Thread: How to handle too many weird UPPs

Dear Folks -

Hey, since I'm here, and Dave Nilsen is also on this board, can I ask a CotI question here?

This started out as a discussion on research stations, then morphed into port facilities and a discussion of Pixie. The discussion said "according to TCS, its capacity for ship maintenance, repair and building is nil, while CT rules would allow ships to be maintained, repaired and built there, and TNS in JTAS 2 specifically talks about the GP shipbuilding facilities there." (McPerth)

Then Hans said: "I repeat: Pixie, as described in various canonical sources, is broken." (Rancke2)

Finally, I asked: "Has anyone ever asked Marc, or Loren, or even Dave N, their opinion on how to handle Pixie?

(Was Pixie the site of the Ancient site in the final Trav Digest? Maybe that was the answer - the whole Class A 'port and Naval Base are a cover-up for Other Things... As Hans has said in the past, this sort of explanation works as long as you don't overuse it. If you always have something so weird, so outside the normal rules, that you have to justify it with more "outside the rules" explanations", something's wrong.)

Occasional is quirky; any more and it gets too much."

Sooooo... Dave, what was your (and the Workshop's) approach to places with weird stats like Pixie?

Pixie certainly has the ancient's site as per last Traveller's Digest and the orbital prison hulk from Adv 1.

----- Original Message -----
From: Hyphen_DJW
To:
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 5:04 PM
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] How to handle too many weird UPPs

Dear Folks -

Hey, since I'm here, and Dave Nilsen is also on this board, can I ask a CotI question here?

This started out as a discussion on research stations, then morphed into port facilities and a discussion of Pixie. The discussion said "according to TCS, its capacity for ship maintenance, repair and building is nil, while CT rules would allow ships to be maintained, repaired and built there, and TNS in JTAS 2 specifically talks about the GP shipbuilding facilities there." (McPerth)

Then Hans said: "I repeat: Pixie, as described in various canonical sources, is broken." (Rancke2)

Finally, I asked: "Has anyone ever asked Marc, or Loren, or even Dave N, their opinion on how to handle Pixie?

(Was Pixie the site of the Ancient site in the final Trav Digest? Maybe that was the answer - the whole Class A 'port and Naval Base are a cover-up for Other Things... As Hans has said in the past, this sort of explanation works as long as you don't overuse it. If you always have something so weird, so outside the normal rules, that you have to justify it with more "outside the rules" explanations", something's wrong.)

Occasional is quirky; any more and it gets too much."

Sooooo... Dave, what was your (and the Workshop's) approach to places with weird stats like Pixie?

Too true.  One planet that was weird was Idmaa (I looked it up for a forum-based Traveler game that folded), that had a population of ~200 people, but was Balkanized in its government. (Code = E565275-2 - 225)

At that point, I was guessing that the government was a bunch of Clans that fought with each other, but in ritualistic duels.  Of course, what that planet had going on in terms of inbreeding, I didn't want to know.

Todd Kes

________________________________
Dear Folks -

Hey, since I'm here, and Dave Nilsen is also on this board, can I ask a CotI question here?

This started out as a discussion on research stations, then morphed into port facilities and a discussion of Pixie. The discussion said "according to TCS, its capacity for ship maintenance, repair and building is nil, while CT rules would allow ships to be maintained, repaired and built there, and TNS in JTAS 2 specifically talks about the GP shipbuilding facilities there." (McPerth)

Then Hans said: "I repeat: Pixie, as described in various canonical sources, is broken." (Rancke2)

Finally, I asked: "Has anyone ever asked Marc, or Loren, or even Dave N, their opinion on how to handle Pixie?

(Was Pixie the site of the Ancient site in the final Trav Digest? Maybe that was the answer - the whole Class A 'port and Naval Base are a cover-up for Other Things... As Hans has said in the past, this sort of explanation works as long as you don't overuse it. If you always have something so weird, so outside the normal rules, that you have to justify it with more "outside the rules" explanations", something's wrong.)

Occasional is quirky; any more and it gets too much."

Sooooo... Dave, what was your (and the Workshop's) approach to places with weird stats like Pixie?

With a population of only a couple of hundred you are looking at rival families. Hatfields and Mccoys, or those two fueding families from the a fistful of dollars.

