Game Diary Summary - November

11/2/2007
I made a post on another website for my game, and got a few hits on my site from it. So, at least a few people took the time to take a look. ;-)

11/5/2007
Over the weekend I made a good start on the planet's section (ie: planet stats). I outlined what each stat represents and then I created a graphic to show how the stats are presented in the system profile. I'm a little stumped on figuring out the size of moons for the planets. Since the moons cannot be larger than the parent planet, I must either figure a way to make the moons smaller than the parent by either rolling on the planet size table or by having a different size table for moons.

11/6/2007
I over came the moon-size issue, and got as far as atmospheres last night. However, I need to redo that graphic I mentioned in the previous post. Although it looked okay at first, now it looks like crap. I'll probably have to redo it from scratch. *Sigh*

11/7/2007
I'm happy with what I got done yesterday: I got as far as the governments, including descriptions for each one.

11/8/2007
I worked on the Law Level section. I'm following the basic d20 rules for licenses (restricted, military, etc.) and tying them into the level of law enforcement on a planet. For example, more restrictive governments will outlaw military licensed items, whether the characters have a permit or not. Also, I'm combining this with additional info like how much police enforcement takes place, ID checks, etc.

11/9/2007
I've completed the different tables for the planet profiles, although I may need to add one or two others for modifiers. I just need to add them into the rules themselves which I will try to do tonight and this weekend. Really happy with the progress I've been making lately.

11/12/2007
I got a lot done over the weekend, but of course I couldn't gotten more done. I completed the carts up until the Starports. After that, I'll turn to commodities/trade, which is the other big part of this chapter.

I've been going over commodities, and I'm wondering if I need to simplify some of the later planetary profile values. Right now I have Raw Materials, Agricultural Production, Industrial Production, and Wealth Index. Each has a number between 0 and 10, with the original belief that this would impact trade (supply and demand). However, this maybe be too complicated so I need to think more about it . . .

11/13/2007
I think I have a handle on commodities now, although it's going to be a chore to test it all. Also, I'd like to incorporate random events which will impact quantities and prices: otherwise, these will be too static instead of changing from time to time.

No, I'm wrong. I need to work more on it (the commodities). Once I started doing some rudementary tests, the system fell apart. :-(

11/14/2007
Okay, I'm cautiously optimistic that I've gotten the commodities working now, and I also added random events and their descriptions. Now, I need to do more experimentation with both systems and planets, and then see how well it works with the commodities, etc.

11/16/2007
I haven't had a chance to do too much the last couple of days, but I should be able to work on the game tonight. I did look at some images on the Daz3d website to get some ideas for additional creatures for the Encounters chapter however.

Tonight and during some of the weekend, I plan to test the whole system creation process (as mentioned in my previous post). I just haven't had a chance to do it yet.

11/19/2007
I did a lot of testing over the weekend, and found a few things I need to evaluate. The main issue are the trade related stats (raw materials, ag production, ind production, and wealth index). Also, I need to look at the modifiers, because they seems a little harsh. One interesting thing I found was that, even in a system without many planets, the moons for the gas giants were able to support life as well, acting as mini-planets in their own right.

For commodities, I've been debating about the base quantity available versus needed. Even if I use the same number for both as the base, the actual result will depend a lot on an individual planet/moon. I'm still not sure I want to use the same base number for both, but I'll do some testing and see how it works out in practice.

11/20/2007
I made more adjustments and did more testing last night. I found that raw materials were a little too frequent, so I changed that slightly. I'll try to do more testing tonight if I can.

11/21/2007
Perhaps I'm getting old, but sometimes I see the results of a decision I made a week or more ago and now I can't remember why I picked that choice or what I based it on. In this case, I have the GM roll a 1d8 for the size of a planet instead of the 1d10 he rolls for all the other stats. I'll need to look at this more, but I believe it was just an oversight. It would be better to have them consistent (ie: everything roll 1d10).

11/26/2007
During the Thanksgiving holiday, I mostly worked on a map of the Imperium. Basically, I took a map of a real country (in this case, China), flipped it upside down in Photoshop and then traced the borders, including provinces. I had to modify some of the borders so they would work better, and then added color and a hex background for scale. It came out pretty good and it was the correct size that I had envisioned.

I decided not to use sectors and subsectors, which is what the Traveller games (among others) use. I decided I wanted something more "organic" looking. That's why I used the map above with the provinces, both of which give a very organic look. I may go back and follow hex sides for the borders instead of the lines that are currently used. I'm not sure if I want that, however, a) because it would remove some of the organic feel, and b) it would be a real pain to do. ;-)

11/27/2007
Well, I tried to use the hex sides last night a couple of times and it was a serious pain. However, I just thought of another message to do it, so I'll try that tonight. Even so, doing the entire Imperium map would be very challenging and time consuming.

I had wanted to have the map organized by region/province/district, but I wasn't sure about the regions. Then it came to me last night in bed that I used to talk about Core and Rim regions (plus a middle one which I forget), so I'll use that. I will group the provinces that way.

11/28/2007
Last night I worked on the province in which Aldorus, the capital planet lies. I don't have a name for the province, or the two districts within it, but I'll figure that out later. Meanwhile, I did roll to see which hexes had star systems (a total of 92). Btw, the three regions of the Imperium are Imperium Core, Middle Rim, and Frontier Worlds. Using the main map, I made a rough outline of how many provinces are in each region.

11/29/2007
I decided on the 26 province names, including the one for Aldorus (called Jova). I also updated the main map to include the region names and then numbers for each province (which will refer to a list of the names).

11/30/2007
I've been working on Jova: first I rolled 1d20 for each hex to see which ones held star. Since there were over a 100 hexes, that took forever. So, I decided to add formulas to an excel sheet, which allowed me to create as many random numbers (which is what the die roll is) as I wanted within the range I wanted (1 to 20). I then added some additional sophistication to the process by adding some more complicated formulas. Anyway, long story short: it allows me to work much faster. Of course, it would be even faster if I had a computer program to do the whole thing, but this works for me and my lack of programming skills. ;-)