World Builder's HB gives sub-zero equatorial
> temperatures for these.

Hmm... I wasn't aware of this, but I'll toss out my thought for whatever
they're worth (probably not much). Type M stars are the cool-red
variety. Even a main sequence (size V) example puts out considerably
less radiation than the "average" star. It's so low that for an M0-V,
the habitable zone is roughly 30 gigameters distant (or orbit 0
according to the traveller rules). When you start dimming the star
down to M5-V or even M9-V, the habitable zone falls ever further
closer to the star (well within this imaginary "orbit 0" established
in book six of the classic rules). Now the question really is, how
much faith can we put in this "orbit 0"? Thinking like a humanities
major, I see no reason why a planet shouldn't be able to get as
close to its star as it wants to (barring the vaporization distance,
which isn't going to be very lengthy in this case).

You've got to remember that "orbit 0" is a figment of somebody's
imagination. There are no rail-road tracks out there in space
dictating where a planet must orbit. Orbit numbers are a convenience
instated by the rules. Nothing more.

Even if you argue that they are based on astronomical observations
(the ratio of orbital distances and so forth), you still have to
realize that these observations have been taken from one star
system, ours, and that we haven't yet had a chance to verify the
theory with data on other star systems. So, in short, I don't
really think the problem is with the sector data so much as it
is with the system design rules... i.e., the extended system
design rules maybe shouldn't have relied to stringently to these
artifical orbit numbers.

> How about including some sort of -x here for "unsuitable" sun type?
> Actually a negative DM for mean planetary temperature would be better.

Now having said that, I have to address this question, and to
be honest, it's one I'd rather not address simply for the fact
that I'd prefer not to have to deal with extended system design
(basis system design is enough of a can of worms all by itself,
thank you). Agreed, the barrier between the basic and extended
systems is also artifical, and if you want to do things right,
you should always consider the star's size and spectral type
before proceeding to world generation. Nevertheless, how often
do your players want to know the spectral class of the star
in a particularly system? For my game at least, details like that
are largely irrelevant. To go a step further, how many of your
players know astronomy well enough that such an issue would
hinder their "suspension of disbelief" and thus their enjoyment
of the game? I haven't met a player yet who regarded star size
and spectral class as anything other than ignorable minutia.

In short, the modified system for UWP generation was meant to
fix something that is not ignorable. After that (the basic
system) is working, then at least we might have a solid enough
foundation to proceed into the particulars of the extended
system generation. But this is not the time to get into those
sorts of questions. Still, I appreciate your comments. I just
want to focus on this main problem for now.

** Section 2 **

To refresh the reader, Sonthert is a world of 3 million inhabitants.
They subsist with almost no atmosphere to speak of in a technological
state equivalent to the pre-indistrial era on Earth, circa 1800.
The questions are "why" and "how".

Sonhert/Lanth 1918 X6266AB-3    Ni              R  314 Im

mcknight@etcetc.fidonet.org (Chuck McKnight) writes:
>    Let me offer an alternative for Sonthert.  Like many other worlds during
>the Long Night, Sonthert was cut off from the Imperium mainstream.  As an
>underground colony, isolated from the rest of the subsector it's inhabitants
>lost much of their knowledge regarding their technology.  The atmosphere
>generators continued to provide the underground habitations with adequate
>oxygen, and the colonists also found several variety of fungi that produced
>small amounts of gases that were breathable and began using them to supplement
>the atmosphere generators.  As time progressed, the society grew more
>structured along the lines of 19th century England (Earth).  Although the
>starport at Sonthert has been reestablished, the general populace retain the
>societal views developed during the long night.
>Why colonize a planet with a difficult environment?  Why look for gold or oil
>in Alaska? <grin>  Seriously, there might have been something of value there
>when the colony was set up or it might have been a strategic point to occupy.

Okay. You're making one basic argument here: that Sonthert's situation
can be explained... that with some imagination, it can be rationalized,
and that in the process, we can come up with an interesting and distinctive
history and culture for the planet and its inhabitants. That's fine. I agree
with you.

However, in the process of making this argument, you've completely
ignored mine. My argument was this: the system for UWP generation is
broken because it gives us unwelcome results with such alarming
consistency that it confounds the imagination to have to keep
coming up with new explanations and rationalizations on why such
and such a planet shouldn't exist but does. I think that having this
sort of world appear every once in a while is okay. But making it a
standard outcome of the system is only indicative of a broken system.

Take a second and think about it. True, we have lot of people working
the oil and minerals up in Alaska, but the system doesn't say anything
about oil and minerals. The unmodified/broken system says, if you
take a dinky, icy world (which happens to be the mainworld of a
star system), and you compare it against any other main world (even
the terra-prime worlds out there), the chances of the ice ball having
a higher population are 50%. In real life, if you take 1000 square
miles of alaska (or antartica, or sibera, or the sahara desert...
any place which is "inhospitable") and you compare it against 1000
square miles of any place which is hospitable, ask yourself, what
are the odds that the yuchy-foo place is going to have a higher
population than the garden paradise? My guess is that the odds are
well below 50%. Of course, that doesn't preclude it from ever
happening. The scenario you describe is still possible. All I'm
trying to do is make the system more reflective of what we'd
expect on average.

>I lean far more toward space opera than hard sci-fi when I'm running
>FRP/SFRPs. I look upon the current system as the engine that makes me
>use my imagination, to try to reason why an otherwise inhospitable world
>would be colonized. However, that's my viewpoint and nobody else's.

No, I'm sure that a lot of other people share your view, but if you
prefer feeling like an extremist, why don't you just scratch the
die modifiers altogether? Why make any attempt to get the UWP to
conform with our expectations unless the attempt is a good and
reasonable one? I think our difference here may simply be one of
degree. You are happy enough with the unmodified system that the
work needed to change it and make it better acts as a sort of
inertia (which is probably the same reason I'm still playing AD&D,
albeit largely modified). And please don't take this as a flame.
It's not meant as such. And I do agree with you, that the softer
the science in your game, the less desirable a reality-based system
for UWP generation becomes.

>Nah, I'd say the little ice ball was the spiritual center of a culture and all
>the populace lives ship board packed around the little ice ball either in
>space stations or some other technological marvel that masks the true nature
>of the ice ball (it's actually a size A world with one hell of a spacial
>distortion <grin>).  :-)  Of course, if it's pesky and annoying to you, you
>always have the option of changing the UWP.  After all, when was the last time
>the IISS came through here?

Again, it is pesky and annoying, and the unmodified system generates
too many of these pesky and annoying planets to modify by hand. A better
system is called for (IMHO). Either that, or we can chuck this so-called
hard-science/reality-based approach and start playing Star Trek.

Or maybe I should just look for another hole to bury myself in. :-)

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Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 23:46:45 EST
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Random Replies

On Jim's Modified Generation System:
 
One possibility to consider for worlds with Tainted atmospheres is that there
is a native "minor" race; this species is very likeley to not notice the taint
(in fact, it might be beneficial to them).  If this is the case, there should
be no negative DM for thin tainted, standard tainted, and dense tainted
atmospheres, and no TL minimum.
 
The other thing I noticed was the negative starport DM on worlds with
very small populations.  This should be generally true, but exceptions
do exist --- the resort world with nearly no permanent residents but a
Class A or B port; the mining outpost with a few thousands of
inhabitants and a very high traffic level.
 
All in all, nice work.  The world generation is one thing that has a
good chance of being changed in T:TNE; so it is possible that this will
be improved for the next incarnation of Traveller.
 
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Date: 11 Feb 1993 21:43:08 -0700 (MST)
From: Stephen Wright <NCC1701@corral.uwyo.edu>
Subject: Traveller UWP generator...

Hello.  Just read your post on TML about your modified world
generator.  Like you, I've often thought the Classic Traveller
world generator was far too random and produced entirely non-
sensical results.  Unlike you, I never devoted any thought as
to how to easily change it.  I just did it the hard way--if I
got results I was unhappy with, I fudged them...

I looked over your post, and I find your suggested DMs well
thought-out; at first glance, I can't offer any real critique.
But I'd like to sponge off on your offer of an MSDOS-executable
that will do all the hard work for me...if that offer is still
open.  Maybe after playing with the generator for awhile, I'll
see something I don't like, and propose an algorithm modifier.
(Then again, to be honest, I've been "satisfied" with the old
one for fifteen years; and I never did anything with it, so
take that with a grain of salt).

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 14:26:52 +1100
From: "Bruce Pihlamae" <pihlab@hhcs.gov.au>
Subject: RE: UWPs revisited

> Again, it is pesky and annoying, and the unmodified system generates
> too many of these pesky and annoying planets to modify by hand. A better
> system is called for (IMHO). Either that, or we can chuck this so-called
> hard-science/reality-based approach and start playing Star Trek.
>
> Or maybe I should just look for another hole to bury myself in. :-)

No, I like what you've done so far.

I'm not greatly involved in system/planet design but I may give you something
to help so...

Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that we've only got one set of generation
rules that are trying to generate everything based on either too many
random variables or restricting ourselves to too few variations.

I can see that you've got 4 things to contend with
  
    1.  What are the physical characteristics of the planet (iceball whatever).

    2.  What life/society has evolved on this planet without intervention
        by outside star fareing societies?

    3.  What space faring culture has interfaced with this planet/society
        and why?

    4.  How long have 1 and 2 been interacting and has the type of interaction
        changed regularly and how often?

Generate the planet as realisticly as you like.

Try generating items 2 and 3 separately and then merge them together to give
the final society entity.  Initial settings in one will effect settings in
the other and vice versa.  

If you factor in item 4 as a number of times to iterate through the
relationship routine (and the type of relationship can change) then I think
you can build reasonable worlds AND all of those weird no atmosphere high
population worlds AND JUSTIFY THEM in the actual design process.

Have a think about it, it's a lot of work but you read like you want
something this detailed.

It's sort of like a character generator for worlds

    - roll the stats            (generate the world), 
    - determine initial hobbies (generate local society),
    - determine professions     (generate external influences), and
    - generate skills           (iterate to determine changes).

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 17:19:23 +1100
From: langsl@cbr.hhcs.gov.au
Subject: re: variant basic system generation

1. Thankyou for posting the variant basic system. I agree with your basic 
principles, but I haven't had time to try it out for real.  I would 
certainly be interested in any changes you make to the system.

2. I like the 'basic system' idea.  It is enough to start developing a 
world from, and allows for creativity and flexibility, plus providing 
inspiration for world detail in the first place.  If your system produces 
more reasonable results most of the time then this is fine by me: less 
hassle working out explanations for improbable results every 3rd system or 
whatever, as you suggest. 

