Subject: Hard times
I don't have it (and am basically waiting for T3), so what I say may be
on the nose or a truckload of it.
I think the biggest hit of hard times is the loss of trade. Take your
average world...
B555555-7 (I can't think of the trade stuff offhand)
For the moment, assume that NO trade ever comes again. The big crash.
End of game. Now, the world has a decent atmosphere and water supply,
so it won't be doomed on those accounts (as would be, IMHO, the same
population in a B100555-7 situtation. Even then, they barely have the
TL to maintain themselves, assuming they can make the components they need.)
Now look at the rest of it. you have ~50000 people (the size of a large
US town) on a world with ~65% of the Earth's land surface. If you assume
there is a decent cross-section of skills, they can probably maintain their
TL, or perhaps loose no more than 1. If you assume they are all specialized
farmers and import technicians, they will probably drop to pre-industrial
levels.
"Hard-Timing" the imperium is obviously going to be a 3-step process for
each world. "What if: all trade is cut off?"
1) Does the population have to fight the environment in order to
survive?
If it does, then a certain TL is required to maintian it. If you drop
below this TL, the entire world goes belly up and you end up with
a ghost world when contact is regained.
If the world is generally habitable, the minimum TL will obviously be
0 or 1.
2) Resources? Does the world have the necessary material to maintain its
TL?
If not, then you will ses a decline in TL as material reserves are
used up. Imagine our world (TL8) if suddenly all our Oil went dry.
Most likely we'd hold on for a while, but a majority of our society
would drop to TL4 as fuel supplies run out.
Note that if TL degredation occurs, see step 1.
3) Population cross-section: is there enough varied manpower to maintain
the knowledge base?
If you have a varied skill base, assuming #2 above is not kicking in,
you should be able to maintain your TL. However, worlds that are
highly specialized in one area and import techs to handle other
areas are going to be screwed.
So what's the gist? Mabye hard times should be used to clear out the
cruft of old traveller's world generation.
First off, any world with a population of 4 or less is highly suspect.
They are either a freshly planted colony, or a dying one. In either case,
the loss of trade would most likely finish them off. Population 5 is
the bare minimum I would say is self-sufficient, assuming no adverse
environmental conditions or resource problems. I have seen at least one
world with a population of 10 stone-age barbarians. If you try to tell me
that this world should have remained unchanged even through the time of
spinward marches without dying off, I'll slap you silly. :)
Second, some population/world size ratios are very bogus given some of the
TLs provided. In my world generator program I had a correction algorthm based
on world land surface and TL. The result was the maximum population
capable. If Usable Land Index (ULI) equals Size+Size+(10-Hydro),
Then for every +1 change in ULI, increase the population maximum by +1.
Likewise for a decrease of 1, decrease population maximum.
Also, increase the maxmimum by +1 for every TL above 0.
If the world is an cold planet, subtract .176 from the total. Ice worlds
subtract .477 from the total. Hot worlds add .095 to the total.
Table of logs below:
Code Value Code Value Code Value Code Value Code Value Code Value
0 -.477 2 .301 4 .602 6 .778 8 .903 10 1.00
1 .000 3 .477 5 .699 7 .845 9 .954
For example, Earth has an ULI of (.903*2)+(.477) or 2.283. Our example
world above has an ULI of (.699*2)+.699 or 2.097. Within reason, it
has about the same area. However, a Size 1, Hydro 0 world has an ULI of
1, so it's base maximum should be reduced by 1.
I figure a base maximum of 5 for an Earth sized planet for TL 0
savages. Your milage may vary.
Note to GDW: Please decrease the granularity in population codes!
a factor of 10 is a bit much -- How about a factor of "about 2"?
i.e. 0 = none
1=1 2=2, 3=5, 4=10, 5=20, 6=50, 7=100, 8=200, 9=500, 10=1000,
11=2000, 12=5000, 13=10,000 and so on?
Also, keep in mind some minimums of popualations. Use some sort of
table-driven means rather then straight die values (i.e. 2d-2).
In my mind, minor worlds range from (old traveller) pop 5-8, major ones
from 9 and up. At pop 4 you have the beginnings of a colony, or the end
of one. 3 and less should be some sort of dependant installation .
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