Ancient Faith in the Far Future: Planets

Showing posts with label Planets. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Just Get us On the Ground - rules for landing your ship

"Just get us on the ground." - frustrated starship captain

"That part will happen pretty definitely." - his stressed-out pilot

When the PCs arrive in a new system, do they always head for the starport? Why not put down somewhere else instead? There's all kinds of reasons to do this. The barrier between the ship and the land is of course, the atmosphere.

Any time a ship wants to put down on the surface of a planet, the pilot must make the following throw:

To land a ship: Throw UPP Atmosphere code or better. DM +Pilot Skill, + starport DM, -1 per unrepaired hull hit, +2 if small craft, +1 if the pilot is a Scout, -2 if in combat, -1 for bad weather.

Starport DM: Class A +6, Class B +4, Class C +2, Class D/E +0, Class X -4

Landing a ship away from the starport uses the DM for Class X (no port)

Going in reverse, taking off, the planet's gravity is the major barrier.

To take off from a planet surface: Throw the UPP Size code or greater. DM +Pilot skill, +ship's M-drive rating, -1 per unrepaired hull hit.

Familiarity: a pilot must land on a planet [5-pilot skill] times to become familiar with that planet's landing profile. After that, the pilot gains an extra +2 DM.

Unstreamlined ships always suffer a DM of -4. They're not supposed to be operating in atmosphere to begin with.

Failing the throw does not mean the ship automatically crashes. If the throw is not made, then the referee rolls once on the starship or small craft damage table. The referee can allow the pilot's player to 'bump' the roll by the Pilot's skill level. In effect the pilot chooses to spare one component and sacrifice another.

The referee can use the CT tables, or the tables presented in the article “New Space Combat System”. It appeared in Space Gamer issue #40 on pages 6-8.

Hull hits, by the rules, result in explosive decompression. This compromises the ship's vacuum integrity. There is less danger while the ship is in atmosphere. Yet, on some worlds, the concern is that an unpleasant atmosphere will get in! Landing on a world with a high Atmosphere codes is risky.

Damage repair costs 2Dx10% of the new cost of the component. This leads to adventures as the PCs try to raise the cash to fix the ship.

Starship crashes will happen as often as airplane crashes occur on Earth. Planets with tougher landing conditions will have more of them, but no planet will be free of crashes.

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

From Travellers to Rival Lords - more on owning land

In an earlier post I talked about the possibilities of Travellers owning land. Land ownership is definitely a route to High Level Play. Here I want to move that idea forward by discussing the adventure potential of owning a lot of land. Also, what happens when the PC's activity comes to the attention of the planetary government.

Someday, Traveller, all this shall be yours.

I use the term sub-state to refer to any organized territory that is not part of or obedient to the planetary government (hereafter I use the abbreviation PG). For those who are interested, here is a summary list of what any state actually does.

Ten Functions of the State

1. The Rule of Law
2. Monopoly on the legitimate means of violence
3. Administrative control
4. Sound management of public finances
5. Investments in human capital
6. Creation of citizenship rights through social policy
7. Provision of infrastructure services
8. Formation of a market
9. Management of public assets
10. Effective public borrowing

taken from Fixing Failed States by Ghani & Lockhart

Why do sub-states exist? And why should Travellers get involved?

I have said to my sons many times “everything is complicated”. The factors that allow ungoverned spaces to exist are many and varied. In simple summary, any PG has limited resources. Those resources have to enable the governance of all the PG’s territory - the carrying out of the ten functions listed above. Sometimes there’s not enough to go around. The PG combines reasons of 'can't spend resources’ and 'won't spend resources’. The Referee has to decide how effective is the PG at running its own territories.

Sub-states are quite common in Hotlzmann's Corridor, given the low world populations and lower Tech Levels than in the Empire.

How will a PG respond to the presence of a sub-state? It will depend a great deal on the activity of the sub-state. Is it competing with the PG for resources or off-world trade? Is it seeking cooperation or alliance? Is the sub-state engaging in or supporting rebellion against the PG?

The PG has three general categories of response:

O Give Me a Home - Acquiring land in Traveller

I was wondering recently. What does it cost in Traveller to own land? The concept is not addressed in The Traveller Book. The underlying assumption of PCs forever on the move explains this absence. When the Third Imperium came along, the galaxy gained a social structure, and introduced the possibility of PCs owning land.

Land ownership can integrate with the concept of Traveller. It means that the wandering PCs are not aimless. They have a place to return to. Everyone is from somewhere. For most folk, where someone comes from is a major factor in their identity and sense of self. Where do I belong? is not a frivolous question.

