Traveller-digest      Wednesday, June 18 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1435



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

A Plea to Marc Miller
Re: T4.1 Chargen INT & EDU (incl. Delurk!, LONGish)
YATI (Yet Another Task Idea)
Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
Re: Alien Races (was Pocket Empires)
Re: Marc Miller--Please.
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1433
Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
Re: PE Starport / Infrastructure costs

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 06:26:45 +0000
From: "Kenneth Bearden" <dreamer@weck.brokersys.com>
Subject: A Plea to Marc Miller

Dear Marc,

You are doing such a fine job on the T4.1 revised book (I mean 
that--an incredible job that is much more than I expected), it pains 
me to think about you going ahead with the broken task system that is 
supposed to be an improvement over the official one we have now.

I really care about Traveller, and I want to see it be the best it 
can.  I'd like to see T4.1 be the definitive Traveller game system.

Given that, I am forced, out of my devotion to the game, to make one 
final plea for you to reconsider the task system.

I will detail here everything that I can see wrong with your T4 fix 
in support of my case.

Please, please consider what I have to say.

==========================================================

Here goes...

First off,  the attribute vs skill issue:  T4 is weighted too 
heavily against stats.  Skills have a minor part in a character's 
success at a task throw.  These should be equally weighted.

Stats govern a character's general/natural ability.  Skills govern 
the character's expertise in a specific area.

To illustrate the problem in T4, follow me on an example.

You're overweight, smoking too much, not exercising enough, and 
eating fatty foods.  Walking down the street one day, you collapse on 
the sidewalk.  The EMT's are called, and you are carted off via 
ambulance back to the hospital.  It is clear that you have had a 
heart attack.

The EMT that takes care of you in the ambulance is a smart cookie.  
He knows his job, and he did well in school--yet he is only an EMT.

At the hospital, you've got a veteran heart specialist there, ready 
to operate on you.  He's been doing this for years and you would be 
his 400th bypass operation--yet, in med school, he was an average 
student.

Now, here's the 5 mega-credit question:  Who would you rather have 
operate on you--the EMT or the veteran heart specialist?

No, really.  With whose hands would you rather place your life?

There is really no question about it.  I'd be surprised if anybody 
could sincerely pick the EMT.

With respect to T4, the EMT would have Medical-1 and the veteran 
heart specialist would have Medical-4.

Now, let's add in their respective educations.  The doctor was 
average, we'll give him an EDU-6.  The EMT is an up and commer--we'll 
give him an EDU-10.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?  

Under the T4 rules, as they now stand, the EMT would be a better 
choice to perform the bypass operation.  The doctor would have a T4.1 
target number of 10 whereas the EMT would have a target number of 11.

There's something inherently wrong with that.  

The problem is that we are dealing with two different scales.  Stats 
range from 1-15 with 7 being average human ability.  Skills range 
from 0-6 with 2 being an average skill.

In order to balance the two scales, we must somehow increase the 
benefit that skill brings to the target number.

Under KBv2.0, the problem is eliminated.  The doctor has a target 
number of 18 whereas the EMT has a target number of 13.  The EMT is 
still benefiting (vastly) from his way above average EDU, but it is 
not enough to put him in the same league with a veteran heart 
specialist (who is at skill level 4).

This, to me, is the single biggest problem with the T4.1 task system, 
and this needs to be corrected before the new book comes out.

Use KBv2.0.  Make up your own system--I don't care.  Just please 
address this issue.  There's a real problem here--problem number one 
with the T4.1 task system.

================================================================

OK, I've got some other problems with the task system that you are 
putting into T4.1.

Another area that I have a problem with is how SF is rolled.  In your 
system, a roll of 3 sixes is required to roll SF.  Look at the 
table below, and you will see that this is not a good rule given the 
difficulty codes you have chosen.

