Justifying Starport Class
- Thread starter Balfuset790
- Start date
Balfuset790
Mongoose
GypsyComet said:
Maybe, but as it stands, planets like Mora just don't make it feel like a Frontier sector to me, that's all...
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
Then patch them holes! Give every populated world the same Tech level because settled planets shouldn't have lower techs than the parent world of the settlers. Physical and Population codes are done first and let that be random. Place starports based on population and relative importance to other worlds in the area. Rare A ports at hubs of commerce and strategic importance and within the range of the Tech level used so they connect as a communication and commerce web. B ports would be very common for their repair rather than building capacity. C, D E and X represent degrees of settlement at the borders or very small population worlds of the space power with C being the important link into the wilds and as common as the B port in civilized regions.
Balfuset790 said:
I always suggest adjusting UPPs where they're totally unreasonable. While a lot of Traveller grognards are always talking about "use your imagination" the universe should not be filled with so many outliers that they outnumber of the "logical" distribution. :roll:
That said, I have another explanation for that system: Infrastructure decay.
Perhaps once that system had a Class-A starport for whatever reason (Imperial-level trade routes might shift, it might have been a profitable "free-port" to some part of the Imperium that was loosely held or not in the Imperium at all but has since been better incorporated, a local war might have required a long Imperial intervention and the world was used by merchants selling things to the Imperial forces, there might have a profitably exploited resource on the world in the past that's been overexploited or simply mined out - a water world might have had abundant quantities of sealife that were considered very palatable in another system and fetched high prices - over a few decades in true Imperial fashion, they overexploited it and since then interest in the world has vanished) that has gone to seed because the original impetus has vanished or failed. So there's a lot of dark, creaking infrastructure that's been abandoned, huge impressive looking refining facilities that have been stripped bare of important parts so are just hulks of rusting steel close up, and so on. What was once a Class-A starport dropped to Class-C pretty quickly.
Perhaps it is still falling and it is listed as Class-C but it is actually even worse...
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If you plan to randomizely big bang a subsector, you're bound to get weird results.
If you can break down the costs for each component of a starport, and possible revenue streams and/or subsidies, you'd get a more realistic result based on the local economy, trade routes, local or Imperium interests.
Most planetary governments would want more interstellar trade, the Imperium wants to encourage it to knit the Imperium closer together. And in large advanced settled systems, there are likely to be more than one, perhaps serving specific roles and/or regions. with small merchants or private craft shuffled off in a more obscure facility.
If you can break down the costs for each component of a starport, and possible revenue streams and/or subsidies, you'd get a more realistic result based on the local economy, trade routes, local or Imperium interests.
Most planetary governments would want more interstellar trade, the Imperium wants to encourage it to knit the Imperium closer together. And in large advanced settled systems, there are likely to be more than one, perhaps serving specific roles and/or regions. with small merchants or private craft shuffled off in a more obscure facility.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Balfuset790 said:
Pfft. Mora has only been settled for 800 to 900 years or so, and is one of the oldest Imperial Human worlds behind the Claw. The Vilani stepped into space 11,000 years ago and had the First Imperium at its full size some 5,000 years ago. The Marches are definitely the young frontier.
Balfuset790 said:
Broken rng based world generation system. I know you were looking for an in-universe explanation, but that's really the root cause. I've been trying to create a Traveller sector and I'm having severe problems with it. The "hard sci fi" variant rules do not really help much (but it's better than the unmodified base system).
That said, if you do not want to manually override silly results, you'll have to assume that the dice don't tell the full story.
Spaceport too high:
- Maybe the world in question is an important waystation to other, more prominent, systems
- Local tourism industry might be disproportionate
- Important religious sites result in annual pilgrimage
- Spaceport was result of corruption - the real world is full of projects that do not make sense other than to make someone rich, or to further someone's ego
- Miscalculation - officials expected planet to do better, and it didn't.
Spaceport too low:
- Miscalculation: Officials did not foresee boom time and planned starport that is too small
- Might be in the process of upgrade
- Economic downturn or mismanagement has resulted in quality of spaceport to slide, thus prompting downgrade
- War or terrorism damage
- Was once top-notch but by today's standards it is simply just a C (or whatever)
And so on, you get the idea. For published 3I material I'd expect such explanation for any world that is more detailed than just the UWP line (i.e. even if it just has a few Library data lines).
CosmicGamer
Mongoose
Generalizations. A star port is lots of things.
Let's say there is a star port that was subsidized and built a huge refinery and it's on the edge of a large water supply. It can supply large quantities of refined fuel. It has lots of open solid ground with navigational systems for landing over 50 ships, including large ships up to 5,000 tons. The navigational systems are ground based, there are no satellite networks providing guidance and telemetry to ships. Plenty of warehousing. Several hotels, numerous restaurants and other commercial buildings.
