One thing to keep in mind with colony worlds and Earth is what I call 'depth
of infrastructure': Basically, here on Earth there's a vast infrastructure
that we hardly ever think about.
If you have a car, think of this: the steel and other metals started as
ore from a mine somewhere, went to a refinery/smelter complex, then
through one or more factories before it became your car. Ditto for rubber,
plastics, electronics, etc - all the complex bits of a car. Then theres
the selling and support structures - transporting of new cars, selling,
garages and gas - especially gas. All of this involves masses of
resources, transport systems, and usually several different nations.
Damn few colonies will be able to muster this, usually. We can argue specifics
and tech differences, but the basics of building a car won't change that much,
I'd think. And of course military vehicles have even more specialized needs
that civilian vehicles (armour, weapons, electronics, etc).
Colonies could set up the more basic manufacturing processes fairly
quickly, probably - things like ammo, basic trucks, maybe handweapons -
but most colonies are going to be dependant on outside sources for heavy
weapons, AFVs etc for a generation or two. To return to other people's Isreali
example: Only after about a generation (30 yrs, or more) were they able to
produce to produce their own MBTs - the Merkava. They still, AFAIK,
import almost everything else in the way of vehicles, military & civilian.
Colonies are going to be exporters of raw materials, I'd think, but
importers of almost anything else - the neccesary depth of
infrastructure will take time to develop. And if a war or something disrupts
the whole infrastructure, add years to the time needed.
In FT/DS/SG game turns, this means that a wheeled light APC might be the
local norm, as it's the only armoured vehicle a colony can locally produce
- and locally make spare parts for. Ditto for the fancier weapon systems
-
HELs, DFFGs, Infantry Plasma weapons, etc. It would take a very mature colony
to produce & maintain an aerospace fighter, and an even older one to produce
any sort of starship.
If your vehicles and spare parts are shipped in, you can of course have
any tech level you care to pay for - but what happens if your
supply-line
gets cut? Gonna take that 100-ton HEL/5 armed grav-tank to the local
garage? That mechanic could handle the local militia's wheeled APCs -
they're just the local truck chassis with armour - but your 100-ton
FGP-powered supertank? Might as well render it down for scrap metal, or
parts for the rest of your supertanks...
Something to think about for any strategic-level thinking &
background development, anyway. Comments always welcomed...
Brian spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> One thing to keep in mind with colony worlds and Earth is what I call
Counterpoint - much of our infrastructure exists to build more
infrastructure and support itself and is not a producting element. The problem
of scale....
Counterpoint - nothing says I can't build an easy to maintain, rugged
vehicle or tool much more simply than an overfeatured, pork barrelled one
produced by our infrastructure (whose goal is to grow its own existence as
much as it is to provide a workable end product). I may not have the maximum
electronics, or the newest tech gizmos, but it can still be quite deadly, even
with a smaller infrastructure.
Further, a colony, by def'n, has a focused structure in many cases
- because it doesn't have population or resources, it has to make up
for it by doing the things it needs to (and I'd assume this to include
machining things one can't get shipped, building new things required in the
new environment that would cost too much and take too long to design and ship
from civilization, etc.) very well, if on a small scale. I think a small 10K
person colony might well have the resources (in terms of fabricating some
stuff) of a 250K city back home, plus some specialized stuff that the city
wouldn't have. It would lack in luxuries, and some things may have to be
imported due to lack of local resources, but for sheer transport costs, most
things would be done locally or not at all. And your colonists (assuming not
forced colonization) are usually your pioneers and those who can do for
themselves. Where you or I might not know how to treat a gunshot without a
doctor, how to fix a broken Diesel on the APC without a mechanic, or know how
to fabricate a rifle without a factory full of guys and a bunch of engineers
with design systems, your local colonist might well have developed ways of
doing these things out of necessity or at least have skills which quickly
adapt to these situations.
> Colonies could set up the more basic manufacturing processes fairly
Simple AFVs can be produced almost anywhere (look around at earth if you don't
believe it) like armoured cars with LPGs and MGs. Now MBTs with Hyper Velocity
Smoothbores are different I admit. And A Wild Weasel is a whole other kettle
of fish. But a Heavy Weapon can just be a bigger version of a simple smaller
weapon. A big HEL might not
be as complex to build as you suspect or even that expensive - except
for the fact that on civilized worlds they are trying to control proliferation
and on civilized worlds production costs are orders of magnitude more (labour
rates, specialization, unions, restrictive laws, tarrifs, trade regulations,
etc. all factor in). You may find your colonists can produce six wheeled
lightly armoured cars with kick ass HELs.
