Suggest a sub-system for determining asteroid belts

[captainjack23]

you know what ? This is idiotic. I'm removing my input into this situation.

 

[Stattick]

Hmm...

Just applying the same exact system I used for the GG, yields aprox 16% of systems w/o GG's an astroid belt. I'll call them young and have done with it, using what I got. I've got to get this sector finished ASAP, and get around to figuring out the rules that don't involve chargen/worldgen/systemgen.

If you do that, then do consider the other implications. If they're that young that there are still debris belts there, then they won't have habitable planets in them at all. In fact they'd be very dangerous places for spacecraft (all that high velocity dust and rock flying around) and for forming planets (still be slammed into by large asteroids).

Point taken. Yeah, that wouldn't work out too well for what I want. So I suppose that I'll re-write that part of the sysgen spreadsheet. I don't want all of those systems to be uninhabitable, and an odd anomaly shouldn't have a frequency of 16%... heck, it probably shouldn't even have a 3% probability, but I'm willing to live with that.

The only other work around that I could see, would actually be by using the suggestion of just saying, "The Ancients did it!" I think that EDG is right that it doesn't seem very likely that they would do just that, unless you specifically addressed that in some way. Say for instance, in something like the Vorlon vs Shadows Bab5 scenario, where two ancient, powerful enemies have finally declared all out war on each other, and start planet smashing each other... with the tech levels that they'd likely have, it wouldn't be enough to pound the place with mass drivers or destroy the atmosphere, some remnants of the enemy would likely still survive, fester, and grow there once again. But if you 'splod the planet in a big enough way, the chances of a reimergence from that planet quickly start to reach toward 0%...

Imagine the horror of finding old systems where every single planet and moon have been reduced to asteroid belts. But I don't think that I want to play it out that way for my first Traveller test drive.

 

[EDG]

Point taken. Yeah, that wouldn't work out too well for what I want. So I suppose that I'll re-write that part of the sysgen spreadsheet. I don't want all of those systems to be uninhabitable, and an odd anomaly shouldn't have a frequency of 16%... heck, it probably shouldn't even have a 3% probability, but I'm willing to live with that.

I think the simplest solution is to just roll up your worlds as normal, accept that any size 0 worlds are asteroid belts, and say that the next world out from the star has to be a gas giant to make it so.

Then all you have to do is explain how an asteroid belt is the mainworld of the system rather than a large rocky planet (presumably because there isn't a habitable planet in the system, or the asteroid belt is in the habitable zone where an earthlike world could have been but the gas giant prevented it from forming as such, or because the asteroid belt has a lot of valuable minerals in it that make it the focus of the system). Either way, a natural asteroid belt forming with a gas giant in the next orbit out can be of any age - not just "young".

 

[Stattick]

I think the simplest solution is to just roll up your worlds as normal, accept that any size 0 worlds are asteroid belts, and say that the next world out from the star has to be a gas giant to make it so.

That still ignores a generation system for determining asteroid belts though. Anyway, I'm toggling asteroid belts to GG. If there're no GG's, then there won't be a possibility for any asteroid belts. If there are GG's, then there's a pretty good chance of there being at least one asteroid belt... I'm not going to specify in the spreadsheet the orbit position or number of belts though, just whether there's at least one belt present, just as the it shows only whether there's at least one GG present.

 

[EDG]

That still ignores a generation system for determining asteroid belts though. Anyway, I'm toggling asteroid belts to GG. If there're no GG's, then there won't be a possibility for any asteroid belts. If there are GG's, then there's a pretty good chance of there being at least one asteroid belt... I'm not going to specify in the spreadsheet the orbit position or number of belts though, just whether there's at least one belt present, just as the it shows only whether there's at least one GG present.

That'd work pretty well. And presumably Beltstrike will have more info about generating asteroid belts, whenever it comes out?

 

[Vile]

I think the simplest solution is to just roll up your worlds as normal, accept that any size 0 worlds are asteroid belts, and say that the next world out from the star has to be a gas giant to make it so.

I overlooked the fact that MGT has no size S worlds. The way the TMB describes size 0 worlds is simply as <800km diameter, e.g. an asteroid or orbital space station. So, even if you have no gas giants in the next orbit out, you are ok - your size 0 main world will just be a very small planetoid, or maybe an artificial orbital habitat as in Iain M Banks's Culture novels if the TL is high enough.

 

[Stattick]

I orginally stuck with there being a belt (or more then one) on a roll of <10 on 2d6, but that ended up with most systems with a GG having at least one belt. It seemed... excessive. So I reduced the chance to about 50%, which fits my intuitive sensibilities better.

I may add in a few intensionally anomalous systems by hand into my sector, but nothing intensionally auto-generated.


I believe that a system could form with a belt and a GG, but then get the GG stripped from the system later by a massive object passing near or through the system for instance... It'd probably send a whole bunch of asteroids and comets careening through the system on erratic orbits though, so unless there's a very important reason to inhabit a system like that, I'd think that it would get passed up instead of inhabited. Pirates might use such a system to hide a base in though....

But like I said, a system like that would be one that I'd put in by hand.

 

[captainjack23]

The only person I see "embarrassing themselves" here is you. You made the very obvious mistake of being unclear in the first place, and yet you choose to blame me for reacting to that, and as usual you're derailing another thread because you want to hurl baseless accusations at me about my motivations. Also, it wasn't remotely clear to me what book you were referring to initially until you explained more in a later post, so I wouldn't have recognised it in the first place - and would be the case regardless of whether I had any "hostility towards you" or not.

I apologised for jumping down your throat and admitted my error there, but instead of accepting that and moving on, you instead chose to throw more cheap personal attacks against me. Again, don't blame me for my reaction to your poor choice of wording - you screwed up there, and if you can't admit that then that's not my problem.

And, in the interest of not being churlish, thank you for the apology. And I'm sorry I stuffed it back at you.

Being accused of being a pseudo scientist of the Danikenesque ilk realy really seems to piss me off. I still don't understand your response, but thanks for retracting it.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Sooo....

Back on topic:

How about this:

Asteroid Belt is present on a roll of 12+, DM: +7 if GG present.

So, it is possible, but very rare to get a belt without a GG (a panthellasic world might be able to form a belt, maybe not). But, if a GG is present, then belts are pretty likely, but not automatic.

 

[fireyphoenix22]

TRELANE, TRELANE,

TIME TO COME IN NOW, PUT AWAY ALL YOUR TOYS.

"AWW MA, I WAS WAS HAVEING FUN,

YOU NEVER LET ME HAVE ANY FUN."