3rd Edition Rules

[crucis]

Just a couple of points.

1.  Growth up to a small is pretty much not worth discussing.  156 PTU will be dropped on any habitable to get it to small, only in the case of SM2 rates of population growth would someone consider only putting 100 PTU in place and taking 20 turns to grow it it small.  And I question seriously the sense of that except when you are at the start of the game and income strapped.  This reduces Matt's times to VLarge to 80 turns under SM2 and 280 turns under PTU growth plus anything from 1 to 10 turns to reflect the build up of the initial population.   With slow growth it becomes more and more sensible to target planets for further growth from small to medium via additional colonization.

Yep, agree with pretty much everything here...  I couldn't really imagine emplacing so few PTU to form a Settlement that would require TWO growth cycles to complete, though I suppose that it might depend on what inherent benefits reaching Small conferred. I probably would place at least enough to ensure that only 1 growth cycle was required to bump up to Small, and then probably only do it in months 8 or 9 so that the wait was short.  But that's a bit too much rules-lawyerly for my taste, and something that I'm not too fond of in the PU/PTU style of economics.

Regardless, looking at Matt's times makes more sense when one starts with Small pops.  And yes, with slow growth, it does make a lot of sense for a player to use colonization to push Small pops up to Medium.  And given the fact that the increased PTU/PU conversion factor increases the effective colonization cost for such an effort, I can see where one might only make this sort of push only up to the point where you know that a single growth cycle will bump the population into Medium.  But I also have to admit that I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of being able to do this so easily.

2.  I don't see how you can change the distribution of benign, harsh and hostile as you suggest.  The increase in ST would just make people play ST races more often.  A better solution is just to reduce the catagory of benign to: HI of target planet is equal to HI of homeworld is benign, else it is harsh.

Requiring HI-homeworld to equal HI-target_world would produce a percentage of 10% Benigns, with the % of Harsh's and Hostiles mostly dependent on the breakdown of T vs. ST.  In SM#2 it's 4-1 T to ST.  In Ultra, that ratio is 2-1 for legit reasons.  And I see no reason to not allow players to play ST races, as long as doing so doesn't confer a Gorm-like ability to get resist drive field radiation and gain an extra point of speed.

As for how one might gain the environment distributions I suggested, there are ways.  One way would be to introduce a somewhat more complex model for HI and HD that took into account various habitability factors, such as gravity, hydrographic percentages, chirality, average temperatures, etc..  Some players would enjoy it, others not so much. 

Another way is to go in the opposite direction and presume that habitability is too complex for so few factors to encompass and to do away with HI's and directly roll for Benign, Harsh, or Hostile against a lookup table.  (Factoring in T vs ST in this model can be tricky, but probably not insurmountable.)  The upside (or downside, depending on one's PoV) to this model is that it inserts a lot more uncertainty and mystery into habitability.  For example, two races might both see planet A as Benign, and then see planet B totall differently, one seeing it as benign and the other seeing it as hostile.  And this would be chalked up the underlying complexity of habitability factors that a single number (i.e. HI) could not fully represent.  And with a rolled HD, you're able to manage what percentages you want to be Benign, Harsh, and Hostile rather easily.

3.  You aren't solving anything with the changes you are just kicking the can down the road.  The economic system remains compound interest growth, there is but a single commodity to be min-maxed and all other conditions remain the same.  GSF did the same thing with just increasing the costs of ships.  The economic melt down will still eventually occur.

Yes, that's a given.  But I still hold that there's no perfect solution.  And the setup model I presented above is a way to reduce the amount of money and reduce economic explosiveness, without even touching growth rates yet.  But strictly speaking, the concept of the setup model isn't entirely about economics.  It's a way to play a larger game galaxy with economics overwhelming the game, but also a way to change the game from being configured in a way that's so driven by gaming the rules instead of playing the game.

4.  Changing the value of the planets/moons wealth.  I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish.  You can do it, but the point is colonizing anything is worth more money next turn.  All you are doing is changing the rate of return.  The rate of return is always positive so there is never a reason to not do so, except that another economic investment might bring a higher rate of return.  But it doesn't change the fact that first you colonize the VR, then the R, and last the N (in-system colonization of moons) there is rarely any reason to not do this.  Asteroid belts allow huge populations, under your system depending on the distribution of REI values they would even be more valuable, a 100 LS VR asteroid belt would be an economic powerhouse.  A better way to deal with this is to bell curve the results so you can make outliers (VR or VP) more rare.  Generally you gain a lot in smoothing things out and in control when you go from a linear probability to a curved one.

First of all, the chances that I'll allow asteroid belts to possess huge populations are slim to none.  And Slim already left town. 

Secondly, I thought that I was rather plain in what I wanted to accomplish.  To make some moons much richer and other much poorer so that the richer ones became much more desirable to seek out and colonize, and make the poorer ones far less desirable to colonize.  If a VR moon has a mineral value of 150% or 200% or 400%, while a VP moon has a mineral value of 50% or 20%, how far down the priority list for colonization do you think that that VP moon is going to be?  Yes, I agree that even that moon would have a positive ROR.  But if it's so far behind far richer ones, it will be hard to justify colonizing it unless you're desperate for colonizable real estate.

Thirdly, while I agree with the fact that a stronger bell curve would make the outliers more rare while smoothing out the middle results, that's not exactly what this idea is trying to accomplish.  It's just the opposite.  The idea is to use the economics of mineral wealth to make some moons (i.e. the poor and very poor ones) less desirable to colonize than before, by making the VP/P ones poorer and the R/VR ones richer.

5.  Starslayer can comment on the chance we are down to for finding an NPR...it is pathetically low and we still run into them.

Well, of course you do ... at a lower rate. 

[Paul M]

Apparently ultra has a completely different system of moon REI over SM2, because in SM2 you can't end up below normal.  So an O1 moon at normal gives you and REI of 60%.  If you lowered moons to 20% or something then people would not colonize them until the filled up the rest of the system and maxed out their IU.  At this point it becomes worth colonizing them not for their value (which is nearly non-existant) but because they can support IU.  I would rather just do away with moon colonies and use them (and astroid belts) as income modifiers to the planet populations, and introduce economic technologies.  But the economic technology is also pointless in a sense that they become "must haves" and in that sense not so good an idea...probably better to introduce them where they are tailored to your development strategy, which requires there be a few development strategies.  This is why I just don't like the current simplistic model, it is more complex to "fix" then a better model is to set up.

If you don't want asteroid populations as Starslayer says just don't allow them.  You already get +10% system income per belt.  There could be other benifits to the belt as well (increased SY speed as per ISF, free sensors, etc) if you wanted to add those in.  The actual belter population would be not much more than 1 PU per hex anyway (50,000 people mostly concentrated at the smelters/refineries) using typical SciFi thematic logic.

In general it might be easier to treat O2, O1 and asteroids seperate from habitables.  Just give them a Q, H and emplacement cost that is fixed, that generates a fixed PU value and be done with it.  No growth possible, except in the case of O2 moons or planets where this value could be increased by upgrading the outpost to a colony or settlement (planet only).  But again at a fixed Q, H and emplacement cost for a fixed PU value gain.  This basically is like the ISF system.  What values you want to set then you have a lot more control over.  Personally I might be tempted to treat planets seperatly from moons as in these cases you likely will have population growth and just let them grow naturally.  But again now you add complexity and a balance issue.

