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Old 09-22-2017, 03:41 PM   #1
doctorevilbrain
 
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Default How has the science in Gurps Space 4th edition & Gurps Traveller held up?

Which book is more accurate? Extra words I have to add to make it more than I wrote in the first sentence .
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Old 09-22-2017, 03:58 PM   #2
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Default Re: How has the science in Gurps Space 4th edition & Gurps Traveller held up?

Assuming you're comparing to GT:First In, Space 4th edition is basically a version update.

It's reasonably clear that our models for the formation of planetary systems were wrong, so the rules for generating the planets in a system are wrong. Once the planets are generated, figuring out habitability/etc hasn't really had much new data, so it's held up well enough.
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Old 09-22-2017, 04:23 PM   #3
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Default Re: How has the science in Gurps Space 4th edition & Gurps Traveller held up?

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It's reasonably clear that our models for the formation of planetary systems were wrong, so the rules for generating the planets in a system are wrong.
Could you elaborate on the details of this? I'm curious to hear about which parts have been superseded by more recent discoveries.
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Old 09-22-2017, 04:27 PM   #4
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Default Re: How has the science in Gurps Space 4th edition & Gurps Traveller held up?

There's a lot of gas giant movement, apparently. It's more accurate to say "our models were wrong" than to say we know what's right.
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Old 09-22-2017, 05:02 PM   #5
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Default Re: How has the science in Gurps Space 4th edition & Gurps Traveller held up?

Well, while the system is designed to primarily provide a Sol-type system, that's at least partially because that's the kind of system that people would place their habitable colony worlds they develop.

Plus, Sol is not the only system laid out in a "conventional" model; Epsilon Eridani has two confirmed asteroid belts and a Kuiper belt, with a confirmed gas giant just outside the inner asteroid belt. There's a very good chance there's another gas giant just outside the outer asteroid belt, and I would not be surprised if there were three or more terrestrial planets inside the inner asteroid belt. And then there's TRAPPIST-1 with six inner terrestrial planets (though I've not read anything about it having outer gas giants). So our own solar system is not alone in being a "conventional" layout in the universe. Mind, the system might need some math updates to pull off TRAPPIST-1, due to the six planets being so near to the star and so close to each other. There are probably more out there, and I'm sure our own detection methods are skewing the bell curve to the weird stuff we can't yet explain because the super-close planets are easier to detect during transit.

I should also note that the system in 4e Space is capable of pulling off most of the systems we've detected so far; I recall it being stated that the system was altered from the earlier versions of Space because of the detection of hyper-close gas giants.
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Old 09-22-2017, 06:51 PM   #6
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Default Re: How has the science in Gurps Space 4th edition & Gurps Traveller held up?

Sol-like systems are out there.

But, you could come up with interesting things to do in space with a system that has a Hot Jupiter. Good place for pirates to hide, if there are no useful worlds (if you're doing a more space-opera sort of thing where space pirates can be a thing).

Also, a Jupiter-mass planet in the liquid water zone could have a Ganymede-sized moon with happy life tooling around on it, or human colonies.
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Old 09-23-2017, 07:30 AM   #7
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Default Re: How has the science in Gurps Space 4th edition & Gurps Traveller held up?

Quote:
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There's a lot of gas giant movement, apparently. It's more accurate to say "our models were wrong" than to say we know what's right.
To be fair, we didn't have a lot of confidence in those models to start with. We knew we were guessing and going to be wrong about large parts of it.

We don't have anything to replace it yet, but this decade is proving to be the golden age of exoplanet research. I'd say we anticipate having much better theories and data soon, rather than that we've proved the given system wrong. We're still rapidly pushing the envelope on what we can and can't detect, so this is entirely the wrong time to write a new system.
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