"Imperial" demographics

[rinku]

This came up in another thread re an assertion that most Imperial subjects are on high tech planets. This is sortof true, in that high population, high tech planets are the most *important* ones, and the Imperial core is expected to have higher populations than the frontier, but the numbers deserve a bit more scrutiny.

Disclaimer: This is all stats! Anything actually showing on your actual starmap trumps this big time! Local conditions beat abstract general ones!

Okay, using the default planet generation rules, the average population digit is about 9. To be precise, multiplying the chance of a population code by the actual value of that code by an average population multiplier of 5 and summing the results for all population codes gives an average world population of 1,714,674,211.25.

So let's not hear any more guff that "most people come from population 10 planets". It just isn't true.

Secondly, starport type is independant of population under the standard rules. This means that that *big* tech level bonus is as likely to fall on a low population world as a high one. The average chance of a tech level add from a starport works out to be +1.55; adding the average roll of a D6 of 3.5 and the average population modifier of +1 will result in an average tech level of about 6. Because there is a fair chance of an extra plus from planet size or atmosphere, I'd put that up to 7. 8 if you are feeling generous.

So... it is fair to say that most people in the Imperium live on pre-stellar worlds. Certainly in those parts of it that are generated using the standard world generation rules.

 

[Blix]

Okay, using the default planet generation rules, the average population digit is about 9.

How do you arrive at that? You roll 2d6-2 for population, the average of 2d6 is 7, so the average population digit for planets should be 5.

 

[locarno24]

Using an unmodified roll on the population table (which obviously gets tweaked if you use hard sci-fi)


Odds of getting the following population codes:

0-3%
1-6%
2-8%
3-11%
4-14%
5-17%
6-14%
7-11%
8-8%
9-6%
10-3%


This is a basic 2d6 spread, and as you said, 5 is the most common population digit.

BUT!

Each digit represents a certain amount of people per planet.
Assuming each planet averages about half the range (i.e. a code 5, of more than 100,000 people less than 1,000,000 people, has about 500,000 inhabitents), then across a region of 100 planets there will be roughly the following number of inhabitents:

0-0 (obviously) across 3 planets
1-280 across 6 planets
2-4,600 across 8 planets
3-61,000 across 11 planets
4-760,000 across 14 planets
5-9,200,000 across 17 planets
6-76,000,000 across 14 planets
7-610,000,000 across 11 planets
8-4,600,000,000 across 8 planets
9-31,000,000,000 across 6 planets
10-28,000,000,000 across 3 planets

As a result, the most common result (if you just randomly pick a person out of the region's population) is that they will be from a code 9 planet. If you combine code 9 and code 10, you have over 90% of the region's population, since there's only about 5 billion people on all the lower code planets combined...

 

[rinku]

I found it less confusing (and to avoid round offs) to avoid percentages and just work directly with chances out of 36, but locarno64's table is essentially what I worked out.

Regina is a good subsector to see all this in action; Rethe is the only pop-10 planet (Starport E, TL8), while Efate (A, TL13), Menorb (C, TL7), Ruie (C, TL7), Roup (C, TL6), Enope (C, TL6) and Algine (X, TL4) are the pop-9 planets. The VAST majority of Regina subsector's population are pre-stellar, even though 13 of the 32 worlds are stellar plus.

 

[DFW]

As a result, the most common result (if you just randomly pick a person out of the region's population) is that they will be from a code 9 planet. If you combine code 9 and code 10, you have over 90% of the region's population, since there's only about 5 billion people on all the lower code planets combined...

Right, for instance, in the Trin’s Veil Subsector most of the population come from High pop worlds. Most of the population in that subsector is TL 15.

 

[rinku]

Well, even with Trin, the population multiple cf.Imperial Encyclopedia is only 1. Same goes for Mora (the other pop-10, TL15 planet in the sector). They're not actually quite as big as their raw code implies (though with only one pop-9 and one pop-8 planet in Trin's Veil subsector, you are correct that the 10,000,000,000 inhabitants of Trin are in the majority in Trin's Veil ahead of the 4,000,000,000 tech 7 ones on Dodds and the 900,000,000 tech 11 ones on Edenelt. Approximately 2 out of 3 people in Trin's Veil live in Trin.)