I don't follow where your numbers of T to ST are coming from, but it has been too long since I looked at ISF's system generation scheme.  If you make ST more common then people will play ST races as opposed to T races since that gives them more planets to colonize.  Currently if you are playing a ST race you need some compensation, we gave Franz the Gorm ability to use tunners longer than a regular race, but if you did what you suggest then you would need to give people playing T race some sort of incentive or "everyone" will just play what gives the biggest benifit.

How you determine if a planet is benign or harsh is up to you.  But if you stick with HI as it exists now then the best you get is 10% benign (HI_homeword = HI_target: benign).  To go to 5% then you need to add in a second value that is 50% satisfied, or effectively double the number of possible HI values to 20.  Basically I don't see how you can do this without adding in more rules (to system generation) and complexity.  It isn't clear how ST worlds would work since they currently are all considered benign to a ST race (at least in SM2), that would likely have to change.

Ultimately I'm not sure what you are really aiming for in changes to ST/T and Harsh/Benign ratios.  Better would be to look at stellar type tables and adjust the number of yellow, white and orange stars as those are the ones with the best life zones.  Decrease the chance of a star being one of these and you reduce the number of habitables.  A planet is habitable if it is a rock world in the life zone of a star, and your idea of a matrix of habitability is exactly what you get with HI but only without HI, which means that you need to store it for each race and re-roll for each new race in the game.  Again adds complexity and brings nothing that HI doesn't give you in the first place since for different races the same planet already can be have the same or a different habitability level.

It would be easier over all to break HI into different numbers:  Temperature, Atmosphere, Bio-Hydrosphere.  Each is assigned a different value 0-9.  This means your chance of a benign, if that requires all 3 are inside of 2 of your homewolds value, is 0.5*0.5*0.5 =12.5%...if you say within 1, then it is 0.3*0.3*0.3 =3% or identical 0.1*0.1*0.1= 0.1%  You can make the derivation of these values as simple or as complex as you like.

My comment on NPRs should be "even though the chance of encountering them has been lowered to a level of pathetically small we have a lot of them in our game."  I think we may have cut the number we started with in half.  Starslayer knows better but it has to be down to a few percent chance....but there are that many chances it routinely gives us new races.

[MWadwell]

I normally don't comment on Starfire since I've not played in a decade, but with percentages... Consider say... the US researching something with 10% of its GNP. Then consider Honduras researching the same item with their GNP. Both are dedicating 10%, but I'd think the US would get the research done faster just because of the extra money and manpower that their 10% brings in. Unless you have something up your sleeve that addresses this?

Just a quick comment - while the costs are listed as "R&D", my belief that a lot of the cost is actually not R&D. Instead it is factory re-tooling, replacing obsolete equipment, etc.

A comparable historical event is the advent of steam engines. The development of a reliable steam engine was relatively cheap. But the cost to retool all of the factories, ships, transportation, etc from water/wind/animal/human power to steam power is what costs the most.


So to use Eriks analogy of Honduras and the US, while the R&D costs for both would be the same amount, the retooling costs (which I believe would be the bulk of the R&D costs) would be much greater for the US then for Honduras.....

[Erik L]

Just a quick comment - while the costs are listed as "R&D", my belief that a lot of the cost is actually not R&D. Instead it is factory re-tooling, replacing obsolete equipment, etc.

A comparable historical event is the advent of steam engines. The development of a reliable steam engine was relatively cheap. But the cost to retool all of the factories, ships, transportation, etc from water/wind/animal/human power to steam power is what costs the most.


So to use Eriks analogy of Honduras and the US, while the R&D costs for both would be the same amount, the retooling costs (which I believe would be the bulk of the R&D costs) would be much greater for the US then for Honduras.....

That makes sense... Calling it just R&D tends to stretch the believablity a wee bit.

[crucis]

That makes sense... Calling it just R&D tends to stretch the believablity a wee bit.

Erik, it also sort of illustrates the subtle difference between TL Research and EL Research.  EL Research entails much of what Matt describes, while TL research tends to represent more of the military hardware side of things.  3E presumes that EL and TL go hand in hand, while 4e doesn't.

[crucis]

Apparently ultra has a completely different system of moon REI over SM2, because in SM2 you can't end up below normal.  So an O1 moon at normal gives you and REI of 60%.  If you lowered moons to 20% or something then people would not colonize them until the filled up the rest of the system and maxed out their IU. At this point it becomes worth colonizing them not for their value (which is nearly non-existant) but because they can support IU. 

Ultra still uses an REI die roll, where O2 worlds get a +3 die roll mod and O1 (in Ultra, it's O1 and O3) worlds get a +5 die roll mod.  Where Ultra differs from SM2 is that a) the mineral content value percentage and the environment percentages are merged together into a single "mineral/environment value" (MEV) percentage, and b) those MEV's for Desolates and Extremes average about 95% for Desolates and about 90% for Extremes.  And even in Ultra, you can't end up below "Normal".

As for if I lowered it to 20%, well that's sort of the point.  And they might not colonize them even then, if there were richer moons in nearby systems that were better investments.  And now that I think of it, another way to impact Extreme environment colonization is to increase the colonization costs themselves.  One can hit the ROR by decreasing income via mineral wealth or by increasing the cost of colonization.  I'll have to look into that.

Also, another difference between Ultra and SM#2 is that Ultra only allows IU's to be placed on worlds with populations of Small or greater, whereas SM#2 has no such restriction.

If you don't want asteroid populations as Starslayer says just don't allow them.  You already get +10% system income per belt.  There could be other benifits to the belt as well (increased SY speed as per ISF, free sensors, etc) if you wanted to add those in.  The actual belter population would be not much more than 1 PU per hex anyway (50,000 people mostly concentrated at the smelters/refineries) using typical SciFi thematic logic.

That's my general intention.  I have to admit though that a down side to only using the ast belt bonus is that it requires the presence of the CFN and without a significant population in the star system, you can't get any value out of the belt.  1 PU per sys hex or 1 PU per LM of the AB's orbit (with a merged population for economic/population purposes) is a reasonable solution within a PU/PTU model, but not so much within the old pure ISF EVM/REI model.

In general it might be easier to treat O2, O1 and asteroids separate from habitables.  Just give them a Q, H and emplacement cost that is fixed, that generates a fixed PU value and be done with it.  No growth possible, except in the case of O2 moons or planets where this value could be increased by upgrading the outpost to a colony or settlement (planet only).  But again at a fixed Q, H and emplacement cost for a fixed PU value gain.  This basically is like the ISF system.  What values you want to set then you have a lot more control over.  Personally I might be tempted to treat planets separately from moons as in these cases you likely will have population growth and just let them grow naturally.  But again now you add complexity and a balance issue.