I've mentioned before in Character Experience and Development that PCs might gain land as a reward. If the PCs do some thrilling heroics and save the town/city/planet, that piece of prime real estate makes sense. You've endeared yourself to the local populace. They want you to feel that you're a part of them now, by owning part of where they live.

Welcome home!

Once the homestead is official, if the PCs get involved with that, the property should start paying for itself. Land is a resource for making money. Grow food, extract resources and then sell it, or rent it out to someone who does those things. Or rent it out as living space. Referees can make adventures out of any of these options.

How much room is there on a planet?

Talavera, the capital of the Empire of my Church and Empire setting, is a large planet with vast oceans. The UPP is A-969835-F, and 947 million people. But how much room do they actually have for a billion people?

Size 9: 9,000 mile diameter

Hydro 9: 90% of the planet is oceans

I had an initial idea of a densely populated island, where the buildings reach high into the sky to make room for nearly a billion people.

Then I did some math. What I found was, to say the least, not that dramatic.

Talavera has 25,446,900 square miles of land area. Spread 947,000,000 people over that and you get a population density of 37.215 ppl/mi^2.

According to this table of population densities of countries, that's less than Norway or Sweden. Neither are the sorts of places you think of when you think of dense populations. China, at 378 ppl/mi^2 is ten times denser. 25 million square miles is several times the size of Russia.

I did up a table to compute the square miles of surface area on planets in Traveller. By taking the Size code and cross-referencing with the Hydrographics code, you can find the land area of any planet of normal parameters. It may be water, it may be ice, it can be some other kind of liquid.

Here is a sample of the table, including a few Earth examples for comparison. The entire table, in MS Excel format, is available here. The long and short of it is this: any planet is going to have plenty of room for exploration, or to hide something or someone. Even a Size-2 planet with Hydro-5 has space near to the size of Russia to work with.

Of this area, only a scant percentage is going to be inhabited, unless A) the population is in the Billions or above and B) most of the planet is covered by liquid or ice. A planet with only a few million people is going to be 90+% uninhabited.

What might go on in the frontier areas of a lightly populated world? Possibly a lot. Share your ideas in the comments.

Size Code	Diameter	Radius	Total Area	Hydrographic-5
0	500.0	250.0	785,398.2	392,699.1
1	1,000.0	500.0	3,141,592.7	1,570,796.4
2	2,000.0	1,000.0	12,566,370.8	6,283,185.4
3	3,000.0	1,500.0	28,274,334.3	14,137,167.2
4	4,000.0	2,000.0	50,265,483.2	25,132,741.6
5	5,000.0	2,500.0	78,539,817.5	39,269,908.8
6	6,000.0	3,000.0	113,097,337.2	56,548,668.6
7	7,000.0	3,500.0	153,938,042.3	76,969,021.2
8	8,000.0	4,000.0	201,061,932.8	100,530,966.4
9	9,000.0	4,500.0	254,469,008.7	127,234,504.4
10 (A)	10,000.0	5,000.0	314,159,270.0	157,079,635.0


Russia			6,601,670
China			3,600,950
Canada			3,511,023
USA			3,531,925
Brazil			3,266,584
Australia			2,947,336

Texas			261,231
California			155,779
New York			47,126

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Play Report - Mission on Mithril

Finally, after 38 years.

A Mission on Mithril Play Report

While my elder son was home on leave from the Air Force (Flyers, term 1) we got in a little Traveller. With his time at home limited, we opted for a standalone adventure rather than launching a new campaign. What better time to go ad fontes (back to the sources)? At their request, I pulled down Mission on Mithril.

MoM may seem like a very 'linear' adventure. On inspection it has enough variety & flexibility that you could run it over and over, with a different adventure each time.

The general layout of the adventure is this: a small Scout ship crew are stranded on Mithril in the Sword Worlds. Mithril is cold, as in arctic cold, and almost uninhabited. The Class E starport does not draw much traffic, so the chance of beneficial starship encounters is low.

Their ship has a malfunction which prevents them from jumping out-system.

Social Standing and Class Consciousness

It seems that I am on a quest to make Social Standing a more important aspect of Traveller. Not sure why this is. I tend to play and write more plot-heavy and action-driven games, and have never gotten a PC into a 'comedy of manners' type situation. Pride and Prejudice is a great novel, but not a good model to base a Science Fiction adventure upon. (If you think I'm wrong, please do comment and explain your idea.) But as I look back across my now five years of writing posts for this blog, I see that I've spent some time trying to integrate Social Standing (SOC) into my favorite game.

Some players may consider SOC a 'dump stat'. I don't. I think it deserves its place in the UPP, because it can tell a player some interesting things about the PC. In the hands of an experienced player, SOC can be a useful tool in the arsenal for getting things done.

