Author Topic: Interstellar Operations Open Beta Test: Solar System Generation: Discussion  (Read 56180 times)

gnome76

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Should there be a way to randomly get a settlement that turns out to be an outpost (Planetary Population table), because I haven't noticed one.

Unless "Recently established colony/occupation force from the ..." means "outpost".

monbvol

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Looking at the record sheet it may be necessary to make it a two page affair with more detailed information of the habitable planets getting their own sheet.

monbvol

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Some things I have been looking at again lately.

Mostly for my own information I've calculated the minimum and maximum gravity of Dwarf Terrestrials, Terrestrials, and Giant Terrestrials.  I am a little unsure about how low the maximum gravity for Giant Terrestrials seems to be but I'm not a scientist and my knowledge of astronomy is little above layman so it could be just fine.  *shrug*

The Life Zone Position Modifier I'll have to take a closer look at the errata and perhaps even the earlier discussion to see if this has already been addressed but it does seem counter intuitive to me that the farther away from the sun in the life zone provides a better positional modifier.  Shouldn't being closer to the middle of the life zone be best?

cray

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Mostly for my own information I've calculated the minimum and maximum gravity of Dwarf Terrestrials, Terrestrials, and Giant Terrestrials.  I am a little unsure about how low the maximum gravity for Giant Terrestrials seems to be but I'm not a scientist and my knowledge of astronomy is little above layman so it could be just fine.  *shrug*

Depending on their size, giant terrestrials can have surprisingly low densities that likewise lower surface gravity. Taken to extremes, you find that Saturn (100x Earth's mass) and Uranus have surface gravities equal to or less than Earth's. A low-density giant terrestrial can likewise have relatively low gravity despite high mass.

Quote
The Life Zone Position Modifier I'll have to take a closer look at the errata and perhaps even the earlier discussion to see if this has already been addressed but it does seem counter intuitive to me that the farther away from the sun in the life zone provides a better positional modifier.  Shouldn't being closer to the middle of the life zone be best?

The modifier is a compromise between mathematical difficulty (easier to produce a linear equation than some parabolic distribution that favored the middle) and that it seems easier to keep a planet warm than to keep it cool. You can always toss more CO2 into the atmosphere to keep it warm on the outer edge of a life zone, but skirting the inner edge of the life zone may require choice arrangements of continents (to keep albedo high and minimize heat-trapping bodies of water) in addition to choice atmospheric compositions.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

monbvol

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Oh don't get me wrong, I don't mind the distribution of possible gravitational outcomes itself too much.  Like I said it just seems the maximum possible gravity just seems too low to me.  Maybe I am doing the calculation wrong though and it is possible to get much higher than what I am coming up with(2.105).

As to the positional modifier I'll admit it still seems a bit counter intuitive but with the swift kick to the back of my head for forgetting to account for terraforming and such greenhouse effect manipulation I think I can live with it the way it is.

SCC

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Remember that as the world gets bigger the lower the gravity gets, the distance between the person and the CENTER of the planet effects surface gravity, also centrifugal force SHOULD mean that as the planet spins faster apparent surface gravity should decrease

monbvol

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Remember that as the world gets bigger the lower the gravity gets, the distance between the person and the CENTER of the planet effects surface gravity, also centrifugal force SHOULD mean that as the planet spins faster apparent surface gravity should decrease

That just opens up a whole can of mathematical worms that I think cray was hoping to avoid.

PsihoKekec

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Yeah I think Cray was trying to keep this accessible to wider audience than just mathematical Freemen.
Shoot first, laugh later.

bytedruid

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Perhaps inserting a fiction piece in IO from the point of view of a DoME engineer would be a good way to do it without creating rules for it.
Yes do this please!  That fluff piece alone would help convince at least 3 non-players to buy IO.
« Last Edit: 05 December 2012, 14:28:47 by bytedruid »
Hat tips to Slightlylyons who fixed aerotech in one post and to Daryk for organized cool stuff.

specter

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Depending on their size, giant terrestrials can have surprisingly low densities that likewise lower surface gravity. Taken to extremes, you find that Saturn (100x Earth's mass) and Uranus have surface gravities equal to or less than Earth's. A low-density giant terrestrial can likewise have relatively low gravity despite high mass.

Your gravities are fine. The planet radius is proportional to density^(1/3). For the realistic range of densities, the range of possible surface gravities is not as wide as one might expect on the first look.