3. I don't use extended system generation, so star type doesn't worry me.  
But maybe you could add generation of an appropriate stellar type to your 
system, purely as an extension for 'feel', to go with gas giants, 
asteroids, bases etc.

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From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Date: 12 Feb 93 (01:45)
Subject: tml nightly: msgs 5175-51

  Why exclude law level from the tech modifier?  The more
  oppressive a society is, the less likely it is that the geniuses
  will appear and create the new technology.  Earth history bears
  this view out; the cultures that made the largest advances in
  technology were the ones with high levels of personal freedom.
  Certainly, other, less free cultures may do a better job of
  exploiting some forms of technology, but they'll probably get it
  from a culture that is more free.  I'd hardly expect a totally
  oppressive theocracy to be innovative...

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 12:32:07 -0500
From: snow@lyrae.DNET.NASA.GOV (Martin Snow)
Subject: Minimum orbital distance

It's not true that there is no "minimum" orbital distance for a planet around
a dim star.  There's something called tidal stress which is caused by the
difference in gravitational pull from the star on the close side of the planet
vs. the farther side.  At the distance of the sun from the earth, the tidal
stress doesn't do more than puff up the ocean (which causes the ocean tides
you've probably heard of). :-)  As an aside, the sun-earth tide is larger
than the moon-earth tide, or so I'm told.

Anyway, if your planet is too close to its M5 V star, tidal stress will
overcome the gravitational binding and the planet will break up.  That's
why there's a minimum distance for stable orbits for planets.

For items which are not bound by gravity, e.g. a space ship, the minimum
orbit is MUCH smaller.

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 09:50:52 PST
From: jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos)
Subject: More on UWPs

wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar) writes:
>On Jim's Modified Generation System:
>One possibility to consider for worlds with Tainted atmospheres is that there
>is a native "minor" race; this species is very likeley to not notice the taint
>(in fact, it might be beneficial to them).  If this is the case, there should
>be no negative DM for thin tainted, standard tainted, and dense tainted
>atmospheres, and no TL minimum.

Hmm... this is an interesting idea. I guess the GM would have to decide
whether or not such races exist before making a final call on this one.
Since there are a variety of "taints", however, the race would be
virtually "locked" to their one "homeworld". Unless they were genetically
altered to survive there, I don't see how they might have come into
being. And you still have the obvious question, why would anybody
engineer a mutant race for a specific tainted atmosphere when there are
non-tainted atmospheres out there? I guess we could come up with all
sorts of rationalizations for this. But on average, it seems a bit
extreme to assume this.

Of course, there might be worlds that acquired some strange and lethal
virus (to about 99.9% of all standard humans). Then natural selection
could take care of this problem, and the race wouldn't be locked to
their homeworld.

I like the idea, but I also think that it's unrealistic to implement
it as a matter of course. Situations like this should be very rare.

>The other thing I noticed was the negative starport DM on worlds with
>very small populations.  This should be generally true, but exceptions
>do exist --- the resort world with nearly no permanent residents but a
>Class A or B port; the mining outpost with a few thousands of
>inhabitants and a very high traffic level.

When I was thinking of the starport modifiers, I was actually thinking
less in terms of traffic and more in terms of sheer humanpower
requirements. Take a class-A starport. You have starship construction
going on (by definition). How many people would that require? Could
you do it with 10? 100? Or would you need thousands of people? My
guess is toward the latter (but since I don't really know, comments
on this point are extremely welcome).

For a look at what I would call unrealistic, look at either of these
two worlds:

Pixie/Regina  A100103-D        Paya/Aramis  A655241-9

Even with high-technology, it should take quite a few people to
build a starship. Then you also have to consider all the other
tasks a class-A starport is generally capable of performing. Anybody
have any ideas on what the minimum number of people should be for
each starport type (just in terms of running the port)? We might
even need to cross-index this with tech level.

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Date: 12 Feb 93 19:35:15 EST
From: Mark Watson <100022.3361@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: World Generation, various

World generation:
Broadly, I'm in favour of a more sensible fix to world generation, and Jim's
system is pretty good. I think from earlier posts the Ag worlds round red
dwarfs problem has been recognised by GDW, and is regarded as an abherration
introduced in later Traveller. What they are going to do about it I don't
know - given that we are already stuck with the UPPs for several sectors and
the likely fix is to more strongly weight the star type/size based on the
mainworld we are in for a glut of F, G and K stars, I guess.
There were various variant solutions punted under classic trav ... a
couple from White Dwarf were:
- increasing the space represented by a hex by a factor of ten (this from
Andy Slack's "Expanding Universe" series). The mainworld now represents
likely the most useful system, and probably the only explored one.
- adding a Z axis for more worlds (from a Starbase column). The suggested
solution was +/- 10 hexes from the x/y axes.
Both these solutions should solve the skewed averages. The second adds the 3
dimensional aspect alot of people want but I would think it unlikely because
it would break the current sector maps, library data, etc. The other
advantage is of course to increase the role of the Scouts.

Couple of other points on worldgen, if anyone in GDW is watching:
- one of the things which irritates me is the lack of modifiers on
subordinate worlds based on the tech level of the main world. The advanced
system generation rules are designed so that the mainworld need not be
generated first (however, if you take this approach you still need to
nominate the mainworld before generating the govt and law levels for
everyone else (I put this down to sloppy proofing). Whatever, in the
Imperium milieu it is more likely that the mainworld has been generated,
either by the ref or from an official sector chart. For the Imperium milieu
(note not necessarily for a 2300AD style game) the advanced generation
system should extend the basic one, not try to replace it ...

(interesting, btw, how the world generation affects and is affected by the
game background - I hope this is not regarded as a "generic" rule - either
the Imperium stuff will not work, or it is changed utterly, or a 2300AD
style game becomes impossible).

- And, minor point, SpaceMaster includes a chart explaining what the different
star types mean (ie G is yellow, etc). I don't think this is a trade secret
and the non-astronomers can use it to add colour :-).

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 23:57:41 PST
From: jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos)
Subject: mainworld generation

Re: World-Building with history

Bruce Pihlamae <pihlab@hhcs.gov.au> writes:
>Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that we've only got one set of generation
>rules that are trying to generate everything based on either too many
>random variables or restricting ourselves to too few variations.

<stuff deleted>

>It's sort of like a character generator for worlds
>    - roll the stats            (generate the world), 
>    - determine initial hobbies (generate local society),
>    - determine professions     (generate external influences), and
>    - generate skills           (iterate to determine changes).

This is a really bizarre/amazing/wonderful idea. At first glance,
I was a bit taken aback by the amount of work it would require, but
I can envision how such a system could come together, providing
not only the UWP but a history to go with it (analogous to the
character history provided in advanced character generation).
This is really one of the fundamental differences (character
generation-wise) between Traveller and many of the other popular
RPGs. In others games, characters are created. In Traveller,
they evolve, giving them an entire career history before the
game even begins. Transfering this concept to world generation
is a great idea.

Still, I really don't want to go to all the work that this would
require. I'd rather work within the structure of the
"official" basic mainworld generation system. However, if I
ever decide to create a new SF-RPG (heaven forbid), I'd definitely
come back to this idea of yours and put some serious thought
to it.

Re: Remembering the stars in mainworld generation

langsl@cbr.hhcs.gov.au (alistair) writes:
>I don't use extended system generation, so star type doesn't worry me.  
>But maybe you could add generation of an appropriate stellar type to your 
>system, purely as an extension for 'feel', to go with gas giants, 
>asteroids, bases etc.

Hmm... the question, of course, is how far do you go with the "feely"
additions? Since the sunbane-format for sector listings provides an
area to note the star type, I think your suggestion can be easily
accommodated. Go beyond this, however, and we run into problems
concerning compatibility with the existing sector and subsector
viewing programs already out there (the ones I'm thinking of being
provided to us by Mark and Cynthia).

Also, as several TMLers have noted recently, star type does effect
the rest of planetary generation (yes, I'm flip-flopping on my
rebuttal to Arthur Green who suggested that the combinations of M-V
stars and hospitable (even agricultural) worlds was not realistic). So
if we do add this data in for 'feel', we should take care not to
make the same mistake as GDW. I.e., we should first generate star-type
according to known stellar frequency data and then generate the
mainworld, applying DMs to the UPP data as applicable (Arthur had
it right). This would probably make the "inhospitable" worlds even
more common than in the modified system I presented a few days ago.
That's fine with me if it's fine with you (though we can't know for
sure, it's probably closer to the true situation).

Re: More die modifiers for the modified system

jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin) writes:
>  Why exclude law level from the tech modifier?  The more
>  oppressive a society is, the less likely it is that the geniuses
>  will appear and create the new technology.  Earth history bears
>  this view out; the cultures that made the largest advances in
>  technology were the ones with high levels of personal freedom.
>  Certainly, other, less free cultures may do a better job of
>  exploiting some forms of technology, but they'll probably get it
>  from a culture that is more free.  I'd hardly expect a totally
>  oppressive theocracy to be innovative...

This is a good point. If you send me your suggested modifications,
I'll try 'em out on the program. Another TLMer mentioned via email
that he uses three different tables for determining the government
type of a world. Which one he uses depends on the world's population.
I don't know if this is going too far or not, but the best way to
find out is to try out the idea and see what sort of UWPs it results in.

Re: Standards & Assumptions

Mark Watson <100022.3361@CompuServe.COM> writes:
>interesting, btw, how the world generation affects and is affected by the
>game background.

I'm sorry to disect your article down to this one sentence, but it's
the one I found most interesting, and I really wanted to focus on it
for my conclusion tonight.

One of the things that always impresses me about Traveller is that
despite the wealth of background material GDW/DGP/FASA/Gamelords/etc
has provided for the "official setting", there is still a great
degree of variation between game masters in terms of the "feel" of
the game, i.e. the hardness of the science, the extent of minor
alien races, the local politics, etc. Just talking with people over
the TML brings out some of these differences. Then there are the
people (the few, the proud :-) who have chucked the "official"
setting in favor of staking out some entirely new territory,
with a new history, new poltical figures, and in short, new standards
and assumptions. I feel that because of these reasons, it's going to
be impossible to build one world generation system which will satisfy
everyone. However, if we stay fairly close to the official system which
we all know and which most of us accept and just try to fix its more
obvious problems, then I'll be able to consider this whole thing a
success.

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 14:53:41 PDT
From: Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Orbit 0

James Vassilakos writes:
>in book six of the classic rules). Now the question really is, how
>much faith can we put in this "orbit 0"? Thinking like a humanities
>major, I see no reason why a planet shouldn't be able to get as
>close to its star as it wants to (barring the vaporization distance,
>which isn't going to be very lengthy in this case).