Difficulty        Dice        SF Possible?
=======       =====      ==========
Easy             1D            No
Average       2D            No
Difficult         2.5D         No
Formidable    3D           Yes
Staggering    4D           Yes
Impossible     5D           Yes


Shouldn't SF be possible on Difficult throws?  On Average throws?  I 
can see the Easy category being exempt from SF, and I have no problem 
with this.  But SF should definitely be possible on Average and 
Difficult throws.

This is problem number two with the T4.1 task system.

=============================================================

Now, let's look at SS.  It is logical to me that the chance of SS 
should get smaller the harder a task becomes.

If you are rolling an Easy task, you should have a better chance of 
rolling SS than if you are rolling an Impossible task.

In your T4.1 task system, this is completely backwards.  Since 
anytime 3 ones are rolled, a SS result is indicated, and we roll more 
dice the harder the task becomes, it is easier to roll SS given an 
Impossible task in T4.1 vs. rolling SS on a Difficult task.

This needs to be reversed in T4.1.  It should be harder to roll SS 
the harder a task becomes.

This is problem number three with the T4.1 task system.

===============================================================

Speaking of SS, we have the same problem here that we did with SF.

Take a look at this chart:

Difficulty       Dice        SS Possible?
=======      ====       ============
Easy             1D          No
Average       2D         No
Difficult         2.5D      Yes
Formidable    3D         Yes
Staggering    4D         Yes
Impossible    5D          Yes



Does it make sense to you that SS is possible on Impossible task 
throws and not on the easiest there is to attempt--Easy task throws?  
Or, even Average task throws?

There is a definite inequity here, and this is problem number 4 with 
the T4.1 task system.

============================================================

Then, we've got the half die.  Some people think that this is 
nit-picking, but I believe that we should fix everything about the T4 
task system as long as we are re-writing  and re-publishing it.

Why include a necessary evil (and a very unpopular choice) when it is 
not necessary?

I've proved with KBv2.0 that a vialble T4 like task system can be 
created that uses only whole die.

We don't need the unpopular half die.  Let's get rid of it.

This is problem number 5 with the T4.1 task system.

===============================================================

Well, there you go, Marc--five logical reasons to re-think the T4.1 
task system.  

KBv2.0 fixes all of these problems, uses whole dice, involves simple 
addition--just like your system, and produces good percentages of 
success.

But, don't use KBv2.0.  I'd be just as happy if you fixed all of 
these problems with another system.

I just want to see T4.1 be the best--not broken again.  You've got a 
golden opportunity here to fix these problems before it is too late 
and T4.1 is published.

That's one of the functions of this list, isn't it?  To point out 
what can be done better?

Isn't that why you posted your chargen system recently?

Please consider this, Marc.  From the bottom of my heart, I want T4 
to be incredible--not flawed.

Sincerely,

Kenneth.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 09:08:49 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Chargen INT & EDU (incl. Delurk!, LONGish)

On 18 Jun 97 at 2:08, Bruce E J Lewis wrote:

>  Much of the increase I think is due to education, and so maybe
> EDU could influence increases in a character's intelligence over the
> course of reaching 18.

	In a 1989 issue of Traveller's Digest, there was an article named
"Children in MegaTraveller", with fairly detailed rules for 
generating underage characters. They assumed EDU depended on INT. In 
other words, an intelligent child was more curious and more likely to 
want to learn something new.	

>  Also, how about a separate rating for intelligence potential?

	If you're familiar with ICE's Rolemaster -series of games, you 
understand why I begin to tremble every time somebody refers to 
separate "actual" and "potential" stats. :)

	Just my Cr .02 (Terran Cr, that is)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

- -----------------------------------------------Delurk section

	Hello all!

	I finally got to subscribe to TML (my previous attempts failing for 
reasons unknown), and despite my unfamiliarity with T4 I (apparently) 
couldn't keep my mouth shut.

	Bear with me. :)

	I've been playing Traveller since '87: I started with the 1st ed.
MegaTraveller (never played CT, actually), and when TNE hit the 
stores I started to develop my game into another direction, using 
GURPS rules with FFS/Brilliant Lances.

