> On 10 Sep 98, at 9:20, Tim Jones wrote:
> Being that the current maps are 7pc and a
This is something I've been giving some thought about.. how big is the (human)
explored area?
Well... how fast do FT ships go FTL? I've been working on a guestimate of 1ly
per day, which I think roughly fits with the rough campaign rules in one of
the FT books.
How long have humanity been exploring?
> From the timeline.... it starts properly about 2070, and it's 'now'
2183 (ish) that's about 40,000 days. Rather a long time. Actual exploration
during this time is limited by: 1) Getting the infrastructure in place for
each successive forward base to explore from. 2) Budgetary considerations.
(Exploring in all directions from the
center of a sphere can take a lot of ships/probes) also, setting up
the forward bases to stage from can mount up in cost. 3) Interruptions due to
the balkanised warfare situation in FT. 4) Navigational problems?, is the
length of a period of FTL limited to only between stars a certain distance
apart? this can dramatically slow exploration. Other PSB reasons abound.
5) Corporate policy / political will. Variable as hell ;)
6) Something I haven't thought of... hey, I'm working this out as I go along,
don't hassle me:)
However, my feeling is that the long of the short of it is.... probes and
explorations ships could have gone a LONG way... perhaps a few hundred ly. The
furthest ones will only just be getting their results back to the core.
However, there isn't going to be anything much in the way of colonies out that
far.... getting the infrastructure in place means ferrying lots of resources
back and forth, which takes time, and money. There will also be some pretty
big gaps of knowledge on a frontier that big... encompassing thousands of
stars means there hasn't been enough time to explore many of them.
Which makes me take a step back... this is unmanageable if you actually want
to map the FT 'universe' for a campaign game... so finding reasons to limit
the size to something we can cope with needs to be put in place...
strengthening some or all of the numbered points above can be enough to drop
the 'developed' core regions to perhaps a hundred or so ly across, with
spiderwebs of 'frontier' explorations tracing out from it. Depending on how
you feel... you can put the alien races humanity just contacted on the end of
a finger hundreds of ly away, or in a gap between them, far closer, that they
didn't happen to explore yet.
Using the excellent chview program and fiddling about with sizes of area,
length of jump (if you want to use that as a limitation) natural
clusters of interesting/valuable/strategic systems etc, and you get
a feel for the scale of the problem/opportunity ;)
Just some (unstructured) thoughts to chew on...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Richard Slattery wrote:
> This is something I've been giving some thought about.. how big is
> However, my feeling is that the long of the short of it is.... probes
> Which makes me take a step back... this is unmanageable if you
well, bear in mind that only a small fraction of the discovered systems will
have habitable planets (even with terraforming, you need a planet where the
solar input is not more than (say) twice or less than half of earth normal,
and where gravity is within, say 15% of earth g. these will be few and far
between.
if you use the hyperspace model in the GZG timeline (which is described in
some detail in MT), then jumps are not necessarily between stars (as they are
in, eg, 'The Mote in God's Eye'), and ships will simply make jumps in a
straight line from start to destination until they get there (well, it won't
be a straight line really, as GZG hyperdrive has uncertainty in it; well, you
can't blame them really, they're only a
two-man outfit :-).
thus, the vast majority of stars can be ignored. only inhabited systems are
important (where 'inhabited' includes mining camps and naval outposts). this
should simplify the problem somewhat.
> At 10:31 AM 9/13/98 -0400, Tom wrote:
[snippity]
> thus, the vast majority of stars can be ignored. only inhabited
Sorry, Tom, I'll have to disagree here. Any system with resources or
planetary bodies -- even asteroids -- needs to be considered, depending
on
how detailed of a campaign you want. Secret/forward military bases, a
system that a retreating/routed fleet can try to hide in, maybe a hidden
cache of SM reloads or spare fighters (a la Wing Commander 3?), all could be
established over a campaign game. One excellent example of a hidden forward
base would be from 2300AD, where the Kafers (stop reading if you
don't want spoilers ^_- ) set up a hidden base *inside* an iceball,
which stored spare missiles and refined the ice for fuel. It was off the usual
path of commerce for the French Arm, so the base just had to button up a
little when scouts came through. IIRC, the base was never discovered, though
it's existance was susupected.
