My Wormhole Map: Traveller
- Thread starter Thomas Bowman
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Thomas Bowman
First Post
Well normally a hex map shows things such as the World name, whether there are gas giants, whether there is liquid water on the surface, the presence of a scout or naval base, whether it is an amber or red zone and the type of starport, that information I could put in a hex, and in my hex map, I put the system name just outside that hex, so I have a name for the system and also for the main world which is not always the same thing. I combine that information with how many wormholes their are and where they lead. When you don't have a self-contained FTL drive in each ship, you have some interesting differences in tactics and strategy, you can no longer just jump to safety when you reach the 100 diameter limit. The Jump fuel requirements for Jump drive was just an artificial requirement for a fictitious drive. I don't really know why the Jump drive needs jump fuel and then you have a reactionless drive added to that, when instead you could have a reaction drive and a jump drive that only required energy and no jump fuel, it comes out pretty much the same. Don't know why the game designers did it that way.
dragoner
KosmicRPG.com
The jump fuel is the energy? It is a constraint though, and was made so; another version of spacecraft is from M-Space, that don't need jump fuel in the same way.
Having icons on the maps is cool, though they can get pretty busy, essentially the worlds are where the adventure is.
Having icons on the maps is cool, though they can get pretty busy, essentially the worlds are where the adventure is.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
You could have the same constraint if the Maneuver Drive required the same amount of reaction mass that the Jump Drive with current rules requires for jump fuel. I believe the formula is Jump Drive number * 10% of the ship's Hull Volume, we could instead use Maneuver Drive Number * 10% of the ship's Hull volume, we'd still need to set aside hull volume, and this Hull volume would allow the ship to accelerate at the Drive acceleration for a total of four weeks.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
One obviously needs some notes on each world one intends to use. for instance, here is a world I created:
Hex AO BJ
Forseti:
Starport E - Frontier installation; Diameter 7 - 6,860 miles (11,038 km); Atmosphere 5 - Thin; Water surface 9 - 92%; Population 2 - 214 humans; Government 0 - No government structure; Law level 0 - No prohibitions; Tech Level 5 - Industrial age; Distance from primary 0.54 AU; Primary type M0-9 IV, V, VI; Distance of wormhole from primary 50 AU;
http://www.solstation.com/stars/barnards.htm
It has a population of 214 people, it has a thin atmosphere, so you don't need a space suit, just a strong pair of lungs, there is no government here and no law effectively, there are some unspoken laws of course, the people who live here would not like you stealing from them for instance, they would tend to want to get even if anyone did, a kind of live and let live attitude exists here. There aren't many people here, there are just a bunch of people who'd like to get away from it all, they grow their own food, have some table top industrial capacity, machine shops for producing parts to repair their internal combustion engines, for things like tractors and such. There is a community leader, everybody knows each other, and this person is the most popular person in town, and is the town's founder in fact, and since no one else lives on this planet, this is effectively the World Government. How would you explain this? There is a wormhole that connects this system to the Solar System, but maybe its a secret wormhole, its at a separate location from the main stargate. Wormholes can be hard to find after all, there is a lot of space to search. the planet itself is kind of valuable, you can live on it without any sort of life support equipment, and it is a convenient location from Earth, and there is the discovery of the ringworld, someone might want to investigate that. Perhaps someone did. Maybe this whole planet is top secret because of that.
The planet is tidally locked to a red dwarf, but the planet's orbit is not circular, so what happens is that while the planet rotates at a constant rate, its rate of revolution changes with distance, and distance from the star varies, as other neighboring planets pull it out of its circular orbit. At the day/night terminator, the red sun will appear to bob up and down above and below the horizon producing periods of night and day that exist no where else on the planet.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
I was thinking of this scenario as well, instead of having the Draconians attack in the 21st century, how about this?
Buck Rogers is the audience point of view character I think, he comes from a world similar to our own, I should say in a remake, he should come from the near future, say something like the mid 21st century, space travel is more common place than it is now, millionaires and billionaires can afford to vacation in orbit, there is a hotel on the Moon for instance, and astronauts make regular visits to Mars, there is a new military service the United States Space Force (USSF), its organization is similar to the Air Force, the earliest versions of the Space Fighter is deployed, and Busk Rogers is a Space Fighter Pilot. make the space fighter a two stage affair, the bottom stage lifts the fighter into orbit, the fighter docks with an orbital battle platform, the bottom stage then lands back on the launch pad, and a fuel tank is added to it in the nature of a SpaceX BFR rocket, and then lifted back up to the space station. This is a world were nuclear missiles are stored in orbit, there is a missile base on the Moon, the World is in the middle of the Second Cold War between western powers and Russia and China, and an arms race is going on. Buck is a fighter pilot for the Space Force, he is out scouting the asteroid belt, because asteroids are potential weapons, and number of powers are looking for asteroids which can be used against adversarial nations. Buck gets involved in combat with an unfriendly Chinese fighter, when he scouts too closely to a Chinese fighter base, combat ensues, Buck destroys the Chinese fighter, but not before his own fighter gets crippled. For emergencies, deep space fighters have a pilot hibernation system, and to conserve resources Buck Rogers puts himself on ice to await rescue by the by the US Space Force, unfortunately a global nuclear war ensues shortly thereafter and Buck's fighter never gets rescued until Princess Ardala's Fortress Ship discovers it five hundred years later.