	I've been lurking with the HIWG for quite some time, but due to the
fact that 98% of the material I come up with is incompactible with
current rules set (whether TNE or T4) I never really got around to 
properly delurk there.

	So here!

	I've been doing some Traveller-related artwork for local gaming 
magazines and SF zines for some years (if anyone on the list gets 
"Magus" magazine, my piece is on the cover of their latest issue), 
and am now in the process of (finally) going through T4 rules and 
preparing a con game at RoPeCon'97.

	(Advance notice: I'll probably have some Traveller art online later
- - I'll drop a note on the list then).

	As I mentioned earlier, in my own game I use GURPS rules. 
"GURPS/Traveller: Silk Vector" is now running for the 3rd year, and 
started off in 5656 AD (1135 Imp., virus-free); my earlier campaign, 
"Traveller: Albeense One" ran from 1990 to 1993 (1117-1121 Imp.). 
Both were located in the Neworld sector.


	5656 AD / 1135 Imp. - What's going on?

	The 2nd Civil War ("The Rebellion") ended with the release of a 
computer virus that wiped out what little fleets Lucan and Dulinor 
had in the Dagudashaag/Zarushagar/Massilia area. The virus never got 
around to do any serious harm to other factions.

	Lucan was finally driven off the Iridium Throne by a military 
coup lead by Admiral van Tazlin. However, van Tazlin failed to hold 
power for longer than a few weeks; a re-run of the Emperors of Flag 
ensued, which ended in the unthinkable disaster. In 1132, 
Capital/Core was raided by the Vargr.

	Into this chaos moved Margaret. With IRIS and the Moot backing up 
her claim of fostering Strephon's child, and with a relatively 
unharmed navy, she had little trouble assuming the Throne. The Third 
Imperium now controls Delphi, Old Expanses, Fornast and Core 
sectors, as well as small portion of Massilia, Diaspora, Hinterworlds 
and Glimmerdrift Reaches.

	I've yet to come up with how Archduke Norris of Deneb will react to 
this turn of events. Also, the fate of Antares remains unknown. 
Daibei and Ilelish are still around, both independent states. And 
then there's the Hivers (like someone said: Curiosity killed the cat 
- - the Hiver took notes). :)


	Solomani Confederation

	By 1125, the Solomani forces were spread wafer-thin across Daibei, 
Magyar, Diaspora, Sol, Old Expanses and Alpha Crucis sectors. The 
battles of 1119-1120 had already inflicted terrible damage on the 
Confederation Navy, and many of the member-states (especially in the 
rimward-trailing area) complained vocally how their trading suffered 
with the Navy not being there to keep piracy in check.

	Meanwhile, the conservative/centrist elements of Solomani Party 
pushed for a more centralized interstellar government. Couldn't have 
chosen a worse moment. In 1126, the first member-states split off; by 
1130, when the New Charter was signed, about 450 systems in Neworld 
and Aldebaran decided to decline.

	The Solomani Assembly did not have a Navy to wage war to regain its 
lost territories. Instead, it resorts - even today - to black 
operations and various kinds of "new manhattan projects" to return 
the independent Terran ("Solomani" being a highly unpopular term 
these days) states back under Terran rule.


	Most of the push of the campaign is directed rimward, with the new
states of Federated Suns, Drennys Treaty and others looking for new
resources and trade contacts; also, the Imperium in trying to form
diplomatic and economic ties with the splinter states. For a
real life equivalent, think of the former Soviet Union and it's 
former "member-states".

	Anybody interested in learning more of the campaign background, or 
if anyone has any thoughts or feedback on the ideas I've developed, 
you're more than welcome to mail me (privately, since I think this 
is too off-topic for the list).