There's something known as the "Roche Limit". Anything closer than that
that will be subject to tidal forces stronger than its own gravity.
Which means that satellites *cannot* form inside the Roche Limit of the
parent body. And if a body is somehow moved to an orbit inside the Roche
limit, it has to have enough structural strength to resist the tidal
force. And they increase with the *cube* of the distance as you approach
the parent body.

>You've got to remember that "orbit 0" is a figment of somebody's
>imagination. There are no rail-road tracks out there in space
>dictating where a planet must orbit. Orbit numbers are a convenience
>instated by the rules. Nothing more.

Well, there actually *are a lot of limits on available orbits based solely
on orbital dynamics. For instance, orbits with periods in a simple integer
relationship to each other are unstable because the "tugs" they give each
other reinforce.  Simple fractional realtionships (like 2/3, 4/5 etc) can
do it too. This is why there are areas in the asteriod belt where there
aren't any asteroids, they'd have orbits synched with Jupiter this way.
Ditto for Saturns rings, the gaps are caused by resonances with some of
the satellites.

>Even if you argue that they are based on astronomical observations
>(the ratio of orbital distances and so forth), you still have to
>realize that these observations have been taken from one star
>system, ours, and that we haven't yet had a chance to verify the
>theory with data on other star systems.

We have not just the planets orbiting the sun, but the asteroids and the
various moons orbiting the planets. That's a *lot* of observational data.

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From: mcknight@etcetc.fidonet.org (Chuck McKnight)
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 08:00:09 -0600
Subject: Re: TML nightly: Msgs 5182-5185 V51#16

Actually, I haven't ignored your argument about the UWP system being broken. 
I approach the UWP generation system (hell, I approach most random generation
systems) as guidelines that I'm free to modify if it suits me.  I don't view
the UWP as a sacred cow that must not be fiddled with, but more of a starting
point.  If I get a result that doesn't match what I'm looking for, I change
it.  I will also mention that I don't mass generate sectors, preferring to
hand generate each system so I can be sure that I don't get anomalies.  But
that's my personal preference and I won't undertake to speak for anyone else. 
I'm not denigrating your UWP mods, they're nift, they make sense, etc.  That's
your style of GMing and I support your efforts.  :-)

JV>No, I'm sure that a lot of other people share your view, but if you
JV>prefer feeling like an extremist, why don't you just scratch the die
JV>modifiers altogether? Why make any attempt to get the UWP to conform
JV>with our expectations unless the attempt is a good and reasonable
JV>one? I think our difference here may simply be one of degree. You are
JV>happy enough with the unmodified system that the work needed to
JV>change it and make it better acts as a sort of inertia (which is
JV>probably the same reason I'm still playing AD&D, albeit largely
JV>modified). And please don't take this as a flame. It's not meant as
JV>such. And I do agree with you, that the softer the science in your
JV>game, the less desirable a reality-based system for UWP generation
JV>becomes.

Personally, I suspect that if it isn't published in a GDW/TSG publication most
people don't use it at all.  :-)  Like I think I mentioned, the generation
system is merely a beginning if I'm stuck for an idea.  Personally, I think a
game's 'reality' is the one imposed and painted by the referee, but I'm into
escapism in my gaming. :-)

Difference of approach, I think.  If I've got to flesh out a world that my
players will be playing on, I'll customize it to suit myself generation system
or no.  However, you're entitled to your opinion and I agree that there are
things that need changing if you're mass generating sectors to make results
more uniform.  Of course, I've never approached Traveller as a hard
science/reality based game.  ;-)

JV>Or maybe I should just look for another hole to bury myself in. :-)

Nah, ya gotta suffer with the rest of us.

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Date: Sat, 13 Feb 93 23:02:30 PST
From: jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos)
Subject: mainworld generation (more replies)

Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Leonard Erickson) writes:
> There's something known as the "Roche Limit". Anything closer
> than that that will be subject to tidal forces stronger than
> its own gravity. Which means that satellites *cannot* form
> inside the Roche Limit of the parent body. And if a body is
> somehow moved to an orbit inside the Roche limit, it has to
> have enough structural strength to resist the tidal force.

Sigh... another humanities major (me) bites the dust. As I
said last night, I'm flip-flopping on my reply to Arthur
Green. While there may not be rail-road tracks in space, the
orbit #'s introduced in Book 6 now make more sense to me.
Thanks.

mcknight@etcetc.fidonet.org (Chuck McKnight) writes:
>Actually, I haven't ignored your argument about the UWP system being broken. 
>I approach the UWP generation system (hell, I approach most random generation
>systems) as guidelines that I'm free to modify if it suits me.  I don't view
>the UWP as a sacred cow that must not be fiddled with, but more of a starting
>point.  If I get a result that doesn't match what I'm looking for, I change
>it.  I will also mention that I don't mass generate sectors, preferring to
>hand generate each system so I can be sure that I don't get anomalies.  But
>that's my personal preference and I won't undertake to speak for anyone else. 
>I'm not denigrating your UWP mods, they're nift, they make sense, etc.  That's
>your style of GMing and I support your efforts.  :-)

Yeah, well... I will admit to mass-generating sectors, but I should also
add that I agree with you about it being really necessary not only to
tweak the data but also to expand (greatly) on that data (and I think
most people would agree with this). One of the things I always hated
about the sector books was that they didn't go into detail on the worlds
they overviewed (this, of course, is the GM's job). Still, I always
preferred books like the Pilot's Guide to the Drexilthar Subsector,
which attached a few paragraphs to each mainworld. So although I do
rely on computer generated UWPs, I also take them as just the starting
point. And I think this is the intention of the rules.

One of the things I hope to do after this discussion is concluded (if
it is ever concluded) is to go over the sector data for my Traveller
campaign (tweaking and re-generating as seems appropriate) and then
write down the world descriptions, put them together with a subsector
viewer, and finally make the whole package available over the net.
Writing up the world descriptions will probably be the longest phase,
but when it's done, I think it'll be worth it (especially for all the
"Harrison" readers who want to investigate the story's backdrop for
themselves).

>Personally, I suspect that if it isn't published in a GDW/TSG publication most
>people don't use it at all.  :-)  Like I think I mentioned, the generation
>system is merely a beginning if I'm stuck for an idea.  Personally, I think a
>game's 'reality' is the one imposed and painted by the referee, but I'm into
>escapism in my gaming. :-)

Yeah, well, I think we can all testify to that. I, personally, can only
handle so much reality intruding upon my fantasy :-)

But seriously, when I refer to "reality" in a gaming or even a writing
context, what I'm really referring to is "suspension of disbelief."
In other words, if the game is pretending to conform to something
approaching the reasonable or "reality-analogous" (i.e., starports
being analogous to airports or shipping ports, worlds being analogous
to countries, etc), then it should be careful not to diverge in a
way which would cause people to "disbelieve" or otherwise "fall out
of character." As an example, I don't know of any "world-class" shipyards
which are run by a handful of people (as could occur under traveller
rules).

>Difference of approach, I think.  If I've got to flesh out a world that my
>players will be playing on, I'll customize it to suit myself generation system
>or no.  However, you're entitled to your opinion and I agree that there are
>things that need changing if you're mass generating sectors to make results
>more uniform.  Of course, I've never approached Traveller as a hard
>science/reality based game.  ;-)

Yeah... that's part of the beauty of all these RPGs. You can really
define your own approach. While I think many people would call Traveller
a hard-SF RPG (certainly harder-SF than many of its competitors), the
individual GM can shift the flavor of the campaign to whatever she or
he wants. As an example, I've been told by one TMLer that the "Harrison
Chapters" depict a "dark empire" while Traveller depicts a benevolent
one. I agree with him. My campaign (indeed, my entire setting) had been
customized to fit my peculiar prejudices, and I imagine this sort of
thing is fairly commonplace (at least, I hope it is). My fear (with
respect to the modified system I introduced) is that by making all
those changes in the UWP generation system, I may be catering too much
to my own preconceptions and that I may end up with very "uniform" looking
world descriptions. After all, you need a little variety to make things
interesting. What I want to do is make things more "realistic" without
chopping out the "interesting."

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Date: Sun, 14 Feb 93 12:48:55 PST
From: jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos)
Subject: Trade Codes and Star Types

Re: Trade Codes

Well, to advance the discussion into slightly new ground, I have
a few questions about the trade codes presented in the MT Ref's
Manual.

(Fl) Fluid
def: Non-water ocean(s).
reqs: size A+, atmos 1+

What does this mean? That only big worlds will have exotic
oceans? I suspect that there is a typo here: that the reqs should
read atmos A-C hydro 1+. Damn well near impossible to use the
MT material without that blasted errata sheet.

(Ic) Ice-Capped
def: self-explanatory
reqs: atmos 0-1, hydro 1+

Maybe I'm confused about the definition. I mean, earth is ice-
capped (last I checked), but we don't fit under the requirements
for this trade code. So what is the significance of a world being
ice-capped?

(In) Industrial
def: economy based on mass-production of manufactured goods.
reqs: atmos 2,3,4,7,9, pop 9+

I know this one goes back to classic traveller, but I've always
had a problem with it. Considering the extent of robotics and
mechanized labor at high tech levels, I'm not sure this high a
population requirement is really necessary. Furthermore,
considering the extent of (clean) fusion at advanced tech levels,
I'm not sure that the atmospheres of such worlds would be so
heavily tainted (I guess they assume there are some negative
atmospheric by-products of mass production other than smog).

(Ri) Rich
def: your guess is as good as mine
reqs: atmos 6,8, pop 6-8, gov 4-9

So in other worlds, if a corporation suddenly takes over a rich
world, then that world is no longer a rich world. Makes
absolutely no sense to me. Maybe the governmental requirement
should be axed.

Now onward to that other topic.... grrrr...

Re: Star types

I really hate to open up this can of worms, but since several
people on the TML have argued that it's sort of important, we
might as well get on with it.

I've been comparing the star-system generation rules of
MegaTraveller, GURPS Space, and Space Master, particularly as
concerns the generation of star types. One thing I don't like
about the MegaTraveller system is that by going with the
mechanics alone, you will never generate type O/B or size Ia/Ib
stars (under book 6 of classic traveller you can get everything
but type O, I'm not sure why they changed it... probably in order
to conform more closely with observed stellar frequencies.
Interestingly, they kept the book six tables concerning habitable
zones, so the only information missing is that on type O stars).
The rules even admit this and advise the ref to just sprinkle
them in as an after-thought. Blech!

