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Old 02-19-2016, 09:03 PM   #11
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
Nine's a lot to cover, so I'll do one now.

...

I'll leave the other 8 alien types up for grabs.
To be honest, I was just expecting "one is a space whale, one is a burrowing siliconoid similar to a Trek Horta, two are reptilians - one theropod, one serpentine - etc.", but I like your breakdown for the space whales. :)
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Old 02-20-2016, 02:11 AM   #12
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Question- Which company or planet makes the best jumpdrives and jumpships (from a free trader's point of view)?
In order to fill their market niche, free traders need highly accurate drives to meet short deadlines that their clients demand. In human space, free-traders and other smaller starship purchasers buy their jump drives (Called the red-drive because of red-shifting seen by stationary observers) from the Blue Danube Corporation (BDC), the original developer of the red-drive and makers of the most accurate. However, BDC charges exorbitant amounts for their most accurate red-drives, so smaller producers still can compete by selling outdated designs, while shipping companies tend to produce their own red-drives.

For a chip-in for the 8 leftover species:
The Chetai are species of molluscs, generally likened to snails. The average Chetyn is about a foot tall and half a foot wide at the shell. Unlike Earth snails, Chetai have 3 pairs of tentacles; from top to bottom, eye stalks, manipulators, and olfactory (smell).
Like snails, Chetai move extremely slowly by foot, no more than 4 miles in their entire lives, and thus have ridden around on something for most of their history. In early history it was a draft animal, but later on they were replaced with motorized vehicles.
Despite their low speed of movement, Chetai have extremely fast reflexes. Because of this Chetai are known throughout the galaxy as talented pilots.
Chetai can communicate through either scent or sign language. Due to integration into galactic society, many are equipped with vocalizers.
So now there are 7 left.

Question: Are there any interstellar organizations?
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Old 02-20-2016, 05:08 AM   #13
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

There are several interstellar organisations. The one that travels the furthest is known as the librarians

The Librarians of the ashes is an organization devoted to the recovery and preservation of knowledge that would otherwise be lost due to wars and catastrophic events. They share their knowledge relatively freely and send agents to every interstellar war and disaster they hear about. Many of the agents also help when they can to maintain the librarian's positive reputation. They are based in one of the biggest starships ever to have existed with a hull made of organic metal more than 400 meters thick. Their leader is a shadowy robed scholar never seen away from an ancient lecturn.

Race
The Rhii are a race of amphibious carnivores who are fiercely independant by nature. Their highest political office is ships captain. They are physically flattened bipeds that can be likened to human stingray hybrids. They vary in size from 1 to 5 meters tall/long.

Question
Are there precursor artifacts? If so what are some examples.
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Old 02-20-2016, 07:58 AM   #14
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Are there precursor artifacts? If so what are some examples.
Yes, the galaxy has been able to host sentient life for a long time at least on a civilizational scale.

Prominent examples include:
The 'Useless', an apparently solid hemisphere of granite about 1.5 meters in diameter marked with complex deeply incised patterns. When activated by a hidden control on its surface the object emits a steady hum at the lower end of human hearing and apparently achieves nothing else. While this device of unknown origin and questionable provenance probably should have been written off as a hoax long ago it remains notable for the number of anecdotal reports of often disturbing religious visions amongst people repeatedly exposed to it.

'Rhine-Abas' Jars, named for the xenoarcheologists who first described them these are simple, apparently ornamental, vessels produced by a now long extinct non-space fairing society on a world subsequently colonised by humans. At the end of the day they are just small oddly shaped metal jars fashioned from a variety of otherwise industrial metals, primarily titanium, using a number of non-standard but not particularly advanced metalworking techniques. They are sought after by art human collectors because they are comparatively rare and fairly attractive in a bulbous sort of fashion.

Question

Are there significant multi-species communities? If so how common are they?
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Old 02-20-2016, 08:27 AM   #15
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Are there significant multi-species communities? If so how common are they?
multi-species communities aren't rare at all, and tend to fall into two types:

The first type is polyglot cities where just about every species can be found and are welcome. These cities are generally quite proud of their diversity.

The second type consists of only two or three species living together. These groups tend to be tight-knit have species relations well-integrated into their society. These are more common than the polyglot cities.

