Congratulations on Traveller!

[Lazy Wombat]

My personal preference is to leave UWPs in as a simple means of expressing a planet's stats in a concise manner. There's no reason why additional information on a planet can't be added. Keep in mind too that the original UWP had ties into the animal generation and trade rules as well. Keeping the expression of stats simple promotes interoperability between these different aspects of the rules.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Well the trade rules have always been bust - more info in the UWP could only help both of those issues.

For instance, why when you're buying goods from an ag world you roll up computers and goods from an industrial world become furs & skins. Type of cargo needs to be tied into type of world.

Similarly with animals, the kind of biosphere will dictate the kind of creatures permitted; the more bio-diverse the better chance for the higher animals, etc etc.

Regarding info design, if we break the UWPs into 3 digit chunks, it solves alot of the problems with the 6 digit string.

With 3 numbers it is easy to differentiate between them, one is obviously on the right, in the middle, etc. With 6 numbers, the third and fourth in particular are vulnerable to getting mixed up. This sis something that may have contributed in the past to errors in supplements, as the writers/editors/proofreaders get them confused. It is easy to do, and almost impossible to spot when it's happened.

That would then correspond with any further additional factors, such as PGP, or Climate/Resources/Biosphere etc.

So a standard UWP would look like this:

A 765 748 8

 

[far-trader]

...a standard UWP would look like this:

A 765 748 8

That's actually one of the better ideas I've seen suggested in a long time.

I'd stick a dash between just to be clear, like this:

A-765-748-8

And I'd like to expand on the idea. Note that (ignoring starport and TL which are special) it is broken naturally into "physical" (size, atm, hyd) and "social" (pop, gov, law). I've always mentally made this association but actually breaking it down and noting it that way looks good and feels right. And it is still the classic Traveller UWP so no grognard should complain (this one isn't ).

The same idea might be applied to any further expansion of the UWP. Though I'd suggest it not be tagged on, making a longer UWP (too much like HG USP) but a separate block.

Just some more thoughts on it.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

It might be helpful having descriptors at the top of the columns. Thats already normal for PBG.

S SAH PGL T B etc.

Further descriptors would have to come after the trade codes, most likely, but before the PBG.

What about the trade codes? Worth an overhaul?

 

[pasuuli]

What about the trade codes? Worth an overhaul?

Being done, from what I hear.

 

[EDG]

It'd be really nice to toss the old trade codes out of the window, they're pretty useless and daft. (yeah, so the only time you're ever going to have an industrial world is if it's got a tainted or unbreathable atmosphere and more than a billion people on it, right...).

Plus the Rich/Poor classification is nonsensical, arbitrary, and inconsistent (like much of CT, come to think of it!) - it's supposed to be a description of natural resources, yet while Poor worlds are defined based solely on Atm and Hydro, Rich worlds are defined based on Atm, Pop, and Gov.

Not sure if Mongoose would be able to change them a lot though since they still presumably have to be compatible with older Traveller stuff.

 

[far-trader]

It looks like T5 is pretty much the same as CT far as trade code determination, but there are a lot more trade codes. That's just from a quick glance at a draft page though so it may be I'm wrong.