Suggestion for someone returning to GURPS

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by FrackingBiscuit

If you're worried about randomly generating too many boring star systems, then just tweak the systems you generate to make them less boring. Or design them to be interesting from the get-go. Plenty of settings and resources - including Space 4e - assume that most systems aren't going to have a habitable planet, and hence are going to be pretty boring to most players.

As I discussed above, if you use the Basic Worldbuilding chapter, you have the explicitly stated option of assuming that the planet you create is going to be a Garden world, and thus habitable. And then in the Advanced Worldbuilding chapter, you have the option of making that world one of the worlds in the system you're creating, so that the presence of a Garden world is assumed from the start.

[FrackingBiscuit]

Originally Posted by whswhs

As I discussed above, if you use the Basic Worldbuilding chapter, you have the explicitly stated option of assuming that the planet you create is going to be a Garden world, and thus habitable. And then in the Advanced Worldbuilding chapter, you have the option of making that world one of the worlds in the system you're creating, so that the presence of a Garden world is assumed from the start.

Exactly. There's no sense in randomly generating system after system hoping you get one with the kind of world you're looking for. Just design the kind of world you're looking for and leave the incidentals to the dice.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by FrackingBiscuit

Space 3e does exactly that, determining size/mass/gravity first and atmosphere second. It works just fine.

It only works “fine” by glossing over the physics of the atmosphere, with the result that it will produce some planets that have an unrealistic combination of mass, diameter, surface temperature, atmospheric pressure, and atmospheric composition (such as presence of water and absence of helium).

If you’re happy with a few unrealistic planets, that’s fine. But if you want to get rid of them, be able to design habitable planets at will, and perform only straightforward calculations, then determining atmospheric column mass before mass-and-diameter and surface pressure after seems a small price to pay.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by FrackingBiscuit

Exactly. There's no sense in randomly generating system after system hoping you get one with the kind of world you're looking for. Just design the kind of world you're looking for and leave the incidentals to the dice.

That’s how the Basic Worldbuilding Sequence in Space 4e works.

[FrackingBiscuit]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

That’s how the Basic Worldbuilding Sequence in Space 4e works.

Yes, and you were complaining that it produces too many "boring systems." The systems are only as boring as you make them.

As far as the order of world building goes, however, I would much rather the layout be sensible and not have any section weirdly broken up, especially when it's the one section I'm looking for. If that results in just "a few unrealistic planets" I genuinely do not mind. Again, this is a game supplement, not a textbook.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by FrackingBiscuit

Yes, and you were complaining that it produces too many "boring systems."

No, I wasn’t. That was Donny Brook. I’m the one who wrote (in post #26) that the Basic Worldbuilding Sequence “is the very mechanism that saves you from randomly generating scads and scads of boring empty systems.”

[FrackingBiscuit]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

No, I wasn’t. That was Donny Brook.

Fred Brackin posted that you might go through the procedure and end up with a planet that doesn’t suit your gaming needs. That wasn’t me either.

Sorry, I misread your comment about Space being too involved to generate a sector like you might for Traveller. For some reason I thought you were saying it produced boring or empty systems rather than just taking too long. Which perplexed me after reading that it was designed to prevent exactly that.

I've probably been staring at my screen for too long. Everybody's starting to blur together.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by FrackingBiscuit

Sorry, I misread your comment about Space being too involved to generate a sector like you might for Traveller. For some reason I thought you were saying it produced boring or empty systems rather than just taking too long.

I've probably been staring at my screen for too long. Everybody's starting to blur together.

No worries.

I actually did computerise the Space 4e star system and planet generation sequence (including both the basic and the advanced sequences). Then I modified it to take stellar data from the Extended Hipparcos catalogue and generate random systems around every likely star within 50 parsecs of Sol (101,401 of them). And then I ran that program over and over hundreds of times and picked the universe that I liked.

That is not a procedure that I recommend to anyone else: do as I say, not as I do.

[KarlKost]

Worldbuilding Gurps Space.

Step 1: declare the system will have 1 habitable planet.

Step 2: roll the dice for the remaining planets of the system, if you want more random diversity for them.

Besides, I dont know what some people are complaining about "boring empty worlds". An ice desolated or volcanic world need NOT be empty in a Sci Fi setting. Here in our Solar System, in the spam of some decades - one century or two, we may end up colonizing all rocky bodies of our proximity, from Mercury, Venus, Moon and Mars all the way to Pluto, excluding only the gas giants.

"Unhinhabitable" worlds can still have the classic "Domed" colonies, specially if they have some special resource, or if it has some scientific, military, religious/cultural or touristic value.

Those "boring" sterile worlds certanly can be made more interesting if they are made into a military/spy base at the edge of the space with a hostile empire, or if it's a big world with too much gravity or too little, making permanent residence for humans(humanoids) not very pleasing, but instead being a mining/scientific colony of robots (that may be displaying some weird malfunctions lately), an empty and dead ball of dust like our Moon could be the rock that holds the main "Temple of Oof!", therefore there's an endless stream of peregrins and... The agents of an ever concerned Galatic Emperor... An Ice wasteland could be at the crossroads of 5 different Empires, thus being the largest trade hub in the galaxy, or a massive desert world like Mars could mark the place where the Minbari invasion got halted, and thus the central government builds tons of museums and monuments upon it to mark that important moment, turning the world into a massive tourist point, or a desert like Mars could be the site of massive Xenoarcheology excavation sites, or it could be the only planet on a system that is the closest possible safe zone to a black hole, therefore making it the best possible base in the galaxy to study a black hole up close... Anyway, there are limitless pissibilities

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Worldbuilding Gurps Space.

Step 1: declare the system will have 1 habitable planet.

An when you do, the Basic Worldbuilding Sequence will give you the tools to roll, design, or partly roll and partly design one that is pretty realistic, and as random as you want it to be.

Besides, I dont know what some people are complaining about "boring empty worlds". An ice desolated or volcanic world need NOT be empty in a Sci Fi setting. Here in our Solar System, in the spam of some decades - one century or two, we may end up colonizing all rocky bodies of our proximity, from Mercury, Venus, Moon and Mars all the way to Pluto, excluding only the gas giants.

"Unhinhabitable" worlds can still have the classic "Domed" colonies, specially if they have some special resource, or if it has some scientific, military, religious/cultural or touristic value.

Everything depends on your gaming needs. Anything involving work and life in space, especially when the action is largely confined to one system or a few systems, can find points of interest for a dozen uninhabitable worlds and their moons. But I was designing systems for a setting that required habitable worlds to be as numberless as counties in the USA. That involves a reach of space that contains tens of thousands of systems and hundreds of thousands of planets and moons.