Archive through March 02, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Prime Directive RPG: NEW KINDS OF RPG PRODUCTS:
GURPS Prime Civilians:
Archive through March 02, 2004
No argument there, Douglas. But that shouldn't be the _only_ thing addressed. What Intelligence Agencies exist in the SFU? In general terms, what are the rules and regulations that the police have to deal with - and how do they vary from one empire to another? If a ship crewed by nonmilitary Kzintis is found in Klingon space, what happens? What _is_ involved in colonizing a planet?
Incidently, much of the economics issue has already been addressed in GURPS - specifically, in "GURPS Traveller: Far Trader". A few minor adjustments - such as travel speeds - would need to be made in order to adapt it for use in SFU; but other than that...
Also consider Dash speed as those times when Scotty says "Me poor wee bairns cain't take much more of this!" How many people want to hear that on a regular basis?
William, the thing is that dash speed is SO much faster then normal travel that you save a LOT on other expenses (like pay for the crew)
for example the earth->orion route. with a ship that can do full warship speeds the trip will take ~5 months, at dash speed it will take about a week.
yes you have some down time for maintinance, but you have down time to load/unload cargo as well so figure that in a year you would get 1 round trip in at normal speeds or 12 round trips in at dash speed. yes you pay a lot more for maintinance but you have moved 12 times as much cargo.
or looking at it another way, to move the same amount of cargo could be done with
1 ship at dash speed in 1 year
12 ships at dash speed in 1 year
1 ship at dash speed in 12 years
the maintinance penalty is 1.2* cost of the ship so if the ship gets paied off in 10 years you are just about at break-even for the ship cost, but you have saved 11 years worth of pay
jonathan, the travel speeds and distances are both VERY different from the travaler setting, in addition replication has serious effects on trade as well. this topic started from trying to has out what actually works.
To amplify what David just said, the difference in scale between the size of the TRAVELLER and SFB universes is major:
The entire TRAVELLER map would fit within one F&E hex. Maybe two or three, depending on supplements.
Understood. Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing against what's currently being done. I'm trying to suggest some other avenues that ought also to be explored. For instance, you're absolutely right about the difference in scale between Traveller and SFU. However, the interstellar distances used in Free Trader could be rephrased in terms of travel times instead of parsecs; once that's done, the SFU travel speeds could be substituted in to get the appropriate distances. The issue of replicators is a somewhat more serious one - but even there, I suspect that the Free Trader rules could be tweaked to fit.
Note also that Free Trader focuses more on planetary economics; the logistics involved in running a starship aren't addressed as thoroughly.
BTW: are SFU replicators more like ST:TNG replicators (that is, provide power to the thing and it will manufacture whatever you ask for "out of nothing"), or are they more like nanofactories (where you have to supply appropriate raw materials)?
Jonathan, I still have your copy of module prime apha, when do you want to meet to give you this and to go over the scale stuff? possibly if we put our heads togeather with the free trader stuff you have it will make more sense to me
to put the SFB scale into times
to cross the federation (say from the klingon border to the Gorm border) takes
~1.5 years by warship (or equivalent civilian engines)
~1.3 years by fast/X ship
~4.5 by standard freighter
~3 years by fast freighter
~2.5 weeks by warship at dash speed
~2 weeks by fast warship at dash speed
~9 months by aux freighter at dash speed
cut these numbers in half to get a earth->border trip, cut them in half again for a earth->orion approximation
on the other hand Earth and Alpha Centari are effectivly a single entity, even Vulcan is close enough for people to commute from there to Earth on a daily basis and spend less time doing it than many people working in the LA area (at a higher cost though) and there really isn't anyplace in a single solar system more then an hour away (assuming you have clearance and access to a shuttle)
so the SFU is a wierd combination of extremely fast travel over what is normally considered large distances, but then contains distances that make even these speeds seem dead slow.
Which is one of the reasons I proposed that hexes primarily trade amongst themselves. Though perhaps that proposal was a tad extreme. It's probably more likely that there will be a hub world every hex or two that trade for the area radiates from, like a major city on Earth.
For example, if you were shipping a package from Nyack, NY to Arcata, CA, the package would likely travel from Nyack to either New York City or Albany, then pass through a number of other stops before reaching San Francisco, then go up to Eureka and then finally reach it's destination in Arcata. The logistics of carrying every package directly to it's intended destination would be an incredible headache.
So a package being sent from Earth (hex 2908 and probably a "hub world" for its region) to Osiris (hex 2811) would likely arrive at a central facility on Orion (hex 2812) and then routed to Osiris, adding a distance of 1 hex (500 parsecs) to distance and roughly 3 months to travel time (at freighter speed Warp 4.5), plus whatever time is taken by routing and processing on Orion.
Also, see GPD p128 for a discussion of Dash Speed and the restrictions associated with it.
