004d - Sara and Ana’s 1st diving trip

[Ramona]

I have noticed that the critters are geared towards top tier predators at the expense of the bottom of the food chain. Those are some biiiiiiig critters, yoikes! The caves seem a little over populated, there must be something interesting going on in there to support that much life.

[ffilz]

I have noticed that the critters are geared towards top tier predators at the expense of the bottom of the food chain. Those are some biiiiiiig critters, yoikes! The caves seem a little over populated, there must be something interesting going on in there to support that much life.

Yea, I don't like how the animals rolled out for this... Maybe these are the critters actually likely to cause trouble? Still a lot of big ones and not many little ones.

I've got to poke around for better ways to do fauna (and flora) for SF worlds...

I spent several hours yesterday on this and really am not happy with the results of my efforts. Even the Traveller adventures that feature water worlds front and center don't have good encounter tables. The only adventure I saw with even some attempt at decent tables was Group One's Hydronaut. Note even Drenslaar Quest from Gamelords...

[Ramona]

Did you look at World Tamers? It is lower G with a dense atmo so they (everything) should be larger. Higher O2 makes dragonflies the size of dobermans.

[ffilz]

Did you look at World Tamers? It is lower G with a dense atmo so they (everything) should be larger. Higher O2 makes dragonflies the size of dobermans.

TNE World Tamers? I just had a look at that, it didn't look too useful. TNE does d20 for encounter table instead of 2d6 which has some advantages, but otherwise, it looks like the same general tables to generate the critters (just the mechanics of weapon, damage, and armor change). Really the problem is totally random critter generation is likely to throw too much weird stuff. I'd love an animal encounter system that gave you a selection of general critter types for each biome, and then the randomization changed some features of that critter.

One the one hand, for what we will actually run, I could roll encounters and generate the critters as they are encountered. On the other hand, that provides no way for you to prepare for what you might encounter... The generate as you go would work fine for a world without any library data or native guide...

[Ramona]

There was a Mega Trav version of World Tamers too. Oh, World Builders, my bad.

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/World_Builder%27s_Handbook

There was a program called Heaven and Earth that would randomly generate a system based on a UWP including cargo and critters. It’d make maps too. I’m uncertain if it still exists.

[Ramona]

Don’t see it anywhere, no worries I thought it might be useful. Carry on.

[ffilz]

Don’t see it anywhere, no worries I thought it might be useful. Carry on.

I think I have Heaven and Earth. I'm not sure it runs under Windows 10...

Sorry it may take me a few days here. I've bumped into an area of Traveller that doesn't work well for me...

[Ramona]

Lol... there’s an emulator mode for older versions of windows built into 10... or try running as admin. Alternatively, just wing it.

[lenusmars]

It works under emulation in Windows 10. Straight download and install. I had another which was dos only that I could use in the DOSBox emulator

http://www.downport.com/wbd/_&_EARTH.htm

[Ramona]

Ana listens carefully to Taylor’s descriptions of the various sea critters,“Some of those sound pretty, overwhelming, I assume they’re not something you see everyday for the most part? I mean how do you not end up as bait?”

“The Nannerning sounds annoying, the Quetza must be beautiful but the Ollumara sounds bloody terrifying.”

[Eris]

There was a Mega Trav version of World Tamers too. Oh, World Builders, my bad.

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/World_Builder%27s_Handbook

There was a program called Heaven and Earth that would randomly generate a system based on a UWP including cargo and critters. It’d make maps too. I’m uncertain if it still exists.

Yes, it still exists and can be made to work in Windows 10. I haven't, but I've seen that others have.

Download page for Heaven and Earth

I've switched systems since I ran H&E last, but IIRC I ended up running it in a Windows 95 Virtualbox and that worked fine. Hum, it might have been Windows XP, but 95 is what it was created on, so I know that should work.

