Understanding the Economic Extension on Travellermap and Traveller Wiki

[john_q_traveller]

To be clear, the following questions are not specific to Mongoose Traveller, but I am hoping there is somebody here with enough knowledge of the other flavors of Traveller to be able to shed some light on my current predicament.

I have been trying to get my head around the Economic Extension data on Traveller Map, specifically to understand what the budget available to a world government is in practical terms (Credits). For reference, the world in question is Nasemin, which has a UWP of B98A422–B, and an EE of 934−3 on travellermap.com as well as wiki.travellerrpg.com.

Based on some reading in the wiki, I found some information in T4 - Pocket Empires about how to generate / use the EE, but it became clear that the EE on travellermap and the wiki was generated using some other means, as that system does not allow for negative values in the fourth position. Doing some reading on the wiki, what is referenced is the T5 core rules, but there is no specific note of where in the T5 core rules. No small amount of reading later, it seems T5 core rules do allow for a negative value in the fourth position, but I have not been able to find anything about how to use that to determine anything about the world in practical terms, aside from the fact it means the RUs for the world are negative. The wiki seems to contradict this, as it indicates 76 RUs for Nasemin (a number I have not been able to duplicate using any combination of explanations / rules found up to this point). To further confound the matter, the wiki indicates a GWP of 0 (Cr1Billion) but a trade volume of 265 (Cr1Million).

I can actually understand the trade volume being non-zero if we simply rounded down on the GWP. The question though, is how is the EE as listed on travellermap / the wiki supposed to be used? More specifically, how can I use it to determine the actual budget available to the world government? This is explained in T4 - Pocket Empires, but I have not been able to find an explanation of this for T5, which seems to be how the EE was generated.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Geir]

Big disclaimer: I'm not a fan of the Efficiency value in the Economic Extension as written in T5. But, book 3 page 27 (of the T5 5.10 edition) calls it out as 'Flux', which is basically 2D-7, giving you possible values from +5 to -5 - with the caveat that 0 is treated as +1. And I can see in some instance how this can make sense in a pocket empire if you're dealing with a 'transfer of payments' sort of deal - as in some worlds are effectively subsidizing others. But from a pure economic standpoint the negative values make little sense.

In the World Builders Handbook (this is the plug for February), I kept it for capability sake, but modified it so that it was less extreme at higher populations (2D3-4 instead), to prevent a single high population world from making an entire region negative. And then for computing actual GWP I made the Efficiency factor a multiplier if positive, but used it as a devisor if negative: 1/-(Efficiency-1) .

 

[MasterGwydion]

Big disclaimer: I'm not a fan of the Efficiency value in the Economic Extension as written in T5. But, book 3 page 27 (of the T5 5.10 edition) calls it out as 'Flux', which is basically 2D-7, giving you possible values from +5 to -5 - with the caveat that 0 is treated as +1. And I can see in some instance how this can make sense in a pocket empire if you're dealing with a 'transfer of payments' sort of deal - as in some worlds are effectively subsidizing others. But from a pure economic standpoint the negative values make little sense.

In the World Builders Handbook (this is the plug for February), I kept it for capability sake, but modified it so that it was less extreme at higher populations (2D3-4 instead), to prevent a single high population world from making an entire region negative. And then for computing actual GWP I made the Efficiency factor a multiplier if positive, but used it as a devisor if negative: 1/-(Efficiency-1) .

My question is this. How is Vadada (a major shipbuilder for the Florian League) Importance 5 and Capital (The capital of the 3I) only Importance 4?

 

[G'Naakbusters]

My question is this. How is Vadada (a major shipbuilder for the Florian League) Importance 5 and Capital (The capital of the 3I) only Importance 4?

I'm guessing it might be because Capital's contributions can be picked up/shared by other worlds? If Capital suddenly blew up, the administrative functions of the Imperium would continue; other major Imperial worlds in Core would pick up the slack. I think it's been explicitly stated that if Vadada is removed, something like a third of the League goes with it; there simply isn't any other system that can serve the required purpose within League space.

This is just my off-the-cuff speculation, by the way; not an informed answer!

 

[MasterGwydion]

I'm guessing it might be because Capital's contributions can be picked up/shared by other worlds? If Capital suddenly blew up, the administrative functions of the Imperium would continue; other major Imperial worlds in Core would pick up the slack. I think it's been explicitly stated that if Vadada is removed, something like a third of the League goes with it; there simply isn't any other system that can serve the required purpose within League space.

This is just my off-the-cuff speculation, by the way; not an informed answer!

This would make sense if the 3I were not a bunch of idiots. Emperor dead? Civil war. lol Ilelish, Vland, Antares, Delphi, etc. Not to mention the Aslan and the Vargr taking advantage of the weaknesses. Remember, most of the Moot would be gone too. The TL-16 world in the Marches is Importance 5 as well. Even Darrian is a 4. Vland is a 3.

