[OFFICIAL] Colony lists and Planet Types

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> 1) What do we want? ("We" being the list membership, as a particularly

I fall into the "use real stars but take artistic licence with detailing
the planets and other inhabitable / useful bits" category.  Artistic
licence is fine - after all, this is a science fiction game universe,
not a simulator.

> 2) Of those people who use the "official" background, or a minor
to
> allow more freedom to come up with your own colonies, campaigns etc.?
Would
> you want to see detail of specific events/places in the timeline, and

I agree with the "detail the inner areas like crazy and leave the outer
areas / fringes hazier to allow for personalization, with a few detailed
examples for story purposes and to provide examples" sentiment on this. I
really enjoy a well developed background/history/storyline in a game,
and inevitably end up tweaking it for my own use.

> Realspace "speed" will depend on frequency of jumps - once out into

I like this. There's a related thread discussing planet types, and people
are asking what is valuable in a planet - resources, habitability,
population/economic base, etc.  With limited ranges for FTL travel,
there
is strategic value in planets/systems that have no/little resources, but
are a good layover point or just happen to be on the route you are travelling.
Makes for interesting scenarios where you have to fight over someplace that
isn't inherently valuable, but has value because the other guy wants it, or
'cause it's on the way to someplace else which is valuable. Much like real
war. I wouldn't like it much if the only thing
of "value" was planets/systems with big productive potential or natural
resources. That makes sense from an economic point of view, but doesn't
necessarily follow from a military/strategic point of view.  Of course,
the end objectives are going to be about resources of various kinds (minerals,
food, living space, etc), but by necessity there is value in the route to get
there (and back).

My $0.02