Of course, single species communities outnumber both of the other types by about two to one.

Race:
The Akriti look a great deal like squids or octopi, though they have tentacles with forked ends.

question: How do people get their goods out of gravity wells?
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Old 02-20-2016, 08:48 AM   #16
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Originally Posted by Frost View Post

Question

Are there significant multi-species communities? If so how common are they?
Absolutely. Though there are no fixed boundaries in the traditional sense, the vast majority of galactic inhabitants are NOT traders and tend to cluster into sets of adjascent worlds. This natural outgrowth of expansion leads to most worlds having a dominant species. Notable counter examples are diplomatic communities (the analog of the UN), Bi-species trade communities near the 'border' of two regions dominated by different races, artistic and luxury destinations where cosmopolitan menbers of many species congregate and collaborative scientific outposts involving experts from diverse backgrounds.
Also know to exist are prominent monoculture examples, often considered backwaters, where a community is almost entirely of one species and any 'outsiders' are obviously distrusted.

Question: We know that there is a 'primo' hyper drive, but is what kinds of 'secret' navigational or rutter programs and databases exist to take advantage of improvements in distance and accuracy?
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Old 02-20-2016, 09:12 AM   #17
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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question: How do people get their goods out of gravity wells?
This tend to vary depending upon who you are, what you are doing and where you are doing it. In military and frontier contexts typically dedicated shuttlecraft equipped with fusion engines with an air-breathing mode. Highly populated worlds push civil traffic onto space elevator systems for reasons of safety and security.

Race: Mar Kan. Partially upright, hexapedal, omnivores from a cool high gravity world resembling to human eyes nothing so much as a giant furry pear set on four stubby and rather stiff legs. The eyes and mouth are set at the top of the highly flexible 'neck', the final pair of double jointed manipulating limbs sit on opposite sides of the body just below the neck where they fold against the body when at rest.

Question: What is the typical range of settlement for a species, ie how far from a homeworld are you likely to find settlements? Does human settlement follow this pattern?

Last edited by Frost; 02-21-2016 at 06:30 PM.
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Old 02-20-2016, 09:23 AM   #18
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Originally Posted by tbrock1031 View Post
To be honest, I was just expecting "one is a space whale, one is a burrowing siliconoid similar to a Trek Horta, two are reptilians - one theropod, one serpentine - etc.", but I like your breakdown for the space whales. :)
Looks like we're going for race outlines anyway- not a problem, it would've happened at some point. While we're at it, we may as well open up for descriptions of the 3 humanoid races too.

Here's a races recap:
1/9-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
the "vacuum whales"
2/9-
Quote:
Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
The Chetai are species of molluscs, generally likened to snails.
3/9-
Quote:
Originally Posted by (E) View Post
The Rhii are a race of amphibious carnivores
4/9-
Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
The Akriti look a great deal like squids or octopi, though they have tentacles with forked ends.
So 5 non-humanoid and 3 humanoid still awaiting their creation.
(BTW- Whales, stingrays, squids & snails- I'm detecting a distinctly marine bent here...)



And we seem to have a double answer-
Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
multi-species communities aren't rare at all, and tend to fall into two types:
Quote:
Originally Posted by benz72 View Post
Absolutely. Though there are no fixed boundaries in the traditional sense, the vast majority of galactic inhabitants are NOT traders and tend to cluster into sets of adjascent worlds.
I don't think there's any contradiction there, so they can both stand as is.

Quote:
question: How do people get their goods out of gravity wells?
Quote:
Question: We know that there is a 'primo' hyper drive, but is what kinds of 'secret' navigational or rutter programs and databases exist to take advantage of improvements in distance and accuracy?
And I think we can live with double questions too, we're all grown ups here. Except, Benz- what's a "rutter program"?


ETA: Ninja'd with another race.
5/9-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frost View Post
Race: Mar Kan. Partially upright, hexapedal, omnivores from a cool high gravity world resembling to human eyes nothing so much as a giant fury pear set on four stubby and rather stiff legs.
4 & 3 to go.
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Old 02-20-2016, 11:37 AM   #19
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Answer: FTL is capable of huge jumps at a time, but the more you take in distance, the more you loose in accuracy -- you can cross the galaxy in five jumps, but once you're there it takes five MORE jumps to actually get close to your target. Each jump takes quite a bit of time
I've been wondering how this would work exactly- in-universe and rolling the dice.