One of my favorite papers on radius-mass relations of Terrestrial planets can be downloaded here: http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3454
Another paper dealing with this problem is: http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.2895

Remember that as the world gets bigger the lower the gravity gets, the distance between the person and the CENTER of the planet effects surface gravity, also centrifugal force SHOULD mean that as the planet spins faster apparent surface gravity should decrease

Correct, but this should not be used to draw wrong conclusions.  ;) Larger planets rotate slower because angular momentum needs to be conserved. Also, "centrifugal force" should hardly play a role. A too fast rotation will mess with the atmosphere, climate, tectonic plate movement, etc. and might also cause a much stronger magnetic field. This is an actual can of worms.
Not to forget that a bigger radius requires a higher total mass (if the planet composition is identical) which increases the gravity stronger than the radius...
« Last Edit: 07 December 2012, 10:29:32 by specter »

WONC

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Hey, just thought I'd throw this out there for anyone playing around with the Beta System Generation. Long story short, I put together an ODS file (openoffice spreadsheet file) for some of the calculations required for system generation. I've enclosed it below for anyone who might find it useful or fun!  :)
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WONC

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Hey again. So I went over my spreadsheet this morning and found an error in how year length was calculated. I've fixed this, cleaned up the layout just a bit, and added a calculator for planetary density, for those who might find it useful (unfortunately the program rounds to the nearest hundredth, and I'm still trying to figure out how to change that.) Attached below is the updated sheet!
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

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Jean Cocteau

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cray

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Thanks for the work, WONC.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

AchanhiArusa

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This is my first post.  I am a science teacher with masters in astrophysics and astrobiology (less impressive than it sounds):

Here is the most comprehensive catalog of solar systems available:

http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/

I wish this had all been available when I was doing my reasearch, but it also seems that in Open Clusters there are probably only free floating or terrestrial sized planets.  But the closest is over 800 LY away.

Also this might help:

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/

This is the best catalog of stars used by astronomers.
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And we rolled DICE for HOURS to play our games! There was none of this plastic clicky nonsense! Our DICE were radioactive TOO! And we had to roll them for hours and hours and hours to track EVERY SINGLE MISSILE! Why, my some of my friends are STILL rolling dice for their last turn when I left Norman THREE YEARS ago! And I don't plan to move back for at least five years and it STILL won't be my turn! But we didn't know any better, and we LIKED IT.
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Jayof9s

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Has there been any thought of adding a modified "Colonization/Settlement-Friendly" way to determine the diameter/density for an inhabitable terrestrial planet that gives a less realistic distribution of gravity for planets in general but one that is more likely to have been chosen for colonization? I.e. the typical IS planet is not going to have .6 gravity, some inhabited planets might but they'd be in the vast minority, most I would expect to be in the range of .9 to 1.1 or at the very least .8 to 1.2 (the 2nd group based on the population penalties for anything above/below .8/1.2). The assumption being that most planets were passed over for colonization if they were too uncomfortable unless there was a really good reason to be there - i.e. rare metals or to avoid other colonists showing up, etc. but they'd be very rare.

In my case I'm working on generating planetary data for MekHQ for pretty much all of the published systems/planets that do not have canon data and I'm finding that if I use the current method I end up with a lot of planets outside of the typical range that would have been colonized (i.e. less than 16% of results fall between .9 to 1.1 or 30% fall between .8 to 1.2, meaning 70% of results are outside of the relatively comfortable zone). The current method certainly gives a more realistic distribution of gravity for terrestrial planets but not so much for planets that would support regular settlements.

Obviously I can just reroll until I get more acceptable results for these settled planets but that's 1) a lot of rerolling and 2) removes the random element that would allow for some planets to have 'extreme' gravity results.

I'm liking going to come up with a homebrew method to deal with this but I figured I'd ask here since it is still in beta and to see if there has been any thought towards generating stats for 'settled' planets that don't involve a 70% or higher rate of them having 'extreme' high/low gravity.

cray

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Has there been any thought of adding a modified "Colonization/Settlement-Friendly" way to determine the diameter/density for an inhabitable terrestrial planet that gives a less realistic distribution of gravity for planets in general but one that is more likely to have been chosen for colonization? I.e. the typical IS planet is not going to have .6 gravity, some inhabited planets might but they'd be in the vast minority, most I would expect to be in the range of .9 to 1.1 or at the very least .8 to 1.2 (the 2nd group based on the population penalties for anything above/below .8/1.2).

It's supposed to be built implicitly into the planet creation rules. The only planet classes (terrestrial and super terrestrial) that can be habitable have roughly Earth-like gravity.

Quote
In my case I'm working on generating planetary data for MekHQ for pretty much all of the published systems/planets that do not have canon data and I'm finding that if I use the current method I end up with a lot of planets outside of the typical range that would have been colonized (i.e. less than 16% of results fall between .9 to 1.1 or 30% fall between .8 to 1.2, meaning 70% of results are outside of the relatively comfortable zone). The current method certainly gives a more realistic distribution of gravity for terrestrial planets but not so much for planets that would support regular settlements.

Well, I can impose a habitability penalty on planets with gravity outside the comfort zone. Could you show the break down of results by dice rolls that you're getting?
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

Jayof9s

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Well, I can impose a habitability penalty on planets with gravity outside the comfort zone. Could you show the break down of results by dice rolls that you're getting?

Assuming I didn't mess up the calculation for a standard Terrestrial planet here's a link to a google doc with the possible outcomes. I've highlighted all the outcomes at or between .8 and 1.2.

The formulas got lost when I copied into google docs so I posted what was used by openoffice calc for the calculated gravity.