It is interesting to note that Space Master (unlike Traveller and
GURPS), includes two other spectral classes (S and N), which are
placed below M (dim red) on the classification scheme. Actually,
to the best of my understanding, there are 10 spectral classes:
O, B, A, F, G, K, M, R, N, and S. They originated out of Ann
Cannon's work at Harvard (who originally used all the letters
between A and S). Later studies cut the spectral classes down to
these ten letters (of which Traveller mentions only the first
seven). Are there any astronomer types out there who can tell us
more about these final three spectral types and/or give us some
local-area frequency probabilities for each of the spectral
types?

Another interesting thing about Space Master is that it ignores
the dwarf stars (size VI), so in one way it seems to be more
complete that Traveller, and in another way it seems to be less
complete. I wish I knew what the designers were thinking.

Regarding Orbit #'s, I'm still partial the way GURPS handles
this: by using Bode's law to figure out orbital distances. Still,
it's not hard to tell that even this section and most of the rest
of GURPS Space (when it comes to world-generation) seems to be
deliberately cognizant of Classic Traveller, its forerunner.
Since this isn't rec.games.frp.advocacy, however, I'd better can
the discussion of the other games right here.

My basic quip about the Traveller rules (with respect to this
topic) is that by relying so heavily on a d6 scheme of things,
GDW seems to be ignoring several important star types and is
probably fudging on the probabilities of those stellar
occurrences which are covered in the rules. Fixing this problem,
even with the help of the TML-astronomers is probably going to be
a hairy ordeal. To compound our difficulties, once we have a
"good" generation table for the primary, we will still need one
for secondary and tertiary stars. I have it on decent authority
that the *majority* of star systems out there have one or more
companion stars to their primary. However, when we look at the MT
or even book 6 rules, we see that Traveller is assuming that the
majority of stars systems are solos. After this problem is fixed,
we'll need to create habitable zone information for stars of type
O, R, N, and S for inclusion into the orbital zone tables. And
even then our problems won't be anywhere near finished (because
we'll need some method of finding out whether or not the
habitable zone is occupied and if it is, is this indeed the
mainworld?). Like I said before, this is a huge can of worms,
particularly when done by committee, which is the only way I can
think of doing it since I'm pretty much ignorant about a lot of
this stuff. One last time... are you sure you really want to get
into all this?

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Date: Sat, 13 Feb 93 21:53:31 EST
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Re:  More on UWPs

"Bruce Pihlamae" <pihlab@hhcs.gov.au> writes:
>Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that we've only got one set of generation
>rules that are trying to generate everything based on either too many
>random variables or restricting ourselves to too few variations.

If you're not adverse to going beyond the original six stats, there are
some additional variables which would be extremely useful to have.  As a
quick background, we have the three physical stats of the world, which
describe it in terms of:

Size (independent)
Atmosphere (dependent on size)
Hydroshpere (dependenty on size and atmosphere)

It would be nice to have two additional stats to use in later generation
of the world's characteristics:

Resources (independent) - an indicator of the available natural
  resources on the world.  A high value indicates extensive,
  high-quality, and/or readily exploitable resources (mineral, fossil, 
  vegetable, or animal - this is non-specific, except that it indicates
  the presence or abscence of resources which otherwise aren't shown
  in the UWP).  Throw 2d6-2 for Resources; DMs subject to Referee whim
  (for example, the Spinward Marches is known to be deficient in heavy
  elements; perhaps a DM of -1 to the whole Marches to reflect this?).
  Restrict the result to the range 0-F.

Life (dependent on atmosphere and hydrosphere) - A general index to the
  prevalance and variety of life on the world.  A low score would
  indicate a barren world (your average asteroid or iceball "there isn't
  enough life on this ice-cube to fill a space freighter!") while high
  numbers indicate a thriving and diverse biosystem ("There's something
  down there; massive life readings!").  Throw 2d6-2; DM-8 for Vacuum 
  Trace, or Insidious, -6 for Very Thin or Corrosive, -4 for Exotic, 
  -2 for Dense/High, Ellipsoid, or Thin/Low, No DM for Thin Tainted,
  Standard Tainted, or Dense Tainted, and +2 for Thin, Standard, or
  Dense.  Apply a Hydroshpere DM: -4 if 0, -2 if 1, No DM if 2 through
  5, +1 if 6-9, -1 if A.  Other DMs can be used too: a +1 for worlds 
  within the Ancients, First Imperium, or Rule of Man (old colonies or
  terraforming efforts).  If Stellar Types are being used, an additional
  DM for the suitability of the star might not be a bad idea.  Restrict
  to the range 0-F.

[Extra credit if you can identify the quotes]

The resources score can be used to justify settlements on otherwise
inhospitable worlds, and should serve as a positive DM for population.
The rationale is that there is *some* type of valuable resource present
(which doesn't otherwise show on the UWP), and therefore it is likely
that someone has come (despite the hardship) to exploit it.

The Life score can be used to get a "feel" for the native biosphere, and
to gauge whether or not there is a native race to consider (throw Life
or less on 2d6 for a native sentient or semi-sentient race?).

For figuring out a world in the context of a long-standing interstellar
community, you can use Resources to represent the attractiveness of the
world to the "outside" starfaring cultures, while the Life score can be
used as a basis for determing if there is a "native" culture to interact
with.

Martin Snow writes:
> Anyway, if your planet is too close to its M5 V star, tidal stress will
> overcome the gravitational binding and the planet will break up.  That's
> why there's a minimum distance for stable orbits for planets.

As I understand it, this is the "Roche Limit", and could be looked up in
an astrophysics textbook.  Anybody out there want to provide some
serious numbers?

jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos) writes:
> Hmm... this is an interesting idea. I guess the GM would have to decide
> whether or not such races exist before making a final call on this one.
> Since there are a variety of "taints", however, the race would be
> virtually "locked" to their one "homeworld". Unless they were genetically
> altered to survive there, I don't see how they might have come into
> being. And you still have the obvious question, why would anybody
> engineer a mutant race for a specific tainted atmosphere when there are
> non-tainted atmospheres out there? I guess we could come up with all
> sorts of rationalizations for this.

Huh?  I wasn't thinking about a geneered human (or other) race as
colonists, I was thinking of the naturally-evolved-on-that-world, native
inhabitants.  Even here on Earth, there are plenty of creatures which
have evolved to inhabit environments which would kill other creatures.

Simply because a world has a "tainted" atmosphere, there is no reason to
assume that life couldn't and didn't evolve on that world.  And there is
no reason to assume that this life couldn't evolve into sentience.

Such creatures may or may not be "locked" into their environment; this
depends on the specific adaptations the creature has made to the
environment, and on the environment itself.  Creatures which evolved on
a world with a relatively high concentration of sulfur dioxide in the
air may have a special body covering (hair, scales) that is resistant to
the effects of the acid rain, and lungs that happen to be immune to the
toxic effects of the "taint".  Such a being might survive quite
comfortably in a standard oxygen-nitrogen atomsphere (but may have to take
periodic baths in a mild acid in order to etch off the unwanted dead
skin coverings.

> I like the idea, but I also think that it's unrealistic to implement
> it as a matter of course. Situations like this should be very rare.

That all depends on how prevalent this "life" stuff is.  If life manages
to evolve on nearly any world capable of supporting it to any degree,
worlds with native sentient or semi-sentient races should be fairly
common, and worlds with some form of life should be pretty common.

On the other hand, some well-known writers have written a good chunk of
science-fiction having postulated that the only planet to achienve
sentient life was Earth.  This is, of course, an extreme viewpoint, but
it illustrates the wide variation possible.

For most Traveller use, a "native" intelligent minor race at least once
a subsector seems reasonable, and several per subsector seems more than
possible.

> For a look at what I would call unrealistic, look at either of these
> two worlds:
> 
> Pixie/Regina  A100103-D        Paya/Aramis  A655241-9

In the case of Pixie (I've had to deal with this one, I have run quite a
few campaigns out of the Regina subsector), I've taken the approach that
the world is essentually all naval base.  The only personnel there (with
a handful of exceptions) are Navy personnel, their dependents, and
civilian contractors.  The shipyard facilities are all run by
transients --- the entire population of the world is transient (and
therefore, there were only a handful of "inhabitants" when the world was
surveyed).  There are tens of thousands of people there, almost all of
whom will be gone in two to four years (to be replaces with a new
batch).  The civillian contractors there run shipyards, and aren't
adverse to doing work on non-navy contracts utilizing spare capacity
(thus the Class A rating).

I'd say that the original system (which presumably generated both of
these) was prone to such problems.  Worlds like these *could* occur,
but should be *much* more rare than the original system provides.  If I
had a choice, I'd use your modified system and hand-modify the worlds
that I specifally wanted to be anomalous, rather than use the original
system and have to check each world for reasonableness.

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Date: Sun, 14 Feb 93 21:20:19 PST
From: jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos)
Subject: New Stats & Old Sentience

Re: Additional UWP/Mainworld Stats

wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar) writes:
>Life (dependent on atmosphere and hydrosphere)
>
>For figuring out a world in the context of a long-standing interstellar
>community, you can use Resources to represent the attractiveness of the
>world to the "outside" starfaring cultures, while the Life score can be
>used as a basis for determining if there is a "native" culture to interact
>with.

I *really* like these two stats you've proposed. My only concern is
where to put them in the subsector listings such that the current
subsector viewers won't get fouled-up by them. But that shouldn't
be too hard. Anyway, we should definitely add them to the scheme of
things (of course, this'll mean changing the requirements on some
of the trade classifications... Rich worlds can now be rich for a
good reason :-)

Re: The Spontaneous Evolution of Life & Sentience

>That all depends on how prevalent this "life" stuff is.  If life manages
>to evolve on nearly any world capable of supporting it to any degree,
>worlds with native sentient or semi-sentient races should be fairly
>common, and worlds with some form of life should be pretty common.
>
>On the other hand, some well-known writers have written a good chunk of
>science-fiction having postulated that the only planet to achieve
>sentient life was Earth.  This is, of course, an extreme viewpoint, but
>it illustrates the wide variation possible.

Yeah, I'll admit to being one of those not-so-well-known writers who
(at least up until now) has stuck to this extreme viewpoint, that the
only sentience out there has either evolved on Earth or already
destroyed itself. But I should clarify how this extreme supposition
came about, because it is not one to which I hold dearly. On the
contrary, I think it's ludicrous to make such a statement. I think
that with the probabilities being what they are, that it is *extremely*
likely (even a certainty) that extra-terrestrial sentience has evolved.

However, I've always been conscious of Fermi's old question: "Where
are they?" This, combined with the Travelleresque genre of science
fiction, where a vast region of space is human-dominated and where
exploration is still a serious undertaking, has created a
situation where it becomes extremely difficult to justify the
setting unless we make some very strong (and very unreasonable)
suppositions.