So, to be clear, you're saying that a jump of say 20,000 ly (1/5th of the way across the galaxy) might have a "deviation bubble" of being maybe 40% off course, then closing in on your destination involves some 1,000 ly jumps which are off by 30%, 100 ly jumps off by 20%, then 10 ly jumps off by 10%? Hopefully you can see I'm using the exponent as the lead digit in the percentage, to get a narrowing-in effect.
  1. Are those numbers too harsh?
  2. How would Navigation rolls, time spent plotting courses on the nav-comp, quality bonuses for good equipment and star charts or high quality engines affect the jumps?
  3. Do longer jumps also use more fuel, energy, or other expendables (hyperspace ablative shielding, perhaps)?
  4. Why does each jump take time- is it plotting navigation, charging the capacitors or shaping a hole through space-time? Does the prep time depend on distance?
  5. Are longer jumps possible with any starship, or only long range classes? In Spaceships shipbuilding, you could say each extra drive module sends you x10 distance: 1 drive- 10 ly; 2- 100 ly; 3- 1000 ly...
  6. Would you be able to work in the Speed/Range table?
  7. What effect does this lead to for free traders? Most would prefer reliable short-range hops, but they would go further for more lucrative markets, maybe.

I'm asking ericthered because it was his idea, but anyone can answer.
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Old 02-20-2016, 09:22 PM   #20
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

First off in response to frosts question.

In some species the range of colonization is essentially limitless.

However most species (including humans) initially followed a colonize and terraform the nearby systems stratagem, usually about 40 light years deep. But the reality that it is cheaper to go further for better usually puts this stratagem to rest a few generations after the introduction of ftl travel.
This has resulted in a situation where most species home world is surrounded by the least hospitable colonies and outposts and the more attractive colonies are huge distances away.
These core worlds while usually economically behind the further colonies are attractive to free traders as they are frequently mono industrial, slightly ignored politically and close together.

Jumping in to answer the drive questions. (Completely willing do drop this section from my post if anyone has better ideas.)

1) Numbers might be a bit harsh but there is enough detail left to be revealed to fine tune the system. Assuming a generate, calculate, charge, jump, locate sequence.
Speed and efficiency can be improved at each stage.
For instance Many militaries have ships (carriers?) with large power generation capabilities relative to their size so that the can jump as soon as the navigational calculations are finished. (They have big computers too)

2) better equipment/engines/capacitors result in a more disk shaped jump exit zone as apposed to spherical exit zone with lower quality gear. This allows jump exits to be plotted closer to obstacles. Especially important for in system jumps.

2.5) star charts as well as "stellar positioning systems" greatly speed up the process of figuring out exactly where you exited. A key part of the following jump calculations. Up to date information regarding "jump" conditions at a desired destination can aid in improving jump accuracy.

3) there are 2 types of jump "deep" which is typically used for distances over 0.1 of a lightyear. A characteristic of a deep jump is the exit point tends to be away from gravity wells. The other kind of jump is a shallow jump which is effected less by gravity and tends to get used in system. Counterintuitively the calculations for a shallow jump take longer than a deep jump mainly due to the more complex nature of the environment.

Deep jumps of less than 1000 light years require more power to start and stop the jump than is used to travel the distance.

Shallow jumps use a similar amount of power regardless of the distance traveled. A shallow jump typically used about 1 percent of the power as a deep jump.

If power is low (or expensive) long range ships (bigger generators etc) can easily shallow jump up to 0.5 of a light year.

4) See point 1

5) the output of the ships capacitors relative to its size is the main limiting factor on the range of a jump.

6) pass

7) shorter range jumps mean less corrections so there would be a mathematical breakpoint do do with the probable number of jumps to get to a destination. Sometimes there would be deliberate undershooting of the desired target. Free traders would target a system then visit many locations once they get there.

FTL ships require position data, big generators, capacitors, navigational computers, a jump drive with external components (frequently retractable).

Question

How is policing the common laws handled? Organised force? Contractors? Something else?
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