While I'm not disputing Knarf's last post, let me offer a personal observation:
My electric bill (Xcel Energy) is printed in (and mailed from) Amarillo, TX. It then goes to Dallas/Fort Worth, then Kansas City, MO, and finally gets shipped to the main post office in Denver for local distribution. I asked a postal supervisor why, oh please sir why, this is done, as it typically takes the bill seven to 14 days to get here (based on the Amarillo postmark). He explained that this is done because it is not economical to ship mail directly from Amarillo to Denver -- not enough volume. FYI, it is 483 miles from Amarillo to Denver -- I have driven it in eight hours without speeding.
My point is that trade routes may be illogical AND extremely convoluted, for no good reason that makes sense to anyone!
(I still have no explanation as to why my electric bill is coming from Amarillo. Too bad X-FILES is off the air, it would make a great script!)
SVC is monitoring your energy usage, Gary!
Pah. Like he has time.
I already thought of that and rejected it. The conspiracy would not be that obvious.
Nah. SVC probably just passes it on to the Central Committee.
David:
The increase in costs for dash speeds, if it is 10% per month of the cost of the vessel, as previously put forth, means that the economic gains ARE SWALLOWED by the dash costs. Additionally, a few other issues stack on:
most insurance companies would not aprove of dash speeds for vessels under mortage: THe risks go up somewhat drastically if you can't see upcoming threats, sapient or non.
Most dash speed plans would light up sensor grids all around, and speed in excess of warp 6 are probably forbidden to civilians specifically becuase of this, or ar highly regulated.
Dash speeds require dedicated guidance lines from non-dash sources; some argument can be made for it requiring bases (BS, BATS, SB, perhaps MLB & FRD) based upon SFB, F&E and PD sources. Would this guidance eat a sensor channel? (To my mind, not a SplSens chanel, but maybe a drone guidance chanel.)
Shore leaves are a reuirement for mental health. The trucking industry is finding out that down time is essential, too... The real question coming to mind now is "Should we be looking at the naval freight or the trucking industry for our shipping models?" All of these calcs, except for aux dash speed, do not include significant shore leave times (1-2 days per month for civilians is a good model minimum. More is probably heathier.)
Likewise, from a purely Roleplaying point of view, unless there is down time of note, there is much less opportunity for roleplaying adventures.
Having run a large number of Traveller "Merchant Campaigns", many players become bored with the merchant side of things very quickly. Most of the "Active Adventures" occur in ports, and a much smaller amount as a result of ciminality run rampant in the OTU, to wit, hijacking attempts. (I don't run GT.)
And yes, the entirety of the published setting of traveller is 320x320 parsecs. Counting a couple of sectors beyond he commonly available maps. (The common maps are in a 256x200pc block, published in Atlas of the Imperium, and First Survey.) The Spinward Marches, for reference are a mere 32x40pc. Yes, I'm somewhat of a Traveller Grognard...
As for shipping routes not making sense, well, I do understand the methodology for that bill. A direct route from amarillor to denver is HIGHLY unlikely for mail. All mail ships to local collection centers, and from there to regional ones. Not all the regionals are connected (Anchorage holds the regional for Alaska... and all that goes to the seattle regional center) directly. It then goes by route to the correct regional, then down to the correct local. By using the mail as a "Fluid" item, and putting it into break bulk on major routes, they can get the cost of shipping that 20g letter down to a reasonable price. point sources like that regional power company are glitches. Yes, they probably generate 2-3 containers for denver, and 2-3 for other urban areas of colorado (Ft Carson?). Yes, they probably run 3-5 containers a day of output. But, along with the one or 2 containers a week to denver from amarillo, they tend not to need a steady run (nor could they fill one). And the USPS seems to operate only those runs that can be run daily at affordable rates and near capacity of the purchased mail allotment. After all, if I mail something from the local PO, and it goes to Igagik or Eek (You can find these on a map) they will get it in around a week... since they are served by weekly mail planes. Alaska is the last refuge of the weekly mail plane, and that's by civilian contractor in censna or beaver. As for the billing being done in Amarillo, well, gather your neighbors and start a petition for local billing offices. Back that up with a class action if they ignore it.
How far can a typical SFU ship go in a week's time?
According to GPD128, a freighter travels at Warp 4.5 or 4.97 parsecs per day. This adds up to 34.79 parsecs per 7 days. This is roughly the speed of commerce in the SFU.
Star Fleet Standard Warp is Warp 7 or 18.7 parsecs per day. This equals 130.9 parsecs per 7 days. This is the speed of Star Fleet.
For some sense of scale, a parsec is roughly 2 light years. 1 hex on the F&E map (reproduced in GPD123-7) is 500 parsecs.
OK. Next question: how many inhabited worlds are there in an average F&E hex? Are habitable systems as tightly packed together as they are in, say, Traveller? Or are they spread out more?