/RFXn                  
- -----------------------
NSA keywords: Qu'ran, freight, cocaine, nuclear, uranium, 
import, bomb, national, front, NWO, detonators, freedom,
liberty, president, assassination, super bowl, sarin, VX,
hail, eris, hail, discordia, disinformation, and, apples!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 08:07:09 +0100
From: Andy Lilly <a.s.lilly@nortel.co.uk>
Subject: YATI (Yet Another Task Idea)

I see the revised skill debates are still going on. Has anyone considered
the following system (apologies if it's already been suggested):

Roll 1D for each skill level, then add the appropriate attribute.

e.g. Computer-3 using Intelligence of 8 would give a 3D6+8 roll.

(This should drastically re-balance the attribute-vs.-skill imbalance of the
current system)

Difficulty levels would be something like:

Simple          7
Average         9
Difficult       12
Formidable      16
Staggering      22
Impossible      28

(Numbers just off the top of my head; rolls for the Computer-3 guy above
would be: average 18.5, lowest 11, highest 26; ok so these might need
adjustment upwards)

Problems?

(Ok, I just realised that if you take off the attribute, you're pretty much
copying the Star Wars system)

Rolling high is good, which is usually intuitive to new players (although on
the other hand I've had no problems whatsoever teaching the current system
to new players).

Critical success is if you roll any 1s AND exceed the required roll.

(So hopefully this counters the possibility of someone rolling all sixes and
only just meeting the target number but somehow then achieving a critical
success. Hmmm. Nope, probably doesn't work - Mr. Computer above would get an
awful lot of critical successes!)

Critical failure is if you roll 2 or more 1s AND fail the required roll.

(Not sure if 2 or more 6s would be better, but it seemed counter-intuitive
for a high roll to be bad...)

Anyway, there's a bit more fuel for the task system 'fire'...

(Oh and it's totally anti-canon of course).

Anyone care to calculate all the percentage successes and all that? Just out
of interest?

Andy :-)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 09:59:19 +0200
From: Carlos Alos-Ferrer <alos@merlin.fae.ua.es>
Subject: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

>From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
(Snip)
>I seem to recall a shouting match here recently ended up with people
>generally deciding that the TL14 gear in EA was mostly good guesswork, or
>the occasional differential tech level.  The consensus seemed to be that
>there likely were not TL14 artifacts in the RoM, or that if there were,
>they were way experimental devices a TL or more above what the planet knew
>how to make.
(Snip)
>I noted that in Anomalies, though, a major plot point was some recovered
>TL14 gear, plus the hints that there were a lot more examples of it.  This
>is not the occasional millennia old battered prototype, this was working
>gear, and implications of even more of it.

        TWO adventures in Anomalies use TL 14-15 from the RoM. The two are
from Steve Miller. In another adventure of Steve Miller, he confuses the
Droyne with the Draysaskin, seeming to imply that there are no Droyne in the
universe... moreover, he postulates a surviving Draysaskin, but ***canon***
(flame retardant suit on) state that Grandfather killed them all (he kept
careful count). The confsion makes me think he is new to Traveller...

>I just hate that.

        Me too. But there are already Three supplements making direct or
indirect references to TL14-15 in the RoM, so it's starting to become a
major canon change.
        Obviously, Steve Miller was just given EA and CSC, and he based his
adevntures on that material, which leads to the errors. I cannot blame him,
but...

>Also, could you put together a
>writer's guide to tell all the people working in this stuff that this is/is
>not common.  I cannot blame the authors, as Greg Porter put this in EA, and
>was never told that this was incorrect by an official source, but this is a
>consistency problem.

        ... the writer's guide is starting to become a must!!!

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos Alos-Ferrer                          E-mail: Alos@merlin.fae.ua.es
Dpt. Fundamentos del Analisis Economico     Phn: (34) 6 5903400, Ext. 3226
Universidad de Alicante                     Fax: (34) 6 5903685
03071-Alicante (Spain)                      "Thursuth gha kvaekh?"
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 02:18:46 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Alien Races (was Pocket Empires)

Paul D. Owensby wrote:
>
>So hands up, folks. How do y'all use minor aliens in your games and
>what impact have they had on the way you and your players game?