Yeah. None of what I am saying is an informed answer anyhow. T5 just confuses Me with that Flux crap.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I figured that Pocket Empires 'Culture' could be roughly approximated as 7 minus T5 & TravellerMap 'Economic Efficiency'. So EE 5 = Culture 2; EE 0 = Culture 7; EE -5 = Culture 12. I like the T5 'Efficiency'; but the PE 'Culture' is a double edged sword -- in my homebrew I treat them as different numbers after I generate them; the PE rules allow 'Culture' to be modified, but I just basically copy/paste the rules for improving 'Infrastructure' for improving 'Efficiency'.

This still leaves room for weird results, and I ran out of mental focus before I solved it.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Is there any way to do a query on the Travellermap by Resources? I want to find which systems have the most Resources in each sector and subsector. That way I can use that as a basis for recolonization efforts in the 1,250s 3I

 

[J. L. Brown]

Is there any way to do a query on the Travellermap by Resources? I want to find which systems have the most Resources in each sector and subsector. That way I can use that as a basis for recolonization efforts in the 1,250s 3I

The page for 'how to search' is here:

Information - Traveller Map

travellermap.com

But I am having trouble getting the example searches to work correctly. I think what you want is ex: 9??? for resource 9 worlds, and ex: [9-G]??? for worlds with resources of 9 to 16.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The page for 'how to search' is here:

Information - Traveller Map

travellermap.com

But I am having trouble getting the example searches to work correctly. I think what you want is ex: 9??? for resource 9 worlds, and ex: [9-G]??? for worlds with resources of 9 to 16.

??? My computer illiteracy is showing again...

 

[J. L. Brown]

??? My computer illiteracy is showing again...

ex:[A-M]* in:Troj
Searches for stuff in the Trojan Reach, by Economic Extension (ex: ). It returns any system with Resources listed as from 'A' to 'M'. No spaces after the colon is important.

 

[WHULorigan]

'Flux', which is basically 2D-7, giving you possible values from +5 to -5 . . .

In the World Builders Handbook (this is the plug for February), I kept it . . . (2D3-4 instead), . . .

So FLUX (d3) instead of FLUX (d6).

(Note: For those who do not own T5, FLUX is defined as { [d6] - [d6] }, generating a bell curve from -5 to +5 with a mean of "0". It is identical to a [2d6-7].)

The mechanic is actually a great generalizable mechanic for any dice combination for anytime you want a probability distribution centered on "0" out to an arbitrary amount. It is the maximum value of the roll minus the minimum value of the roll to either side of zero: So FLUX (2d6) would be -10 to +10 centered on "0".

 

[MasterGwydion]

ex:[A-M]* in:Troj
Searches for stuff in the Trojan Reach, by Economic Extension (ex: ). It returns any system with Resources listed as from 'A' to 'M'. No spaces after the colon is important.

What is the complete thing that I enter and where do I enter it? *hangs head in technophobic shame*

 

[J. L. Brown]

What is the complete thing that I enter and where do I enter it? *hangs head in technophobic shame*

Don't worry about not having it all figured out; there are always new tools, new frontiers.

In this case, it is a tool for TravellerMap.com. In the white 'Search' bar in the upper left corner, type in exactly 'ex:[A-M]* in:Troj' (without the single-quotes). That tells TM to search systems in the Trojan Reach (that is what the 'in:Troj' does -- you can skip that to search the whole map, or change it to search a different sector; 'in:Corr' for Corridor, 'In:Spin' for Spinward Marches, etc) for a particular value in the Economic Extension (the 'ex:' bit). Since the Economic Extension is four values in length, TM expects more than just 'ex:9' -- even though 'Resources' is the first value in the EX. So we need to pass TM a symbol that says 'plus a bunch of other stuff that I have not specified, and whose values do not matter for this search'; that is what the '*' is for -- it is a 'wildcard' stands in for any number of other values.

If we wanted to look for a 'Labor' value of nine, we would need to tell the search that it needed to skip exactly one value; for that we need to use the '?' wildcard -- so 'ex:?9*' is the search term. For 'Infrastructure' it would be 'ex:??9*'.

Theoretically, 'ex:??9?' should work, but it doesn't; 'ex:??9?*' does.

So far all of these examples have been for a single value of exactly '9'. You can change that to any extended hexidecimal value -- from 0 to Z. Or you can search for a range of values; instead of putting in a single digit, put in square brackets [] to let the search know to expect more than a single value in the spot where it might otherwise expect a single value. So to search for resources from 2-7, you could use 'ex:[2-7]*'.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Don't worry about not having it all figured out; there are always new tools, new frontiers.

In this case, it is a tool for TravellerMap.com. In the white 'Search' bar in the upper left corner, type in exactly 'ex:[A-M]* in:Troj' (without the single-quotes). That tells TM to search systems in the Trojan Reach (that is what the 'in:Troj' does -- you can skip that to search the whole map, or change it to search a different sector; 'in:Corr' for Corridor, 'In:Spin' for Spinward Marches, etc) for a particular value in the Economic Extension (the 'ex:' bit). Since the Economic Extension is four values in length, TM expects more than just 'ex:9' -- even though 'Resources' is the first value in the EX. So we need to pass TM a symbol that says 'plus a bunch of other stuff that I have not specified, and whose values do not matter for this search'; that is what the '*' is for -- it is a 'wildcard' stands in for any number of other values.

