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Old 02-22-2016, 02:02 AM   #31
Daigoro
 
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Auxiliary Question:
What year is it?
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Originally Posted by (E) View Post
In the millennium or so since humans started exploring space...
So, let's say 3116? Was gonna say 3016, but I like the double 1 in the middle.
Unless you meant "exploring with jump drives"- so, starting from 2300-2500?

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Q: Is civilisation limited to habitable planets? Are there large habitats either in free space or on uninhabitable planets?
Answer
Habitats

A plethora, from O'Neill stations to dynamic orbital rings to sky hooks to glass houses to asteroid habitats to cloud cities.

Populations are on the low end though, from 1 to 10 million, except for glass houses- these are planetary terraforming kickstarter projects, essentially large scale, flattened-out arcologies, and a couple of these house over 100 million people. Angkor Mekh, for example, on Hass VIIa, considered the most impressive glass house structure with 5 km high struts and 1200 km diameter, suspended from a central peak of 7 km, boasts a population comfortably exceeding 124 million.

Or you could look at Old New Melbourne, a sky hook orbiting the gas giant Yarra in the Grabin system. Its lower and upper habitats, Southbank and North St Kilda, are concentric arc-shaped habitats tidally suspended about 800 km from the central Docklands axle. The habitats share about 2 million people, and have been engineered so that both get 1g of tidal gravity- Southbank pulling planetward, while residents of North St Kilda appear to have Yarra above their heads. Docklands is in free-fall and is the berthing point for visiting starships.

Note that completely terraformed worlds are rare, as such projects take quite a long time to finish, and it's only a handful of worlds that needed a mere atmospheric nudge that could fairly be labelled as terraformed.

Question
Earth?
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Old 02-22-2016, 04:01 AM   #32
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

As of the year 3116 Earth is a work in progress, the post warming mega-storms are now relegated to the history books. But the damage they left is still apparent. The efforts to eradicate the now rampant alien flora and fauna that were introduced to process the excess CO2 are continuing apace. The city covering arcologies now are open to the atmosphere. Though there is much debate whether they should be demolished or kept. The huge government funded planetary restoration project is paid for by the prodigious output of the Mercury Foundry mines and the state of the art Sky hook at Jupiter.

Sol is a very busy place that suffers from the typical home systems dilemma, there is a bewildering array of habitats, ships, drones, stations, navigational hazards and navigational aids left over from previous stages of technological development.

Politically the grumblings about the erosion of central authority seem louder than usual. The martian ship yards are being refitted and many traders are enjoying profitable visits to Valles Marineris to supply the burgeoning workforce.

Race
The robotic Xylysus are from a heavily forested world that suffered a catastrophic solar incident. All life was wiped out. The sentient pre-ftl native species predicted the event and prepared by digitizing the consciousness' of as many Xylysus as possible and storing them on a deep space vessel.

The Xylyus now use robotic bodies that resemble their old organic bodies, 3 meter tall bipedal arboreal hunters that have a passing resemblance to an earth fossa with a more canine head. Inhabiting more than fifty systems the Xylyus have only recently developed ftl technology. They are just starting to establish relations with other species. Their biggest weakness is that they cannot reproduce consciousness' they have a finite number of minds for their population. Advanced in robotic technology but well behind in all other fields they seek to recreate their own race in biological form but it is an astoundingly difficult task as their home world was lost in fire.

Question.
Is it possible to block or track FTL travel?
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Old 02-22-2016, 09:09 AM   #33
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Is it possible to block or track FTL travel?
Its possible to tell about where the FTL ship went, but its about as accurate as the jump itself-- which is to say, not very. Blocking FTL isn't possible. It is possible to disrupt a jump when it leaves, which just make things even less accurate.

What weapons does a ship to ship fight use?
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Old 02-22-2016, 09:32 AM   #34
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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The popularity of the binary worlds stems from two factors their location and their mode of governance.

The binary worlds lie on the edge primary sphere of human settlement on the preferred low to medium jump route between Earth and the Kanagowa Group of interspecies colonies. The Binaries serve as a convenient layover point and a useful rendezvous for trade between the 'Primaries' and Kanagowa.

This convenient position is reinforced by the presence of the Elysians a, comparatively, conservative diverger faction who hold a de facto hegemony over this balkanised system. Despite the perceived risks of dealing with divergers the Elysian Cyberacracy maintains a reputation for honest and efficient government. Combined with low tariffs and the carefully cultivated atmosphere of 'safe sleaze' this reputation has made the Binaries a popular port of call.
How exactly do you have a trade route in a setting where FTL plays like golf? All I'm seeing are bulk and break points.
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Old 02-22-2016, 10:53 AM   #35
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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How exactly do you have a trade route in a setting where FTL plays like golf? All I'm seeing are bulk and break points.
Shorter jumps are more accurate, so depending on our hyperdrive paradigm it might be more economical to take a number of short jumps than risk a long jump. So here, it's midway between two widely separated groups of destinations- do you jump safely to the midpoint, then safely to your destination, or wildly towards your ultimate destination then narrow in? Perhaps each jump uses up fuel, so a journey with fewer jumps is preferable or maybe fuelling layovers are necessary.

