The World Builder's Handbook - It Is Here!

[Geir]

Habitable zone worlds where Nitrogen freezes are not 'interesting' ?

It's um, well, easier for plants to utilise nitrogen in its solid form, so, like, you know...

But seriously 'credible' is a bigger problem for Traveller Worlds IMO. We have started trying to use Traveller Worlds as a baseline in our Traveller Adventure campaign partly on the basis that, while not official, it exists 'under the wing' of TravellerMap and therefore feels semi-canonical, so long as the seeds remain constant. But yeah! They are interesting enough when our intention is to describe a lot more detail about the systems than is usually covered in the "you jump into this system and land on the planet. It's cold and dry" level of Traveller description.

But I was already having concerns about some of the values a few weeks ago as we started to look at describing stuff in detail and then along came the WBH which exposed the obvious error in Traveller Worlds.

Sometime, maybe this weekend, I will make a post describing the differences and any amelioration steps that need to be made to fix and bring Traveller Worlds generated systems into the improved WBH standard. Apart from an Albedo convertor my feeling at the moment is that the greenhouse factor in Traveller Worlds already has the fourth root baked into it so should be applied directly. And an orbit fraction adjustment may be needed as many of the worlds are still too damned cold.

Still waiting for a response for COTI access, though.

COTI can be a bit flaky in my experience - not necessarily content, but access. I have enough trouble dealing with one forum, so not paying attention to any but this one right now.
The thing with Traveller Worlds is that it is straight T5 as far as I can tell, probably with older WBH or Book 6 formulas behind it. You get things like atmosphere 4-9 (okay 2-9) far, far outside the HZ and the categories in T5 of rad world, storm world, etc, are... less than technical.

I've not made any attempt to contact the developer, but maybe I should...

 

[Bill Sheil]

I have the Traveller Worlds design document kicking around and the temperature calculations are definitely Book 6 derived. I need to get some time to do proper compares of the habitable zone calculations.

And I think this is not the first time I have tried to register with COTI but had no reply.

 

[Dalton Calford]

I stopped using COTI about 15 years ago. While I liked the forum, lets just say that there were neck beards who were even more grognardy than me, and I left after a good friend passed away.
I have not had a reason to return, as I find other sources to be far more welcoming and accepting of players and people.

 

[NOLATrav]

The thing with Traveller Worlds is that it is straight T5 as far as I can tell, probably with older WBH or Book 6 formulas behind it.

This. It is a valiant effort and much appreciated but seems it is using the old thinking.

 

[NOLATrav]

I stopped using COTI about 15 years ago. While I liked the forum, lets just say that there were neck beards who were even more grognardy than me, and I left after a good friend passed away.
I have not had a reason to return, as I find other sources to be far more welcoming and accepting of players and people.

Pains me to say that my experience was similar and it’s been quite some time since I’ve visited that site as well. There’s a very rigid sense there of what Traveller should be.

But this very thread, here, proves the Traveller spirit is alive and well and constantly pushing forward. Very very thankful for what Mongoose has been doing these last many years. Traveller is finally feeling less like nostalgia and more like discovery. A very real sense of what Traveller could be.

 

[Vormaerin]

Dunno if its really like that. At least not these days. There's a lot of IMTU stuff going on there. But I do find that the channel topics are pretty rigid. If you start talking IMTU in an OTU channel, that doesn't tend to go over well.

But, yeah, it doesn't talk overly much about Mongoose Traveller and new products. They are kind of shunted off to their own side channel. Anyone seriously playing Mongoose Traveller is probably here, whereas there you'll get a lot of folks playing lots of other editions or their own home brews in addition to or instead of MgT. There's certain kinds of questions and topics you can get far deeper answers there than here. I'm not generally overly interested in those areas COTI is really good at, so I don't spend a lot of time there. But I haven't seen any reason to be insulting about forumgoers that do so.

 

[MongooseMatt]

But this very thread, here, proves the Traveller spirit is alive and well and constantly pushing forward. Very very thankful for what Mongoose has been doing these last many years. Traveller is finally feeling less like nostalgia and more like discovery. A very real sense of what Traveller could be.

Yes, thank you, this is what we are shooting for Respect the past, look to the future.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Just to let you all know, an updated file is now available for the World Builder's Handbook, taking all your feedback into account - simply redownload from our site or Drivethru to get the latest version!

 

[Dalton Calford]

Just to let you all know, an updated file is now available for the World Builder's Handbook, taking all your feedback into account - simply redownload from our site or Drivethru to get the latest version!

Wonderful, is there a list of the changes?

 

[Dalton Calford]

Can someone point me to the page in the MGT2 WBH that has ship volume based on the planets economy? I was looking but must have missed it.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hold fire a mo, another update coming it looks like!

 

[MongooseMatt]

Download good to go!