I would not, however, overstate Trin's influence on the Marches as a whole. It's far from the spinward main (seperated by three J-2 gaps in both directions) and between it and the rest of the sector lie Mora (pop 10,000,000,000) in one direction and Glisten (pop 8,000,000,000) in the other, so it's competing with better placed TL15 worlds in all respects - Mora supplies the main, while Glisten supplies the frontier. Rhylanor (pop 8,000,000,000) would have a lot of influence spinward/coreward, though it's not Industrial like Mora or Trin.

 

[DFW]

I would not, however, overstate Trin's influence on the Marches as a whole. ...

Right. I'm just stating at what TL the majority of people live at in the Trin's Veil subsector.

 

[rinku]

Oh yah. Just running with the thought.

For the record, according to the same source, the two most populous planets in the Marches are Junidy/Aramis and Rethe/Regina at 30,000,000,000 each. I suspect the population codes for the important planets were assigned rather than rolled, since so many of the pop-10 planets are pop multiple 1 or 2, but there's nothing wrong with that. (Many other parts of the Marches are obviously designed, such as the Sword Worlds and the Spinward Main itself).

Just noticed that MGT has slightly altered the population code table too. On theirs pop-0 is *no* inhabitants, with pop code 1 representing 1-99 inhabitants. This would alter my original calculation slightly but not in any meaningful way.

 

[Blix]

I think I heard that a lot of the two main official sectors (Spinward Marches and Solomani Rim) were not created using standard rules or at least were heavily manipulated afterwards. So it may not be a good idea to rely on them for data like this - just look at the statistics that you would get from the die rolls themselves.

 

[DFW]

I suspect the population codes for the important planets were assigned rather than rolled, since so many of the pop-10 planets are pop multiple 1 or 2,

I suspect you're right. Odds are against what is in there. I'm currently working on a new UWP system/table that more logically figures Gov, Law & TL on human worlds.

 

[rinku]

However, since the Spinward Marches ARE a frontier sector, I can understand Marc Miller (and I'm fairly certain it WAS him) putting a cap on absolute population. Or at least on certain key worlds.

No, I'd not use the Marches as an indication of the demographics of other sectors, though they may be indicative of some other frontier sectors. But you won't be able to use the system generation rules to generate the Imperial core without manual intervention, either.

 

[DFW]

However, since the Spinward Marches ARE a frontier sector, I can understand Marc Miller (and I'm fairly certain it WAS him) putting a cap on absolute population. Or at least on certain key worlds.

No, I'd not use the Marches as an indication of the demographics of other sectors, though they may be indicative of some other frontier sectors. But you won't be able to use the system generation rules to generate the Imperial core without manual intervention, either.

I had forgotten about this site, found it again: http://traveller.mu.org/archive/General/WorldBuildersDeluxeSectors_MegaTraveller/

See if you can make sense out of this one. Let me know. http://traveller.mu.org/archive/General/population.of.Imperium.txt

 

[Cryton]

If your looking for a great map of charted space compleet with the uwp of ALL the systems try this link: http://www.travellermap.com/

I believe all the stats are accurate for 1105.

 

[DFW]

If your looking for a great map of charted space compleet with the uwp of ALL the systems try this link: http://www.travellermap.com/

I believe all the stats are accurate for 1105.

Thanks, I have this one bookmarked. Great site.

 

[Cryton]

No probs.

 

[rinku]

See if you can make sense out of this one. Let me know. http://traveller.mu.org/archive/General/population.of.Imperium.txt

Well, clearly it does show that the default system generation rules *don't* hold across the general imperium, since it indicates a higher frequency of high population and high tech worlds than can be generated by them statistically.

It doesn't break down starport/tech by sector, but I'd expect that the skew is caused by the older, more developed sectors. Interesting to see that there are nearly a trillion people living on 76 TL16 worlds, too, though it doesn't say how many of these are outside of the imperium (Darrian accounts for only 2 billion of these). That figure alone makes me a little skeptical, since that equates to an entire *populous* sector. Having said that, you can't roll up TL16 with less than +10 TL modifiers, so the +2 for pop-A will be almost required...

There is a list of gross population by sector; Solomani Rim tops the list at 1.69 trillion, with Spinward Marches listed at 436.8 billion.

This would reinforce my feeling that the standard random world generation system is expected to produce worlds for frontier regions.