Six (Hiver) hands up here. :)  The best thing I like about M.A.s is that
it is a way of keeping those players who _read everything_ off balance.
It is afterall, something of my own creation, unless I am using one
from the pubs.

The best "trick" I've ever developed for my game was in designing
minor aliens.  I used the "Animal Tables" from the Basic CT books
(or Trav Book) and fleshed out an intermittent/filter, or chaser/
pouncer, or what have you, and the tables even gave me things like
size, etc.

The one I had the most fun with was something like a 1200 Kg Escargot,
that had gotten J-drive from my RoM Terrans on the Rim, and were now,
after all those years, TL15 like most civilised places.  Their ships
were spheres, and their vacc suits left a synthetic molecular formula
lubrication, simulating their own natural slime-trails.  Oh yeah, they
had little patience, being "slug-like", they had _really_ adapted to
a tech way of life.  Their ships were usually 6G, and the players
never (until now) figured out that the aliens whom they were going to
rendevous with in the system, had gotten tired of waiting and went into
Jump.


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 01:48:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Marc Miller--Please.

I'm with most everyone else about changing the task system.  Stats are
overvalued wrt skills.  However, Ken's current task revisions IMHO
involves far too many dice.  How about using Ken's first suggestion (keep
the same number of dice per task, but use 1/2 stat (round up) + 2 * skill.
The character sheet could even have a space for the final task number by
each skill, and for the 1/2 stat value by each stat to minimize the
in-play math.  I've adjusted to the half die for Difficult tasks and can
live with it. 

Also, I hate the idea of having to roll for skills every years or term or
anything else.  That system is quite unfair.  One PC in the party may make
85% of their rolls (I've seen this happen) while another may only make 35%
of their rolls.  For the same # of terms served, one PC ends up with 2.5
as many skills.  I always loathed this in CT's advanced char gen. Maybe
you could limit skills to level 6 (an easy to remember number in Traveller)
during char gen.  Doing this allows folks to have the same number of skills

(IMHO a great improvement over CT & MT, but w/o ridiculously high
skill levels).

Comments?


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 18:50:22 +0000
From: aspqrz@curie.dialix.com.au
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1433

> From:          owner-traveller-digest@MPGN.COM (Traveller-digest)
> To:            traveller-digest@Phaser.ShowCase.MPGN.COM
> Subject:       Traveller-digest V1997 #1433

> Subject: Fwd: Thoughts on Traveller 4.5 (?) Character Generation...

A shameless (sort of commercial) plug -- Dark Star #1 has a complete 
alternative character generation system that does away *completely* 
with rolling for skills on tables -- but which limits the acquisition 
of skills in a realistic way though still allowing player *choice*.

Its a neat little system, even if I do say so myself!

Unfortunately, print copies are no longer available, only electronic 
format ones are -- Adobe .pdf format (must have Acrobat Reader V3).
Cost? US$5 for me to email it as an approx. 500k attachment -- or 
US$7 to have it mailed on disk.

The only realistic way to send money, depending on response, is 
either to me as US$ notes in the mail *or*, if there's only a few 
interested, I have a US contact that will take US$ cheques and put 
them toward my account for something else.

If you are worried about sending money to someone "blind", well, ask 
around, everyone who's ordered DS has received it -- even if the 
money seems to have gone adrift in the mail.

Phil
Phillip McGregor | aspqrz@curie.dialix.oz.au
Have Designer, Will Travel
(Co-Designer of Space Opera, Designer Rigger Black Book)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 21:44:21 +1200
From: Andrew Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

>Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 15:39:48 -0700
>From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
>Subject: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

>I just got Psionic Institutes, which was quite well put together, and TLWH,
>which I enjoyed the read through.  I also got Anomalies, and I do not yet
>have a strong opinion.  While parts of it looked good, there were two
>points that really pushed my hot buttons.