Oh, I've assumed no growth being possible on non-habitable worlds from the start.  No growth was allowed on non-habs in ISF.  And dealing with growth on non-habs is a significant paperwork issue every 10th turn in SM#2.  Don't allow any growth on non-habs and one paperwork issue gets dealt with.

I agree that fixed size colonization requirements for non-habs is an option, and yes that does tend to make it very much like ISF.    And a big part of me finds that attractive.  However, there's also a lot of people who apparently like being able to colonize in an incremental manner.  And if you look at the cost of emplacing a full size outpost or, worse, a colony, compared to the economy of a player's homeworld early in the game, one might find that emplacing a colony was just too expensive.

I don't follow where your numbers of T to ST are coming from, but it has been too long since I looked at ISF's system generation scheme.  If you make ST more common then people will play ST races as opposed to T races since that gives them more planets to colonize.  Currently if you are playing a ST race you need some compensation, we gave Franz the Gorm ability to use tunners longer than a regular race, but if you did what you suggest then you would need to give people playing T race some sort of incentive or "everyone" will just play what gives the biggest benifit.

In ISF, in the biosphere, mass 2 Type T planets occur on a roll of 26-85% (60% points) and mass 3 Type ST planets occur on a roll of 86-00% (15% points).  Hence a 4-1 T to ST ratio. 

And in Ultra T's occur on a roll of 26-75% (50% points) while ST's occur on a roll of 76-00% (25% points).  Hence, the 2-1 T-ST ratio in Ultra. 

In Ultra, this is done so that when you apply HD's, you get an even 33% split between Benign, Harsh, and Hostile, regardless of whether the planet is T or ST.  For T's if HD is 2 or less, Benign.  If more than 2, it's Harsh.  And if the target planet is ST, then it's Hostile.  And for ST races, all ST's are Benign, and the Type T target planets are split 50/50 between Harsh and Hostile.  This creates the even 33-33-33% distribution of B/Ha/Ho regardless of whether one is a T or ST race.  The model is arguably bland and cookie cutterish, but it's also simple and effective at making T's and ST's equally attractive for players.

As for needing to give T or ST races some special benefit, I don't see any such need if one used a model like the one Ultra used to produce an equitable distribution of B, Ha, and Ho habitable environments for T/ST planets.

How you determine if a planet is benign or harsh is up to you.  But if you stick with HI as it exists now then the best you get is 10% benign (HI_homeword = HI_target: benign).  To go to 5% then you need to add in a second value that is 50% satisfied, or effectively double the number of possible HI values to 20.  Basically I don't see how you can do this without adding in more rules (to system generation) and complexity.  It isn't clear how ST worlds would work since they currently are all considered benign to a ST race (at least in SM2), that would likely have to change.

I agree that in the current HI model, if Benigns require HI-HW = HI_TargetWorld, then yes, you'd end up with 10% Benigns.  That by itself isn't a big deal.  My problem would be that the harsh and hostile distribution wouldn't be satisfactory.  I think that the general idea works best if Hostiles represented about 60-70% of all T/St environments, Benigns represented 5-10%, and Harshes represented what remained.  A 60-30-10 split wouldn't be bad in my view, if one was trying to stick with a single d10.

And yes, bringing ST's into the mix is problematical.  The simplest way to do it would be to merge T and ST into a single type, and move on from there.  But if kept separate, it becomes more difficult to achieve anything like a 60-30-10 or a 70-25-5 split without some statistical gymnastics (and quite likely more complexity).  Not to mention that there's something traditional about keeping ST's separate from T's.

Ultimately I'm not sure what you are really aiming for in changes to ST/T and Harsh/Benign ratios.  Better would be to look at stellar type tables and adjust the number of yellow, white and orange stars as those are the ones with the best life zones.  Decrease the chance of a star being one of these and you reduce the number of habitables. 

Reducing the # of habitables doesn't produce the same result as changing the ratio of B/Ha/Ho's (BHH).  Changing the BHH ratio doesn't reduce the number of planets that can have growing populations.  It does decrease the number of Benign planets with the potential for Large and VLg populations (i.e. the planets with large incomes and produce large numbers of colonists), while (if one used the SM#2 pop caps) having more Ha/Ho populations (instead of the Benigns) means that you have a lot more populations capped at Medium and Settlement levels (along with smaller incomes and fewer colonists).  But even if capped, those worlds can still serve as source populations for colonization, just not at the same output level as a Large or VLg population.

However, if the overall # of habitables is reduced, there are no lesser Ha/Ho source populations, and you end up with all habitables being far rarer.  Of course, some people might like that result, but some wouldn't.  And I'm thinking that with the changed BHH ratio, you still have a playable number of habitables to work with, even with low max pop caps.  Also, survey luck becomes more pronounced since there are fewer overall hab's, whereas survey luck is changed with the changed BHH ratio, but it's only Benigns that are less common (Hostiles would become much more common, and Harshes would be close to about the same or a little less common).

I think that the changed BHH ratio is a more playable option than reducing the overall # of habs via the star type table.  Mind you, I actually did consider that latter option first.  But when the first option occurred to me, I realized that it was a less onerous option on game play, though it might be a bit trickier to implement.  (Obviously, tweaking the Star Type table is about as easy to implement as it gets.  Fewer White and Yellow stars and more Red and Red Dwarfs, and you'll have a lot fewer habitable worlds.)

A planet is habitable if it is a rock world in the life zone of a star, and your idea of a matrix of habitability is exactly what you get with HI but only without HI, which means that you need to store it for each race and re-roll for each new race in the game.  Again adds complexity and brings nothing that HI doesn't give you in the first place since for different races the same planet already can be have the same or a different habitability level.

I wouldn't say that. I disagree about it bringing "nothing".  I've had a few people wishing for a more detailed habitability model.  They'd like a habitability model with multiple factors.  I have to admit that I only have mild interest in it however.  It's more interesting to look at than use for me.


Anyways, as I said in the previous post, I think that the simpler model is to not bother with Hab Indexes at all, and go to directly die rolling for Hab Differentials or rather the environments those differentials equate to, with an underlying assumption that a single dimensional HI is too simple to encompass the complexities of determining habitability.  What would happen in this model is that when you surveyed a T/ST, you'd roll 1d10 or 1d100 against a new table that would have the various environments broken out with the desired percentages.  And there'd likely be a modifier in the case of a T race surveying an ST world or vice-versa.  The modifier would be large enough to guarantee a result of no better than Harsh.  Harsh would be an acceptable result on the theory that races that are borderline T/ST on the T side might find some ST worlds more palatable than some T worlds, and vice versa for some some barely ST races.  The tricky part with such a table is to try to end up with a distribution of percentages for T races that's the same as for ST races.  And it's tricky because T's and ST's don't occur in the same numbers, since if they did, it wouldn't be a problem.

[Paul M]

I have to admit to being baffled.  I'm not sure if it is because we are discussing 3 seperate situations simultaneously or if it is due to my lack of psionic abilities.