What's All This About Class Consciousness?

I assume in my TU that each planet has a mostly unified culture, even if the governments are not unified. There is not one monolithic 'Galactic Culture' or even an 'Imperial Culture'. Planets are like islands. Most residents don't ever leave, and don't ever interact directly with folks from somewhere else. This results in planet-based cultures.

Some cultures rate highly on what is known as the 'Power Distance' scale. These are socially stratified or 'class conscious' cultures. It matters what class you come from, and you stick with 'your people'.

Asteroid Visualization - Bennu

I have followed with great interest the OSIRIS-REx Mission to Asteroid Bennu (1999 RQ36), discovered twenty years ago this month! The next step in its exploration is to attempt a landing of the O-R spacecraft on it's rocky surface. It's a microgravity environment, and a challenging operation to conduct remotely.

Best of luck to the NASA team that's running this mission.

What could a space-faring Traveller find by landing on such a small object? What degree of difficulty would there be for the Pilot? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Around My TU - Brocadia

In other posts I have shared my Holtzmann's Corridor subsector, where my monthly game group is playing. Here's a planet from another part of my TU, the ~~Weitzlar subsector~~ Glorious Empire Subsector. This region is where I'm trying out some concepts and running some characters solo, without it having an impact on the main gaming group.

Here I present Brocadia, a world of that subsector, that has a few interesting features and I hope a number of adventure possibilities. Enjoy.

0108 Brocadia B-772639-10
Kingdom of Brocadia. Current monarch: Wilhelm XI. Maintains control through a large and effective secret police service.

Tags: police state, freak geology

Gravitational Effects and Combat

John Carter is considered to be the greatest swordsman on Barsoom (Mars). This is in part due to his extensive skill (even he doesn't know how long he's been practicing arms) but in another part due to his relatively high strength. His muscles are used to Earth gravity, so while on Mars he has a distinct advantage. In my short story Just Across Town, the protagonists' off-world physique both helped and hindered them – they were stronger than the locals, but unused to the lower air pressure and oxygen levels.

The Gravitational Effects Table (ST Charts book, p. 5) says that you can carry or lift more when on a lower-gravity planet. In the table, the difference is expressed as a percentage of standard carrying capacity. The standard load is 1kg of weight for each STR point. So a person of 'typical' strength can carry 7 kg worth of gear before being 'encumbered'. Lower gravity means you can carry more without penalty.

It seems reasonable then, that such changes can also be expressed as an effective change in STR score. Multiply the base STR by the load percentage and round up. This becomes the effective STR while on the low-gravity planet. This in turn will have an effect on a character's ability to fight with melee weapons.

For example, Bruce, an NPC character has STR 6 and Blade-1. He avoids the -DM for STR, so his total DM is +1 (from his skill). When Bruce visits a size 4 world (150% load) his effective strength is [6 x 1.50=9] 9. Now, the Advantageous STR score for Blade is 9, so as long as Bruce remains on this lower-gravity world, his effective DM when fighting with a Blade is +2.

If Bruce visits a heavy-gravity world of size A (75% load) his effective strength is [6 x 0.75=4.5] 5, which may mean he incurs the -2 DM for required strength.

The gravity effect should not reflect a character's ability to absorb injury, however. This only effects muscle power's interaction with local gravity.

This requires little math to calculate, while adding a layer of reality that can influence player decisions. Mercenaries or explorers might be reluctant to take jobs on heavy-gravity worlds because of the drag on their abilities. Variables like gravity and air pressure give worlds their character and flavor, and keep them distinct.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Secret Police forces in Traveller Governments

The KGB & FSB.
The Gestapo, the SS, the Stasi.
SMERSH (James Bond and Real Life)
The “Office of State Security” in the People's Republic of Haven (Honor Harrington novels).
S.H.I.E.L.D. (Marvel comics universe).
U.N.C.L.E. (as in The Man From).
Torchwood from Doctor Who.
The Galactic Empire's Imperial Security Bureau.
Babylon 5's Nightwatch and Psi Corps.
Firefly's Blue Hands Men and the Operatives of the Alliance.
1984's Thought Police. 'Nuff said.

What do all these groups have in common? They're Secret Police forces.

What are Secret Police?
The Columbia Encyclopedia defines secret police as a “Policing organization operating in secrecy for the political purposes of its government, often with terroristic procedures.”

They exist to protect the security of the state from conspiracies or revolutions. They are distinct from conventional police in that they operate out of uniform and often with little or no over government oversight. Secret Police forces often have power to act extra-legally, and authority to over-rule conventional police.
In some states the Secret Police (SP) reports only to the chief executive or someone near him. In these cases, the normal legislator or jurist may be unaware of their activities or even their existence.