Later,
> On 13 Sep 98, at 10:31, tom.anderson@altavista.net wrote:
> well, bear in mind that only a small fraction of the discovered
Actually, in my mind this makes the problem worse. If you don't need to go via
routes between stars then there is no need during military campaign to bother
attacking strategic gateway systems that 'guard' routes to your core systems.
You just go straight there
with your whole battlefleet bypassing anywhere else, and attack en-
masse. It becomes stone-paper-scissors.
If you need to go via routes, and can only manage 'jumps' (for instance) of a
certain distance, then you get strategic bottlenecks, which are great for
wargaming.
Also, habitable planets? What 'are' they useful for? Room for population,
perhaps. Minerals? Hardly... once you get to earths asteroid belt you have
enough of almost any mineral for the forseeable future, and it's nearby. Food
production, perhaps. Research, undoubtably, but that probably isn't of
strategic importance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > if you use the hyperspace model in the GZG timeline (which is
> Actually, in my mind this makes the problem worse. If you don't
Which is why Niven and Pournelle arranged Jump Points as they did for Mote.
> Also, habitable planets? What 'are' they useful for? Room for
In a strategic sense, they are places where your enemy could live if you don't
get there first.
> Very true. Keep in mind that within a sphere 200
Where does one find such data? I'm particulary interested in the density of
stars in star clusters. If the density is high enough then one doesn't need
FTL at all. It might take several months to go from star to star which makes
an interesting campaign setting.
Enjoy,
> Tom Granvold wrote:
Where to find it? Read a lot of astronomy textbooks, and write email to
astronomers at places like "Ask An Astronomer".
> ---- aaron wrote:
> Sorry, Tom, I'll have to disagree here. Any system with resources or
weeeelll, maybe. yes, if you want absolute detail you will have to consider
every system. however, if you want absolute detail you will
have an unplayable game - we have seen the astronomical estimates of the
number of systems in known space. thus, we must try to find ways to bring this
down to a manageable number.
> Secret/forward military bases, a
absolutely true. in fact, if these things were not established in such a game
i would be highly disappointed! however, i would make two points.
firstly, let me engage in an act of doublespeak. when i said 'ignore all
non-inhabitable systems' what i really meant was 'rather than
considering non-inhabitable systems as separate entities, consider them
to form a nearly continuous backdrop to the action'. given the huge number of
such systems, it is essentially the case that there is always one to hand when
you are out of a major system. thus, things like forward bases and supply
dumps can be established anywhere on the map: ew just assume that what is
plotted as empty space in fact contains a number of minor systems.
secondly, why do caches, observation posts etc have to be in systems? the
example given was of concealing a cache inside an 'iceball' (like a lump of
comet stuff, i assume; i've never heard this term before, shame on me). why
not just build the cache in deep space? an object a few hundred metres on each
side (allowing for a big cache, all wrapped up in mylar film or something),
located half a lightyear from any system, is, if anything, better hidden than
one in a comet fragment! likewise, a fleet may hide in the vastness of
interstellar space faily convincingly; i have seen no proposals for tactical
scanners which work usefully over
light-month ranges. building bases, otoh, is a different matter: it is
exteremly handy to have an asteroid to tunnel into, rather than building a
base entirely from matreials lugged in by freighters. oh well, fall back to
first argument.
of course, my second argument is based on the use of the GZG hyperdrive; if
your drive only allows you to jump between star systems (as the more
fun-to-play drives do) then my argument breaks down. however, the first
argument still holds. just. maybe.
hope this helps,
> ---- richard slattery wrote:
well, it fixes one problem (sort of) and makes a different one worse. that's
engineering!