As far as habitablity goes my suggestion of splitting a single HI into 3 values (or however many tickles your fancy) allows you to tailor habitability as you wish.  It has the advantage that it is a fixed value you only need to generate once.  There is also a conisiderable amount of freedom that you get as you can define benign, harsh and hostile depending on particular conditions.  It also allows you to have races with better adaptability (such as for example the bugs) or worse adaptability.  Basically it gives a lot larger amount of play space to muck about in.  It also could avoid the need for T and ST worlds.  There are just one type of world and what we call ST is a planet with an exotic atmophere for example.

For a more realistic system you start with determining gravity, determine temperature (modified by star type and orbit distance), determine hydroshpere (modified by temperature) and lastly detrmine atmosphere (modified by all previous things).  Again I would use a bell curved result rather than a flat roll.  This would tend to generate ST worlds only when you hit extremes.  Also mineral wealth of the planet could be affected by gravity (denser planets are dense for a reason).

As for moons, one thing is that their very existance adds a lot of complexity to the game and brings remarkably little.  I would strongly suggest removing them as actual objects (except for the tactical game) and replacing them with an economic modifier or else a single line.  So in the case of a single line for G and I planets you would roll  up the number of moons and record it.  Then roll a bell curve to generate a mineral wealth value, add it to 100+10*moons to determine a final multiplier for that planet.  Then allow either a fixed amount of PU per gas or ice giant or else that fixed value with a per moon bonus.  This simplifies the book keeping for PnP games especially.  Otherwise each gas giant take 1+number_moons lines which starts to add up very fast.  This reduces a system with 8 gas giants with an average of 4 moons from 40 lines to 8 lines.  The point is there is no need to track which moon has the population as they are realistically easily able to live in one place and operate a mine somewhere else.  Basically treat the moons and gas giant a single development area such as was done in Mass Effect.

I'm of two minds about the above suggestions with respect to the moons though because I don't like over simplying things as I think it takes away from the game.  But quite honestly I rarely look at the details of systems that much.  It only comes into play infrequently, and only if you are using the system level (itself rarely used).  It would also allow for the development of industrial technologies that might make sense for "stay at homes" ...a technology that expands the number of PU you can install on moons for example.  It would be of not much interest to an expanding race but a pocketed one would probably feel it worth the investment.  But on the other hand one reason that a game explodes is that just tracking the system details becomes an issue (especially with excel where scrolling up and down becomes bothersome quickly when each system takes over 20-30 lines on average) and any simplification there is a good one.

[crucis]

I have to admit to being baffled.  I'm not sure if it is because we are discussing 3 separate situations simultaneously or if it is due to my lack of psionic abilities.

It's always possible that we're having a mis-communication, Paul.   

As far as habitability goes my suggestion of splitting a single HI into 3 values (or however many tickles your fancy) allows you to tailor habitability as you wish.  It has the advantage that it is a fixed value you only need to generate once.  There is also a considerable amount of freedom that you get as you can define benign, harsh and hostile depending on particular conditions.  It also allows you to have races with better adaptability (such as for example the bugs) or worse adaptability.  Basically it gives a lot larger amount of play space to muck about in.  It also could avoid the need for T and ST worlds.  There are just one type of world and what we call ST is a planet with an exotic atmosphere for example.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “There is just one type of world and what we call ST is a planet with an exotic atmosphere”.  Are you suggesting that ST planets be kept as Mass 3 planets, but be considered uninhabitable to some degree, due to the “exotic atmosphere”?  Or are you talking about merging Mass 2 Type T’s and Mass 3 Type ST’s into a single larger type?  It would help if you were a little more verbose on this point.

I do understand that advantages that merging T and ST bring, since you no longer have to worry about balancing them.  But the flip side is that they are sort of traditional within the game.   It also begs some questions.

Do Mass 2 and Mass 3 remain the same but Type T planets encompass both?  Or is Mass 3 made different and no longer a habitable range for the larger set of habitable (and merged) T/ST races?  And if they are no longer considered habitable, are they then desolate or possibly even extreme?  Might they even be sort of like Type V planets (maybe not as hot as traditional Type V’s, but possibly having extremely dense and deadly atmospheres) and thus deadly environments for T races?  And how common should they be?  Or just perhaps merge the existing M2 and M3 ranges as is, and not worry about anything larger.

There are a lot of questions that come to mind when one starts thinking about merging the M2 T and the M3 ST types.

For a more realistic system you start with determining gravity, determine temperature (modified by star type and orbit distance), determine hydrosphere (modified by temperature) and lastly determine atmosphere (modified by all previous things).  Again I would use a bell curved result rather than a flat roll.  This would tend to generate ST worlds only when you hit extremes.  Also mineral wealth of the planet could be affected by gravity (denser planets are dense for a reason).

One of the problems you encounter when you start breaking Habitability into realistic factors is that those factors become less amenable to being wrapped around, as is done with the generic HI as is done in Ultra.  In Ultra, an HI of 10 is 1 away from an HI of 1.  This is really good for game balance, but not at all realistic.  But back to what you're discussing.

Gravity is obvious and straight forward.

I'm not entirely sure that Temp would be quite so modified by star type (though obvious White stars are hotter than Red Stars).  The Biosphere itself represents a min and max temp range for planets to possess liquid water (hence the alternative term, Liquid Water Zone or LWZ).  So any planet at the inner boundary of the LWZ should arguably have essentially the same average temp.  The real key to ave temp is the relative position with its star's LWZ, where planets on the inner boundary would be hotter, in the middle would be average, and at the outer boundary would be cooler.  But this is made a bit tricky because all LWZ's aren't of equal width in terms of LM's of orbit, i.e. Red Stars have a narrow LWZ while White Stars have a wide LWZ.  The simplest way to handle this would just be some sort of look up table of the various values.

Hydrosphere is also straight forward.  Not sure why ave. temp would need to be added into the HS.  It seems to me that just having an Ave Temp factor means that it's already being factored in.

I'm not entirely sure that an atmosphere factor is needed.  It seems that it is going to be a derivation of gravity, temp, and hydrosphere, and assumed to be of an O-N composition.

A couple of factors that you left out are axial tilt, which would affect the severity of the seasonal changes, and chirality, which, IIRC, is a complex thing defining the relative biochemical makeup of life on the planet.



Honestly though, while this sort of increased realism is interesting to think about, I think that it adds a new level of complexity to the mix that some people wouldn't really appreciate.  It may be cool for the people who like greater sysgen details and players who like to write stories who might also appreciate greater detail for habitable planets.  But I'm not sure that the average player would appreciate the greater detail.

As for moons, one thing is that their very existence adds a lot of complexity to the game and brings remarkably little.  I would strongly suggest removing them as actual objects (except for the tactical game) and replacing them with an economic modifier or else a single line.  So in the case of a single line for G and I planets you would roll up the number of moons and record it.  Then roll a bell curve to generate a mineral wealth value, add it to 100+10*moons to determine a final multiplier for that planet.  Then allow either a fixed amount of PU per gas or ice giant or else that fixed value with a per moon bonus.  This simplifies the book keeping for PnP games especially.  Otherwise each gas giant take 1+number_moons lines which starts to add up very fast.  This reduces a system with 8 gas giants with an average of 4 moons from 40 lines to 8 lines.  The point is there is no need to track which moon has the population as they are realistically easily able to live in one place and operate a mine somewhere else.  Basically treat the moons and gas giant a single development area such as was done in Mass Effect.