>I seem to recall a shouting match here recently ended up with people
>generally deciding that the TL14 gear in EA was mostly good guesswork, or
>the occasional differential tech level.  The consensus seemed to be that
>there likely were not TL14 artifacts in the RoM, or that if there were,
>they were way experimental devices a TL or more above what the planet knew
>how to make.

[snip]

>I noted that in Anomalies, though, a major plot point was some recovered
>TL14 gear, plus the hints that there were a lot more examples of it.  This
>is not the occasional millennia old battered prototype, this was working
>gear, and implications of even more of it.

>I just hate that.

I'm not one to make 'me too' posts usually, but I just have to agree. The
TL14 gear in CSC and EA can be handwaved away, the stuff in Anomalies
can not. The equipment in 'Lock and Loot' is so far out of canon its not
funny. This adventure is a major revision of history. I can live with a
TL 13 RoM, hey I even like the idea; but I just can't live with a TL 14
one. It just violates too much previous history. For 'Lock and Loot' to
work, a major portion of the RoM would have had to achieved a
consistant TL 14. This just doesn't fit with previously published
material.

An impassoned plea to IG and all T4 game designers:
Please please please don't do this. It just doesn't work. If the Terran
Confederation was TL 12 when they took over the Ziru Sirka they
could have reached TL 13, but they just couldn't have reached TL 14.
They would not have been able to spare the resources. They were
trying to hold together a collasping Empire with a massive and
overwhelming technological inertia. I don't think anyone who plays
Traveller wants to see the RoM turned into some great treasure hunt.
I can accept the occassional (heavy emphasis on the occcassional)
piece of TL 13 gear, maybe even a tiny bit of TL 14 (like a TL 14
battery on TL 13 equipment). But this is not the Traveller I know
and love. This is a dungeon crawl. One of the biggest attractions of
Traveller is it's consitant background, all this TL 14 RoM loot is
directly attacking that consistancy.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 10:53:37 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: PE Starport / Infrastructure costs

Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>:

> Nick Munn writes:
> >There's been a lot of talk about making starport and infrastructure 
> >costs dependent on population; frankly, I disagree.  Here's why:
> > 
> >Infrastructure is an absolute quantity.  
> 
> I hesitate to use the word that sprang to mind when I read this. Instead
> I will just say that I completely fail to understand what you mean. Could
> you elucidate, please?

I mean that the quantity Infrastructure, as defined in PE, is *not* 
proportional to population.  It represents a combination of a) extent 
and b) depth of infrastructure provision.

> >If you have too much infrastructure for your population, it's too expensive 
> >to maintain 
> 
> Which is exactly the reason why infrastructure would and should be 
> proportionate to the size of your population. 

In RL, I agree with you.  Under normal circumstances, anyway.

Here we are looking at a situation where worlds may be being 
developed with the purpose of becoming populous and hence lucrative, 
so costs to increase infrastructure "from outside" may well reflect 
that goal.

I agree that it is far more realistic to make Infrastructure a 
function of population.  I might do it.  You can too.  But that's not 
how it's defined in PE.



> No, per the rules the USE of infrastructure is proportionate to the
> population. That's why you get twice as many RUs out of 2 labor points as
> out of 1, all other things being equal. But per the rules the BUILDING of
> infrastructure is an absolute quantity. That's why there is a discrepancy.

Yes, I know.

Perhaps you could treat it as a capital investment, so as to provide 
a certain level of infrastructure whatever the population.  The RUs 
are tied up rather than used; this could represent dedicating 
planetary output to manufacturing infrastructure improvements as well 
as funding the improvement.


> >If it were not so, every time the population increases, you'll need to 
> >increase Inf.  
> 
> Which makes perfect sense. Otherwise you can double a planetary population
> by moving people from a low-tech, low-infrastructure planet to a high-tech,
> high-infrastructure planet and and double the production of that planet in
> a year.

Which in fact is probably a viable thing to do.  You've just imported 
an underclass to do the scut-work for low wages (but high by their 
previous standards) while the effete original population do their 
high-tech manufacturing/processing/data entry/whatever.