Inbreeding will be a problem unless they are sufficiently hi-tech to implant egs etc. May be artificial wombs. Looking at the stats with TL2. These people are in serious trouble gentics-wise

----- Original Message -----
From: Todd Kes
To:
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] How to handle too many weird UPPs

Too true. One planet that was weird was Idmaa (I looked it up for a forum-based Traveler game that folded), that had a population of ~200 people, but was Balkanized in its government. (Code = E565275-2 - 225)

At that point, I was guessing that the government was a bunch of Clans that fought with each other, but in ritualistic duels. Of course, what that planet had going on in terms of inbreeding, I didn't want to know.

Todd Kes

----------------------------------------------------------
Dear Folks -

Hey, since I'm here, and Dave Nilsen is also on this board, can I ask a CotI question here?

This started out as a discussion on research stations, then morphed into port facilities and a discussion of Pixie. The discussion said "according to TCS, its capacity for ship maintenance, repair and building is nil, while CT rules would allow ships to be maintained, repaired and built there, and TNS in JTAS 2 specifically talks about the GP shipbuilding facilities there." (McPerth)

Then Hans said: "I repeat: Pixie, as described in various canonical sources, is broken." (Rancke2)

Finally, I asked: "Has anyone ever asked Marc, or Loren, or even Dave N, their opinion on how to handle Pixie?

(Was Pixie the site of the Ancient site in the final Trav Digest? Maybe that was the answer - the whole Class A 'port and Naval Base are a cover-up for Other Things... As Hans has said in the past, this sort of explanation works as long as you don't overuse it. If you always have something so weird, so outside the normal rules, that you have to justify it with more "outside the rules" explanations", something's wrong.)

Occasional is quirky; any more and it gets too much."

Sooooo... Dave, what was your (and the Workshop's) approach to places with weird stats like Pixie?

Hmmm.

I know I've had my run-ins with Pixie, most recently with RSB (KoTF), but
I'd have to refresh my memory.

To answer the question in general, "how to deal with stupid UPPs?"

1. Welcome to Traveller.
2. Make a good faith attempt, like the first page and a half of any Poul
Anderson chapter.
3. Get tired of having to do it for the umpteen millionth time.
4. Think seriously about making wholesale changes to the published
numbers, including a big event to wipe the slate clean. (Note: we only
changed stars

Bottom line, really, is to consider the world in question. Does it have
published significance? If so, write around it in some fashion, being
consistent in good faith with what has been published. And that
"consistency" includes, sometimes, playing the "everything you thought you
knew was wrong" card, which is an established Traveller tool. (Major
races? Clones? Interdicted worlds?)

UPPs are a mess, which goes back to original LBBs where physical and
cultural parameters varied independently. Various subsequent patches
(there are many editions of the LBBs which do not call attention to
themselves, but which change many basic rules, and it takes a sharp eye to
notice the differences; bottom line, these fixes didn't work as they were
stealth fixes which could not be uniformly applied since you can't readily
tell which edition is which) attempted to lessen that.

Then you add in the fact that UWPs were added around UPPs, in most cases
without any harmonization with UPPs, and the big DGP computer run made it
worse and added in some systematic errors and bad code that kept
re-running subsectors full of 100s you've got a big mess. I really would
have preferred to declare the DGP data null and void, it was non-official
after all, but it had been used by so many people over the years that it
had become quasi-semi official, and would have been a real sign of bad
faith with the people who had been doing their best with it for so long.

But you were asking about Pixie, which as I said, I'll have to refresh my
memory on. And Yaskoydray can do anything, which gives you some leeway.

> Dear Folks -
>
> Hey, since I'm here, and Dave Nilsen is also on this board, can I ask a
> CotI question here?
>
> This started out as a discussion on research stations, then morphed into
> port facilities and a discussion of Pixie. The discussion said "according
> to TCS, its capacity for ship maintenance, repair and building is nil,
> while CT rules would allow ships to be maintained, repaired and built
> there, and TNS in JTAS 2 specifically talks about the GP shipbuilding
> facilities there." (McPerth)
>
> Then Hans said: "I repeat: Pixie, as described in various canonical
> sources, is broken." (Rancke2)
>
> Finally, I asked: "Has anyone ever asked Marc, or Loren, or even Dave N,
> their opinion on how to handle Pixie?
>
> (Was Pixie the site of the Ancient site in the final Trav Digest? Maybe
> that was the answer - the whole Class A 'port and Naval Base are a
> cover-up for Other Things... As Hans has said in the past, this sort of
> explanation works as long as you don't overuse it. If you always have
> something so weird, so outside the normal rules, that you have to justify
> it with more "outside the rules" explanations", something's wrong.)
>
> Occasional is quirky; any more and it gets too much."
>
>
> Sooooo... Dave, what was your (and the Workshop's) approach to places with
> weird stats like Pixie?
>
>