Edit: I did realize I had been including results of 1 and 2 for diameter in my table, which are not possible results since it was a 3d6 but it still means that only 1/3 of planets (32 of 96 total possible outcomes) are in the 'comfortable' range. I've updated that to correctly reflect the possible rolls.
« Last Edit: 24 March 2013, 18:21:35 by Jayof9s »

cray

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Alright, thanks for the analysis, Jay. I'll see if I can tweak the habitability rules to favor comfortable gravity ranges.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

DaddyHolby

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I must say that these rules are just what I was looking for.  I'm about half way through and I need a bit of help, either I messed up an equation (most likely) or the transit times and distance for safe jump in the table are way off (less likely).  I also apologize if this has already been answered before, but I don't have the time right now to check through all of the posts in this thread.

I rolled a K2V star which according to the table should have a 4.85 day travel time from either the zenith or nadir point to the habitable zone and the safe jump distance is 433,890,326 km.

But when I got to the section that covers the calculations for the Transit Distance and Transit Times I decided to run through that equation just to see.

According to the rules:
Quote
Transit Distance = √[(Distance A)2 + (Distance B)2]

Where:
Distance A = .43 AU (according to page 86 of SO) * 150,000,000,000 m
Distance B = .7 (mass of the Primary) * .7 AU (base location for Orbit 2) * 150,000,000,000 m

Plugging these in I get a Transit Distance of 97,788,036.08 km. 

Now this seems wrong as Distance A which should be the distance from the primary to the zenith or nadir is only 64,500,000 km which is well below the 433,890,326 km from the table.

According to page 259 of SO I find that
Quote
Time = 2 x square root (Distance / Acceleration)

Where:
Distance = 97,788,036.08 km * 1,000m
Acceleration = 9.8 m/s/s

Plugging these in I get a Transit time of 2.31 days or a little less than half the time from the table.

What am I doing wrong?

cray

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Where:
Distance A = .43 AU (according to page 86 of SO) * 150,000,000,000 m
Distance B = .7 (mass of the Primary) * .7 AU (base location for Orbit 2) * 150,000,000,000 m

Distance A is the distance between the star and the jump point. Per the Primary Stats table of the System Generation Draft, that is 433,890,326 kilometers. Page 86 StratOps agrees: the distance for a K2 star is 0.43 billion kilometers.

Ah, there's the issue. Look at the table on pg86 StratOps: the footnote is "all distances are given in billions of kilometers," not AU.

Try again with "A" as 433,890,326,000 meters and let me know what you get.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

DaddyHolby

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Try again with "A" as 433,890,326,000 meters and let me know what you get.

That was it, misread the SO value as AU instead of billions of km. 

I'm now getting values closer to the table (4.88 days for orbit 1 and 4.91 for orbit 2 which is close enough to the table's 4.85).

Thanks Cray!

Acolyte

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pg. 29 under the heading Exceptions lists the average Inner Sphere planet as having a population of 3 billion.

Pg. 27 under Agricultural Dependants says feeding hundreds of millions (the Inner Sphere average planetary population).

Pg. 23 under Population The average Inner Sphere planet has a population of several hundred million, but a sizable minority boasts populations in the billions.

In addition, the table on pg.24 seems to support the quote on pg. 23.

Pg. 29 is probably the error.

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cray

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pg. 29 under the heading Exceptions lists the average Inner Sphere planet as having a population of 3 billion.

That was written before Herb laid down a new law. :)
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

Acolyte

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That was written before Herb laid down a new law. :)

Cool, I always thought the BT population was too large on most planets! I mean, did colonization packages include Viagra or something? >:D

   - Shane
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It is by the coffee that my thoughts acquire speed
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It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.

cray

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Cool, I always thought the BT population was too large on most planets! I mean, did colonization packages include Viagra or something? >:D

If you start human population growth during the interstellar era (c2100AD+) at 6 billion people, throw in a modest 1% population growth, and keep that growth up from 2100AD to 2750AD, then you get an Inner Sphere with a population of just under 4 trillion at the height of the Star League, or around 2 billion per planet. That's in relatively good agreement with populations seen prior to Herb's ruling, if you assume that the collapse of the Star League brought population growth to a halt in the Inner Sphere.

Obviously, using population growth rates seen in developing nations or pre-1950 North America would excuse much larger populations than 2 billion per planet. In 650 years at 2% growth rates, you could have over 2 quadrillion people, or reach the Inner Sphere's pre-ruling population at about the end of the Age of War.

Though 2100AD+ Terran colonists are not likely to be inclined toward high population growth rates. Too pampered, too developed to have big families. Second generation colonists are another matter.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

Crunch

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I had always assumed that the Collapse of the Star League > Third Succession War period accounted for a significant increase in mortality as support systems broke down and the sphere degenerated into some fairly dirty wars.
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cray

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I had always assumed that the Collapse of the Star League > Third Succession War period accounted for a significant increase in mortality as support systems broke down and the sphere degenerated into some fairly dirty wars.

The 1st and 2nd Succession Wars took about 250 out of 2250 planets off the map. That's a ~10% loss. Per the Liao SB, the Capellans were suffering an overpopulation problem in the 2900s.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

Atlas3060

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As stated by people higher than I, this thread is locked.
Thank you for your input.  [copper]
It's not about winning or losing, no it's all about how many chapters have you added to the rule books after your crazy antics.

 

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