Of course, the referee will manufacture social problems from this raw 
material, but it seems rather tempting nonetheless...

> However, there's no reason why you can't simply rule that the Infrastructure
> increase that accompany natural population increase is a hidden factor that
> the ruler needen't bother about.

You mean, apart from the fact that you can improve infrastructure 
a.s.a.p. on the cheap, and watch your profits soar as population 
increases?  Hmmm.  Not in my PEs.

Improving infrastructure is a huge capital investment.  Take 
railways: the cost of all that track, the factories to make trains 
and spare parts, signalling, timetabling equipment 
(computers/printing) and so forth.  The cost of this is not 
proportional to population, either: if you want 200 miles of railway 
track, it will cost you a fixed amount.  If your sparsely-settled 
world is a series of mining camps (say), this may be your only 
option.  As population expands, it may only increase the size of the 
linked communities -- no more track is needed.  More rolling stock 
is, of course, but that could be funded out of infrastructure 
maintainance, or seen as an operating cost in effect.

Here are some possible "one-time" infrastructure improvements on 
similar lines:

Canals (TL 2+)
Road   (TL 1+)
Rail   (TL 4+)
Cable links (TL 4+)  -- telegraph, fibre-optic, whatever

The basic point is that once a system exists, new structures can 
connect to it (new stations, more cables along existing lines).  
Infrastructure cost is made up of a) initial system costs and b) 
investment for expansion of the system.

There are also projects with a high unit cost which are 
disproportionately expensive for a small population, like dams which 
store water and generate hydro power -- fixed cost to ship that back 
to civilisation, too -- or nuclear/fusion poweplants.

I accept your general point about infrastructure, but I hold that 
these counterexamples weaken it to the point where "absolute 
infrastructure" isn't such an impossible abstraction.


> I see starports as two different types, presently not distinguished in the
> rules. One is the type that is sized to serve the needs of the whole planet.
> That type would be bigger (and cost more) the larger the population is. The
> other kind is the "pimple" on the planetary backside that is essentially
> unrelated to the size of the planetary population. The trade station that
> only really trades with the nearest country, the advanced military base, the
> scout resupply base, etc. That kind would cost differently according to just
> what it is supposed to accomplish, but it wouldn't have mucg to do with the
> size of the local population.

To be honest, I think once you have a single starport to attract 
traffic, additional starports represent infrastructure.


> Joseph E. Walsh writes:
> >On Mon, 16 Jun 1997, Nick Munn wrote:
> > 
> >>Infrastructure is an absolute quantity.  If you have too much 
> >>infrastructure for your population, it's too expensive to maintain 
> >>(as per rules).  If it were not so, every time the population 
> >>increases, you'll need to increase Inf.  Too much fuss for me...
> > 
> >That was the reason we decided not to have infrastructure and starport 
> >costs related to Pop, actually.  There was a lot of discussion about this 
> >during playtesting.  In the end, Stu and I opted for the playability 
> >route instead of the realism route on this one.  
> 
> But how playable is a system that makes the bulk of your planets lousy
> investment prospects and a very few of the planets amazing investment
> prospects?

Of course, that *is* realistic, which is your other concern...

> How many of your playtesters actually invested in anything
> except the high-population planets in their pocket empires? The example in 
> the book details an investment that will take 213 years to get back. How 
> many pocket emperors will make such an investment instead of building
> warships?

The far-future planners building an empire in isolation, who can't 
afford the upkeep of military units yet.  The incredibly well-armed.  
Those with population redeployment projects on the go.

> Playability is the most important thing, I agree, to the point where huge 
> abstractions and gross generalisations are justified, especially in a game 
> with the scope of PE. But to me the line is crossed when you go from gross
> generalisations into downright fallacies. And I still find it difficult
> to believe that a system that makes a 10 man colony as expensive to build
> as a 10 billion man colony can actually be playable, even at the level
> of abstraction that is PE.