What I mean is that if there are sentient races out there, it stands
to reason that many of them would have taken to the stars *long*
before humans had ever stood upright. Thus, is stands to reason that
any of them that survived would be so far ahead of us in technology
(unless there is a technology ceiling fairly close ahead) that they
would probably appear to us more as gods than as living beings. Since
such "creatures" do not exist in the traveller setting, we have to
go back and reverse our initial supposition, effectively nuking all
non-earth-evolved sentience, making the natural advent of sentience a
rarity of the utmost magnitude. However, Traveller is only a game, and
whether such "creatures" exist in our "real-life" setting has been
left (for whatever reason) as a puzzling exercise for the earth-bound
reader. :-)

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Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 1:24:47 EST
From: Seth 'the Lesser' <slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu>
Subject: Trade Codes from MT RefMan

James Vassilakos <jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu> writes:
> (Fl) Fluid
> def: Non-water ocean(s).

The errata are available from an FTP site or mail-server near you.  You are
correct in guessing that it should be "size n/a, atmos A+, hydro 1+."  I am
not entirely certain why atmospheres D-F have non-water oceans, but they
do....

> (Ic) Ice-Capped
> def: self-explanatory
> reqs: atmos 0-1, hydro 1+

"Ice-capped" here means that there is no liquid surface water at all, but a
lot of surface ice.  Water does not stay liquid in a vacuum or near-vacuum.

> (Ri) Rich
> def: your guess is as good as mine
> reqs: atmos 6,8, pop 6-8, gov 4-9

This is meant to be a description of a world that people from all over will
fight to live on.  It's not "rich" = wealthy, it's "rich" = a prize for the
controlling government.

> So in other worlds, if a corporation suddenly takes over a rich
> world, then that world is no longer a rich world.

Absolutely.  I wouldn't want to immigrate to a corporate world; the only
decent lifestyles are for the shareholders, or (for tourist attractions)
anyone as long as the money lasts.

> Maybe the governmental requirement should be axed.

There's a big difference in "quality of life" between an A66888A-A world
(which is Rich under the rules) and an A6688DA-A world (which isn't).  IMO the
government requirement for class Ri makes sense, assuming you think the basic
idea of a Government digit makes sense at all....

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Date: 15 Feb 93 19:42:44 EST
From: Mark Watson <100022.3361@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Various

> I'm sorry to disect your article down to this one sentence
Hey - no problem - I pay to see all this stuff quoted and requoted!

world building with history:

Werrrlll, to a certain extent this is what the DGP WBH does with
terraforming, only in reverse... i.e. instead of playing out the changes, it
attempts to infer them, albeit in a limited area. This also relates to the
discussion about whether to do the star type or the mainworld generation
first. We are pretty well stuck, and for fairly good reasons, with the
sector data for the Imperial milieu. So "official", or wannabe official,
systems also need to start at that point (I realise we don't all wannabe
official, there will always be two systems, the better one and the one we
are stuck with...). Point being, if you want to stay with the main thread
of what is likely to issue forth from GDW it may be worth looking more at
the world building by inference method.

trade values:

Yeah, none of these ever made any sense to me either. I think they were
created merely in order to provide a set of variations for the trade system,
which is broken anyhow. I hope this lot gets fixed.

Traveller and O/B and Ia/Ib stars:

Yes, that is irritating. I'm not sure whether the "not more than one or two
per sector" recommendation holds true or not (I also was a humanities
major). Is there any occurrence of such a star in the official sector data?
I just had a quick skim of the Deneb domain data in MTJ 3 and there's none
there. (I guess the non Marches data was just mass generated. Deneb sector
in particular was badly generated if so - the DM for the secondary star does
not seem to have been applied).

SpaceMaster and Dwarfs:

If you look at the bottom of para 1.3.1 in the SM GM Book, it says that a
negative score on the companion star roll results in a dwarf, and the
companion star is automatically a dwarf if the primary is a dwarf (which is
as you point out impossible under the SM rules). So I would guess that the
absence of dwarf stars in the rules is a typo rather than deliberate.
There's a repackaged version of SM out, maybe they fixed it now.

Wildstar's extra UWP stats:

My head says no, my heart says yes. I'd use them ... What would be
interesting to know is whether GDW is planning to provide a World Builder's
Handbook equivalent for TNE, or indeed any extended World generation
mechanism which then precludes enhancements to the basic one. For example,
just moving from the basic to extended system generation, you have no mod
for within/outside the habitable zone.

The other point goes back to star types - if we have star types as now which
suddenly turn attractive worlds into iceballs, then generating life stats on
the basis of atm/hy is not going to be so useful. (And also is this stat
useful for non-carbon based life forms ...).

[ also, using the score to throw against in the way you suggest would surely
run against the way the other UWP stats are used - eg life stat
3 - ie low life score, whatever that may mean - I throw 2, showing sentient
life, but then we need another stat to indicate this ... surely its better
to match the score to rungs on the evolutionary ladder, similarly to the TL...
so multi-cell life forms on a 3, up to sentient life form on 12, say...?]

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From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Date: 15 Feb 93 (23:13)
Subject: law as tech mod

JV::>>  Why exclude law level from the tech modifier?  The more
  [...deleted for brevity...]

UG::>This is a good point. If you send me your suggested modifications,
  ::>I'll try 'em out on the program. Another TLMer mentioned via email
  ::>that he uses three different tables for determining the government
  ::>type of a world. Which one he uses depends on the world's population.
  ::>I don't know if this is going too far or not, but the best way to
  ::>find out is to try out the idea and see what sort of UWPs it results in.

  For a bare-bones set of mods, use the following:

  No Law or Moderate Law        +0
  Low Law                       +1
  High Law                      -1
  Extreme Law (A-C)             -2
  Extreme Law (D-E)             -3
  Extreme Law (F-G)             -4
  Extreme Law (H+)              -5

  Rationale:  At No Law, there is no way of ensuring that the 
  person who develops new technology will be able to profit from 
  it.  If something is good, it will be used by anyone who can get 
  their hands on it, and without paying.  This reduces the 
  incentive.  

  At Low Law, there may be some protection, so there will be some 
  innovation.  However, it only rates a +1 because the government 
  will normally not be powerful or influential enough to make large 
  investments in research.

  At Moderate Law, you will typically have a government that has 
  the power, influence, and revenue to invest in research, and 
  sufficient freedom of information exchange to make it profitable 
  (in terms of results).  However, at this stage, the government 
  will probably have a tendency to want to direct the research, 
  rather than dropping the cash on the table, sitting back, and 
  saying, "O.K.  folks, let's see what you can come up with."  

  This directive tendency will continue at higher law levels, and 
  with the continuing decrease in personal freedom and freedom of 
  information exchange, and increasing compartmentalization of 
  research, the return on investment will typically drop heavily.  
  At some point, the government will probably decide that research 
  is unproductive of results, and tech will stagnate (Look at the 
  USSR on Terra in -2531 - most of their technology was acquired 
  through intelligence gathering).

  These worked pretty well for me.  I've also tried fooling with 
  the DMs for government type, with results that were not 
  unreasonable.

Subject: gov't as tech mod

  In my experiments with Traveller, I have also tried changing the 
  tech level with different mods for government than those 
  published by GDW.  The table I eventually settled on is as 
  follows:

        MegaT gov code          DM
        --------------          --
              0                 +0
              1                 +3
              2                 +2
              3                 +0
              4                 +1
              5                 +2
              6                 -2
              7                 See Note
              8                 -1
              9                 -1
              A                 +0
              B                 -1
              C                 +0
              D                 -3
              E                 -5
              F                 -4

  Note: For balkanized worlds, generate the national governments of 
  interest, and use <my other table, which factors in espionage> to 
  generate gov't TL modifier.  (see Note to Note)

  Note to Note:  The other table mentioned here is essentially 
  identical, except that because of intelligence-gathering 
  activities, negative DMs are moved one notch closer to 0 (i.e. a 
  -1 becomes a 0, -2 becomes -1, and so on.)

  Rationale:  +0 modifiers - When there is no formal government
                 structure, any new technology developed is
                 unprotected, save by individual effort.  In this
                 event, even if the technology is developed, it
                 will be slow to be released, because of concerns
                 of the developer profiting from it (i.e. the
                 developer wants to; others may be more willing to
                 steal the technology than buy it).

                 In a benign oligarchy, or a charismatic 
                 dictatorship, it is less likely that those in 
                 power will hear about good ideas that are not 
                 developed within the governmental structure, thus 
                 reducing the chance of advancement.  Such a 
                 government, however, will not necessarily _reject_ 
                 an idea if it hears about it.

               + modifiers - A company has the utmost interest in 
                 development of technology that will allow them to 
                 achieve higher return on investment.  Ideas will 
                 be actively sought after, and explored for their 
                 profit-making potential.

                 Democracies have a high level of personal freedom 
                 and will tend to allow ideas to percolate around 
                 without interference.  Coupled with laws 
                 protecting intellectual property, and the fact 
                 that the government will generally be pretty busy 
                 trying to prostitute itself to the special 
                 interests acting in the name of "the people," 
                 there will probably be significant opportunity for 
                 ideas to be pursued despite theoretical 
                 restrictions on the use of government funds.  The 
                 less a government has to deal directly with the 
                 people, the more it will be able to direct 
                 research, thus the lower DM for a rep. democracy 
                 vs. a parcip. democracy.

               - modifiers - The fundamental obstacles to 
                 technological progress in these governments are 
                 multiple: insularity from people outside the 
                 government, doctrinaire educational policies, 
                 rewarding of conformity over individual 
                 initiative, personal paranoia (in the case of 
                 dictatorships), conservatism (including but not 
                 limited to religious orthodoxy and extremism)...  
                 All of these combine, to varying degrees, and 
                 result in an inability to develop ideas once they 
                 are presented, and a further reluctance for 
                 individuals to present their ideas for fear of 
                 being condemned or persecuted for them (recall 
                 Nazi Germany's attitude towards "Jewish Physics").

  Note that these are only guidelines; fiddle with them to suit 
  your needs.  Some of the factors cited for negative DMs might be 
  at work in governments that have positive DMs, and vice-versa.

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Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 13:19:31 PST
From: jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos)
Subject: Life & Resources

All of this will probably incite lots of flames, but oh well. Remember,
I was only a humanities major (sigh :-)

Re: Life Stat

Two nights ago, Wildstar proposed adding a life stat to the UWP in order
to account for the extent of a planet's ecosystem (presumably to be
modified by colonization whether destructive or beneficial). However,
he suggested rolling under the stat on 2d6 to determine whether or not
native sentience has evolved. Mark Watson argued that this is probably
too liberal, and being conservative on this issue (my reasoning can be
read in yesterday's TML), I'm offering the following table for criticisms.