Anyway, I've got an idea for the jumpdrive technobabble which might lead us in a good direction, but I'll need some time to type it up.
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What weapons does a ship to ship fight use?
Answer
Ship Weapons

Plasma cannons! Ion torpedoes! The decision is more about where you're from and who built your ship than about your tactical choices, so each military or defense outfit will be identifiable by it's selection of 3 or 4 weapons. CyKoi prefer old-fashioned solid artillery shells, Divergers use hull ripper drones, while Rhii and Akriti rely on similar quark laser armaments.

Question 24 by my count
Where do I sign up if I want to be trained and equipped with a suit of power armour?
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Old 02-22-2016, 11:22 AM   #36
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

Question: Where do I sign up if I want to be trained and equipped with a suit of power armour?
Answer:
Power armor is still experimental; few (if any) nations see the advantage of outfitting infantry with bulky armored suits compared to sending in tanks and close air support, and the R&D investment necessary basically blocks off the technology for the foreseeable future. The "light" armor of infantry is substantially stronger and covering than the armor of today, and most are climate controlled; it's just that nobody has made the leap to adding robotic support into the suits. If you're dead set on working with power armor, consider contacting Weir Labs; they're always working on something that is new, experimental, or highly dangerous, so they're almost definitely working on power armor. Also, they have such a high turnover in test subjects, that test subjects can work with almost any project that is being worked on.
Question: Are these armies gearing up for wars that have never come yet, or have there been grand interstellar conflicts?

Last edited by TGLS; 02-22-2016 at 11:24 AM. Reason: Grammar
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Old 02-22-2016, 11:38 AM   #37
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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If you're dead set on working with power armor, consider contacting Weir Labs; they're always working on something that is new, experimental, or highly dangerous, so they're almost definitely working on power armor. Also, they have such a high turnover in test subjects, that test subjects can work with almost any project that is being worked on.
Side-note: Weir Labs' main rival is Grimm Industries. Their choice of projects is, on average, saner, but they make up for that with rather spotty testing procedures.
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Old 02-22-2016, 11:48 PM   #38
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

Most large scale conflicts are purely naval engagements. Very few have involved more than 2 or 3 systems worth of resources. Invading a fully developed planet with a large population is not considered cost effective. The only successful invasions have been on backwater worlds and new colonies.

Policing actions against larger pirate groups and more militants Diverger factions is not uncommon. The majority of military engagements are either organised strikes on known bases of operation or patrol related encounters.

Question
Are there major currencies? Or are there commodities that are universally in demand that serve as defacto currencies?
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Old 02-23-2016, 09:56 AM   #39
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

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Question
Are there major currencies? Or are there commodities that are universally in demand that serve as defacto currencies?
While most governments have their own currencies, there are a few stable currencies with wide range. None is over arching and dominant. Most often strong currencies are tied to economic sub-sectors. Here are some of note:

The Giga-Yen is a small but ancient piece of human currency. Its widely accepted, but is strongest close to earth.

The Thay-D is another human currency, widely accepted for transactions for goods already in space.

the Xylysus (robotic uploads) use what's commonly translated as 'credits', and are the only far ranging species to really have a universal currency.

The 'Aqua-dollar' is common among aquatic species like the Akrit.

Question: are certain types of government more common, or is it a total miss mash of monarchies, theocracies, democracies, and so forth?
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Old 02-23-2016, 10:36 AM   #40
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Default Re: [Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

I've been thinking about how to handle the jump drive, and I think this concept mostly covers what has been established or suggested so far. I'll use spoiler blocks to improve readability and so it's not so wall-of-text-ish. Also, I broke the forum post length limit- I've never managed that before.

What do you think?

Part One
Hyperplasma Conduit Jump Drive
This is a version of the Keyhole Drive type explained on Space p39, except that it needs to include the 'random divergence with range' condition proposed by ericthered. How about if, in the 7-dimensional spacetime manifold utilised by the drive, gravity becomes a repulsive force?

Basic Concept
So, the drive creates a beam of charged hyperspace plasma that it shoots along its destination vector. This looks like the streamers that come off a plasma ball- straight and direct near the root, but splaying around randomly like silly string at the tips. The hyperplasma beam makes a pathway through space, in generally the right direction, but is repulsed and deviated by gravitational sources along its path. This means that being in orbit of a large body can severely deviate the beam path at the outset, so jumping out from a point with a flat gravitational gradient is preferred- such as an L4 or L5. It also means you can't directly jump to a destination which is locally occulted by a planet or star, or to destinations on the far side of the galactic core. The beam channel takes a number of minutes to establish before it's ready to receive the ship.

Next, the ship's drive system creates a magnetic field surrounding the ship which couples with the mouth of the plasma conduit. The interaction of the magnetic field with the plasma expands the plasma conduit and draws the ship along, propelling it along like squeezing a cherry pip. Observers near the ship's departure see a bright flash of light, extending through UV and X-rays, with a ghostly red-shifted attenuated afterimage streak pointing along the ship's flight vector. Passengers on board the ship are subjected to an initial jolt of several G's, then a few hours of a rather bumpy ride as the ship traverses the snaking, winding conduit to their destination.

Construction
The ship's drive has 4 components.
Spoiler:  


Game Effects of this Jump Drive
So with this paradigm, we get a number of consequences and answer many of the questions posed thus far:
Plotting a Course
Spoiler:  


Continued next post...
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