Thread: Re: Since Dave N is feeling talkative-->Maps

> I think in my case it has been more a exercise in getting lost in the
> specific UWPs. Recently I stepped back and started applying Central Places
> Theorem to Traveller system distributions. I just discovered the Atlas of
> the Imperium, what a marvelous bit of that is, with it's sparse reporting
> metric it great for figuring out ship flows.
>

Evyn--

You are correct. I said "Imperial Survey," which was the in-game-fiction
name for it. The actual book was "Atlas of the Imperium." MUCH more useful
than the treacherous list of UWPs later generated to go with it. Thanks
for catching that. I photocopied those pages and taped them together
"millions" of times.

"Central Places Theorem"? Please do tell.

>>
>
>
>
> --
> Evyn
>

On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 11:54 AM, <> wrote:

>
>
> "Central Places Theorem"? Please do tell.
>

"Putting on my Theoretical Geographer Hat", Central Places Theorem
stipulates that people organise themselves through economic need across the
the landscape. People will only go so far to meet their basic needs in
general, but will go farther to meet more specialized needs, providers of
said specialized services/goods will congregate in more central locations.
In an idealized territory this spread looks like a hex map, with the
smallest market/settlement surrounding larger markets/settlements in
multiple tiers.
Here is the Wikipedia entry;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_place_theory

In terms of Traveller we can use the basics of this for StarPort
distribution, and general direction of commercial traffic analysis. Right
now I am using the number of Gas Giants, Planetoid belts and potential
habitable worlds as a mod on StarPort class. The assumption is a top down
colonization model, driven by Belters looking for new resource sources and
planetary colonization is a byproduct of the search instead of the reverse.

--
Evyn