A lot comes down to what flavour you want your colonies to have, and
they needn't have all the same flavour - some might be easy pickings,
others a tough nut to crack.
> Colonies are going to be exporters of raw materials, I'd think, but
The problem for a lot of colonies might not be the fact they can only make
simple, deadly vehicles with spartan conditions (as opposed to the complex,
deadly vehicles with comfy conditions produced by major military industrial
complexes), but rather that they can only produce 100 per year... whereas the
homeworld can produce 100 000. But then, if (as we've argued) the space
transport capacity is limited and expensive, that gap may be much less
pronounced.
> In FT/DS/SG game turns, this means that a wheeled light APC might be
I agree with your comments on fighters and starships, although I
don't necessarily think HELs or DFFGs are in the same category -
rationale goes : Colony isn't the wild west - it's something planned
by some gov't. If it is not a penal colony or a forced migration, but rather
is a planned expansion, it'll have a good level of support in order to get it
going and self sufficient which would include power capabilities, and if
Fusion power is the norm, and lasers used for mining etc, it might well be
that both these weapons systems are within their capability. Now, the fire
control might be a problem, but basic fire control on a HEL system could still
be quite dangerous.
> If your vehicles and spare parts are shipped in, you can of course
Unless your truck is (because fusion power has turned out to be small, cheap
and reliable) a fusion powered hover vehicle too.... In which case he might
have similar spares... which frontier skills let him adapt to use in your
tank. But (your point I think) if you want parts for your ECM rig and your
fire control, better park the tank.
Which also suggests mobile forces of high tech units have a huge logistics
support, since supply might be MONTHS away, and attacks on these support units
could render a large formation combat ineffective in days or weeks due to
breakdowns, etc.
> Something to think about for any strategic-level thinking &
And gladly given!
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> At 02:23 PM 6/15/98 -0500, you wrote:
Right. I think of a planetary economy as sort of like a "food chain" pyramid.
The most advanced technological industries have a whole infrastructure of
lower tech industries which support them.
Beginning colonies only have the population and resources to build and
maintain the lowest level industries. Sure, they can import things they would
be unable to produce domestically, but there are lots of factors which can
complicate that.
> Counterpoint - nothing says I can't build an easy to maintain, rugged
Absolutely right. And it will roll a d4 in combat.:)
> Further, a colony, by def'n, has a focused structure in many cases
Look at any human community. In a really small town, what do you have? A
few essential businesses/stores/industries. As the community grows,
more people become involved in producing "supporting" services which do not
directly contribute to the major local industries. Only in the largest
communities will you find the most advanced industries, but you will also find
that only the smallest fraction of that community's labor force is directly
involved in it. The rest are plumbers and fast food workers and morticians.
The same is true on a larger scale for colony worlds.
> ... A big HEL might not
Agreed. I'd also imagine the homeworld wants to maintain a favorable balance
of trade with its colonies, so imports will be expensive. A small colony on a
tight budget just can't afford to import a billion credits worth of top of the
line weapons. Not when they could be importing machine tools, tractors,
industrial equipment, medical supplies and so forth instead.
And the homeworld won't sell 'em the really good stuff just in case they
decide to declare independence.
But that can't stop them from mounting a mining laser on the back of a farm
truck.
> Colonies are going to be exporters of raw materials, I'd think, but
Agreed.
> ... It would take a very mature colony to produce & maintain an
I think the old Traveller system had something like this (probably in the
section on running a merchant ship)...all the various commodities and tech
gizmos where rated according to their availability; some things could only be
purchased at industrial worlds with a given tech base, population and law
level. Tech base and law level kinda falls out of the equation in the
FT/DS universe and especially for this discussion, but I think that a
simple system of rating planets on their level of development would be useful.