But it is low tech or limited skilled labor or little funding. There is no high port so the port can not support non streamlined ships. There is not even the capacity to shuttle cargo to and from orbit. There is no shipyard, not even for small craft but some limited repairs are possible.
I hope that sound like a possibility?
Lets break some of that that down.
- supply large quantities of refined fuel: Class B
- It has lots of open solid ground with navigational systems for landing over 50 ships, including large ships over 5,000 tons: At least Class C
- There is no high port so the port can not support non streamlined ships: Class C or lower
- The navigational systems are ground based, there are no satellite networks providing guidance and telemetry to ships: Class C or D
- There is no shipyard, not even for small craft but some limited repairs are possible: Class D
So how would this star port be classified?
EDIT: For simplification, how about a star port with refined fuel but no ship yard. I'd think it not hard for a star port near water to set up a refinery while there are lot's of good reasons for not having the ability and/or need to set up a shipyard.
Does this system get noted as having a Class B Star Port to let people know that there is refined fuel available?
Let's say there is a star port that was subsidized and built a huge refinery and it's on the edge of a large water supply. It can supply large quantities of refined fuel. It has lots of open solid ground with navigational systems for landing over 50 ships, including large ships up to 5,000 tons. The navigational systems are ground based, there are no satellite networks providing guidance and telemetry to ships. Plenty of warehousing. Several hotels, numerous restaurants and other commercial buildings.
But it is low tech or limited skilled labor or little funding. There is no high port so the port can not support non streamlined ships. There is not even the capacity to shuttle cargo to and from orbit. There is no shipyard, not even for small craft but some limited repairs are possible.
I hope that sound like a possibility?
Lets break some of that that down.
- supply large quantities of refined fuel: Class B
- It has lots of open solid ground with navigational systems for landing over 50 ships, including large ships over 5,000 tons: At least Class C
- There is no high port so the port can not support non streamlined ships: Class C or lower
- The navigational systems are ground based, there are no satellite networks providing guidance and telemetry to ships: Class C or D
- There is no shipyard, not even for small craft but some limited repairs are possible: Class D
So how would this star port be classified?
EDIT: For simplification, how about a star port with refined fuel but no ship yard. I'd think it not hard for a star port near water to set up a refinery while there are lot's of good reasons for not having the ability and/or need to set up a shipyard.
Does this system get noted as having a Class B Star Port to let people know that there is refined fuel available?
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Balfuset790 said:
One way of thinking about this is that the, SPA controlled starport, is separate from the UWP. In the world you describe (and there are a fair number of low population worlds with high status starports in the Spinward Marches) the farmstead could be one family of eccentric survivalists, or a small religious cult, or a couple of retired scouts or .... Whoever they are, they have no contact with the starport, whose population are in addition to the UWP. Technically the extra-territoriality line would mean that those living in the starport and startown are not necessarily citizens of the planet.
Egil
Tom Kalbfus
Mongoose
What if Planet there has a population of billions? It might be remote from the imperial core, but the planetary government there might decide to build its own starport class A because it might want to manufacture its own starships. For them their planet is their home and not the frontier.Balfuset790 said:
Balfuset790
Mongoose
Tom Kalbfus said:
Certainly makes sense in the OTU sense where sentient life has been seeded across the galaxy and 'rediscovered' by the current Empire to start reuniting the galaxy after the fall of a previous regime. Which is in fact a decent explanation in and of itself now that I think about it, a class A starport could be a remnant of the First or Second Imperium that's been rekindled by the Third.
Makes me wonder whether I want to use distance from the Imperial capital as a determining factor in planetary population for MTU, hmm... then with the starport-class-relative-to-population model that does exactly what I need.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
In my own campaign universe, based on the actual region around Sol, population was modified by distance of jump routes and time. Each stage of colonization was limited by Jump until the technology increased enough. There were three stages of colonization over a couple centuries and each layer out had modifiers to the population die roll. Using the population modifier in the Hard Science sidebar made starports less advanced towards the frontier compared to core worlds.
CosmicGamer said:
In my house rules a Class C port automatically has refined fuel. They might overhear a large ship's crew complaining how their ship couldn't get enough refined fuel due to low reserve stocks, though.
It also has at least the possibility of a ship yard for non-starships up to about 1000-3000 tons based upon population, e.g. a pop-4 world would generally not build more than 600 tons.
steve98052
Mongoose
The biggest mysteries in terms of starports seem to be cases where the starport is better than the world seems to deserve. An obvious explanation for that is that the world had a valuable resource, but it's tapped out and the world has been largely abandoned. But it still has one key resource, its starport, which it maintains as its hoped-for path back to prosperity.