I think things are broken at the low population end, but you can 
solve this by making a Low or Medium effort colonisation attempt on a 
lowish pop planet.  This will increase infrastructure and population 
rather more cheaply...

> I'm handicapped here because I haven't been
> able to set up a trial game; I have only a lot of of calculations to guide
> me, so I may be wrong. But if the reason why it turned out to be playable
> was that your playtesters simply didn't invest in anything but the high-
> population planets, then the proper abstraction would have been to just 
> ignore any and all economic considerations for low and medium population 
> planets (That would actually make sense; the budget of a planet more than a 
> couple of population levels below the biggest one in you pocket empire will 
> be peanuts compared to the big planets). You should still keep them for 
> political purposes, of course.

This is more or less what PE says, in effect.  It allows the attempt, 
but it's expensive.

> >In game terms, what you're doing when you increase Infrastructure is 
> >coating the whole planet in improved Infrastructure, in a sense.  Thus, 
> >the Size factor in that cost formula.
> 
> But that's one of the things that makes no sense at all. A colony of a few
> million people wouldn't be using a whole planet. And no matter how uniformly
> they were spread out, they wouldn't build bigger mines and factories than
> they can run, just because the planet is bigger.

I disagree.  A few million could be a thousand mines, or a thousand 
farms, over the whole surface of the planet, all linked by rudimetary 
roads and optical cables.


> Essentially you're making a planet with a population of 10 million (or one
> with a 100 people, for that matter) build the same number of mines and
> factories and the same size transportation network as a planet with 10 
> billion people.

Which may not be inaccurate, at one mine per resource and roads 
between all communities; the size of your cities may vary.

And see my colonisation tip above for pop 1-4 worlds.


> And you're making a size 10 planet with 10 billion people 
> build 10 times as many mines and factories and 10 times the size 
> transportation network as a size 1 planet with the same number of people.

Not sure I understand.  Is Inf proportional to planet size?  Not
unreasonable if so; a size 10 planet has 100 times the surface area
of a size 1 rock, so 10 times the infrastructure cost isn't silly. 
(A size 1 planet has problems of its own, and may well need orbital
habitats for its surplus poulation.) 


> And you would have had one huge advantage from linking the costs to the size
> of the population: the game would have been instantly scalable. You would be
> able to run a game with only medium-population planets simply by redefining
> the size of a labor point. One of the problems I had when I tried out the
> rules was that I used (my version of) the Sword Worlds in Year 55 (something
> I had already worked out in another context). Now, the biggest population
> levels in the Sword worlds at that time was 7 (Again, please note that this
> is unofficial; that's just my version). And with the number of RUs those
> planets produced, there was no way anybody could afford to upgrade anything.

This would be a nice side-effect of the proportional improvement 
costs, indeed.


> >Yes, you've hit the nail on the head.  The rules I'm working on right now 
> >for city generation show this effect.  If you have a B class starport in 
> >the UWP, you're going to have primary, secondary, and tertiary cities with 
> >better starports and/or spaceports than you would if your UWP starport 
> >was C class.
> 
> Unless the B starport is put there by a pocket emperor who just want an
> advanced base at which to refit his ships. In that case you're not going
> to have more than one starport on the whole planet. 

Well, there's a correlation.  If it's suddenly easier to attract 
traders (B starport), there's an incentive to upgrade local 
facilities to supply the starport.  Even a military base will take on 
supplies from the local population, whose space infrastructure will 
improve.  The main port may even want auxilliary landing sites.

> >I encourage those of you who are interested in this to stop by the PE 
> >walk-through on IRC this Thursday.  While Stu will be going through the 
> >whole book, I plan to be there as well, and we both hope to spend a good 
> >amount of time exploring the Economics section.
>  
> I shall try to figure out how to do so. What time is it (GMT, please)?

It's 8 p.m. (or is it later?) central which is about 2 a.m. GMT and 1 
a.m. in the UK.

It's not that I'm not interested, it's just that I sleep at night...


Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1435
***********************************