 

[Geir]

Can someone point me to the page in the MGT2 WBH that has ship volume based on the planets economy? I was looking but must have missed it.

Expected ship traffic is on page 197. That's number of ships. Port capacity is the following page. There is nothing that explicitly indicates the dton volume of daily traffic.

 

[Dalton Calford]

Expected ship traffic is on page 197. That's number of ships. Port capacity is the following page. There is nothing that explicitly indicates the dton volume of daily traffic.

It was volume of ships, not dtonnage but, now that you mention it, a way of calculating total desired or required tonnage for the world would be interesting, as not only would it give hints for the trade rules, it also gives good storytelling material in regards to blockades and political dependencies.

 

[mando501]

I just spent a long time looking for the "Failed Stars" section, which does not actually exist. I'm assuming the intent on page 219 with regards to Black Holes and White Dwarfs, etc, is to reference the "Dead Stars" section.

If that is the case, might I suggest updating the wording on page 219 for clarity?

 

[Geir]

I just spent a long time looking for the "Failed Stars" section, which does not actually exist. I'm assuming the intent on page 219 with regards to Black Holes and White Dwarfs, etc, is to reference the "Dead Stars" section.

If that is the case, might I suggest updating the wording on page 219 for clarity?

A failed star would be more like a brown dwarf.
Well *poo* (or some other word). I originally such a section up front, then decided it needed to be moved to Special Circumstances for one stop shopping for each of these not-stars. Missed it after I 'improved it." So there are three references to Failed Stars on page 219. The first two should reference the Dead Stars section and the third should reference the Brown Dwarf section.
Or they could reference pages 227-228, page 227, and page 226, respectively.

 

[Dalton Calford]

A failed star would be more like a brown dwarf.
Well *poo* (or some other word). I originally such a section up front, then decided it needed to be moved to Special Circumstances for one stop shopping for each of these not-stars. Missed it after I 'improved it." So there are three references to Failed Stars on page 219. The first two should reference the Dead Stars section and the third should reference the Brown Dwarf section.
Or they could reference pages 227-228, page 227, and page 226, respectively.

Looks like the mongeese admins are going to be giving you side eye as you have them put up another update.....

 

[mando501]

Clarification question: on page 22, under Main Sequence Lifespan, the following callout is made:

Technically only Class V stars are main sequence
stars but the ‘normal’ phase of a star’s life is
similarly determined for Class Ia, Ib, II, V and VI
stars.

For Classes Ia, Ib, II, and VI, does this mean they only generate the main sequence lifespan, or should they also determine the subgiant and giant lifespan?

For example, if I generate an F6 Ia, does it use the Large Stare Age forumula to determine the system age, or (since it's a super giant), should I instead work through the subgiant and giant lifespans and generate the final age as MS + SG + G * variance?

 

[Geir]

Clarification question: on page 22, under Main Sequence Lifespan, the following callout is made:



For Classes Ia, Ib, II, and VI, does this mean they only generate the main sequence lifespan, or should they also determine the subgiant and giant lifespan?

For example, if I generate an F6 Ia, does it use the Large Stare Age forumula to determine the system age, or (since it's a super giant), should I instead work through the subgiant and giant lifespans and generate the final age as MS + SG + G * variance?

For the Supergiants (Ia, Ib and II) they should only generate the 'main sequence' lifespan. It wouldn't make sense to 'downgrade' them to IV and III, and if you look at the masses, range from 8 to... lots, they going to end up in the neutron star/black hole end state and extra end-of-life phase is (and this is me being game-practical, not astrophysical correct) is going to be too brief to consider. As I think about it it, another thing I don't explicitly deal with at all is variable stars... looks like another JTAS article to add to the mix if there's another round of them - especially since I detailed Alpha Cephei in The Beyond...

As for VI... well the lower range is all small enough to have not aged out in this universe. And the upper range is rather strange... I don't know how they evolve, so I would just leave them as under the Main Sequence Lifespan. I'm babbling...

So to be concise, only run the generated sub-giant (IV) and giant (III) through the aging they need beyond their full main sequence life. The initial Star Type Determination is a point-in-time, so it assumes any generated III and IV are former main sequence stars and so have to be appropriately old.

Back to your example, just determine the age of the F6 Ib based on its mass, using the Main Sequence Lifespan formula on page 20 and the Large Star formula on page 21.

 

[Demon Samurai]

I've been gradually working through this book for the last week or so and really loving it, thank you so much @Geir for all your hard work. One thing i would have loved to see (maybe omitted for reasons of space) would be something on classification of Gas Giant types, which (apparently) exist on a I to V spectrum with differing compositions. I can totally imagine how some would be more volatile and dangerous to skim from than others with abrasive metallic winds and more variable magnetic fields. Could this be a future JTAS article perhaps?