0: Sterile
1: Amino Acids
2: Single-celled organisms
3: Multi-cellular bacteria
4: Simple vegetation
5: Complex vegetation
6: Microscopic insects & sea life
7: Macroscopic insects
8: Macroscopic sea life
9: Land/Air-based herbivores
A: Land/Air-based predators
B: Large/Complex predators
C: Tool use
D: Fire use
E: Agriculture
F: Symbology (full sentience, TL=0)

As you can see, my peculiar prejudice for cracking down hard on the
"minor" races has led me to confine even the most advanced of them
to TL=0. For my own campaign, this is perfect, but I imagine that for
most others, it won't do (just another example of how setting drives
planetary generation and vice-versa). For the more liberal-minded,
you may want to give C+ various higher degrees of technology than
what has been listed.

Re: Resources Stat

Wildstar also proposed a "resources" stat. Here is another table for
your consideration.

0: Barren
1-4: Poor
5-8: Moderate
9-C: Rich
D+ : Extreme

Poor: Basic chemical diversity necessary to support indigenous life.
   Otherwise, no claim to fame.
Moderate: One solid natural-resource industry. Roll on table 10a of
   the MT Ref's Manual. Re-roll 34-54 if life < 4 (see above). Re-roll
   65 if life < 5. Re-roll 55-56 if life < 8. Re-roll 61-64 if life < 9.
   Re-roll 66 if life < A.
Rich: Two natural-resources industries, one of which commands strong
   subsector-wide influence.
Extreme: Three natural-resource industries, one of which commands
   sector-wide influence.

Note: The GM should translate natural-resource industries into their
   manufacturing/processing (2nd stage) industries as seems appropriate.
   See MT Ref's Manual (pg52) for possibilities.

Another note: Under this system, the resource stat is rolled before
the life stat, and the life stat is rolled before the specific
industries are determined.

I admit, this is all very cut & dry, but it's easier to complicate
a simple system than to simplify a complex one.

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Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 17:22:31 PST
From: jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos)
Subject: Fluid Trade Class & Ellipsoidal Worlds

<Mark found errata on the fluid (Fl) classification, essentially saying
that my supposition about shifting the data to the right was correct.>

Still, I'm not sure that I entirely agree with the errata version
either. I'm wondering why Atmos is A+ instead of A-C, i.e. why should
atmospheres D, E, and F cause oceans to be non-watery?

I have another question about atmosphere type E. It assumes that
the world is ellipsoidal (egg-shaped?), and that therefore the
atmosphere pressures range from very high to very low depending
on where you are on the planet's surface (since the atmosphere is
still spherical) (see page 21 of ref's manual). 

Two questions: Is this realistic? Would is also apply to the
hydrosphere? (if so, we could have a world mostly submerged but
with two ends jutting like mammoth mountains out of the water,
seems strange to me).

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Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 00:57:09 PDT
From: Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Stellar types

Type O is *very* rare. There's a second factor as well. Type O stars have
only a few *million* years on the mainsequence, after which they die
rather messily (can *you* say "Supernova"? I knew you could!)

Since all the stars in an area will tend to be of the same age, that means
that all the type O (and almost all type B) stars will have gone supernova
before life evolved on most planets around here.

Good thing, too. A supernova can be lethal at *interstellar* distances.
Several parsecs at least.

Everything I've ever heard regarding planetary formation indicates that a
type O star *can't* have them. Too little matter left over from forming the
star, and too little time before it got bright enough for the stellar wind
and sheer *light pressure* to blast everything out of the system.

I'm only an amateur, but I've got a textbook sitting in fromt of me. It
doesn't even *list* R, N, and S types. From my reading, I seem to recall
that they are very rare and don't really fit in with the other tpyes. For
the sort of thing we are talking about, they *should* be ignored.

So type O stars should be *at most* one per campaign (unless your campaign
map covers *thousands* of parsecs) and they shouldn't have planets.

BTW, if the tables give (as I recall) stellar luminosity on a scale that
has Sol as 1 and a type O star at 10,000 or so, then there's a rough formula
for how long the star will spend on the main sequence:

T=11*(L^.75)
T= lifetime in billions of years
L= luminosity

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From: timothy k istian soholt <xoanon@carina.unm.edu>
Subject: Ellipsoidal planets
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 16:43:17 MST

jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos) writes:

> I have another question about atmosphere type E. It assumes that
> the world is ellipsoidal (egg-shaped?), and that therefore the
> atmosphere pressures range from very high to very low depending
> on where you are on the planet's surface (since the atmosphere is
> still spherical) (see page 21 of ref's manual). 

> Two questions: Is this realistic? Would is also apply to the
> hydrosphere? (if so, we could have a world mostly submerged but
> with two ends jutting like mammoth mountains out of the water,
> seems strange to me).

Since your center of gravity is going to be roughly at the center
of all three axes of the ellipsoid, yes, you will probably have
lower pressure at the ends of the ellipse than at the equator (I'm
assuming that the planet is elongated from pole to pole; anyone 
who knows more about planetary evolution want to confirm or deny
that that's the most likely situation?). Just how significant
those differences would be would depend on the size of the planet.
And, yes, it would affect the hydrosphere, too. There probably
wouldn't be a whole lot in the way of equatorial landmasses.

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Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 22:36:45 EST
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Trade Codes and Star Types

Jim Vassilakos writes:
> Maybe I'm confused about the definition. I mean, earth is ice-
> capped (last I checked), but we don't fit under the requirements
> for this trade code. So what is the significance of a world being
> ice-capped?

The "Ice-Capped" trade classification means that most or all of a
planet's water is locked up in ice caps.  Thus the requirements are an
atmosphere that (in general) won't support liquid water, but with a
non-zero hydrographics code.

> (In) Industrial
> def: economy based on mass-production of manufactured goods.
> reqs: atmos 2,3,4,7,9, pop 9+
> 
> I know this one goes back to classic traveller, but I've always
> had a problem with it. Considering the extent of robotics and
> mechanized labor at high tech levels, I'm not sure this high a
> population requirement is really necessary. Furthermore,
> considering the extent of (clean) fusion at advanced tech levels,
> I'm not sure that the atmospheres of such worlds would be so
> heavily tainted (I guess they assume there are some negative
> atmospheric by-products of mass production other than smog).

There are lots of TL-5 to TL-8 Industrial worlds in the Imperium; the
benefits of robotics and fusion reactors are not going to be felt here.
On a more general theme, power generation is not the only kind of
industrial pollutant; most chemical and manufacturing processes have
nasty by-products.  Although this is only one data point, most
industrial nations here on Earth currently have a problem with the
pollution of the environment with industrial wastes.

I can't really believe in entirely mechanised shipyards, nor can I
support the idea of a world populated by a couple of thousand humans and
several million robots all turning out goods at an enormous rate.  If
one assumes that interstellar trade is a fraction of the Imperial
economy, then the most important factor in setting up an industrial
world is the presence of a strong local market.  Which will require
millions of consumers, hence the population requirement.

> (Ri) Rich
> def: your guess is as good as mine
> reqs: atmos 6,8, pop 6-8, gov 4-9
> 
> So in other worlds, if a corporation suddenly takes over a rich
> world, then that world is no longer a rich world. Makes
> absolutely no sense to me. Maybe the governmental requirement
> should be axed.

No, a Rich world is one that is prosperous because it has reasonable
living conditions, is not over- or under- populated, and has a
government which is conducive to personal prosperity.  If a corporation
should take over a Rich world, it will cease being Rich, because the
corporate government would change the way the worlds' inhabitants live
and work.

> Re: Star types
> It is interesting to note that Space Master (unlike Traveller and
> GURPS), includes two other spectral classes (S and N), which are
> placed below M (dim red) on the classification scheme. Actually,
> to the best of my understanding, there are 10 spectral classes:
> O, B, A, F, G, K, M, R, N, and S. They originated out of Ann
> Cannon's work at Harvard (who originally used all the letters
> between A and S). Later studies cut the spectral classes down to
> these ten letters (of which Traveller mentions only the first
> seven).

As I understand it, the spectral classes in current use are:

     O - B - A - F - G - K - M - N
                              \   \
                               R - S

People who know more about astronomy are free to correct me (this is
certainly not my area of expertise; I'm doing this from memory of a
conversation I had with an Astronomy prof I used to now).  Anyway, as I
understand it, R and S are "carbon" stars (they have carbon lines in
their spectra) and are quite rare, the R being a "carbon version" of the
M, and S is the "carbon version" of N.

I have star generation tables (created from some of this information,
and put together long before Book 6 was ever published) which can
generate almost any type of star at approximately the correct
frequencies.  They are two D100 tables, though; if there is interest, I
will post them (let me know).

Class O, N, R, and S stars, as well as the size Ia and Ib supergiants,
are fairly rare, which is probably why Traveller ignores them.  If you
want, you can sprinkle these around, at about one or two per sector.

> GURPS Space (when it comes to world-generation) seems to be
> deliberately cognizant of Classic Traveller, its forerunner.
> Since this isn't rec.games.frp.advocacy, however, I'd better can
> the discussion of the other games right here.

Let's put it this way: if T:TNE turns out to be a complete dog, then
I'll go over to GURPS for my SF role-playing ...

> My basic quip about the Traveller rules (with respect to this
> topic) is that by relying so heavily on a d6 scheme of things,
> GDW seems to be ignoring several important star types and is
> probably fudging on the probabilities of those stellar
> occurrences which are covered in the rules.

Traveller and MegaTraveller were firmly D6 games; fudging on the
probabilities in order to get the thing to fit in a D6 roll is
reasonable; complete accuracy in stellar types is not required.  If the
referee or players know enough to be aware of the problem, they can fix
it by tweaking the results.  This seems to be a philosophy behind many
parts of the Traveller/MegaTraveller world generation system.

> I have it on decent authority
> that the *majority* of star systems out there have one or more
> companion stars to their primary.

As I understand it, about half of the star systems out there are
multiple (binary or more), which means that more than half of the stars
are part of a multiple star system.  Most multiple star systems will
contain stars that were "born" at approximately the same time from the
same cloud of dust and gas.  As a matter of fact, stars should be born
in groups and clusters this way, so that nearby stars are about the same
age.

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Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 22:38:46 EST
From: wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar)
Subject: Life and Resource Scores

First off, I'd like to thank Jeff Zeitlin for some interesting
suggestions for Government and Law Level TL mods; these bear trying out.

jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos) writes:
> Two nights ago, Wildstar proposed adding a life stat to the UWP in order
> to account for the extent of a planet's ecosystem (presumably to be
> modified by colonization whether destructive or beneficial). However,
> he suggested rolling under the stat on 2d6 to determine whether or not
> native sentience has evolved. Mark Watson argued that this is probably
> too liberal, and being conservative on this issue (my reasoning can be
> read in yesterday's TML), I'm offering the following table for criticisms.