> If you don't
true. it is exactly like a planetary war fought entirely with aircraft. from a
gaming point of view, it would seem to suck.
otoh, it is like air wars. you need to detect the incoming strike fleet and
steer your fleet in on an intercept course. this is boring.
it also assumes that you have instantaneous communication. if your
communication is limited to the speed of ships, it becomes a much more
interesting (and difficult) problem.
> If you need to go via routes, and can only manage 'jumps' (for
exactly. i would go for such a system (a mote-like system, for
convenience's sake) every time. i just don't know how to simulate them without
computer assistance.
> Also, habitable planets? What 'are' they useful for? Room for
right, well now we get to question man's reasons for colonising outer space,
and we run up against a classic problem: basically, there aren't
any. we have to assume that human industry continues/starts to advance
at an exponential rate, and that within 100 years or so the resources in the
asteroids and the moons of jupiter, etc, are insufficient. we could also
assume that, even with genetically engineered crops, oceanic algae farms,
hydroponics, etc, the earth cannot feed itself. habitable planets will then
need to be colonised to grow crops, and asteroid belts and
mineral-rich planetoids for their resources. for this to be true, the
population and indutrialisation of the earth will have to reach absolutely
immense proportions; fifty bilion people, perhaps? i don't know of any sf
which describes a world of such proportions, although there is a story by (i
think) j g ballard called 'billennium' which gets close, and asimov's
descriptions of trantor are perhaps also applicable..
such a situation might also suggest that we would be building fleets
bigger than half a dozen 5000-tonne battleships. perhaps more like
twenty million-tonne battleships.
> right, well now we get to question man's reasons for colonising outer
G'day Tom, I'd beg to differ here. I can think of a reason, it isn't
particularly logical but that's never stopped humanity before. What drove man
to explore at all? Barring religious arguments, why did man ever colonise all
of this earth? Basically, why does the little bear climb the hill? Just to see
what's there (usually). I wouldn't say that the earliest explorers in the
Americas or Australia were being pushed out because they'd used up all their
resources or because they were over populated. Ok some of them, may be a lot
of them, had at least some desire for mineral wealth or land or wanted to
increase the stature of their ruler's empire (etc), but I wouldn't say that
was the only reason they went. To put this into a more space oriented context.
Man is planning missions to Mars so why not beyond? Beyond this rather
philosophical "desire to explore just because its a part of our nature"
argument (which I'm sure is going to upset somebody out there), I also think
its in keeping with any of the backgrounds used (not just the GZG one) that
even the more selfish reasons that motivated past explorers will motivate the
future ones too. I can't see why there wouldn't be as much of a race to carve
up space as there was to carve up Earth for
the individual empires/power blocks of the present/past. In the
background for a minor power I'm conjuring up, the IAS (Independent Antarctic
States) often play an exploratory role charting out stuff for others or that
they know others will eventually take off them (they're primarily the
scientific and engineering equivalent of mercenaries which run the deep space
and
exploration/science ships for others). Though they do have a military
wing, initally created in response to being taken advantage of once to often
and now primarily used by the UNSC. However, I haven't made them totally
altruistic they'll fight like everybody else to have their share for the
greater glory of their nation. Now imagine how much exploration is going to go
on, for the major powers especially, simply under the guise of making their
power's prestige greater than yours. (I can't believe all my grand
philosophical arguments have degenerated into "mine's bigger than yours", but
then again maybe that is the motivating factor of mankind).
Cheers
Beth
> At 08:24 AM 9/15/98 -0400, Tom wrote:
Well, yeah. I suppose I should say I was arguing a bit from a "Devil's
advocate" position; I don't think I'd want every niggling little detail
mapped, but I think I'd rather have all star systems down than just declare a
"continuous backdrop" like you said below. For one thing, systems are a lot
easier to find, for people on both sides, and still large enough to hide in
without retreating to interstellar space. Heck, there's the whole Oort cloud
thingy....
[okay, I'm not going to try reformatting all your paragraphs any
more....]