What you’re describing is pooling moons on a planet by planet basis.  It’s also possible to pool moons across the entire star system by environment type (i.e. Desolate vs. Extreme).  Each has its own advantages.
Clearly the advantage of a D and E pool is greatly reduced record keeping.  An advantage of pooling by planet is that one can gain the advantage of a population’s innate sensors.  Given how close moons are to their planets compared to the system scale, it really doesn’t matter all that much what moon has the population, if you’ve only colonized a single moon.  It only becomes a bit of an issue when you start dropping to lower ranges (interception or tactical scale).

I'm of two minds about the above suggestions with respect to the moons though because I don't like over simplifying things as I think it takes away from the game.  But quite honestly I rarely look at the details of systems that much.  It only comes into play infrequently, and only if you are using the system level (itself rarely used).  It would also allow for the development of industrial technologies that might make sense for "stay at homes" ...a technology that expands the number of PU you can install on moons for example.  It would be of not much interest to an expanding race but a pocketed one would probably feel it worth the investment.  But on the other hand one reason that a game explodes is that just tracking the system details becomes an issue (especially with excel where scrolling up and down becomes bothersome quickly when each system takes over 20-30 lines on average) and any simplification there is a good one.

I understand what you mean by over-simplifying things.  The problem is that people colonize tons of moons, particularly in star systems with a habitable planet to be the source of colonists.  And lots of colonized moons means lots of individual records to be tracked.

But I have a question.  What do you mean by “industrial technology”?  Could you give me some examples?

[procyon]

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “There is just one type of world and what we call ST is a planet with an exotic atmosphere”.  Are you suggesting that ST planets be kept as Mass 3 planets, but be considered uninhabitable to some degree, due to the “exotic atmosphere”?  Or are you talking about merging Mass 2 Type T’s and Mass 3 Type ST’s into a single larger type?  It would help if you were a little more verbose on this point.

I really don't have much problem with pooling T/ST (M2/M3 worlds) into one 'catagory', and just randomly rolling if your race finds it habitable.
You could easily have a high mass world (M3) with low density and hence a large radius - that would have Earth like gravity.  It could also have an Earth like atmosphere.  Or a heavy atmosphere.  Or maybe almost none. 
As an example - Venus has about the same gravity as Earth, with an atmosphere over 90 times as dense.  Even if the temp difference is ignored, it would be like going a mile down in the ocean pressure-wise. Hard to consider that comfortable.
And Titan is a moon of Saturn with a surface gravity about the same as Luna, but has an atmosphere about 1.4 times as dense as Earth's.  But the fact it is several hundred degrees colder would make it unpleasant also.

You will likely run into the same issues with exoplanets.  Big ones that look nothing like home - but feel like it.  And ones that look just like home - but would be nearly impossible to survive.  (Just take Earth with N-O and add a few percent of chlorine to the atmosphere.  Would be rather unpleasant if the world is covered in toxic fumes and soaking in bleach...)

So a random roll looks good to me.

But I would skip the fifteen different rolls for the environment.  If you don't want to track 4 moons for a gas planet, why would you want to track that many issues for each habitable?  In the end it boils down to 'I can live here' or ' I can't live here'.


And from experience, cutting down the number of habitables and spacing them out does a pretty good job at curtailing growth.  If the closest if 10 systems away - it takes time and $ to colonize.  And if it is marginal, you will spend a fair amount to get your next colonization site going.
Anything that eats money helps cut down the 'rampant economy' issue.

But in the absence of an SM to moderate it - it would profoundly exagerate the luck issue.  If you survey the wrong line while someone else didn't in a competative game - you are toast.

[Paul M]

On the question of M2 and M3, frankly the M3 exists only because you made a roll on a chart and got a ST world in the first place.  So if you make a roll on the planetary gravity chart and get something on the high side you get the same result, if eventually you end up with a dense atmosphere then you have a "ST world."  Look up any SF RPG they generally have a more detailed way of generating the planetary environment.  My point is that if you have 3 numbers then you have playing room.  It isn't I can live here or not, it is how often can I find places I really like, and how ofen do I find places I would rather not inhabit even though I can.  Races can have different happy ranges, as I say the Bugs could be set to inhabiting a large variety of worlds or another race could be limited to a restricted range of gravities.

At the end of the day the function g = f(x) is simple, but it also is easy to maximize and you are darn limited in what you can do to it.  h = f(x,y,z) is a more complex function and has more or less guarrenteed multiple maximums, and gives you lots of playing room.  My point is if you want to stick with a system that is "I can live here" then you can just stay with the current HI system and adjust only the relative chances of finding habitable worlds, the chance such a habitable world is going to be benign, and the relative distribution of worlds in the universe.  The point with g and h applies to pretty much everything, and you have to make on a case to case basis a choice between simplicity and complexity based on what they add to the game.  What I think doesn't help a game is when things become simplistic.

Competitive games are decided by when people decide they can't win.  At that point they stop playing in my experience which is limited I admit but I don't think I'm far off the mark here.  So rules for those games are going to be different then semi-cooperative type games or solo games.  The competitive games more than anything hinge on exploration luck (hence all of Marvin's strange rules to mitigate it in the early game).  But ultimately they are their own subset of starfire games and play vastly differently.  I would honestly think they require a SM and pre-generated universe. 

My suggestion on consolidating moons is just to reduce book keeping while keeping the point to the detailed system design.  I rather doubt many battles are fought near gas giants anyway so the interception and tactical levels rarely come into play.  Starfire doesn't make defending territory a priority unless you are discussing your homeworld.  You can see it in Steve's Rigillian campaign...people abandoned colonists to their fate without a single thought routinely.  Patrolling by military units is almost never done.  So putting a lot of effort into detailing the colonies of gas giant moons seems effort not worth while doing.  For EXCEL and PnP games it is an important consideration how many lines a system takes and keeping that number at a sensible value is worth doing I think.

Industrial technology is specific technological advances that are not about ships but are about industrial/economic advances.  Things like a technology that allows the max population of an 02 world to be settlement level, or one that enhances the population limit of moons, or reduces the cost to emplace PTU on hostile worlds, etc.  These are harder to balance, as I would avoid making them something that is a "must have" but make them something you might be interested in one game due to the way exploration luck went your way but not in another game where you had better luck with habitables.  But this is a personal taste thing as I find starfire lacking significantly in the "empire building" aspect.  I don't feel I'm doing anything but shoving PTU around, I would like more things involved in actual empire infrastructure, plus more "industrial technology" options.  But again I don't want them to become "must haves" as that is counter productive (and you might as well just consider them lumped into EL research).  But they would be a way of allowing your race to specialize a bit more and making them unique.  MOO and MOO2 had such things.  I have to admit that the whole way EL was factored into the economy in GSF is a bit odd, it is I guess a way of limiting colonization of non-habitables since they are pretty much pointless under its system (or become a lot more like IU in SM2).  But my experience with GSF was limited so I may be out to lunch here.  Anyway Starfire's empire building aspects don't realy scratch my builder itch would be a fair assesment.