[ffilz]

So here's what Heaven and Earth spit out for sea caves:

Code: Select all

DIE  ANIMAL               ATTRIBUTES      WEIGHT  HITS    WOUNDS  WEAPONS         ARMOR           CHARACTERISTICS
1    1 Carrion-Eater      Flyer           24000   46/18   12      As Dagger       1               A8  F8  S0
2    1 Intermittent                       3       2/3     10      Hooves          2               A4  F6  S1
3    14 Grazer                            3       3/2     4       Teeth           None            A6  F2  S0
4    1 Intermittent                       12      9/4     3       Hooves          None            A5  F6  S0
5    1 Gatherer           Flyer           25      14/9    13      Thrasher        3 Rigid         A8  F8  S0
6    4 Chaser             Flyer           24000   53/25   42      Teeth           4               A9  F8  S2

It looks like it only does 1D encounter tables rather than the 2D encounter tables...

And not really any better - wow, a 24 ton flyer probably only encountered in sea caves?

Ok, so I took a new tack and rolled up the three most significant critters to be found near or in the caves:

Nannerning sounds annoying (#=3D 1 kg Flying Reducer teeth for 2D-3-2D mesh armor, speed 2) - basically some kind of huge chitinous flying bug
Quetza must be beautiful (and dangerous) (solitary 100 kg Amphibian Pouncer with +1 claws for 1D+3 and +1 teeth for 2D-3 and mesh +1 armor, speed 2) - sounds like maybe some kind of crab with a strangely multicolored shell
Ollumara sounds bloody terrifying (solitary 400 kg Swimming Trapper, stinger for 5D-6, speed 0) - I'm ruling that it's stinger is stinging tentacles, so this thing hides in holes in the rock with it's tentacles concealed and when something swims by... If threatened, it may retreat deeper into its hole.

That feels a little better. There are various fish and sharks but nothing too big so not really threatening. Of course you never know if something shows up from the deep...

Maybe that's where the critters I generated above come into play...

[Ramona]

Those weights look like some kind of mathematical error in the program. I’d be unsurprised to find that the first and last always end up at that weight. It could also be an error as a result of running an old program through an emulator box. Having said that, are the HP’s related to the mass of the creature? The HP’s of those two are way out from the others. It is a sea cave so the flyer could reside above the highwater mark and the others are mostly scavangers which is about right.

The first list there were a lot of claws and underwater here there’s not much with claws in the real world. Crabs and lobsters, some mammals have claws but they’re not really offensive, more vestigial.

[Ramona]

Ana points at the Ollumara and shows the picture to Sara,“Good thing I brought clean underwear and a swimsuit, friggin’ toothy tentacle beast.”

[ffilz]

Those weights look like some kind of mathematical error in the program. I’d be unsurprised to find that the first and last always end up at that weight. It could also be an error as a result of running an old program through an emulator box. Having said that, are the HP’s related to the mass of the creature? The HP’s of those two are way out from the others. It is a sea cave so the flyer could reside above the highwater mark and the others are mostly scavangers which is about right.

The first list there were a lot of claws and underwater here there’s not much with claws in the real world. Crabs and lobsters, some mammals have claws but they’re not really offensive, more vestigial.

Yea, that's part of my point about the problem of the animal tables for underwater. In the ones I rolled up, I ignored hooves... I guess you could have diving elephants or hippos, but that would be a somewhat unusual underwater encounter. The sea encounters also really don't distinguish between ocean surface and underwater.

[ffilz]

BTW, with this, I think we just need to finalize the cargo and passengers taken on, and then resolve the little expedition.

[Ramona]

i don’t think the encounter tables were terribly well play tested and they’re probably more about flavour than anything. Name it and it’s real, call it a 200kg grazer reducer and I’m uncertain what that is.

[Ramona]

Feel free to push this forward, it’s all about gathering intel on the planet and the critters and how to deal with them. Tell us that and push on. This was kind of meant to be a side thread not a switch of threads.

[ffilz]

I also want to make sure I'm clear - the plan is to make a quick recon of the cave and surroundings and grab some sample crystals right?

[Ramona]

Unless someone has a different picture in their head.