Hacking TL

[Stattick]

Sorry, this has probably been covered before, I just can't find the threads.

Anyhow, sysgen seems to create a high number of impossible systems. Systems with poisonous atmospheres with a TL 4, or a size 0 and a TL 3 for instance.

I'd like to see what others are doing to dial UP the TL to accomodate the other sys stats that were rolled up.

 

[EDG]

Did you get the Environmental TL limits table from the corebook yet? That should remove all those "impossible tech" systems. If the TL is lower than that limit for a world, then raise it to equal that limit.

As a rule of thumb, if it's atm 0, 1, or A then the minimum TL is 8.

 

[Stattick]

Did you get the Environmental TL limits table from the corebook yet? That should remove all those "impossible tech" systems. If the TL is lower than that limit for a world, then raise it to equal that limit.

As a rule of thumb, if it's atm 0, 1, or A then the minimum TL is 8.

Ah... no. I'll have to wait until I get paid on Fri then for that then. I signed up for my college classes, and they demanded tuition payment right at that exact moment. So the money that I had set aside for getting the core went to my school instead. Used to be that you had a couple of weeks to pay for tuition in this area. I guess they don't do that anymore. Hmph, school used to be fairly affordable too. :roll:

 

[GypsyComet]

In the case of the exotic atmospheres, the population can be lower tech if they are native. It isn't that the worlds are "impossible" in some cases, but that they are not "humanly possible". There is a difference.

 

[EDG]

True, but (a) advanced life under exotic atmospheres ought to be pretty darn rare and (b) the atmosphere itself may prevent any life from being that advanced in the first place (if there's no oxygen, fire is somewhat out of the question).

But yes, the minimum TL does assume we're talking about humans (or life similar to humans).

 

[Woas]

Perhaps I am recalling the wrong info, but isn't the TL<-->Atmosphere base limit chart free in one of errata files?

 

[Stattick]

Soo... Just going through all the planets "rolled up" for my sector (actually auto gen'ed on a spreadsheet I made) and manually checking that the TL looks right. :roll:

I already found a frozen world with a thin tainted atmosphere with a population of A and TL of 0...

 

[rust]

I already found a frozen world with a thin tainted atmosphere with a population of A and TL of 0...

Penguins. Very clever penguins, uplifted by Grandfather. Use tools made
of ice to build tiny igloos. :lol:

 

[GypsyComet]

Thin tainted (Atmo 4) is doable by humans at TL0 with some selective adaption (depending on the taint), though 60 BILLION people would seem to stretch that a bit. Very thin tainted (Atmo 2) isn't adaptable without a bit of help from GenAssist.

 

[Stattick]

So, I've got all of my TL 0's done. Working on my TL 1's now. I found a fun little world:

C5727A9 5

It was labeled as "Hot", as in 31-80 C. I bumped the TL to 5, dropped the population, and called it Shā Qiū, which is Chinese for Sand Dune. My little homage to Arrakis.

 

[EDG]

That's a point actually - Freezing and Roasting worlds will need a minimum TL too (they're beyond natural human tolerance).

 

[Stattick]

That's a point actually - Freezing and Roasting worlds will need a minimum TL too (they're beyond natural human tolerance).

Agreed. However, "icy" or "hot" worlds should be inhabitable with minimal tech, at a tribal level with cultural adaptations... probably more tech would be required for the "hot" worlds. I would have put the tech level higher on the world above, but I was specifically going for a "Dune" like vibe. I think that TL 5 would be able to create something like a stillsuit. I imagine just a couple of polar cities, and the rest of the population living much like the freemen did, in the deep caves, and active mostly at night.

Indigenous peoples in arctic regions get by just fine on Earth, which I believe would be in the same temp region as an "icy" world. The Sahara can reach 50+ C which doesn't quite get to the searing 80 C. So although there are cultures on Earth that have adapted to the worst deserts we have, there just aren't places here that hit the kind of temps on "hot" worlds (much less the "boiling" worlds).

 

[EDG]

Yep, that's why I specified only Roasting and Freezing worlds .

Do the cultures that live in the coldest and hottest parts of the world actually stay there though? I thought most of them were nomadic, or just passing through? (actually I guess that's more true for the deserts than the polar regions).

 

[Stattick]

If a world has a 0 for atmosphere, should that automatically reset the hydro to 0?