As for communicating this is the internet...we are by definition communicating poorly.

[crucis]

On the question of M2 and M3, frankly the M3 exists only because you made a roll on a chart and got a ST world in the first place.  So if you make a roll on the planetary gravity chart and get something on the high side you get the same result, if eventually you end up with a dense atmosphere then you have a "ST world."  Look up any SF RPG they generally have a more detailed way of generating the planetary environment.  My point is that if you have 3 numbers then you have playing room.  It isn't I can live here or not, it is how often can I find places I really like, and how often do I find places I would rather not inhabit even though I can.  Races can have different happy ranges, as I say the Bugs could be set to inhabiting a large variety of worlds or another race could be limited to a restricted range of gravities.

At the end of the day the function g = f(x) is simple, but it also is easy to maximize and you are darn limited in what you can do to it.  h = f(x,y,z) is a more complex function and has more or less guaranteed multiple maximums, and gives you lots of playing room.  My point is if you want to stick with a system that is "I can live here" then you can just stay with the current HI system and adjust only the relative chances of finding habitable worlds, the chance such a habitable world is going to be benign, and the relative distribution of worlds in the universe.  The point with g and h applies to pretty much everything, and you have to make on a case to case basis a choice between simplicity and complexity based on what they add to the game.  What I think doesn't help a game is when things become simplistic.

I have to admit to being hesitant to doing a multi-vectored habitability process, because while it appears to appeal to you (and a number of other people I know over on the SDS board), there are probably at least an equal or greater number of people who would prefer to stick with the simpler model, whether it’s because the extra detail does nothing for them or they are concerned with page count or some other reason.

I will also admit that the idea of a multi-vectored habitability process is definitely interesting.  But I’m also a bit of a sysgen geek, and this sort of thing will always pique my interest, though that is often not enough to make me want to use the idea.  (And I do have some ideas for how to make such a habitability process work in a relatively simple manner.)

One problem that does exist with using a multi-vectored habitability process is that almost by definition it’s going to be more realistic.  And “more realistic” models are probably NOT going to work with any sort of game balancing wrap-arounds.  So any values at the extremes of any of the factors are going to be relatively unbalanced compared to middle of the scale values.

Industrial technology is specific technological advances that are not about ships but are about industrial/economic advances.  Things like a technology that allows the max population of an O2 world to be settlement level, or one that enhances the population limit of moons, or reduces the cost to emplace PTU on hostile worlds, etc.  These are harder to balance, as I would avoid making them something that is a "must have" but make them something you might be interested in one game due to the way exploration luck went your way but not in another game where you had better luck with habitables.  But this is a personal taste thing as I find Starfire lacking significantly in the "empire building" aspect.  I don't feel I'm doing anything but shoving PTU around, I would like more things involved in actual empire infrastructure, plus more "industrial technology" options.  But again I don't want them to become "must haves" as that is counterproductive (and you might as well just consider them lumped into EL research).  But they would be a way of allowing your race to specialize a bit more and making them unique.  MOO and MOO2 had such things.  I have to admit that the whole way EL was factored into the economy in GSF is a bit odd, it is I guess a way of limiting colonization of non-habitables since they are pretty much pointless under its system (or become a lot more like IU in SM2).  But my experience with GSF was limited so I may be out to lunch here.  Anyway Starfire's empire building aspects don't really scratch my builder itch would be a fair assessment.

Here are some ideas that I just threw together for possible “Indy tech”. 

The first bunch is all in the same vein, increasing max populations for certain locations/environments.

* Type F worlds: start by allowing no colonization, then allow outposts, then later colonies.
* Type H planets: start allowing only outposts, then colonies, and then eventually settlements.
* Type B planets: start by allowing colonies, then settlements, then small pops.
* Type B moons: start by allowing outposts, then colonies, then settlements.
* Hostile environment habitable planets: start at colony, then allow settlements, then small pops.
* Harsh environment habitable planets: start at small pops, then allow medium pops, then eventually allow large pops.

The next idea is to have an increasing level of industrialization, as represented by the percentage of IU’s allowed to be built on a planet.  The starting point would be below, perhaps well below the standard 50%, but increase every so often, perhaps in increments of 10% points.  (I think that within this idea, IU’s would not be allowed to be sold, nor would they be allowed to be purchased in excess of whatever the current percentage cap may be.)

Another idea could be an industrial tech that improves mineral extraction technology, effectively increasing mineral values for non-habitable worlds only.  And this may be best done for each type of non-hab body (i.e. H, B, or F), since it seems like that the type of mining and the conditions of each will impact the industrial tech advancements needed to effect an improvement in extraction technology.  (I’m very hesitant to allow this sort of increased mineral value upgrade for habitable worlds since it would have a much greater economic impact.)

I don’t know if it’d be better to require these things to be developed like any other tech systems, or have them tied to specific EL/TL’s when the capability would just appear.  I’m tempted to require the player to make the choice to invest in the development, a) to make them pay for it, and b) to let them make the choices of where to invest their industrial development megacredits. 

Also, I’m thinking that the various improvements will always come for worlds with the least hostile environments first.  That is, the potential for an upgrade for Harsh max pops would come before an upgrade for Hostile max pops.  Thus, upgrades for anything to do with Type F bodies will always be last.

I’m not too keen on the idea of allowing for the reduction in cost for certain types of colonization, mostly because I’m hesitant to create any “decreased cost” indy tech.

Also, if you have any other ideas for indy tech, fire away.  This is a new idea for me, and it’ll take me a bit to think of new ideas.

[procyon]

On the question of M2 and M3, frankly the M3 exists only because you made a roll on a chart and got a ST world in the first place.  So if you make a roll on the planetary gravity chart and get something on the high side you get the same result, if eventually you end up with a dense atmosphere then you have a "ST world."  Look up any SF RPG they generally have a more detailed way of generating the planetary environment.  My point is that if you have 3 numbers then you have playing room.  It isn't I can live here or not, it is how often can I find places I really like, and how ofen do I find places I would rather not inhabit even though I can.  Races can have different happy ranges, as I say the Bugs could be set to inhabiting a large variety of worlds or another race could be limited to a restricted range of gravities.

At the end of the day the function g = f(x) is simple, but it also is easy to maximize and you are darn limited in what you can do to it.  h = f(x,y,z) is a more complex function and has more or less guarrenteed multiple maximums, and gives you lots of playing room.  My point is if you want to stick with a system that is "I can live here" then you can just stay with the current HI system and adjust only the relative chances of finding habitable worlds, the chance such a habitable world is going to be benign, and the relative distribution of worlds in the universe.  The point with g and h applies to pretty much everything, and you have to make on a case to case basis a choice between simplicity and complexity based on what they add to the game.  What I think doesn't help a game is when things become simplistic.

My biggest problem with complex systems for determining planet habitability is that it adds a lot of complexity to a system with only three different results for habitables.  Benign, Harsh, and Hostile.  If you wanted the possibility for Desolate, Extreme, and Death in the habitables table, that would be fine.  They are already covered.

