Venus Equilateral, T&F Generator

Seth the Lesser [email removed] writes:
> Umm, anyone here but me ever read the "Venus Equilateral" stories by George O.
> Smith? "Mars Equilateral," anyone? Although I suppose that Jove so near by
> might make Mars's L-4 and L-5 a wee bit shaky.

I have.  Very good stuff; clearly right up there in the classics of
Science Fiction with Doc Smith's Lensman, Heinlien's Future Histories,
Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, and Clarke's early fiction.

As far as establishing communications relay stations at the Lagrange
points go, probably pretty unlikely.  But stations might be put there
for other reasons.  Anybody want to do some *EXTREMELY* long baseline
interferometry?  How does a baseline from Mars's L4 to L5 sound?

Steve Higginbotham (did I spell thant right?) writes:
> I liked your generator.  I didn't agree with the modifier for worlds
> within J-1 of wherever, since I disagree with the notion of J-1 traffic
> being significant (how many one-cycle steam engines are still in use in
> the US Merchant Fleet?  They're a 150 year old idea, and J-1 is ten
> thousand years old.  And was superseded much more than 3500 years ago.)

Thank you!  As far as the modifiers go, I have one suggestion:

Well change it!  Instead of J-1, use whatever the jump number of the
most common trading vessels in your game is.  Instead of +2 per Class A
or B port, and +1 per Class C, D, or E port, use whatever will give you
an expected value of 4.442 in a standard (50%) density subsector.
The same goes for the -2 if no Class A port within jump-2.  Use whatever
the jump number of your universe's "long range" traders is.  The
expected value should be -0.4082 in a standard density subsector.  Or
simply remove both modifiers and change the die roll from 2d6-2 to
2d6+2.

I assumed that most merchant starships would use as small a jump number
as possible.  Larger jump drives are considerably more expensive,
require a larger crew, and additional fuel requirements.  All of these
typically come at the expense of cargo space.  The result is higher
expenses and lower revenues, a situation which most merchants detest.

Finally, checking all worlds within jump-1 or jump-2 is a practical
thing to do by hand, on a hand-written map.  Checking all worlds within
jump-6 (for each and every world in the subsector) is a daunting task.
In a case like this, I would simply ditch the modifiers and change the
die roll as indicated.

Go for it!  (and let me know how it turns out)  Kinda reminds me of my
college wargaming society's motto: "We can fix these rules!"

> However, this is a minor quibble.  A slightly (only slightly) more
> serious quibble is the extra information you are adding into the
> standard hex display - those hexes are crowded enough as it is.  They
> really don't need anything else stuffed in there.  The extra information
> either needs to be relegated to the world listings, or a different way
> of listing the information needs to be developed, so that required
> information is not buried under a cloud of teensy little
> base/starport/GG/whatever symbols in each hex....

By no means am I suggesting that the "expanded" hex display is needed to
run the traffic and facilities system.  The two extra digits go into the
standard world listings, over on the right side, after the population
multiplier, gas giants, and asteroid belts.

I presented my example subsectors in map format because I think that
this makes the traffic patters more clear; I didn't intend to suggest
that it replace the standard subsector map format.  The map is also a
good deal more exciting that a listing for 40 or so two digit numbers.

The "expanded" subsector display presented at the end of the article is
simply something I found useful while generating the traffic and
facilities codes, and during subsequent use of the trade and commerce
system.  In both cases, all of the information you need is listed on the
map, so thatI didn't have to refer to the subsector data listings; this
makes it easier to work with when all you have is a pencil, paper,
and dice.  I have naturally small handwriting, and I enlarged the hexes
so that everything could fit and still be ledgible (no harder to read
than my other notes, anyway).

Anything that said "playtest" in it was simply the way I did things, not
a part of the traffic and facilites generator itself.


[email removed]
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                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future