On 25/10/20 8:20 pm, Thomas Jones-Low wrote:
> I have not seen any set of Traveller rules, or even closely related
> rules , that have specific answers to your questions. 
>
> There are two references you may or may not have that I recommend. 
>
> World Builders Handbook has some details for colony building. The
> survey rules should allow ranking a set of worlds to determine
> suitable for colonization. And who goes second. 
>
> The second would be T4s pocket empires which describe how worlds would
> interact with the larger universe. 
>
> For a short hand rule of thumb I would do the following. Take a list
> of candidate systems and rank them in order of habitable of the main
> world: garden world, marginal worlds, and other worlds. I would add
> the resources available and subtract the distance from the existing
> systems to order each sub list. Then start at the top and work through
> the list. 
>
> I know both the books referenced above have event charts which may
> modify the growth rate of the colony. But for a general rule, that
> sounds right. 
>
Thomas, thanks for your help and patience.  I wasn't expecting a
codified set of rules, just pointers to something to add to the
Multi-Edition Mashup (GT, GTIW, MGT1, MGT2 so far) that is Parental
Advisory.

A couple of yarns with Eddles helped me organise my thoughts somewhat.

Broadly, colonies that I'm considering are _economic_ ventures.  This
implies that some sort of trade route must exist between a proposed
colony site and a hubworld - as at 2126 AD, that means Terra itself. 
I'll leave organising a billion-person starlift (to directly provide the
base for another hubworld) to the Regiment O' Toms.

After some wombat RTFM and realises, per the Branch Route table (p131,
GTIW), said wombat can confine his attentions to the stars within 29
parsecs _by trade route_ of Terra.  As Teapot is 8 pc from Terra along
what will be (by GM fiat) a trade route (Terra - Prometheus - Loki -
Dismal - Teapot), that likewise confines my attentions to the stars
within 21 pc of Teapot.  Thus, Question The First is broadly answered.

However, Eddles did ask if Teapot should be counted as the hub?

During one of those yarns, Eddles suggested differentiating colony
efforts - those sponsored by a major institution and those not. 
Sponsored colony efforts can count their WTN as +0.5 higher.

"The Affinity score for each world summarizes both resource value and
habitability." - that's the magic score to put into each of Thomas' sub
lists.  I feel dumb.  According to GTIW, affinity scores are normally
the mainworld's resource value mod.  The exception there is for Garden
worlds with a more-than-Very-Thin atmosphere - they get a +3 across the
board, then mods and sods based on atmo, hydro, and climate.

For convenience, I'll pile the bonused Garden worlds into the
highest-priority list, everything else with positive affinity into the
marginal list, and the residuum into the outpost list.

Question The Second requires more wombat RTFM.  Per p128 of GTIW,
colonies _are_ placed deterministically - "Every Imperial Vilani,
Conquered Vilani, and Terran world with an Affinity score greater than 0
will be a colony world."

That addresses straight up colonies fairly directly.  Still not sure how
to handle randomly-placed outposts - intermediate waypoints and colony
pathfinders are not a problem.  Maybe wait if/until a colony lands on a
J-1-reachable cluster of systems, then check the other systems in the
cluster for random outposts?  (9 or less on 3D6).

Question The Third (average annual population growth of 2.3% pa) is yet
to receive feedback.

Question The Fourth just got answered, I think.

Question The Fifth (background events including the Second Interstellar
Disagreement) is also yet to receive feedback.

 Alex