Since all of the other UWP stats reflect the condition of the world as
it is now, and changes are inferred; I'd assume that the changes due to
colonization have already been applied (just like the effects of any
terraforming have already been applied).  Given this, and given that
upon reflection even I think that rolling 2d6 for Life or less is
probably too liberal, try the following:

Life Score
0 = Sterile (although "organic" compounds may be present).
1 = Pre-Life (sophisticated "organic" compounds, precursors to life).
2+  Some Life Present (at least single-"cell" simple organisms).
    As the Life score increases, the number and size of the ecosystems
    increase, as does the number and complexity of the organisms which
    can be found there.  Remember that this applies equally to 
    native life-forms as well as "imported" forms (due to activity of
    the Ancients, colonization, or simply by accident).  The minimums
    for native development of a given complexity can be figured out from
    the table below.

Whether or not you apply DMs to the Life score based on the stellar zone
the planet is in (inner, habitable, or outer) depends on your views on
really outrageous biochemistries.  If you believe that sentient life can
evolve in ecospheres in gas giants or on ultra-cold (or ultra-hot)
worlds, the zone DMs should be no more than -2 or -4.  In this case, I'd
suggest using a -3 for Inner and Outer Zone worlds, and a DM of 0 for
worlds in the habitable zone.  This is probably compatible with the
Classic Traveller vision of the universe (which is heavily indebted to
Larry Niven and Edward E ("Doc") Smith) with intelligent gas-giant
dwellers and all sorts of exotic life-forms, and sentient life-forms are
all over the place, although many of them (from the Jgd to the Cymbiots
aren't really "life as we know it").

While the above pretty accurately describes the way I feel, I certainly
understand if this isn't everybody's cup of tea.  For a lot less life in
general, and a lot less intelligent life, try the following DMs:
- -1 if not a Main Sequence (size V) star
- -1 if not a Spectral Class F or G star
- -6 if in Inner Zone
- -4 if in Outer Zone
This should cause the most Life to cluster around the habitable zone of
class F and G Main Sequence stars (in other words, stars like the Sun or
a little brighter).  Thus most life will be "life as we know it", and
will be much less prevalent than in the first method.

Now throw 2d6 and subtract the results from the Life Score:
0-  No significant native organisms (all "boring" or imported).
1 = "Interesting" native single-cell organisms.
2 = "Interesting" native microscopic (multi-cell) organisms.
3 = "Interesting" native plants (macroscopic).
4 = "Interesting" native animals (non-sentient).
5 = Complex native ecosystem (multiple "Interesting" organisms).
6+  Native Sentient or near-Sentient life (always interesting).

The second throw should probably be part of the "world building"
procedure, and not part of the basic generation.  Once the throw is
made, the referee will then have to decide (as part of the detailed
world description) what the "interesting" things about the planet are.

From the above procedure, you can see that it is possible to generate a
world with a lush and complete biosphere, all of which is the result of
a large colonisation effort.  This also makes the minimum Life score for
a world to have native sophonts to be 8.  This system causes one or two
worlds to have native sentient (or "near-sentient", an out for referees
who don't want this many minor races around) per subsector.  Assuming
the Life DMs balance out (and they may not, I didn't check) random 
generation will have about 5.4% for all worlds (or a little less than one
in 18) with native sentient or near-sentient life.

> [table omitted in the interest of brevity]

I really wouldn't want to lock down that exactly what each level on the
scale means.  Comparing two ecosystems on Earth is rough enough;
extending this to encompass, for example, silicon based
methane-breathers will stretch it too far.  Not every world is going to
have a carbon and water based metabolism that arose from the oceans.

I really don't agree with this, particularly from C (Tool Use) on up;
these distinctions should really be made as part of the details for the
native sentient or semi-sentient race.  The exact stage of development
should probably be determined by the referee during the "world building"
stage of generating planetary details.  I should also point out that
while the use of tools and fire is pretty much a clincher for sentient
or semi-sentient creatures, by the time they are practicing agriculture
the society is pretty much at TL-0.

Using the tables above as a guide, the followings are minimums for
native life forms:

0 = Sterile
1 = Pre-Life
2 = Life (maybe even pre-cellular life)
3 = Single-Celled organisms
4 = Multi-cellular organisms
5 = "Plant" life
6 = Animal life
7 = Complex ecosystems
8 = MINIMUM for native sentient organisms.

But please note that it is possible for a world to have a Life score of
12, but not have any "interesting" native life.  One possibility is a
world that has been colonized, and the colonist's imported plants and
animals have out-competed the native ecosystem, which as become nearly
extinct.  This is a definite possibility, particularly on worlds that
have been civilized for thousands of years.  Another possibility is a
world that is covered with oceans, which are literally filled with an
amazing diversity of single-celled organisms.  Literally every square
centimeter of the worlds' surface has something living on it.  Although
such a world might have a relatively high Life rating, it may only rate
as having "interesting" single-celled organisms.

> For the more liberal-minded,
> you may want to give C+ various higher degrees of technology than
> what has been listed.

I would think that it is better to have the Life score as independent of
the natives' TL as possible.  The Life score can be used to determine
whether or not there *are* natives, but their TL is more properly the
province of the worlds' TL score.  If the world has both a native
population and human colonists, the UWP TL score will indicate the
population that interstellar travellers will interact with the most.
When "building" such a world, the native race and its technology can be
detailed.

> Re: Resources Stat

Here are some suggestions for the Resources score, too.  

Roll 2d6 and subtract this total from the resources stat:
0-  Nothing worth commercial exploitation (at this time).
1-3 Better sources exist elsewhere; local commercial exploitation only
4-7 Major Source; important subsector-wide producer
8+  Principal Source; important sector-wide producer
The referee will then have to decide what commodity (or commodities) the
world's resources represent.  While this is relatively quick and dirty,
there are some potential problems.  These problems are the same as the
ones inherent in the scheme proposed by Jim: it is quite possible to
roll up two worlds, both major producers or better, and both with the
same resource, all in the same subsector.

Either Jim's method, or the method above (I don't think it's very
important either way; the two are nearly equivalent) are probably
suitable for most referees.  On re-consideration, Jim's system is
simpler, and therefore probably the better of the two.

A better method would be to select a resource type (perhaps using Table
10a, or from some other source), and roll 1d6.  This is the "amount" of
this resource, but not more than the resource score of the world.
Continue until the entire resource score is accounted for.  An example
is in order:

2d6 Roll 10 for the Resource score of the world.
1st Resource: #61, Livestock.  Amount: 5
2nd Resource: #42, Plants (wood).  Amount: 4
3rd Resource: #63, Livestock.  Amount: 1 (a 3 was rolled).

So, our hypothetical world produces Livestock at Level 6 (the two
livestock resources add, at the referees' discretion), and Plants (wood)
at Level 4.

Comparing all of the scores and types within the subsector and within
the sector will reveal the primary producers of each type. 

> I admit, this is all very cut & dry, but it's easier to complicate
> a simple system than to simplify a complex one.

Agreed.  While I don't like your Life system, the resource system you
present is very simple and has the desired effect.  One suggestion,
though: prehaps we should come up with a resource type table which is
more appropriate than good 'ol Table 10a/b.  A better variety of
resources, and with the table organised so that we can use a DM based on
Life, Size and/or other planetary stats would be good.

One possibility would be to use a 1d6+1d6 table (like tables 10a) and
apply DMs to the first die based on the Life Score (Life 0=-2, 1-3=-1,
4-6=0, 7-9=+1, 10+=+2) and the second die based on the world size (Size
Asteroid/VerySmall/Small=-1, Large=+1).  What do y'all think?

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From: ee171way@sdcc15.UCSD.EDU (Jack Dietz)
Subject:  Re: Star Types
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 11:56:11 PST

Recently I found a machine-readable copy of the data from the Royal
Observatory Catalog of Stars within 25 Parsecs and have been
massaging the data to allow for a Traveller:2300 like universe's
trade routes to be generated automatically.  I have not had the time
to firm up my findings, but I have the raw data to look at and
comment on relative star densities and so forth.

Please bear in mind that parallaxes (distances) are very imprecise
beyond a range of 5-10 parsecs or so; 10% error in distance is
considered 'good' in this catalog.

The spectral type classifications started as observations of the
spectra themselves.  They initially had no linking to anything that
we care about, such as brightness, which is why they appear to be in
no particular order.  The numbers assigned as subclassifications,
rather than being a consistent scale wherein an O9 was close to a
B0, were judgements of the relative strengths of specific spectral
lines within that category.  The I-VI 'size' descriptions started
out as a notation of the overall strength of the spectral lines --
the deeper they are the higher the number.  The VI classification
was used rather spottily, and one astronomer's V might be another's
VI.  It is only by coincidence (and the leap of faith of Hertzprung
and Russel) that these were linked to stellar size in a meaningful
way.

Of the last three (R, N, and S), they are specific subclasses of M
red dwarfs, which are used spottily.  R and N were at one point
subsumed into a class C (carbon stars) by some astronomers because
of the strength of the carbon lines.  Current observations have used
the more generic Me (M with strong emission lines) to describe all
three of these classes.  It is my understanding that their surface
temperature (color and brighness) are not affected.

Within 25 parsecs there are 2,150 stars tabulated.  With regard to
star type, there are 3 class B stars and no class O stars.

Also, binary systems are not _that_ popular -- the 2,150 stars are
grouped into about 1,700 star systems, with a few trinary and
quaternary systems.

I can add more later when I get home and look at the data and some
astrophysics texts, if anyone's interested.

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Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 15:09:41 PST
From: jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu (james vassilakos)
Subject: Miscellaneous World Generation Stuff

Re: Rich Worlds

wildstar@moeng2.morgan.edu (Derek Wildstar) writes:
>No, a Rich world is one that is prosperous because it has reasonable
>living conditions, is not over- or under- populated, and has a
>government which is conducive to personal prosperity.  If a corporation
>should take over a Rich world, it will cease being Rich, because the
>corporate government would change the way the worlds' inhabitants live
>and work.

Hmm... I dunno. Rich, to me, means rich. Maybe there's a different
adjective for these so-called freedom/middle-pop/relatively nice-
atmosphere type worlds. To strengthen my previous claim, consider
this. Rich worlds under the current system are designated so by
virture of atmosphere, population, and government, while poor
worlds, their supposed antithesis, are designated so by only
atmosphere and hydrosphere (both physical characteristics) and
without any regard to population or government. So the way I see
it (and this is an extreme viewpoint) is that we should use the
"resource" stat you proposed for these "rich" and "poor"
classifications and totally do away with the other criteria.
(Now donning flame-proof battledress :-)

Re: The "Life" Stat

>Whether or not you apply DMs to the Life score based on the stellar zone
>the planet is in (inner, habitable, or outer) depends on your views on
>really outrageous biochemistries.

