03-14-2021, 10:33 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Mar 2016
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[Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
I was looking through the rules for carrying capacity of planets in Space, and it doesn't look like the actual size of the dominant species matters at all. Am I missing something? Is this just an oversight? It certainly doesn't seem RAI that 1' aliens and 10' aliens should have the same carrying capacity, all else equal.
Somewhat related question: Are there rules anywhere in Spaceships for changing habitats, etc, based on the size of the inhabitants? |
03-14-2021, 10:46 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Dec 2005
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
You could ball park it at carrying capacity is in average humans and humans average 150 lbs. So a 1500 lbs race would need 10x the carrying capacity.
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03-15-2021, 07:04 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
Carrying capacity of a planet seems like it would largely scale with food consumption, which isn't (all else being equal) linear with mass - rather, it scales roughly as the 2/3 power of mass.
To my knowledge, there aren't guidelines as to the different life support/space requirements of larger and smaller crew of space ships and space stations. I believe food, water, and oxygen consumption all scale similarly, so life support requirements should scale roughly as the 2/3 power of mass. Space is a bit more questionable. I think furniture could get away with scaling with the 2/3 power of mass - it needs to be wider and taller, but not necessarily thicker, as it spreads the weight out more - although I could see it scaling linearly. Walls and the like need to be taller and wider as well, but again I don't think they'd need to be any thicker, as they're holding in the same air pressure, so 2/3 the power of mass should work. I'd say for simplicity, even if furniture should need to scale linearly, using the 2/3 power of mass should work. This is the square of scale, so roughly you'd end up with something like the following. Code:
SM Mult SSR -6 x100 x100 -5 x49 x50 -4 x25 x20 -3 x9 x10 -2 x4 x5 -1 x2.25 x2 +0 x1 x1 +1 x0.49 x1/2 +2 x0.25 x1/5 +3 x0.09 x1/10 +4 x0.04 x1/20 +5 x0.0225 x1/50 +6 x0.01 x1/100 EDIT: The same table should be usable with Carrying Capacity - an SM+6 race scales calculated Carrying Capacity down to 1%, while a race of SM-6 scales it up by 100x. If a planet has, say, a Carrying Capacity of 10 billion, it could support only 100 million of the first, or up to 1 trillion of the second.
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GURPS Overhaul Last edited by Varyon; 03-15-2021 at 08:10 AM. |
03-15-2021, 08:12 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
Bio-Tech has food scaling for large and small creatures. It uses the square of scale (i.e. height), which is the 2/3rds power of mass.
Spaceships 7 says you should shift up and down the Habitat table by the SM in steps, which means habitats scale in proportion to mass. That's probably fair, as what you gain (for larger beings) by having 2/3rds scaling in walls, etc. you lose because you need more than 1/1 scaling of things like chair legs and bed supports (not much more with high TL materials, but some).
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03-15-2021, 08:35 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Mar 2016
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
OK, thank you both. Looks like the answer is that carrying capacity scales by the 2/3 power of mass and spaceship capacity scales by mass.
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03-15-2021, 09:52 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
Quote:
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03-15-2021, 04:16 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Dec 2020
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
i think itīs also important to consider the activite level of the plants occupants. A coldblooded snake needs much less food, than a warmblooded animal of the same size.
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03-15-2021, 05:08 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
Quote:
The other half is presumably the living space plus occupant, and as a 'cabin' slot is either 7.5 or 8.3333 tons (depending on ship mass) and provides accommodations for 1-4 people at ~0.1 tons each, it's apparent that the occupants are a small portion of the total mass. Indeed, the system doesn't care whether the cabins are for passengers, who's mass will have to be counted in their habitat mass, or crew who might well have a control station or workspace and thus have their mass accounted for there.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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03-15-2021, 06:24 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Pennsylvania
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
Quote:
But a short answer is Increased Life Support would require more than would be obvious for a given SM, while Increased / Reduced Consumption would require more or less food. Unfortunately, there's no one place that ties all these things (Size Modifier, Increased/Reduced Consumption, Cold blooded, Aquatic, Increased Life Support, etc.) into how they affect mechanical life support needs on a space ship. |
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03-15-2021, 07:09 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Space] Carrying capacity not connected to size of species?
The basic idea is plausible. But the nutritional requirements of a living organism are proportional, not to its mass, but to its surface area. You can better approximate this by having its food requirements vary with its Basic Lift (Basic Lift goes as the 2/3 power of body weight).
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