Re: World Builder

> I was attempting to "detail" a few systems within the spinward marches,
> looking at interesting (read hi-tch, low law, etc...) worlds in particular.
> and I came up against the small problem of the large number of M5+ type V
> stars in the marches.
>
> These stars, you might notice - have no habitable zones!  they all end up
> as -141 iceballs, even the rich ones, or the agrarian, or etc.
>
> Is there a good distance (below orbit 0, presumably) to put these worlds.
> Or Are al these worlds really iceballs? (I was perturbed to find that some
> already published non-iceball worlds turn into iceballs under world-builder.)

The big determinig factor (besides the primarys luminocity and the distance to
the primary) for the temperature is the worlds Albedo, (ie the factor of how
much of the energy that the world recieves that is reflected off it).

Ye olde "Scouts" had a quite good system for determining albedo by determinig
the proportion of different kinds of terrain on the planets surface. Totally
unworkable by hand but perfect on computer.
The percentage of clouds and their reflectivity had the single largest
influence on the albedo, and the percentage of clouds was given by Atmosphere
and Hydrographics. But tailoring the reflectivity of the clouds one could
achieve pretty much any surface temperature.
(and make some doubletalk to the players like: The clouds on Ruie seems to be
very dark, probably tainted by dust or pollution...:-)

In the example of Ruie (which I did some weeks ago) even this was not enough,
and I had already fudged the greenhouse factor. In the end, I had to put it
in an orbit about 80% of orbit 0. (orbit -0.2? :-) to give it an temperature
above zero.

If anyone is interested I have an Excel worksheet (for the Mac) that produces
a temperature worksheet if given some basic input about the world.
(a real hack but it workes). I'll try to post it if anyone is interested.
(It has one drawback, it uses the luminocity figyres from "Scouts", and
WBH has totally different figures (probably adapted to the system it uses
for determining temperature.))

- -bertil-
- --
Bertil K K Jonell @ Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
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