[OFFICIAL] Colony lists? (was:Re: Locations of Stars etc.)

Danny wrote:
[snip]
>This is a listing of all stars <10 ly from Terra:

>From		      To		   Distance
Earth-Sol	     Proxima Centauri	  4.22214
Earth-Sol	     A. Centauri3	  4.45703
Earth-Sol	     Barnard's Star	  5.98041
Earth-Sol	     Wolf 359		  7.782
Earth-Sol	     Lalande 21185	  8.30947
Earth-Sol	     Sirius2		  8.61066
Earth-Sol	     Luyten 726-8	  8.78784
Earth-Sol	     Ross 154		  9.69588

>None of them, except for ACent, would make really good sites for
>habitable planets.

This is very useful stuff, but I'd like to pose a couple of questions to
everyone on the list who is interested - responses to this may help
shape
the way we write up the background material in future.

1) What do we want? ("We" being the list membership, as a particularly
enthusiastic cross-section of FT/DS/SG players). A star map/colony list
that is as close to known astronomical data as possible, or one that
applies a bit of artistic licence (as most SF authors do) and allows
there
to be planets wherever they best suit the storyline? If the latter, do
we
stick to "real" stars only, or make the whole thing up once we get past
a
few LY out?

2) Of those people who use the "official" background, or a minor
modification of it (on the assumption that those who hate the background
won't be interested in all this anyway!), do you actually WANT to see it
defined in this sort of detail, or left loose (as we have done so far)
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
exhaustive lists of whose settlements are on which worlds etc.? This
sort
of background "fluff' is fairly easy to produce once you get it rolling
(provided it is carefully cross-checked for contradictions - I'm sure
you
guys (and girls - sorry Beth....) will gleefully go through it all with
fine-tooth combs... <grin>), but I am aware that some people can also
see
it as too restrictive on their creativity.

I'd be keen to get as much response as possible to these thoughts, so we
can see where we should be heading.....

>At 15ly, you get a only couple useful systems (Tau Ceti, 61 Cygni).
At 25ly, you get a good number (Xi Ursae Majoris, etc), maybe about a
dozen and a half.

>So, I would postulate this (assuming that most worlds are earth-type
(to
allow more DSII games)):

Core Worlds:
	Sol (G2V)
	Centaurus (G2V)
	Barnard's Star (M3V)

Inner Colonies: (out to about 25ly from Sol)
	includes-
	Beta Hydri (G1IV)
	61 Cygni (K3V)
	Tau Ceti (G8V)
	Delta Pavonis (G5V)
	82 Eridani (G5V)
	Procyon (F5V)
	Xi Bootis (G8V)
	Xi Ursae Majoris (G0V)
	...and others

Outworlds: (worlds beyond 25ly from Sol)
	...other worlds

>It would not be to difficult to whip up a CHView file with systems
labled for FT.	The only question that realy needs to be answered is:
what is the speed/endurance of FT's FTL drives?

Realspace "speed" will depend on frequency of jumps -  once out into
interstellar space each jump is probably around 2  light-years for
Military
drives, 1 for Merchants. Following the fluff I put in the FB, you need
an
undefined number of shorter jumps at the beginning and end of the trip,
and
average jump frequency is about 1 per day (maximum with Milspec drives
is 4
a day). So, we could say that trip time by merchant ship is about 1 LY
per
day, plus (say) 2-3 days of corrective jumps at each end, with an
average
warship being able to halve that - so a "slow" freighter would do Sol to
Centaurus in around 10 days, Barnard in 12, Ross 154 in 16; to an
Outworld
at 50LY would take around 56 days if the ship had the endurance to keep
up
the constant jumps, which is highly unlikely - it would probably do it
in
stages, with several layovers that would increase the trip time
considerably. A Warship would do Centaurus in (say) 5-6 days at normal
cruise, but could do it in a couple of days in a flat-out emergency run.
Endurance could be either in time (crew stamina and lifesupport supplies
etc.) or number of jumps (power/fuel requirements, and crew stamina
again).
For gameplay purposes it is probably better to keep endurance relatively
short, even for military ships, to prevent bypassing of large chunks of
territory - if layovers have to be fairly frequent then it becomes more
tactically necessary to hold star systems rather than  just detour round
them.

This is all JUST IDEAS at this stage - not hard-and-fast rules!! It is
also
quite late, so don't blame me if the math is wonky.... :)

Jon (GZG)