 

[DFW]

See if you can make sense out of this one. Let me know. http://traveller.mu.org/archive/General/population.of.Imperium.txt

Well, clearly it does show that the default system generation rules *don't* hold across the general imperium, since it indicates a higher frequency of high population and high tech worlds than can be generated by them statistically.

It doesn't break down starport/tech by sector, but I'd expect that the skew is caused by the older, more developed sectors. Interesting to see that there are nearly a trillion people living on 76 TL16 worlds, too, though it doesn't say how many of these are outside of the imperium (Darrian accounts for only 2 billion of these). That figure alone makes me a little skeptical, since that equates to an entire *populous* sector. Having said that, you can't roll up TL16 with less than +10 TL modifiers, so the +2 for pop-A will be almost required...

There is a list of gross population by sector; Solomani Rim tops the list at 1.69 trillion, with Spinward Marches listed at 436.8 billion.

This would reinforce my feeling that the standard random world generation system is expected to produce worlds for frontier regions.

I think you're right about the default generation system. Interesting about the TL 16 pop requirement. IRL, the U.S. lead in TL and didn't have the highest pop, by a long way. Throw in other very high tech EU countries and you can see that this requirement isn't based on known data.

 

[rinku]

Well, low population worlds can generate TL16 too, they just need an extra +1 from somewhere compared to pop-10 ones. On the flip side, a pop-5 world *is* more likely to generate government 0 or 5 than pop-10, while government type D (-2 TL) is more commonly generated by pop-10 than any other population code (I ignore the MGT +2 for Gov 7, since the stats we are discussing didn't use that rule).

But they'll be swallowed on that table by the big boys.

@Real Life: You can't take the current tech vs population situation and use that to critique the Traveller system, really. Part of TL involves a D6 roll, so it's perfectly feasable to have China (pop 9, TL7) the USA (pop 8, TL8), India (pop 9, TL6) and Germany (pop 7, TL8). Traveller assumes much different ground rules than apply here - technically Earth is government 7, population 9 and the tech level mod (MGT rules) would be +3, meaning we rolled a 5. You could even make a case that we have a starport C if you take into account out overall spacefaring capacity (though D seems more likely).

 

[DFW]

Well, low population worlds can generate TL16 too, they just need an extra +1 from somewhere compared to pop-10 ones. On the flip side, a pop-5 world *is* more likely to generate government 0 or 5 than pop-10, while government type D (-2 TL) is more commonly generated by pop-10 than any other population code (I ignore the MGT +2 for Gov 7, since the stats we are discussing didn't use that rule).

In my game, Gov 8+ gets penalties to TL from -1 through -3. I also ignore the bonus for 7. It isn't actually a gov type at all.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

See if you can make sense out of this one. Let me know. http://traveller.mu.org/archive/General/population.of.Imperium.txt

Well, clearly it does show that the default system generation rules *don't* hold across the general imperium, since it indicates a higher frequency of high population and high tech worlds than can be generated by them statistically.

It doesn't break down starport/tech by sector, but I'd expect that the skew is caused by the older, more developed sectors. Interesting to see that there are nearly a trillion people living on 76 TL16 worlds, too, though it doesn't say how many of these are outside of the imperium (Darrian accounts for only 2 billion of these). That figure alone makes me a little skeptical, since that equates to an entire *populous* sector. Having said that, you can't roll up TL16 with less than +10 TL modifiers, so the +2 for pop-A will be almost required...

There is a list of gross population by sector; Solomani Rim tops the list at 1.69 trillion, with Spinward Marches listed at 436.8 billion.

This would reinforce my feeling that the standard random world generation system is expected to produce worlds for frontier regions.

Most of the map data you are looking at (and the Missouri Archive stuff) used the CT rules for determining TL. MGT uses slightly different modifiers, so there will be some differences.

Most notably are the DMs for Population.

In CT, Pop 9 got a +2 DM and Pop A got a +4 DM.
In MGT, Pop 9 gets a +1 DM, Pop A gets a +2 DM and you now have Pop B and C worlds (Referee created only) for those +3 and +4 DMs.

So, all the CT stuff will generate a 1 or 2 TL higher result for the same UWP at those high population levels. So many of those TL 16 worlds will become TL 14 under MGT.

So in many ways trying to compare the MGT results with the old CT/MT/TNE results won't work directly.