UWP Generation

First, I want to thank everybody for helping me out on that
allegiance code question. I guess I must have slept through the
5th frontier war or something.

Anyway, I'm continuing to mull over the sunbane data on the
spinward marches despite my limited knowledge concerning the
region's recent history, and (at the risk of getting into a
really long discussion) I have to admit that I keep thinking the
same thing over and over: "There's something wrong here." What
I'm talking about is UWP's (formerly UPP's) which don't make a
whole lot of sense to me. Sonthert/Lanth is a decent example of
what I mean.

#PlanetName   Loc. UPP Code   B   Notes         Z  PBG Al.
#----------   ---- ---------  - --------------- -  --- --
Sonthert      1918 X6266AB-3    Ni              R  314 Im

Here we have a couple million folks making a living with their
19th century technology, and look what they have to breathe: a
very thin (and tainted) atmosphere. For all intents and purposes,
a vacuum. I know... I know... they can get by with combination
respirators/filtermasks, right? All couple million of them? With
technology which is over a century old? I can just see it now.
"Don't go outside, son. Yer might have to breathe or somethin'."
Hey, at least TAS had the sense to classify it as a red zone
(don't go there if you're addicted to oxygen).

Okay, all kidding aside, the thing that gets me about planets
like this is that anybody decided to colonize them in the first
place. Agreed, with a bit of technology, people can survive just
about anywhere they want to survive, but why bother? I see a nice
dirtball only five parsecs trailing.

#PlanetName   Loc. UPP Code   B   Notes         Z  PBG Al.
#----------   ---- ---------  - --------------- -  --- --
La'Belle      2416 C564112-4    Lo Ni              701 Im

Now this is sweet. We're talking primo-atmosphere (none of that
chewable Los Angeles gunk). And lo and behold, who shows up to
catch the view? A whopping seventy people. We have more folks on
the TML than this. Yes... I know... the planet is corporate
owned, but who really cares? Why waste a virtual paradise (at
least compared to that other place) on seventy stinking corporate
losers (or maybe corporate winners in this case). Ah, yes... I
can see some cool scenarios... the corporate paradise. The wooing
ground for potential investors. Perhaps it's just one big golf
course. You tee-off from orbit.

But the fact is, this would never happen. When the place gets
colonized way back when, people are gonna zoom in on this little
speck of rock like nothing you've ever seen, and any corporation
that wants it is gonna have to pay through the nose (and a few
other choice orifices) to get it.

My point: this situation shouldn't happen. It goes not only
against intuition and common sense, it goes against the principle
of greed, the fundamental root of human nature (yes, I'm down on
humanity, but that's not the point here). The point is that this
rule system is... flawed, no other way to put it. (I can see
several people shaking their heads and saying "you mean you just
figured this out?") Hey, I've always been a big believer in
classic traveller, and the spinward marches are about as classic
as you can get. But the point stands, there's something rotten in
the Lanth subsector, and it mostly likely extends from the whole
set of rules on UWP generation.

Let's take a closer look. What's going on in the rules to produce
these sort of unwelcome results? I think one of the problems is
real obvious. Just take a look at the order in which UWP stats
are being generated.

1. Starport       5. Population
2. World Size     6. Government
3. Atmosphere     7. Law Level
4. Hydrographics  8. Technology

The first thing wrong with this is actually the very first thing
we see. Why are we generating the starport first? Shouldn't starport
be determined by traffic, and shouldn't traffic be determined by
population? Hence, let's move starport after population (not in
the UWP listing, but in the order of stat generation).

Now (making this one change) let's start looking at cause and
effect in the rules.

The Stat        What modifies it
/------\        /--------------\
1. Size         (nil)
2. Atmosphere   (Size)
3. Hydro        (Size, Atmosphere)
4. Population   (nil)
5. Starport     (nil)
6. Government   (nil)
7. Law Level    (nil)
8. Technology   (everything but law level)

Now this is cute. Again, I always was a big believer in the
classic rules (maybe because I wanted to crawl in a hole when MT
came out), but let's take a look here. Specifically, let's look
at population. The rules would have us believe that you take any
given system, and regardless of its features, the primary world
or asteroid belt in one system is just as likely to have X amount
of people as the primary world or asteroid belt in the other
system. This, my friends, is way way out of line.

Think about it. You roll up some dinky little ice-ball as the
main world in your star system and then you try telling me that
the fact that this tiny speck of crud has no atmosphere, that it
has no liquid water, and that it hasn't even a modicum (I like
the word) of elbow room.... and then you try telling me it's just
as likely to have 50 billion people on board as that garden
terra-prime paradise just a couple of parsecs down the road. I
don't think so. Yes... you can explain it away. You can say, "Oh,
there's this wonderful lanthanum mine." Or you can say. "These
people live here... because it's their home" (and then smile
convincingly). But it doesn't work. This isn't a little
inconsistency. This is whopping big one. It's gigantic. It's
glaring. It's pesky and annoying (like me), but most of all, it's
just plain stupid.