--- In , Todd Kes wrote:
>
> Too true.  One planet that was weird was Idmaa (I looked it up for a forum-based Traveler game that folded), that had a population of ~200 people, but was Balkanized in its government. (Code = E565275-2 - 225)
>
> At that point, I was guessing that the government was a bunch of Clans that fought with each other, but in ritualistic duels.  Of course, what that planet had going on in terms of inbreeding, I didn't want to know.

That isn't the weird part of the UWP to me though. The weird part is why you have only 200 people living with such low technology on an otherwise ideal garden world. A planet like that should be a prime target for colonisation, and 200 people can be shunted aside pretty easily if they want to complain about it.

As for how to handle weird UWPs, I just change them to something that makes more sense. Problem solved! :)

Always possible to completely redo a UWP as incorrect, if nor deliberately
false data.

___
>From my T989

--- In , "DED" wrote:
>
> I avoid gaming in the Marches altogether now. :)
>
> With regards to #4, there were some people who wanted to "fix" the Spinward Marches for Mongoose but that's all it was: a "want". There was no official plan in place to do so, but the rumor was that it *was* happening, so a lot of old timers complained vociferously and nothing was done, which is a shame. I've been playing Trav since the CT days and fixing the data (at least the physical aspects of the UWP) seemed like a good idea to me.

To be fair, MJD did try to think about about fixing the UWPs for the Marches, but that was shut down before it even started by Marc himself without any consultation. And then not long afterwards Marc released an 'updated39; "official" set of UWPs - supposedly these fixed a few things but I don't know what was fixed or whether those 'fixes39; were even that significant.

Frankly I think the best way to fix the Marches UWPs is to just regenerate all of them from scratch...

Couldn't remember the specifics and didn't want to just throw names out there. Thanks for the clarification, EDG.

\_/
DED

--- In , "constantine_thomas_uk" wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In , "DED" wrote:
> >
> > I avoid gaming in the Marches altogether now. :)
> >
> > With regards to #4, there were some people who wanted to "fix" the Spinward Marches for Mongoose but that's all it was: a "want". There was no official plan in place to do so, but the rumor was that it *was* happening, so a lot of old timers complained vociferously and nothing was done, which is a shame. I've been playing Trav since the CT days and fixing the data (at least the physical aspects of the UWP) seemed like a good idea to me.
>
> To be fair, MJD did try to think about about fixing the UWPs for the Marches, but that was shut down before it even started by Marc himself without any consultation. And then not long afterwards Marc released an 'updated39; "official" set of UWPs - supposedly these fixed a few things but I don't know what was fixed or whether those 'fixes39; were even that significant.
>
> Frankly I think the best way to fix the Marches UWPs is to just regenerate all of them from scratch...
>

--- In , "DED" wrote:
>
> Couldn't remember the specifics and didn't want to just throw names out there. Thanks for the clarification, EDG.

The other thing of course is to define why the UWPs are broken, and how to fix them. (e.g. the Spinward Marches were rolled up before A+ law level and D/E/F atmosphere types were thought up, so they don't even have all the possible options that later worlds have).

It's one thing to fix the physical data so that it's realistic (that's fairly unambiguous after all), but fixing the social data rather depends on your assumptions as to how those work. Traveller's default assumption is that worlds are populated completely randomly - no matter how hospitable or hostile they are. You might get a densely populated habitable world, or an earth-like world with one tiny family on it, or you may get an uninhabited hellhole, or one with bilions of people on it. There's no rhyme or reason to the population patterns.

Personally I go for a more realistic population distribution - worlds that are easy to settle and don't require much in the way of adaptation will be settled preferentially, and worlds that are downright inhospitable or dangerous will be avoided. Government types also aren't tied linearly to population either. And I enforce TL limitations to habitability too (no TL 4 worlds on planets with Venus-like atmospheres).