But a game the in 3e or later editions is already 200-400+ pages of rules...  adding more detail to something with 6 possible results sounds less than agreeable.
You can determine that it has 11.7 m/s^2 gravity, pressure of 2.1 atm, N 65-O 16-Fl 3-CO 15 atmosphere, 125K surface temp, 7% surface comp H2O, etc, etc,....
It is still going to be one of the 6 types of environments.  If my players or I have a choice between 16 rolls to determine what a planet is, or just a couple - well, I only have so much time.  And if a computer is doing it for you - you still only end up with one of 6 types, no matter how much extra data you attach to that environment.  So why bother, other than for story purposes.

And if you choose to play a non-human race (which if you are SM, will likely be ALL your races), then you have to determine what a particular race is native to and can tolerate and then track all of that also.  But in the end, why track a bunch of variables that all give only 6 results - if you can skip to the chase.

As a supplement, it could be a blast for a detailed campaign to know and track all that data.  It would likely also have a completely different way to determine habitability than just having 6 different types.  A bell curve modified by the various attributes could be cool.

Would I want to add that to any of the rules set.  Nope.
If tracking 4 moons around a gas giant is too much work, this is way worse to me.


As for colonization and industrial tech, that area could use a huge overhaul.  It has many issues.
But how to fix it without turning the rules into something resembling a library shelf is beyond me.

Competitive games are decided by when people decide they can't win.  

I agree.
People who want to play it competatively... I have issues with.
You can complain about luck making it so you couldn't win - but what else is there?  Would you prefer to say that you were dumber than the other guy.
In the end it is a game played with dice.  Complaining about luck while rattling the dice in your hand seems rather hypocritical to me...
If you are complaining and don't like it - don't play that way or become a better sport.

Or better yet, find an SM and play along with the other players - instead of against them.
Has worked for my family for the last decade or so.  We love it.  (Ok, most days...)

[crucis]

As for colonization and industrial tech, that area could use a huge overhaul.  It has many issues.
But how to fix it without turning the rules into something resembling a library shelf is beyond me.

Sigh.   

Please elucidate.  I want details.  What do you perceive those issues to be?  I'm very curious.

I agree.
People who want to play it competatively... I have issues with.
You can complain about luck making it so you couldn't win - but what else is there?  Would you prefer to say that you were dumber than the other guy.
In the end it is a game played with dice.  Complaining about luck while rattling the dice in your hand seems rather hypocritical to me...
If you are complaining and don't like it - don't play that way or become a better sport.

Or better yet, find an SM and play along with the other players - instead of against them.
Has worked for my family for the last decade or so.  We love it.  (Ok, most days...)

I have no problem with players who want to play competitively.  I do have a bit of a problem when the players lose sight of it being a game, and stop somewhat role-playing their empires.  I guess that I don't like it so much when the players are playing the rules and not the game, and aren't enjoying the "history" that their empires create.  I'm not sure that I like it when the rules have to be written to create such a perfect balance for hardcore PvP players that it loses sight of any semblance of role-playing the empires and enjoying the setting and so forth.

[Paul M]

There is a lot of detail in Starfires system generation chart that go to waste for the most part since the system level of play is rarely used and the STMP has basically cut out interest in where things are.  As far as wrap around is concerned since players are restricted to a band 3-8 anyway if the NPR gets the short end of the stick so be it.  I'd not bother with wrap around since it is nonsensical.

As I said right form the begining if all you want is a binary result then why change the HI system currently used; it gives you the binary result you want?  Adjusting the stellar probability tables and how you define benign, and the planet type roll can give you a 10% benign rate and a de jour rate of the others.  My point for a more complex system is it allows greater flexibilty in play as it can help make far more interesting and different bonuses for NPRs leading to the NPR being more unique.

Simple suggestions are changing how you define benign, changing to HI is 0 to 19, changing the H requirements based on HI difference.  

As far as IU goes I treat is as EVM.  It can't be sold (or put differently none of my races will do so).  Personally I think it is just a silly way to avoid players keeping a warchest and encouraging you to spend every last MCr you make every turn.  But whatever.

As for industrial technologies that is hard since the simplistic economics of starfire don't lend themselves to much other than changing population levels on planets.  IU limits changes become a must have technology and that is what I want to avoid.  But yes you have to pay for them, they don't come free.  The represent an alternative to colonization of habitables, and so are for cases like a pocketed empire which would be able to remain competitive by investing in these technologies to enhance the systems they have.  For some of them I would also have a use cost, so per planet you employ them on you also pay.

Possiblities would be:  robotic mines: decrease Q requirements while increasing H requirements for PTU going to desolate and extreme environments.
Teleopted mines:  requires orbital habitat, allows mining operations of V worlds.  this is a complex sort of technology with a number of others required first.
Improved refineries:  increase the mineral wealth modifier by +x% for a fee.
Orbital Habitat:  a SS module that holds 1 PU worth of population.  I'm not sure how big one of these would be.  But it would be the stepping stone to exploiting V and possibly G/I worlds.

The problem with any of this is balance.  It is opening pandora's box big time.

An easier suggestion would be to limit the amount of IU possible by EL so start at 25% and increase 5% every 2 EL (at EL 3: 30%, at EL 5: 35% etc).  If you did this then you could add in a way to buy that increase early.  So an EL 4 race could buy +5% or just wait.  For me I would rather see IU as EVM in ISF than a bond fund as they are in SM2.

Still any of this is very dangerous in SF as at its heart it is an economic simulation and unless you test all these things fairly seriously you only just add in an exploit.  I saw this with one game Starslayer was in that had a whole crapload of wacky technologies and virtually everyone of them made my GM sense tingle.  As much as I find empire building in Starfire bland...the alternative is signficantly worse as out of control unbalanced tech probably will ruin the game.

Procyon on competive games and gamers.  I agree with you.  But I'm a role player even when I am playing a war game.  

[crucis]

There is a lot of detail in Starfire’s system generation chart that go to waste for the most part since the system level of play is rarely used and the STMP has basically cut out interest in where things are. 

Paul, Paul, Paul.  I hate when you do this.   

You tempt me with talk off issues and problems and such, and then don't follow through with details!   

As far as wrap around is concerned since players are restricted to a band 3-8 anyway if the NPR gets the short end of the stick so be it.  I'd not bother with wrap around since it is nonsensical.

HI’s are limited to 3-8 in SM#2, but not in Ultra.  Ultra has balanced things better by making T’s and ST’s occur in a 2-1 ratio (because Mass 2 planets occur on a die roll of 26-75% and Mass 3 planets occur on a roll of 76-100%), which means that the BHH ratio is a simple and clean 33%-33%-33% for both T and ST races.  But while the T/ST BHH ratio balance is perfect, that doesn’t mean that the wraparound process is any less silly.  It’s just convenient as a tool for Ultra’s highly balanced PvP rules. 

As I said right from the beginning if all you want is a binary result then why change the HI system currently used; it gives you the binary result you want?  Adjusting the stellar probability tables and how you define benign, and the planet type roll can give you a 10% benign rate and a de jour rate of the others.  My point for a more complex system is it allows greater flexibility in play as it can help make far more interesting and different bonuses for NPRs leading to the NPR being more unique.