For example for DS II:
Industry: Can Produce
Level 0 - No heavy industry: Imported or converted vehicles only
Level 1 - Wheeled vehicles, Tracked vehicles, Helicopters, Jets
Level 2 - GEVs, VTOLs
Level 3 - Walkers
Level 4 - Aerospace Vehicles
Level 5 - Grav vehicles
Or whatever. This is just off the top of my head. If your interpretation of
the universe says walkers are harder to produce than aerospace fighters, then
change it to suit you. The scale could also be condensed to as few as 3 levels
or expanded to however many you like. Make up a similar chart for weapons as
well.
Each level of industry should require a population an order of magnitude
larger to support it; for example it might correspond to:
Industry: Population
Level 0 - Tens of Thousands
Level 1 - Hundreds of Thousands
Level 2 - Millions
Level 3 - Tens of millions
Level 4 - Hundreds of millions
Level 5 - Billions
Or whatever scale you like. The basic idea being not that you can't build a
grav tank from prefab parts with a small team of trained people, but that you
have to have all the supporting infrastructure to design and build all the
component parts and this will only occur on a core world.
> On 15 Jun 98 at 16:21, Jeff Lyon wrote:
[snip]
> Look at any human community. In a really small town, what do you
Hey, don't leave out the thousands of telephone sanitizers;)
<sorry, I had to>
Oh, and shoe shops.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> >Further, a colony, by def'n, has a focused structure in many cases
> >long to design and ship from civilization, etc.) very well, if on a
Au contraire. I took Human Geography so I know all about Von Thunen (sp?)
models, hochtaler planes, and central place theory. BUT, look
at the requirements of a small colony - THEY ARE NOT THE SAME AS
THOSE OF A SMALL TOWN. They are not analogous. A small town ( a la CPL) can
merely access the resources of a larger town by rail, road, or some such. That
is why it won't have certain resources (in part... the really strange things
it won't have because it isn't big enough). The fact that the larger nearby
town can produce it much cheaper. In space, this ain't so! You've got long lag
times, far distances, and high costs (note that with the cheap ass cost of
star drives vis
a vis weapons/electronics, I'm not sure this is as true in the GZG
background as other sci fi backgrounds) of transport. Combined, these make the
rational cost of a good far more than it might appear, thus making its
production locally (if it is important) quite likely.
> >... A big HEL might not
> >for the fact that on civilized worlds they are trying to control
Depends on the priority on defence. Then again, in a crisis, the home area
might waive all tarrifs and all shipping costs for military gear.
> And the homeworld won't sell 'em the really good stuff just in case
But even second tier weaponry can be quite deadly.
> I think the old Traveller system had something like this (probably in
The advanced rules also accounted for the fact that an TL 15 (high tech) rich
world had currency worth many times more than a TL 10 (low for space tech) low
pop world's currency. That kills you in balance of trade...
Tech base and law level kinda falls out of the equation in the
> FT/DS universe and especially for this discussion, but I think that a
That's a cool idea. World stats like traveller.... Hmmm. If it isn't a
copyright offence, it is a great idea.
Notice the difference between Traveller type background and 2300 AD
style background - in one, we have vastly differing tech next to each
other (TL 15 and TL 3....) and in the other, the tech tend to degrade somewhat
uniformly from the homeworld out to the rim, but even the rim has some of the
highest tech stuff. Two different models of how worlds would develop....
> Or whatever scale you like. The basic idea being not that you can't
You can't? What about 'kit bashing'? Never built kit cars? (Now a kit tank
might not be as good as a NAC top of the line grav tank, but it might be a
heck of a lot better than what the corporate mercs charged with taking your
planet have).
Of course, why do I think it would arrive in a courier van in a red box with
ACME written on the side....
Tom.
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay Software Specialist Police Communications Systems Software
Kinetics Ltd. 66 Iber Road, Stittsville Ontario, Canada, K2S 1E7
Reception: (613) 831-0888
PBX: (613) 831-2018
My Extension: 2036
Fax: (613) 831-8255
Software Kinetics' Web Page:
http://www.sofkin.ca
SKL Daemons Softball Web Page:
http://fox.nstn.ca/~kaladorn/softhp.htm
**************************************************/
Jeff spake thusly upon matters weighty: <SNIP>
> I think the old Traveller system had something like this (probably in
I also think it would be cool to get some common definitions for things
like that - I can't imagine we would run into to any legal problems with
traveller. While there may be some similarities, other factors would probably
be involved in the world descriptions. Just don't keep the same order of the
same statistics, and don't call the worlds stats a UWP (universal world
profile)
FWIW, and maybe to kickstart some ideas, travelller defines stats for 8 items:
Starport Rating Planetary size
Atmospheric density/composition
Hydrosphere percentage (water coverage-frozen or liquid)
Population size Government type Law level Tech level
Worlds with certain combinations are classified as
industrial/non-industrial, rich/poor, etc. - classifications that
simplify some trade calculations.
