[Space] How habitable is my universe?

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I agree. It is a flaw.
I have a nice example now that I have tidal locking fully implemented. I'm getting tide-locked planets that have no water whatsoever because it is all frozen out on the dark side. These ought to be completely uninhabitable, but they are coming out with habitability ratings of 3 and 4, even 5, because the habitability table can't assign a negative-infinite modifier for zero water coverage. In theory a tide-locked world with no liquid water can have Habitability 6.
.

Why is that so bad ? Such a world would have a breathable atmosphere and temperate climate. The water may be frozen, but you only have to get ice to warmer areas to have sunshine melt it. That´s a lot better than what we have on mars for example.

[David Johnston]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Which leads me to a question.

I have no real feel for the GURPS Space scale of habitability. Earth is a 7. 0 means that you die in minutes without TL7 or better breathing gear. How bad is a 2?

You probably die just as fast. Habitability 2 worlds are probably worlds with Suffocating atmospheres and oceans. However they are worlds where you can introduce plantlife that can survive without much help which helps provide food for your domes.

[TheDS]

My second post was more directed at Thrash (or whoever wrote the book), since he's the one responsible for the formulae and their results.

And my suggestion for your data management whatever was purely for the purpose of selecting everything at once and drag-pasting so you could perform your calculations 100-10,000 times at once, purely for the purposes of getting a larger sample of hab distribution data. You wasted an hour or so running your sheet 200 times, when you could have made the computer do the work for you.

I'm NOT saying you should make that your distribution; who really wants to generate that many systems at once?

[Anders]

Probably many M0 or dimmer stars. I suggest you add an option to generate habitable star systems, as per p.101...

[Pomphis]

Looking at Space p.88 I think we can say:

Any world with an acceptable atmosphere (standard or dense, non-marginal)and temperatures between Chilly and Tropical is 6+.
Cold or Hot reduces this by 1.
OTOH any hydrographic percentage from 1-99% is +1 or +2.

So roughly earthlike worlds will be at 6-8. 5 will be a marginal case, I guess at best as habitable as alaska or australian deserts. After all, the atmosphere alone gives us 4, and 5 means either 1-99% Hydrographics plus Very Cold or Very Hot (or worse), or 0% or 100% Hydrographics plus Cold or Hot. 4 or less means serious problems with the atmosphere and/or extreme temperatures.

Then again, these are planetary averages. A 5 might have an acceptable atmosphere plus 91% Hydrographics plus Very Cold, with the 10% land at the equator being significantly warmer than the average, or Very Hot, with the 10% land at the poles being significantly cooler than the average.I assume this is unlikely, so only a small percentage of 5´s will be reasonably habitable.

[TheDS]

Well, if it's a system sheet, you need system data. The central star's characteristics, if it has companions, then you need their characteristics and orbital info. Then you need to know orbital slot info (forbidden zones, snow limit, hab zone, orbit slot distances, etc).

That right there is a lot of information, about 20-40 pieces of data (iirc from when I did this for First In).

Are you talking about developing and displaying planetary information for each object in an orbital slot (including moons)? Each body is going to need around 20-60 pieces of information (more if it's habitable and has its own life, less if it's just a belt or giant) all on its own, which you're obviously wanting to put most of it on a seperate detail sheet, but each piece of into you want on the system sheet, that's a lot of extra info to add to it. Are you making a graphical display?

What i'm getting at is: don't go overboard. You've got the right idea to only want to display the most important information, but you've listed a lot of things that really don't need to be put on the system sheet. I'd guess at most you'd put the World type and Hab rating (I'd also put blackbody, because I'm awesome/weird like that). Maybe orbit characteristics (orbit time, eccentricity, inclination, perigee point, current position) because it affects how the system is drawn graphically, in case someone wants to do that. Anything else is really just world detail.

Color-coding for Hab would be neat, as would having a particular graphic for each world type.

[Rupert]

Contraception and limited family sizes are a passing fad? Edumacation becomes cheaper past TL8? Interstellar cosmic radiation causes mutations that make humans (even more) horny?

[Mgellis]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

That's not my point. My point is that Space assumes that people will settle and permanently occupy planets that I consider utterly uninhabitable.

I'm not sure that's so odd, though.

As long as there are sufficient resources to survive and possibly get rich, you'll find people who will settle there, even if a place is totally godforsaken. And once the colony is established, other people will go where the jobs (or other opportunities) are.

In a hundred years, we will have the technology for people to go to most places in the solar system and survive; if people an see opportunity there, I think some of them will go, even though others might consider such places fairly hellish.

Seriously, Brett, look at the histories of our own countries. Isn't that proof enough? :)

Mark

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Past TL7 it's not 'horny' that counts: it's 'clucky'.

I was, as I'm sure you're aware, not being entirely serious in my previous post.

[zorg]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Good Lord! Examining Space p. 90 I discover that it assumes that every planet or moon with an affinity greater than 0 will become a colony world. That means some pretty hostile dumps with no particular resources, and some truly hellish worlds if they have very abundant resources. You can have no water, infernal temperatures, and a suffocating atmosphere, but so long as there it a +2 RVM the population will exponentiate away.

I'm not saying it's realistic, but it fits in with my space strategy game experiences. In most games I know - Master of Orion 2 comes to mind - it pays off to settle anything which even remotely looks like a planet. And if earthlike planets are very rare, you'll have to colonize something, I guess.

Though I admit that orbital habitats may make more sense in some cases.