I realize that a more complex system has certain advantages and so forth.  But the fact is that it will not appeal to a great enough cross section of players.  There are players such as yourself and Cralis and to some degree myself, who have an appreciation for details in places.  And then there are other players who don't really care.  And then you have people who care about page count so much that they don't even want lots of optional rules included that more advanced players might enjoy using because those optional rules take up space, i.e. page count.


I happen to think that a place where the game is lacking is a total absence of any rules that describe NPR's.  Not their governments.  Their physical descriptions and perhaps more about their societies.  I'm sure that there are some who would ask how that affects game play, and I'd say that perhaps it doesn't directly, but for players who role play their races it can add a lot of flavor to the gaming experience to know whether that NPR they just met has 2 arms or 4, is covered in skin, scales, or fur, and any number of other little descriptive details.  We have NPR gov't types, but other than that, NPR's are boring faceless, formless entities, unless they happen to come from one of the gov't types that perhaps we can envision, like the Bugs, or Jrill (think Borg), or an AI race or robots.  Such formless NPR's seem rather boring to me.  But others would probably disagree, since NPR generation of this type does tend to involve a fair amount of die rolling to create unique results, unless one was content to use a simpler, cookie-cutter model.  (And BTW, more detailed habitability does tend to work well with detailed NPR racial generation, since factors like gravity, etc. will affect those physical details.)

Simple suggestions are changing how you define benign, changing to HI is 0 to 19, changing the H requirements based on HI difference. 

At the moment, I’m leaning towards merging M2 and M3, so that I can merge T and ST, so that I can then use a regular ol’ 1d10, but with Benign being HI_HW = HI_target_world (HI_TW), Harsh being HI_TW within 1 of HI_HW, and Hostile being all the rest.  This would produce a 10%-20%-70% BHH ratio.  To get any more granularity would require using a d20 (which has never been a part of Starfire) or d100.

As for changing the Hold requirements based on HD, that’s what pure ISF did.

I’m not sure of all the reasons the BHH paradigm exists within the SM#2 (or Ultra) rules.  One obvious reason is the population caps.  Another is colonization costs, though those wouldn’t be too difficult to adjust by HD for habitable worlds.  There may be other rules where BHH comes up, but it seems that the big one is the population caps.  And I suppose that one could have HD-adjusted population caps (probably linking HD to a percentage of max Benign population), but would it be worth the added complexity, though not particularly major.

Of course, another way to do this would be to come up with a couple more Habitable world environment types, so that there’d be one for each population bracket from Settlement to VLg;  something like Benign (VLg), Moderate (Large), Harsh (Medium), Severe (Small), and Hostile (Settlement).  And I could probably do a ratio of 1-2-2-2-3 for the 5 brackets.  But I’d lean towards thinking that this might be going a bit overboard.




 

As for industrial technologies that is hard since the simplistic economics of Starfire don't lend themselves to much other than changing population levels on planets.  IU limits changes become a must have technology and that is what I want to avoid.  But yes, you have to pay for them, they don't come free.  They represent an alternative to colonization of habitables, and so are for cases like a pocketed empire which would be able to remain competitive by investing in these technologies to enhance the systems they have.  For some of them I would also have a use cost, so per planet you employ them on you also pay.

Well, some of the ideas already have a built-in “use cost”, like increased pop limits on non-habitables and increased IU limits, since you still have to pay to emplace the additional population or buy the additional IU’s.  However, other ideas don’t have any “use cost” after the tech has been developed.  But there are probably ways to create a “use cost”.

For example, with mining extraction upgrades (or upgraded refining), maybe rather than having the benefit be an increase in the mineral wealth percentage, instead perhaps allow IU’s to be purchased (under the assumption that non-habitables don’t normally allow IU construction, as is the case in the Ultra IU rules).  This creates an inherent “use cost” if you have to buy the IU’s.

Teleopted mines:  requires orbital habitat, allows mining operations of V worlds.  This is a complex sort of technology with a number of others required first.

What do you mean by “teleopted mines”? 

But regardless of what “teleopted” means, mining of Type V worlds would have to be amazingly profitable to justify the investment in technologies that could survive in a Type V’s atmosphere, not to mention the fact that so many other worlds with vastly less difficult environments exist for mining.  Of course, I suppose that that’s the hook here.  Mining of Type V’s would be very profitable.

Improved refineries:  increase the mineral wealth modifier by +x% for a fee.

This is basically what I suggested with my mining technologies idea that improves extraction technologies.

Orbital Habitat:  a SS module that holds 1 PU worth of population.  I'm not sure how big one of these would be.  But it would be the stepping stone to exploiting V and possibly G/I worlds.

I think that it’d be best to think of it more as adding 1 PTU of population, since in reality, the PTU is the REAL measure of population, while PU is actually a measure of economic output.  It also happens that the PTU is of a fixed size, i.e. 50,000 people.  This is where doing orbital habitats Starfire gets nasty. 

One can only justify putting 50k people into 10 Q (i.e. 10 hull spaces) when one assumes that they’re in coffin-like cryo-chambers, and stacked like cord wood.  In ISF, you could fit 50 personnel points into 1 Q.  And since I assumed that 1 PP represented 10 people, that comes out to 500 people per Q.  And even that sounds incredibly cramped for living space for a civilian population.  I think if one drops it by a factor of 10 to 50 people per Q, it’s probably a reasonable working number.  But then that means that you’d need 1,000 Q for a single PTU of population.  Yikes!!!

Arguably, this might be a case where having such a known quantity as PTU makes it difficult to do Orbital Habitats on a playable scale, when a single PTU could require 1,000 hull spaces of Q’s (and 200 HS of Lh, if one assumed their requirement as per the 3E rules).  And that’s just a place for them to live.  It doesn’t include office space or industrial facilities or whatever.



On IU’s

An easier suggestion would be to limit the amount of IU possible by EL so start at 25% and increase 5% every 2 EL (at EL 3: 30%, at EL 5: 35% etc).  If you did this then you could add in a way to buy that increase early.  So an EL 4 race could buy +5% or just wait.  For me I would rather see IU as EVM in ISF than a bond fund as they are in SM2.

As far as IU goes I treat is as EVM.  It can't be sold (or put differently none of my races will do so).  Personally I think it is just a silly way to avoid players keeping a warchest and encouraging you to spend every last MCr you make every turn.  But whatever.

I agree with you on IU.  I strongly believe that IU’s should be permanent.

As for how IU increases might occur, I think that I favor requiring them to be developed for a few reasons.   One, I see this as an actual technology.  The player is making a conscious decision to make the investment in upgrading his heavy industry technology.    Also, I think that the previous “generational” upgrade should be a prerequisite for the next upgrade.  Otherwise, a player might skip a “generation” or 2 of IU upgrades (say the upgrades to 30% and 35%) and then think that he could save some money and buy only the upgrade to 40%.

You mentioned in an earlier post about making decisions regarding empire building.  If IU% upgrades are automatic, you lose the chance to make an empire building decision.