> Notice the difference between Traveller type background and 2300 AD
I think this is largely because classic traveller seemed to carry a bit more
of the Star Trek Altruism with it. The only reason I can think of that a TL 15
empire, a thousand years old, that spans thousands of light years, would have
TL 3 planets inside it is that people are intentionally leaving it alone,
perhaps allowing the native population to develop independantly. Shades of
ST's 'Prime Directive'.
Or on a more sinister note, the high-tech imperialists could be keeping
the natives primitive so they cannot effectively resists, and may not even
understand, while they rape their world's resources, but somehow this doesn't
seem to fit as well.
<SNIP>
> Tom.
> At 09:10 AM 6/16/98 -0900, Jared E Noble wrote:
SNIP
> Notice the difference between Traveller type background and 2300 AD
Actually it is because that is the Tech Level of items that can be locally
produced and are thus much more abundant and likely to be seen. Plus some
planets forbid certain technologies among their citizenry for various regions
(religion, politcs, etc). It has nothing to do with any sort of "Star Trek
Altruism" as far as I can tell.
> Or on a more sinister note, the high-tech imperialists could be keeping
It fits perfectly. This is yet another reason for a TL3 next to a TL 15 world.
There is also the fact that some planets don't want to give their high tech
toys to their neighbors in case their neigbhors turn into some sort of
military technology and use it against them. This can be seen today with the
U.S. and China regarding satellite technology.
Don't forget that much of the world is a lower tech level than most of the
western nations and some would argue that Japan is certainly a tech level
ahead in some technologies and some places are still functionally stone age.
Later,
> At 01:51 AM 6/18/98 +0100, Tony wrote:
Good work!
It sounds like you've taken the basic economic system from Avalon Hill's old
Stellar Crusade game (which has also been adopted by several computer strategy
games, the most recent being Master of Orion II) and improved on it quite a
bit.
I ran a solo campaign for Starfire using Stellar Crusade for the economics
ages ago. The two worked fairly well together.
When I get around to setting up a Full Thrust campaign, I'm thinking of doing
something along the lines of the old Imperium game by GDW. Each player would
be a regional governor protecting local colonies and using his or her prestige
to petition the central government (offboard) for reinforcements.
> At 09:10 16/06/98 -0900, you wrote:
In the campaign I was planning to run (another member of my club has taken it
on) worlds had the following ratings;
Habitability 0-10 (0- lifeless rock, 10 Garden of Eden)
Industry 0-10 (0- none, 10- everywhere you look.)
Size 1-36 (abstract measure of the population that could be put
on the planet. Assumes 1 point is 10000 people. Larger populations need time
to grow and I wanted this to be heavily into colonization.)
Pop 0-36 (actual population on the planet)
Value 0.5 - 2 (multiplier to industry)
Planets worked this way. Each generated credits equal to Pop*Industry*value.
Planets could support a level of industry upto 10-Habitability. For each
level over this the habitability dropped one level.
Planets that had a habitability under 5 had to pay for colony support (pop*10
for each level under 5)
Planets with a habitability over 5 generated each an each "food" for each
population point at each level over 5 (a Pop 10 planet with Hab of 8 generated
30 food)
Each food point took 50 cargo spaces to move and could support 1 pop somewhere
else.
I had most useful planets (Gas Giants and Venus types are out) being around
size 20, hab 3, value 0.75. Never really thought about rating space stations.
Might say that for every Mass spent on docking bays the station
can handle 50 points of cargo per day/week/etc.
> Tony Wilkinson <twilko@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
[snippage]
> Size 1-36 (abstract measure of the population that could be put
You might want to change your Size/Pop model to a logarithmic scale,
which would allow for colonies AND core worlds with their respective
population extremes.
> You wrote:
> You might want to change your Size/Pop model to a logarithmic scale,
Like 0-12, where the population code is x in 1x10^x? With an
additional multiplier from 1-9 to indicate smaller graduations? Where
would I have seen that before...