Yeah. You know my feelings on this: that a human-dominated setting
conflicts with the teaming-universe hypothesis (i.e. if you have one,
you can't realistically have the other). If you have any rebuttals
to this argument, however, feel free to share them. It's something
I wouldn't mind finding a way around.

> -1 if not a Main Sequence (size V) star
> -1 if not a Spectral Class F or G star

I dunno. I think we should just stick with inner & outer zone
modifiers, and I'd be inclined to make those modifiers steep,
even prohibative. The stellar modifiers for those annoying
M-V's & M-VI's can be taken care of by the fact that there is
no habitable zone in such systems (due to the previously
mentioned tidal stress and consequential Roche limit).

>Now throw 2d6 and subtract the results from the Life Score:
>0-  No significant native organisms (all "boring" or imported).
>1 = "Interesting" native single-cell organisms.
>2 = "Interesting" native microscopic (multi-cell) organisms.
>3 = "Interesting" native plants (macroscopic).
>4 = "Interesting" native animals (non-sentient).
>5 = Complex native ecosystem (multiple "Interesting" organisms).
>6+  Native Sentient or near-Sentient life (always interesting).

So you want this table to be used in "world building", not in
mainworld (UWP) generation. I still think we should have something
for the UWP stat which is detailed. I admit, mine is probably
overly terran-centric, but at least it has some guts to it
(i.e. you can look at the stat and tell what's there in a
fair amount of detail... for example, there's nothing more
evolved than microscopic plant-life). We need something like
this right in the UWP. If you don't like what's in the table
I proposed, then propose another. Better that than to leave it
completely amorphous.

>I really wouldn't want to lock down that exactly what each level on the
>scale means.  Comparing two ecosystems on Earth is rough enough;
>extending this to encompass, for example, silicon based
>methane-breathers will stretch it too far.  Not every world is going to
>have a carbon and water based metabolism that arose from the oceans.

True, but I still think that the life-stat itself should tell the
GM something about the world. To say, "Oh, I'm not sure what that
means, I didn't go through world-building for this planet" is
kinda silly.

I agree that I'm locking the table into a terran-centric view of
evolution (which is stupid). But since I'm not a science major, I'm
not really fluent enough in alternate-evolutions to come up with
anything more generalized. If somebody has some ideas for generalizing
the table I proposed while still leaving the GM with a good feel for
what's there based on the stat, please step forward.

>0 = Sterile
>1 = Pre-Life
>2 = Life (maybe even pre-cellular life)
>3 = Single-Celled organisms
>4 = Multi-cellular organisms
>5 = "Plant" life
>6 = Animal life
>7 = Complex ecosystems
>8 = MINIMUM for native sentient organisms.

Okay. This is a good start (assuming we overlook the notion that
"kingdoms" other than protista, plant, and animal could evolve).
What I guess I'm looking for is further generalization with more
detail (for values above 8). I admit, it's a tall order.

>I would think that it is better to have the Life score as independent of
>the natives' TL as possible.  The Life score can be used to determine
>whether or not there *are* natives, but their TL is more properly the
>province of the worlds' TL score.

I totally agree with you on this. The thing is, while the table was
named a "life" table, it was really a "life/sentience" table. That is,
we tied the evolutionary development of sentience to the evolutionary
development of life. They went hand in hand. If you want to nuke this
hypothesis, just say so, but if not, there there has to be a linkage
either on the table for the UWP score we're inventing or in the
world-building process (I'd prefer the latter, and from what I've
read, you'd probably agree).

>If the world has both a native
>population and human colonists, the UWP TL score will indicate the
>population that interstellar travellers will interact with the most.
>When "building" such a world, the native race and its technology can be
>detailed.

Sounds good, but we still need a good table for establishing how much
the natives have evolved. That should be the life stat in the UWP.
Then we can bring up sentience in the world-building stage and let
each gamer go his or her separate way depending on how much non-human
sentience we want to deal with in our various campaigns.

Re: The "Resource" Stat

Wildstar proposes two methods for rolling & interpreting this
stat. In his conclusion, he seems to prefer his second proposal.

>2d6 Roll 10 for the Resource score of the world.
>1st Resource: #61, Livestock.  Amount: 5
>2nd Resource: #42, Plants (wood).  Amount: 4
>3rd Resource: #63, Livestock.  Amount: 1 (a 3 was rolled).

We still have to be careful with our resource types. That is, if
the planet turns out to have no native life, or very little, and
further seems incapable of supporting any (i.e. vacuum, non-habitable
zone, etc) then having trees and livestock is probably going
to look funky.

>Comparing all of the scores and types within the subsector and within
>the sector will reveal the primary producers of each type. 

Yeah, all in all, I like it. I actually like it quite a bit
better than the system I proposed for this same thing last night.
We just need to be a little bit careful with the resource types.

>prehaps we should come up with a resource type table which is
>more appropriate than good 'ol Table 10a/b.  A better variety of
>resources, and with the table organised so that we can use a DM based on
>Life, Size and/or other planetary stats would be good.

I'll try to get something worked up for tomorrow night's TML.
You can do the same, and then we can duke it out :-)

>One possibility would be to use a 1d6+1d6 table (like tables 10a) and
>apply DMs to the first die based on the Life Score (Life 0=-2, 1-3=-1,
>4-6=0, 7-9=+1, 10+=+2) and the second die based on the world size (Size
>Asteroid/VerySmall/Small=-1, Large=+1).  What do y'all think?

Let's not forget atmosphere. Hmm... this is starting to entail lots
of variables.

Re: Sector Viewing

Well, as you know, once we flesh out these two stats we're
talking about, we'll need a sector viewer that can read 'em.
What I have here is a new sector viewer (for the IBM-PC)
which is compatible with the sunbane (standard) data. I'll
modify the program as we come to a consensus (if we come to
a consensus) to incorporate the "life" and "resource" stats.

Here's the specifics:

        PROGRAM NAME: "galactic" [v1.0] {February 1993}
        GAME SYSTEM: Traveller/MegaTraveller
        AUTHOR: Jim Vassilakos  (jimv@ucrengr.ucr.edu)
        FUNCTION: Sector Viewer
        OPERATING SYSTEM: IBM (MS-DOS)
        PRICE: Public Domain
        COMMENTS: CGA or better required. Allows the user to
              skip from world to world, reading planetary
              descriptions and notes about each world in any
              given star sector. Is compatible with the sunbane
              sector data. Zip file includes Spinward Marches
              data as well as notes on the Yres system. QB45
              source included with the compiled executable.
              Contact the author for a uuencoded version via
              email.
        FILE(s): galactic.zip
        SOURCE(s): Available via Anonymous FTP:
          ftp.cs.pdx.edu (131.252.20.145) in pub/frp/src

Note that it does take a little work getting a sunbane sector ready
to view, but the spinward marches are all there ready to go. All the
user has to do is provide the long-winded world descriptions from
her or his campaign. Let me know what you think.

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Date: 26 Feb 1993 11:05:40 -0500 (EST)
From: VANYA@utkvx.utk.edu
Subject: Stellar Classes and Distribution

Greetings to denizens of this fine TML:

        I have been monitoring the discussion on TML these last few weeks about
the distribution of stellar classes.  With some free time after my last PDE
class, I decided to do a quick survey of the space around Sol.  Please note
that these figures are very round and do not necessarily reflect the universe
as a whole.

        There are apx 100 stars within 6.5pc of Sol, with almost half of these
stars members of binary of multiple star systems.

        Counting the occurence of each spectral class gave these numbers:

        Class           #
        O               0
        B               0
        A               2
        F               1
        G               8 (including Sol)
        K               14
        M               66
        Dwarf           8
        TOTAL           99

        The class Dwarf lumps anything not in the other classes together.

        The ratio of O-B-A stars to the rest of the classes is about
1:38.  Bright, large stars are rare.

        Already we can see how the small, dim M class stars dominate the
population.  If any of these stars have planetary systems, the chance of them
being inhabitable are slim.  Also, being small, the most these stars will
probably have are planetoid belts.  Larger planets (size 3+) are probable going
to be rare.  After all, if there was a lot of material around when the star
formed, the star would probably have been bigger.

        From this, it seems that the probability tables in SpaceMaster are
fairly accurate (at least for gaming purposes).  I havent checked the tables in
WBH yet (my copy is at home), but over the weekend, I will strive to extend
this population survey to more stars and post results next week.

        There has also been discussion of the different types of spectral
classes and their relationship to each other.
          In addition to the O-B-A-F-G-K-M classes, there are other types of
stars, including the misunderstood R-N-S classes.  These classes include:

        Wolf-Raynet Stars:  O-type stars with emmission spectra possibly caused
by the ejection of material from the star at high velocity.  Planets around
this O-type star would possibly be severly cooked.

        Peculiar A Stars:  The name says it all.  These are A-type stars with
strong absorption lines of certian ionized metals.

        R Stars: R-type stars are similar to K-type stars, except for molecular
bands of C2 and CN are present.

        N Stars: N-type stars are similar to M stars, except for bands of
C2, CN, CH.  R and N stars are also called carbon stars.

        S Stars: S-type stars are like M stars, except for bands of zirconium
oxide and lanthanum oxide present with, or addition to, titanium oxide.

        These lesser type stars are extremely rare (estimates of <1000
Wolf-Raynet stars in our Galaxy).

        As for the distribution of stars through space, Near-Sol surveys give a
population of aboput 59 stars within 5pc of Sol.  Extending this out (and the
extension seems to work pretty well) gives an average of one star for every 9
cubic parsecs.

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Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) things sort of died out around here,
which is usual for most electronic discussions (people make great plans for
a few days, get bored, and then move on). Ironically, my threat-in-jest
about ditching Traveller and playing Star Trek turned into a reality in
May of '93 when Tony Hayes handed me the Star Trek PBeM he was running and
basically said, "Take this over or it dies." So, for the past couple years,
Traveller has been sitting on the shelf, gathering dust. However, just
recently a friend asked me to start up a Traveller game, so I figured it
was time to finally update Galactic and see if, perchance, the revised
program (along with the discussion herein) could be useful to anyone.


           _   /|       Jim Vassilakos
           \`o_O'       jimv@empirenet.com
             ( )        jimv@silver.lcs.mit.edu
              U         San Bernardino, California