Time for Jim's 1st Law on main-world generation (hey, if Newton
can do it, why not me?): Given that everything else is more or
less equal, people will tend to migrate to the place that is
"nicer". What I'm saying is that worlds with a nice atmosphere,
some actual water, and so forth are gonna attract large
populations which will in turn build nice jumbo starports.
Planets that aren't so nice (you know the ones I'm talking
about)... those planets will not attract people, and hence, they
aren't very likely to have lots of traffic or nice starports.
Jim's 2nd Law is likewise easy to grasp: People will attain the
resources (technology) that they need to survive such that those
resources are available. I.e., if you're really sure that you're
going to live on Sonthert, then you're gonna work damn hard to
acquire the technology you need to survive. TL3 doesn't cut it on
a near-vacuum planet. You need a little bit more (And I've never
bought into the philosophy of high and low tech worlds living
side by side. For a short duration such as a few decades, I can
see it. Given special poltical or social circumstances, I can see
it. But in general, over the course of centuries, eventually
there will either be a leveling process or the low TL regions
will be brought up to snuff... and this is exactly what's
happening on our world).

Okay... now since I try not bitch about something unless I'm
willing to work to fix it, here's my proposed modified-rules on
main world generation (if this begins to look like pseudo-code,
it's probably because it is).

1. World Size. Roll 2d6-2.

2. Atmosphere. Roll 2d6-7+Size.
   if size=0 then atmosphere=0.
   confine range to 0-F.

3. Hydrographics. Roll 2d6-7+Size.
   if atmosphere is 1 or less, then DM -4
   if size is 1 or less, then Hydro=0
   if atmosphere is A-C then DM -4
   if atmosphere is E then DM -2
   confine range to 0-A

4. Population. Roll 2d6-2.
   if size is 2 or less, DM -1
   if atmosphere is 3 or less, DM -3
   if atmosphere is A, DM -2
   if atmosphere is B, DM -3
   if atmosphere is C, DM -4
   if atmosphere if greater than C, DM -2
   if atmosphere is 6, DM +3
   if atmosphere is 5 or 8, DM +1
   if hydro=0 and atmos>3, DM -2
   confine range to 0-A

5. Starport. Roll 2d6 (use whichever table suits the locality
                       but remember that high rolls result in
                       a lower quality starport).
   if pop=0 then starport=X
   if pop=1, DM +2
   if pop=2, DM +1
   if pop is 6-9, then DM -1
   if pop is A, then DM -2
   confine range to A-X

6. Government. Roll 2d6-7+population.
   if pop=0 then gov=0
   confine range to 0-F

7. Law Level. Roll 2d6-7+government.
   if gov=0 then law=0
   confine lower bound of range to 0

8. Tech Level. Roll d6. Modify as per the standard chart.
   if pop=0 then tech=0
   otherwise, if hydro is 0 or A and pop is at least 6,
                 then tech must at least be 4.
              if atmos is 4, 7 or 9,
                 then tech must at least be 5.
              if atmos is 3 or less or A-C,
                 then tech must at least be 7.
              if atmos is D or E and hydro is A,
                 then tech must at least be 7.
   confine lower bound of range to 0

There, that wasn't so bad. I think you folks (at least those who
are interested) should be able to make sense of all of this. I'm
throwing down some example UWP's to show you what sort of worlds
this modified system tends to create.

X211000-0    E475100-8    D86A6BB-7    X410000-0    A410446-B
C66266B-6    E98A237-8    X573220-5    A748483-C    A85A766-C
A867657-B    C310235-7    B220532-D    X473000-0    A665ADD-E
A8599A8-C    C738475-8    A5588B7-9    C634523-8    B332334-9
D545456-5    C575553-7    C110221-8    A667785-7    E75A466-4
D795679-5    C754575-9    E678112-6    X311000-0    X528211-8
B471322-B    C874663-6    D453643-4    C668989-9    B5438AE-8
C87A564-6    C474278-8    X226000-0    C410230-7    X303156-8
B9B4230-7    A5949C9-A    A685876-7    C594100-8    C539343-7
X9A8000-0    X120000-0    B457867-6    B2518CD-B    A631453-F

Note that there are some conspicuous differences between this
data and "normal" UWP listings. We get quite a few uninhabited or
very low-population star systems under the modified rules. Not so
under the original rules. I haven't checked yet, but I suspect
that this will probably bring down the average starport rating
for any given region (which is fine with me). Further, we don't
see lots of low-tech star systems. The lowest I see here is TL4,
and in both cases, we've got a breathable atmosphere attached to
each planet (no assistance required, hence no technology required
in order to breathe). As we'd expect, the yucky-foo worlds tend
to have lower populations and seedier starports. I'm a bit
surprised that we have quite a few lush (atmos=6) worlds with
under ten million inhabitants. On other runs, I usually see very
high populations clustered on those worlds. Of course, when we
look at the highest population world in this run, we see that it
has a standard atmosphere, just as we'd expect, so all in all,
it's not giving us really strange results on that count.

Now what I'd like to do with this modified rule-set is get some
comments and criticism from you folks. Even though the TML
comprises a *very* small corner of the internet, it also has some
of the most devoted Traveller players I've ever laid electronic
eyes on. So tell me... what do you think about the modified
rules? What problems do you see? What needs fixing?

I'd like to "perfect" the program before distributing it, but if
you'd like a copy for "experimental purposes", I can email the
QB45 source and/or the MS-DOS executable. What I'm really looking
for here are suggestions. Do you like the modified system? Do ya
hate it? What about it needs improving? Probably a lot! From
reading this mailing-list in the past, I know that there is
*never* going to be a consensus on the TML regarding something
this broad-based and as fundamental to the rules of Traveller.
That's okay with me. I'm not trying to please everyone (or even
the majority). I'm just trying to get some ideas and a fair
critique (and what better place than the TML?).

Thanks for tuning in. Now back to the regularly scheduled
program.

[email removed]