> firstly, let me engage in an act of doublespeak. when i said 'ignore
Well, the thing that bugs me there is just that it makes it
nigh-impossible
for one's opponent to then find the dumps. Much less, as I mentioned,
one's own side. ^_- I'd rather play in a Stars!-like style, with a
point specifying either a single system or a cluster of systems, then have a
galactic morass of systems... aside from which, I don't think ly distances
are really "on hand" even with FTL. ^_^;
> secondly, why do caches, observation posts etc have to be in systems?
the example given was of concealing a cache inside an 'iceball' (like a lump
of comet stuff, i assume; i've never heard this term before, shame on me).
> [quoted text omitted]
2300AD term. Something like Pluto, or (better yet) Europa.
> why not just build the cache in deep space?
Well, in this case the base was specifically a fuel plant as well as weapons
storage; it was carving out the ice, cracking it and storing the LH and LOX.
Can't do that in deep space.
[snip]
> likewise, a fleet may hide in the vastness of interstellar space faily
<grin> Well, then you can get into self-propelled bases like Gerrold's
Starbase in the Star Wolf books; only the self-aware computers on board
the ships can run the algorithms to decode where Starbase will be at any given
time, IIRC. Which has it's own set of problems, really.
> of course, my second argument is based on the use of the GZG
if your drive only allows you to jump between star systems (as the more
fun-to-play drives do) then my argument breaks down. however, the first
argument still holds. just. maybe.
> [quoted text omitted]
<grin> Actually, if you want to have fun, you could specify a *minimum*
distance an FTL drive must travel, so to get to Alpha Centauri from Sol you
have to go through, say, Arcturus or something. And if you miss your
destination by half a light-year it'll take two long jumps to get you to
the right place... hmmm....
(Okay, so that doesn't have a whole lot to do with this discussion, but the
idea just popped into my head. Use it as you will....)
> who is definitely not having a good few days on the list :-) well, i
Yup! ^_^
On Wed, 16 Sep 1998 09:01:36 +1000, Beth Fulton
<beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au> wrote:
> I'd beg to differ here. I can think of a reason, it isn't
Actually, one word: wealth. That's what's prompted the vast majority of
exploration during mankind's term on Earth. Whether it was population
pressures moving indigenous people out to more sparse land (from ancient times
to the more recent settling of Canada, Australia, and the USA) to hunting for
gold in the New World.
The Vikings were looking for new land to settle (and/or people to
plunder). Columbus was looking for a more profitable sea route to China based
on a map that showed the world was round (right idea; wrong measurements).
Almost all of the exploration of the Americas was for profit. And not always
for obvious profit, either. Europe, for instance, was running into a wood
crisis in the 16th through 18th centuries, a crisis that was alleviated by the
vast tracts of untouched North American wilderness. Rubber was a big commodity
item from the South Pacific.
It's only been fairly recently that man has had the luxury of exploring for
exploration's sake. And most of the time that exploration was done by rich men
who were either bored or after fame (or the occasional scientist, however
Scott didn't die on the Antarctic for science and Hillary and Tensing didn't
conquer Everest for science).
> I wouldn't say that the earliest explorers in the Americas or
Actually, that WAS the only reason most of them went. That was the only reason
the CREW'S went. No average sailor was going to risk his life for such noble
causes. Wealth was in the forefront of most men's minds. I am not sure about
Cabot, but Columbus, DeGama (sp?), almost all the Spanish and Portuguese
explorers, and the British Northwest Passage explorers were all in it for the
money.
You do have a very good point: much of modern day exploration, including the
deep sea, and space, has been for scientific reasons, "because it's there", or
even one-upmanship. Those reasons don't result in people colonizing a
planet. They may result in something WORTH finding on other planets, but they
aren't
reasons to fund multi-trillion dollar colonizing efforts.
There has to be an economic reason to go to the stars. Running out of room
here is one of them. Cheap star travel and access to earth-like planets
get you colonizing a far off planet than an asteroid in our own neighbourhood.
None of this, even if star travel was discovered tomorrow, will happen within
100 years, though.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> Actually, one word: wealth.
...Snip...JTL
Being somewhat more jaded, I would have used the word: GREED!!!!!
Bye for now,