Shaking Up my Traveller Universe

One of the more enjoyable aspects of creating your own Traveller Universe is that you can change it if you want.

Back in 1997, when I first began to sketch out the map that would become my TU, I left everything to the roll of the dice. Book 3 showed me the procedure, and I followed it verbatim. All the star nations that inhabit my TU do so because they were adjoining one another on the map as I rolled for the presence of systems.

Was that wrong? No, I do not believe that it was wrong. But it was short on imagination. I had missed out on one of the more important rules – as the Referee I had final say in how my TU took shape.

Looking Back to the Beginning, Heading for the Future

Here's a scan of my original map, about six subsectors worth, on a sheet of graph paper. Compare this with the map of my TU now, and you can see it still lines up. I had forgotten that what is now the Talaveran Empire, and my most developed star nation, I first called the Star Kingdom of Adair.


You'll have to blow it up to see much of anything. Sorry.

Before long I began color-coding the planets, and the various star nations took shape.

The Frontier is closer than you think - exploring a solar system

I want to expand my idea from an earlier post on Ungoverned Space or UGS, to see what could be made of it in a Traveller setting. Much to my delight, I found that Book 6, Scouts, gives some canon rules for the little bitty worlds, which I will refer to as subordinate worlds, that populate solar systems, but reside in the shadow of the main world. What I've got here is not a systematic review of Book 6, but a collection of thoughts and impressions based on my reading. You can pick up Book 6 from DrivethruRPG, and it's not even that expensive.

From Book 6: Subordinate governments are the “small, relatively powerless governments which can exist off of the main world”. Exactly. Just the sort of setup where mercenaries, PC parties, and TAS Wardens are needed.

Subordinate worlds are by canon “small [and] relatively powerless” but they can “wield great power on their own territory”. Well that's great, but however much power a mining outpost may have within its own mine shafts, the rest of the planet(oid) is still going to be ungoverned space. The miners are there to mine, not to be a territory holding civil government.

“Relatively powerless” - what does this mean? To me it means that the government may not have a potent police force or military to enforce its will and keep the peace; therefore individual residents are more likely to have whatever guns are available. TL 8 may not be able to produce laser weapons, but surely even a small settlement can stamp out some rifles & SMGs. Take a look at the anti-Nazi Underground during WWII.

The subordinate world tech level is the Main TL-1, again illustrating that the frontier is not as well developed as the mainworld. The subordinate world may be dependent on imports from home to supply local needs.

All of this presents a setting of isolated groups of people with limited resources & limited zones of control. In other words, prime locations for adventure!

New Horizons spacecraft first photo of Pluto

From NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 15, 2015:

New Horizons has survived its close encounter with Pluto and has resumed sending back images and data. The robotic spacecraft reported back on time, with all systems working, and with the expected volume of data stored. Featured here is the highest resolution image of Pluto taken before closest approach, an image that really brings Pluto into a satisfying focus. At first glance, Pluto is reddish and has several craters. Toward the image bottom is a surprisingly featureless light-covered region that resembles an iconic heart, and mountainous terrain appears on the lower right. This image, however, is only the beginning. As more images and data pour in today, during the coming week, and over the next year, humanity's understanding of Pluto and its moons will likely become revolutionized.

The Heavens declare the Glory of God

Pluto X-110000-0

Ancient Faith in the Far Future

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Just Get us On the Ground - rules for landing your ship

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

From Travellers to Rival Lords - more on owning land

Why do sub-states exist? And why should Travellers get involved?

The PG has three general categories of response:

Thursday, March 10, 2022

O Give Me a Home - Acquiring land in Traveller

Friday, January 15, 2021

How much room is there on a planet?

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Play Report - Mission on Mithril

Monday, September 16, 2019

Social Standing and Class Consciousness

What's All This About Class Consciousness?

Friday, September 13, 2019

Asteroid Visualization - Bennu

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Around My TU - Brocadia

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Gravitational Effects and Combat

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Secret Police forces in Traveller Governments

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Shaking Up my Traveller Universe

Looking Back to the Beginning, Heading for the Future

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

The Frontier is closer than you think - exploring a solar system

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

New Horizons spacecraft first photo of Pluto

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Why do sub-states exist? And why should Travellers get involved?

The PG has three general categories of response:

Thursday, March 10, 2022

Friday, January 15, 2021

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Monday, September 16, 2019

What's All This About Class Consciousness?

Friday, September 13, 2019

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Looking Back to the Beginning, Heading for the Future

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

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