Reynard said:
A nanobot is still a robot by definition and, believe me, building a ringworld will need 'bots of all sizes and that can mean HUGE especially for the macro construction. When I hear nanobots in the unimaginable quantities to create such a structure exclusively I immediately envisioned Virus and that didn't end well. Still, It could mean the ringworld would be a 'living', sentient being and nanobots are the cellular structure that constantly performs many of the functions of a living being from breathing, waste cycling and healing wounds to its structure.
And to ask clarification, who lives here besides humans in digital form or are they part of the ringworld sentience?
Every Traveller Race Vargrs, Aslans, Dryones, the works. The thing is, the aliens aren't really aliens, they are all DNA based creatures, the computer imagined the worlds they came from, and created lifeforms derived from Earth DNA, though the imaginary history says differently. In fact all the life forms on the Ringworld are DNA based, they are derived from Earthlife, though extensive genetic engineering was used to create the "Alien" forms, the computer decided not to reinvent DNA or find alternatives to it.
I decided to make the ringworld a little bigger. The reason for this is two-fold.
For one, the Sun is always directly overhead, and nowhere on Earth is the Sun always directly overhead, day is always 12 hours long and a shadow square produces a 12 hour night. So the moment day dawns the Sun is in the high noon position. I think the ringworld surface ought to be moved further away from the star to compensate. I decided to make the radius 202,014,501.15 km the other reason is I can fit exactly 360 domains into the circumference of this ringworld, and this is important for mapping reasons as each domain is exactly 1 degree of a circle. A domain consists of 24 sectors 3 north to south and 8 sectors wide, this makes the dimensions of a domain 3,525,818.18 km east to west and 1,920,000 km north to south.
Each sector is 640,000 km north to south and
440,727.27 km east to west.
And each sector consists of 16 subsectors 4 subsectors north to south and 4 subsectors east to west.
Each subsector is 10 hexes north to South and 8 hexes east to west.
A subsector consisting of 16,000 km wide hexes north to south is therefore 160,000 km north to south and 110,181.82 km east to west, I know I measured it, drew a subsector with regular hexagons (all equal length sides) and measured the number of pixels north to south and east to west.
Each hex can be broken up into megahex map that is 20 hexes from north to south, thus each of the smaller hexes is 800 km north to south.
Each 16,000 km wide hex can be uniquely identified under this mapping system.
The last three digits identify the hex in each subsector: 101 to 810 as per the standard subsector map sheet. The subsectors themselves are addressed with the first 16 letters in the alphabet A-P, thus the firsy digit would b one of those letters, a hex in subsector A might be A407 for instance with the letter A identifying what subsector its in.
A domain has 24 sectors in it labeled by the first 24 letters in the alphabet A-X. A hex in a particular subsector within a sector within a domain might be FA407 for example.
Finally there are 360 domains in the ringworld. A uniquely identified 16,000 km-wide hex might be 181FA407 for example. Another hex might be 087GB308, with leading zeros to identify in what position particular hex is at.
So how many 16,000 km hexes are there in the ringworld? Lets do the math.
80 hexes per subsector
with 16 subsectors in a sector, there are
1,280 hexes per sector
with 24 sectors in a domain, there are
30,720 hexes per domain
with 360 domains in the ringworld, we have
11,059,200 hexes in the ringworld. Each hex can be treated as a world in a standard Traveller map. Each hex has a size of A and an atmosphere of 6. roll 2d6-2 for the hydrographic percentage, then roll 2d6-2 for population and roll for government and law level as you normally would for a world, except attribute it to one of these map hexes instead, then you roll the tech level of each hex. If you like you can roll for "system presence" say with a standard distribution, an "empty hex" means a hex full of ocean instead of land. This would produce an overall hydrographic percentage for ringworld of about 75%, very similar to Earth, or we could produce something closer to what Larry Niven had which was 50% ocean coverage. What do you think?
Tech levels range from 0 to G, and the societies on the Ringworld come from the virtual Traveller setting. There are other settings as well. Each hex can has the computer area under it capable of simulating a virtual world There are 11,059,200 virtual worlds that can be simulated, half of those 5,500,000 are traveler worlds, the other half are historical or perhaps prehistorical, some of the lifeforms from these worlds as well are reproduced on the surface of ringworld including dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, cavemen, pirates, knights in shining armor, Revolutionary War soldiers, farmers, pioneers, Cowboys and Indians German pilots from World War I and II, and people who have disappeared in the Bermuda triangle, to name a few examples.
Another idea is to give each 16,000 km hex its own polar ice cap in the center. That is the closer one moves toward the center or the hex, the colder the climate gets, also the climate varies with seasons over a 365 ringworld day cycle, this is accomplished through radiators on the underside of the ringworld surface. Larry Niven employed these for his Map of Earth and other planets on his ringworld's Great Ocean, but I don't see why this couldn't be done for every hex. each hex represent climatically one hemisphere of a planet, the edges of each hex are tropical while the centers are polar. Radiators under the ringworld's surface draw the heat away from the centers or each hex, that way the ringworld is not all tropical, although the Sun is always in the "high noon" position when it isn't blocked by a shadow square.