That still can't adequately explain Pixie, but one might explain that by saying that population figures are not consistently reported -- on some worlds they include Imperial facilities, while on others they count only population outside starports, bases, etc. Maybe Pixie has a naval base, xboat base, shipyard, and an off-the-books Ancients site with a population totaling tens of thousands, but its resident population is still under 1000.
That still can't adequately explain Pixie, but one might explain that by saying that population figures are not consistently reported -- on some worlds they include Imperial facilities, while on others they count only population outside starports, bases, etc. Maybe Pixie has a naval base, xboat base, shipyard, and an off-the-books Ancients site with a population totaling tens of thousands, but its resident population is still under 1000.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
steve98052 said:
That's easy once you know the history of the Marches. Aramis, Regina, and Jewell subsectors were taken away from the Zhodani in the First Frontier War. Pixie wasn't absorbed into the Imperium with a standing population, it was occupied expressly as a border fortress and because of its undocumented Ancients site. It has grown a (very) small population since, and there was probably a political tussle between the Second Survey and the Navy over whether that handful of "squatters" would be recognized as "native" population.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I also allow Class C starports to have Refined Fuel.
Fuel Purifiers are just too cheap to not have them everywhere. I even allow them on some Class D starports (Roll Population or Less to have Refined Fuel).
Fuel Purifiers are just too cheap to not have them everywhere. I even allow them on some Class D starports (Roll Population or Less to have Refined Fuel).
Reynard said:
I think I agree but I would posit that settled planets might have TLs 1 to 3 lower than the parent planet to represent scale of manufacture - though TL8 would be my lowest settled-planet TL!
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
I agree. In fact I actually came up with this rule on my own about 10 years ago when I GMed for my Traveller group.
Anomalies can be worked with.
A desert planet may have no large standing bodies of water, but still have water trapped in a form not readily usable for skimming (shallow lakes, rivers). Maybe there is humidity in the atmosphere but the soil composition doesn't absorb water. You have rains that run off into sink holes, water that spouts up in geysers, and such but no body of water to do a decent fuel skim out of. There could be mineral content in the water that would damage engines and which regular fuel purifiers cannot handle.
But that fancy class A starport the locals built has been great for trade and helps cover the costs of the more extensive filtration equipment needed to keep the local population going. This filtration equipment is also used to produce refined (and a less filtered unrefined fuel perhaps) which must be bought at the starport because there is no other fuel source. Standard fuel prices may still be in effect as the planet does not want to discourage trade (they subsidize the fuel, in effect.
Alternatively, there may be a moon around that desert planet that has a decent hydrographic rating but access to the moon is restricted (it is a strategic resource of the system government). The government mines the ice (or draws water if there is enough atmosphere) and purifies it for drinking water for the planetary population and for making fuel. The fuel and water are delivered to the main world highport and surface starport for resale.
A desert planet may have no large standing bodies of water, but still have water trapped in a form not readily usable for skimming (shallow lakes, rivers). Maybe there is humidity in the atmosphere but the soil composition doesn't absorb water. You have rains that run off into sink holes, water that spouts up in geysers, and such but no body of water to do a decent fuel skim out of. There could be mineral content in the water that would damage engines and which regular fuel purifiers cannot handle.
But that fancy class A starport the locals built has been great for trade and helps cover the costs of the more extensive filtration equipment needed to keep the local population going. This filtration equipment is also used to produce refined (and a less filtered unrefined fuel perhaps) which must be bought at the starport because there is no other fuel source. Standard fuel prices may still be in effect as the planet does not want to discourage trade (they subsidize the fuel, in effect.
Alternatively, there may be a moon around that desert planet that has a decent hydrographic rating but access to the moon is restricted (it is a strategic resource of the system government). The government mines the ice (or draws water if there is enough atmosphere) and purifies it for drinking water for the planetary population and for making fuel. The fuel and water are delivered to the main world highport and surface starport for resale.
Traveller has interesting examples of making anomalies work and these can be some of the most interesting worlds. In the original adventure Leviathan, there was a planet with no atmosphere and a primitive population. They had rudimentary airlocks set up to maintain the atmosphere in the caves (set up before they completely regressed technologically) and lived in caves with a self-sustaining ecosystem (maybe some mineral springs support algae like organisms that also break down carbon dioxide, replacing the effect of the sun and plants and providing an external "energy" source that keeps the whole thing going).
A way to have a vacuum and effectively tech level zero.
For worlds casually visited, players can accept that the ratings are what they are. If they choose to stay on planet and investigate further a more detailed explanation can be developed.
A way to have a vacuum and effectively tech level zero.
For worlds casually visited, players can accept that the ratings are what they are. If they choose to stay on planet and investigate further a more detailed explanation can be developed.