If we wanted to look for a 'Labor' value of nine, we would need to tell the search that it needed to skip exactly one value; for that we need to use the '?' wildcard -- so 'ex:?9*' is the search term. For 'Infrastructure' it would be 'ex:??9*'.

Theoretically, 'ex:??9?' should work, but it doesn't; 'ex:??9?*' does.

So far all of these examples have been for a single value of exactly '9'. You can change that to any extended hexidecimal value -- from 0 to Z. Or you can search for a range of values; instead of putting in a single digit, put in square brackets [] to let the search know to expect more than a single value in the spot where it might otherwise expect a single value. So to search for resources from 2-7, you could use 'ex:[2-7]*'.

Thank you!

 

[MasterGwydion]

Thanks to J.L. Brown, I can now search sectors by Resources, but that is only by resources used, not resources available. Is there any way to search based on resources available. On the Travellermap, it ignores the rest of the system if the TL of the Mainworld is below 8. I don't care if the society that is there doesn't have the TL to access all of the resources, I just want to know how many Resources there are per system, but nothing in Traveller seems to do that. Do I have to generate each planet and moon separately, then add 1 for each gas giant and asteroid belt, and then add all of those numbers together? That could become a very, very high number once you add all of the other planets and moons to the Mainworld Resource number.

Edit: I noticed that the Traveller5 World builder doesn't list Resources in its planet generation output

 

[J. L. Brown]

Thanks to J.L. Brown, I can now search sectors by Resources, but that is only by resources used, not resources available. Is there any way to search based on resources available. On the Travellermap, it ignores the rest of the system if the TL of the Mainworld is below 8. I don't care if the society that is there doesn't have the TL to access all of the resources, I just want to know how many Resources there are per system, but nothing in Traveller seems to do that. Do I have to generate each planet and moon separately, then add 1 for each gas giant and asteroid belt, and then add all of those numbers together? That could become a very, very high number once you add all of the other planets and moons to the Mainworld Resource number.

Edit: I noticed that the Traveller5 World builder doesn't list Resources in its planet generation output

Sorry to say, but the 'Resources' value on TravellerMap is just for the Mainworld (+1 per Belt or Gas Giant if the Mainworld is TL8+). Typically the rest of the system the mainworld is in is 'left to the discretion of the referee' very much in keeping with the old 'Map Only As Really Necessary' philosophy. If you want the resources all all the various bodies in the system, all TravellerMap can give you is the PBG number -- terrestial Planets (aside from the Mainworld), planetoid Belts, and Gas giants. On the TM it is actually displayed as GPW = Gas giants, Planetoid belts, Worlds.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Sorry to say, but the 'Resources' value on TravellerMap is just for the Mainworld (+1 per Belt or Gas Giant if the Mainworld is TL8+). Typically the rest of the system the mainworld is in is 'left to the discretion of the referee' very much in keeping with the old 'Map Only As Really Necessary' philosophy. If you want the resources all all the various bodies in the system, all TravellerMap can give you is the PBG number -- terrestial Planets (aside from the Mainworld), planetoid Belts, and Gas giants. On the TM it is actually displayed as GPW = Gas giants, Planetoid belts, Worlds.

Which means I get to generate every system in a whole sector to find the systems most likely to attract attention from resource mining companies and which have the potential to grow into enormous economies given funding and colonists.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Which means I get to generate every system in a whole sector to find the systems most likely to attract attention from resource mining companies and which have the potential to grow into enormous economies given funding and colonists.

Yay!

Yeah, sorry. You might consider using a 'random system generator' that takes a 'random seed value', and use the systems sector-hex location and maybe the hex translation (of the first few bytes) of the sector or system name to make up a 'seed number'. For planets, add orbit-number to the start of the seed, or something. That way it remains easy to remember or rebuild.

If you are working in or around the Trojan Reach, I would be interested in seeing your results to potentially feed into my eternally-in-prep Pirates of Drinax campaign.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Yay!

Yeah, sorry. You might consider using a 'random system generator' that takes a 'random seed value', and use the systems sector-hex location and maybe the hex translation (of the first few bytes) of the sector or system name to make up a 'seed number'. For planets, add orbit-number to the start of the seed, or something. That way it remains easy to remember or rebuild.

If you are working in or around the Trojan Reach, I would be interested in seeing your results to potentially feed into my eternally-in-prep Pirates of Drinax campaign.

Yeah. I sadly end up doing it manually and then writing everything down by hand or typing it up in Word or Excel.

In this case I was looking at Fornost, but I do love the Trojan Reach...

 

[MasterGwydion]

Working on Menorial now. I will let you know if I come up with anything useful or if I am just abusing Myself for no reason. lol