[Space] Habitability and Gravity

[Agemegos]

A player generating a character for my upcoming SF game asked me what ranges of gravities his character is likely to have experienced.

So I generated ten thousand star systems using the GURPS Space advanced star system generation sequence, and out of each system I recorded the habitability and gravity of the highest-habitability world in each system (if there were several with equally highest Habitability, I recorded the highest surface gravity).

                  GRAVITY in gees
Hab.    # planet  min.  ave.  max.

 -2          7    0.05  0.20  0.88
 -1         11    0.07  0.18  0.40
  0      8,920    0.00  0.40  2.82
  1         32    0.43  0.78  1.44
  2         78    0.47  0.75  1.44
  3         91    0.43  0.79  1.57
  4        154    0.44  0.77  1.70
  5        237    0.49  0.79  1.28
  6        212    0.49  0.80  1.44
  7        204    0.50  0.82  1.09
  8         54    0.75  0.94  1.19

  4+       861    0.44  0.80  1.70

[RyanW]

Interesting stuff. Approximates a quartic function if you ignore that huge spike of airless rockballs.

Out of curiosity, how did you generate them? I've done spreadsheets that generated star systems by the dozen (I think I topped out at ~500).

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Out of curiosity, how did you generate them?

I have an Excel workbook that generates a system. I used a data table to loop and record selected output. It took about thirty minutes to do 10,000 systems, which only goes to show what an inefficient approach I took.

[Agemegos]

Here are another 10,000

                  GRAVITY in gees
Hab.    # planet  min.  ave.  max.

 -2          7    0.05  0.20  0.88
 -1          8    0.11  0.19  0.40
  0      8,926    0.00  0.40  2.82
  1         28    0.43  0.81  1.44
  2         71    0.47  0.73  1.31
  3         86    0.43  0.79  1.57
  4        151    0.44  0.76  1.47
  5        248    0.47  0.78  1.33
  6        215    0.49  0.79  1.36
  7        206    0.50  0.82  1.09
  8         54    0.71  0.93  1.19

  4+       874    0.44  0.80  1.47

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

                  GRAVITY in gees
Hab.    # planet  min.  ave.  max.

 -2          7    0.05  0.20  0.88
 -1         11    0.07  0.18  0.04
  0      8,920    0.00  0.40  2.82
  1         32    0.43  0.78  1.44
  2         78    0.47  0.75  1.44
  3         91    0.43  0.79  1.57
  4        154    0.44  0.77  1.70
  5        237    0.49  0.79  1.28
  6        212    0.49  0.80  1.44
  7        204    0.50  0.82  1.09
  8         54    0.75  0.94  1.19

  4+       861    0.44  0.80  1.70

In this table, the line for -1 habitability has max gravity less than either average gravity or min gravity. That can't be right.

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

In this table, the line for -1 habitability has max gravity less than either average gravity or min gravity. That can't be right.

Mouse handling error when padding a truncated decimal with trailing zeros. Now fixed. Thank you.