Buck is not an instant celebrity, he is a news item for a time, but he doesn't have girls chasing him around all over, Ardala takes a special interest in him and he develops a romantic relationship with Wilma Deering, and things go back and forth between them for a while. Ardala is interested in building her empire, while Huer wants to preserve Earth's independence from the Draconian Empire. A World Government is a relatively new creation after Earth has crawled out of the destruction of a nuclear war that occurred nearly five centuries ago. The Draconians are descended from space colonists on Mars that were caught off planet during Earth's nuclear war, and they managed to build a civilization while mostly ignoring Earth, and only when it looks as if the planet is recovering do they feel threatened by it, and this want to roll it into their empire before its too late. Earth's population has climbed back to 7 billion after centuries of warfare and savagery, much of the old cities have been destroyed, many of the records are gone, so it is like Buck Rogers comes from another world. that would be my scenario.
Buck Rogers is the audience point of view character I think, he comes from a world similar to our own, I should say in a remake, he should come from the near future, say something like the mid 21st century, space travel is more common place than it is now, millionaires and billionaires can afford to vacation in orbit, there is a hotel on the Moon for instance, and astronauts make regular visits to Mars, there is a new military service the United States Space Force (USSF), its organization is similar to the Air Force, the earliest versions of the Space Fighter is deployed, and Busk Rogers is a Space Fighter Pilot. make the space fighter a two stage affair, the bottom stage lifts the fighter into orbit, the fighter docks with an orbital battle platform, the bottom stage then lands back on the launch pad, and a fuel tank is added to it in the nature of a SpaceX BFR rocket, and then lifted back up to the space station. This is a world were nuclear missiles are stored in orbit, there is a missile base on the Moon, the World is in the middle of the Second Cold War between western powers and Russia and China, and an arms race is going on. Buck is a fighter pilot for the Space Force, he is out scouting the asteroid belt, because asteroids are potential weapons, and number of powers are looking for asteroids which can be used against adversarial nations. Buck gets involved in combat with an unfriendly Chinese fighter, when he scouts too closely to a Chinese fighter base, combat ensues, Buck destroys the Chinese fighter, but not before his own fighter gets crippled. For emergencies, deep space fighters have a pilot hibernation system, and to conserve resources Buck Rogers puts himself on ice to await rescue by the by the US Space Force, unfortunately a global nuclear war ensues shortly thereafter and Buck's fighter never gets rescued until Princess Ardala's Fortress Ship discovers it five hundred years later.
Buck is not an instant celebrity, he is a news item for a time, but he doesn't have girls chasing him around all over, Ardala takes a special interest in him and he develops a romantic relationship with Wilma Deering, and things go back and forth between them for a while. Ardala is interested in building her empire, while Huer wants to preserve Earth's independence from the Draconian Empire. A World Government is a relatively new creation after Earth has crawled out of the destruction of a nuclear war that occurred nearly five centuries ago. The Draconians are descended from space colonists on Mars that were caught off planet during Earth's nuclear war, and they managed to build a civilization while mostly ignoring Earth, and only when it looks as if the planet is recovering do they feel threatened by it, and this want to roll it into their empire before its too late. Earth's population has climbed back to 7 billion after centuries of warfare and savagery, much of the old cities have been destroyed, many of the records are gone, so it is like Buck Rogers comes from another world. that would be my scenario.
dragoner
KosmicRPG.com
I have done this with games, make it a fusion rocket, and use pp fuel for jump.
ISTR the Buck Rogers TV program was post nuclear apocalypse, the original comic was different. Whatever the meta-story, the players need something closer to connect with.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
They don't have to role up a character for Buck Rogers and play him, the 1970s Buck Rogers television show is the main inspiration for this game, but the game of course revolves around the players not Buck Rogers as a character. I just received the Core Rules book today, so now I got a set of rules and can role up a Buck Rogers character if I want, according to the rules Buck Rogers would be a Navy Fighter Pilot, he lived in the Mid 21st century in this scenario, a nuclear war occurred when he was out in space onboard his long range fighter, the fighter comes with a low berth, this being a new technology that is employed by the military for the first time, a form of hibernation to help the crew conserve life support resources and travel long distances to reach the asteroid belt.
The asteroid belt is of interest because asteroids can be used as weapons, if one hits the Earth it releases as much energy as a nuclear bomb but without the radiation or the fallout. The two main superpowers that existed in Buck Roger's time were the United States of America and the People's Republic of China, Russia was China's Junior Partner, while NATO was aligned with the United States and Japan, the Cold War moved out into space, and Buck Rogers was one of those strategic pilots, he got into combat with a Chinese space fighter, he won the engagement, but his ship was crippled, and this far out from the Sun it gets very cold, with his life support failing Captain Buck Rogers had no choice but to climb into his low berth to await rescue, the fact that there was a nuclear war going on Earth at the same time meant that rescue was 441 years in coming.