Note that there are roughly 100 million cubic parsecs in a given F&E hex; since there is roughly one star every 30 cubic parsecs in our neck of the woods, that would mean that there is on the order of 30 million star systems per F7E hex. What fraction of them are habitable, and what fraction of those are inhabited?
Another way to phrase it: what's the average travel time between inhabited worlds?
It occurs to me that with SFU travel speeds, chances are good that only prime real estate is likely to be colonized; you're not likely to find very many non-"class M" colony worlds out there, and most of those are more likely to be mining or research operations rather than actual colonies.
in F&E which has two catagories of worlds (Major and Minor) the planets are several hexes apart in most cases (the only hexes with more then one planet in them are the capitol planets)
these are the worlds that are large enough to be militarily significant (they have noticable defenses, they act as supply points, and they generate militarily useful income for whoever ownes them.
a major planet produces 5 EP/turn a minor planet produces 2-3 EP/turn (I'm not remembering exactly). There are other things in the area, but they are spread out enough that it takes 5 hexes worth of these unseen systems to produce 2 EP (these figures are for the true owners of the systems, captured systems produce about half that rounded down)
inhabited systems are spread out a LOT more then in Traveller, and even the mining colonies where people live under domes are fairly rare. the SFU has stars and planets being quite a bit rarer then you are figuring (no the figure hasn't been determined, but the evidence shows that it's pretty rare)
so while you would think that only prime real estate is going to be colonised the truth is that prime real estate is extremely rare and as a result even poorer real estate ends up getting used
sorry I can't give you mroe precise figures.
IIRC the claim has been made that there are 'hundreds' of inhabited systems per F&E province. Which would give 50 or so per hex. As has been said only a very few of these are significant in F&E terms (major industrial systems, these produce enough surplus income to be significant to an empire's warship production). Even a capital hex will only have 4 or so major systems (MPA has a map, the planets marked on the map are all the F&E planets in the klingon empire).
a province is generally 5 hexes
Hey Knarf, a parsec is a little longer than 3.25 light years, not two...
Thanks for the clarification, Stewart.
As for how many planets per hex, I think that depends on how you define planet. If you mean any sizable body orbiting a star, there are probably tons of planets per hex. If you mean a planet with an atmosphere breathable by most humanoids, the list gets a lot shorter. If you mean planets that have been colonized and exploited successfully, there are probably a max of 3 or 4 per hex.
David Lang,
If memory serves, the GPD list of planets shows a couple places that are two smaller planets in one hex that "add up" to equal a MIN/MAJ planet in F&E terms.
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I did some calculations for a fiction piece I'm working on about a Fed POL based out of BATS 3212 with a 12-hex patrol zone covering the triangle 3212-3215-3514 plus 3513-3613:
"[Y]our patrol zone covers one point five billion cubic parsecs of space, from here to the Romulan Empire, with over two hundred thousand stellar bodies. There are thousands of planetary systems, scores of which can support humanoid life, and less than twenty percent have been surveyed. [....] There’s an ungodly amount of traffic -- smuggling, black-marketing, drug running and outright piracy, as well as legitimate commerce -- going thru this sector. [....] [This base is] on a direct line between the Orion Enclave and Denebola in the Neutral Zone. Not to mention Vidalia is only sixty hours away from here at high warp. [Your ship] protects three colonies, a dozen settlements, and God-only-knows how many outposts, mining camps and archeological digs."
Garth L. Getgen
Johnathan, your question about distance between inhabited worlds reminds me of a couple games I enjoyed years ago, Stardog & Elite.
In both games, trade was a big part of the play, but so was keeping your ship equiped to deal with the treats encountered. It was frustrating to get 5 or 6 jumps out and find that no one carried missles, for example.
The way this relates to what you are asking is that of the Hundreds and maybe thousands of worlds that are inhabited, how many are going to be suffeciently advanced enough and part of your trade system to meet your present need? I think that may be the more common question players ask their GMs. It's not something that the system will ever define really, because we then come back to the answer so often noted, (paraphrasing) you'll find what you need at the rate of plot.
Don't write that off as a smartastrix answer. Just because a group of players find themselves in an 'inhabited' system that is TL4, that doesn't me that the GM can't decide to put, in his campaign, a SAMS in the outer orbit to act as a supply point. Or whatever, you get the idea. 
RH
A bit of background:
I saw part of STAR TREK FIRST CONTACT last night; this is the TNG movie where you have the Borg and Cochrane's first warp flight. In it, Picard says that there are 150 worlds in the Federation plus colonies, etc. (I realize that basing something in the SFU off a TNG movie is a no-no, but ...) I don't recall if we've ever mentioned a number anywhere, but that sounds somewhat reasonable; a dozen or so Full members, the rest Associates.
Assuming I counted correctly the Federation covers 289 hexes on the F&E map, so about 1/3 of the hexes would have a decently inhabited world in them. Probably more like 1/4 as there will be a number of hexes with more than one world.
That should also give us a model for guessing at population densities in other empires.