Hmm... I'm not really sure how that would work. Comets are essentially "dirty snowballs", but you can see what happens to them when the get into the inner solar system. It seems to me that water on an airless world would evaporate and be pushed away from the planet by the solar winds... But maybe a world's gravity can overcome it? I dunno... it doesn't keep hydrogen from floating off Earth. (I think I'm a little out of my depth.)

 

[Stattick]

Yep, that's why I specified only Roasting and Freezing worlds .

Do the cultures that live in the coldest and hottest parts of the world actually stay there though? I thought most of them were nomadic, or just passing through? (actually I guess that's more true for the deserts than the polar regions).

I'm not familiar w/ all arctic cultures by any means, but I do think that most of them stay pretty much in the arctic year round. They are generally hunter-gatherers, so they're nomadic by default, but they do not migrate south for the winter like birds do or anything like that. Most of them stay pretty close to the sea, where they can hunt sea mammals and fish. Some of the crazy guys kayak across the Bering straight regularly, so they can visit relatives on the other continent. When you think about it, they're pretty hard core.

EDIT: Oh, forgot about the desert peoples... Again, most of them are nomadic hunter-gatherers in those extreme areas, but they don't really ever leave the area. Nomadic is a misnomer in how most people think about it anyway. It isn't randomly wandering, but rather having certain spots to make camp in different times of the year. For instance, when game is scarce, nomadic peoples will be in small bands scattered over a very wide area (winter in most areas), and when it is abundant, the whole tribe may come all together for a few weeks once a year (thousands and thousands of them, say how the Dakota/Lakota Amerindians of N America did during the highest point of Buffolo hunting season. Hell, I think that the Dakota even had a few of their neighboring tribes that they were friendly with join them...)

 

[EDG]

If a world has a 0 for atmosphere, should that automatically reset the hydro to 0?

No, but IIRC there's a -4 DM to Hydrographics if they're atm 0.

That's a bit of a can of worms though, because in the outer system almost all solid worlds are effectively hydrographics A because their surfaces are made entirely of ice. (Europa and Ganymede in our own system would count as such, as would Titan. Though Titan also has liquid methane lakes and an atmosphere too). So really they should be hydro A, with a trade code of Ice-capped (Ic).

But you're right, you won't have liquid water unless you have an atmosphere. Ice (i.e. solid water) is still a valid option though.

 

[Stattick]

If a world has a 0 for atmosphere, should that automatically reset the hydro to 0?

No, but IIRC there's a -4 DM to Hydrographics if they're atm 0.

Yeah, the playtest had a -4 DM to hydro that I accounted for on the spreadsheet.

That's a bit of a can of worms though, because in the outer system almost all solid worlds are effectively hydrographics A because their surfaces are made entirely of ice. (Europa and Ganymede in our own system would count as such, as would Titan. Though Titan also has liquid methane lakes and an atmosphere too). So really they should be hydro A, with a trade code of Ice-capped (Ic).

But you're right, you won't have liquid water unless you have an atmosphere. Ice (i.e. solid water) is still a valid option though.

Ok, thanks for the info. I'll leave it as is then. I forgot about the icy planets. :roll: Astronomy and planetology aren't my strongest suites. So I'll probably have more ignorant questions in the future. But I'll probably only have to ask them once. :lol:

 

[Shiloh]

I think that TL 5 would be able to create something like a stillsuit.

I think that's a little optimistic, since our TL7/8 hasn't managed it yet.

 

[tneva82]

One solution to this issue is simply to treat TL as what they can produce. Not what technology they have in use. That's what we do.

So low TL means just that they don't have resources to produce high TL stuff. They might very well live in very advanced building complex but which has been imported in.

Works for us.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Remember that in the TMB, the mainworld is generally assumed to be in the habitable zone.

Icy outer worlds are not really covered in the "random" generation method provided in the books.

A world in the habitable zone of a star will not be ice covered like Europa. It will either have an atmosphere or no water or (occasionally) polar caps.

That is what the Ice Capped Trade Code means (IMO). Ice Capped in the habitable zone (or close to it).

Roasting is just inside the habitable zone (like Venus) and Freezing is just outside the habitable zone (like Mars). Farther out is not really detailed yet in Mongoose Traveller.