The first person Buck Rogers saw when he woke up from hibernation, besides a technician was Princess Ardala. The technician arranged for Buck Rogers to be awakened by injecting a stimulant into his bloodstream when Princess Ardala was there. Buck was not sure what to think when he saw the princesses face for the first time, she was holding a communicator which translated Draconian into mid 21st century English, Earth also was not what he remembered it being, and he had to go through all sorts of cultural and technological shock when he was brought back to Earth by the princess.
Buck misses his country and the wife and child he left behind dearly, what existed on Earth when he got back was not quite the same. Buck was in mourning, he looked for records about what happened to his family during that nuclear war, but the nuclear war destroyed a lot of records, and he could not be sure if they survived or not. The Earth descended into savagery over the next century and a half after than nuclear war, and then slowly climbed out of it and colonized space, the wormholes were discovered when a Draconian armada exited from one and discovered Earth.
The Draconians are humans that are descended from Earth humans that propagated through space by slower than light travel, when they discovered the wormhole network, they set about building the Draconian Empire, the Earth proved not so easy to conquer, the Earth forces put up a fight and the first war between Earth and Draconia ended with an armistice, but the Earth paid a heavy price in repelling the Draconians, thus when Buck was revived from his centuries long slumber, there were many people on Earth that were interested in signing a peace treaty with Draconia. The Draconians occupy Mars, that is their one conquest in the Solar System, and Ardala was placed as the titular ruler of Mars in the aftermath of the Earth-Draconian War.
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Thomas Bowman
First Post
My previous reply gives the basic updated background, based on the 1970s show, but updated to reflect the new realities of the 21st century more or less. Like then, we are in a Cold War, but this time the other superpower will be China, and Russia will be the junior partner, assuming things play out to their logical conclusions if we hold to this track. Not that I would wish it, but I am looking for plausible drama, Buck Rogers needs a reason to be out in his spaceship. In the show it was more of an accident, he just went into a cloud and he froze, but in the show he was a fighter pilot, not just an astronaut. This needs some updating, so I updated it. The astronauts of today, aren't the military men of the 1960s and 70s, they are scientists for the most part, chosen to go into space to perform a specific experiment, that is not what Buck Rogers is, he is a fighter pilot, that is what he does through most of the show, so I need a good explanation for who he is.
A while back, our president talked about starting a new military force, the Space Force, kind of like the Air Force having a similar command structure, but this one is based in space, I am assuming that by 2050, this Space Force is a reality, and Buck Rogers is one of its pilots. Space is important for one reason, it is the medium through which ICBMs travel through on their way to their targets, there are also things in space like asteroids which can be used as weapons by competing powers. Buck's fighter is basically a one-man piloted asteroid mover, a human pilots the ship so it can't be hacked by the Enemy. If the enemy were to take out the space based nuclear platforms, then asteroid bombardment is the final response, but China has an asteroid force as well. Buck gets in a fight with them and the result is I have stated. Buck isn't the only one that went in their low berths, there were multiple pilots that did that, it is just that Buck was their ranking officer, and naturally to a princess like Ardala, he is the one she is most interested in. The PCs could be other fighter pilots in his squadron, or they could be the so called Enemy Fighter pilots flying for the Chinese Peoples Space Force, doesn't matter now, they have more in common with each other than with the world they now find themselves in. Ardala doesn't care about this centuries old conflict, all she wants to do is conquer Earth, Buck and company have to decide if they have a dog in this fight.
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The starships are easy to modify for this setting, I looked them over. Basically we yank the jump drive out and add the space vacated to cargo, assume the Jump fuel is consumed with the four week operation of the Maneuver Drive, with the Far Trader, it instead has an 8 week operation period because it had a Jump-2 and a Maneuver-1, that means it has twice as much fuel as it needs for four weeks on continuous thrusting at 1-g, so it can accelerate and decelerate for 8 weeks instead of four, that means the far trader can go twice as fast as the Free trader, so it kind of works out. Faster means farther.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
For simplicity, I will assume standard floorplans for starships, the rockets coming out the stern are for atmospheric travel, there are another set of unseen rockets that are used for in-system travel in space, that cause the ship to accelerate towards the ceiling, causing things and people to be held down toward the floor this simulating gravity, since streamlining is not important when traveling in a vacuum, it does not matter how ungainly this looks. I also have to subtract the new fuel requirements from the cargo space for small craft to take into account the need for reaction mass. For the purposes of this setting, all references to the "Imperium" in the Core Rulebook, are to be interpreted as meaning the Draconian Empire, the Draconian Empire is the largest Empire in this setting, the Earth's setup is called the Terran Confederation, it is smaller. Faster communication times courtesy of the Wormhole network makes a democracy over interstellar distances possible, one can't make a phone call to another star system, but the communications time delay is still a lot better than in the Standard Traveller setting, where timelag is measured in days not hours.
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