compiled by Gam Kanushaad

System Defense

Created 28 May 1998 Edited 14 Feb 2001

<< Back

System Defense Underlying Assumptions. The Imperium is interested in preserving trade between member worlds. System defense, then, is in direct proportion to the volume of trade on that world. Interstellar trade volume can indicate what level of Imperial system defense the system will receive, and also indicate the amount of system defense which should be provided by the mainworld. Interplanetary trade for a system is estimated using the "Rob & Jon" starport trade system; therefore, a good idea of what that system's worth can be taken directly from there. This trade system can be found at the menu level of this collection. In short, the system uses a point system to determine the trade index of a world: the likelihood that that world contributes to the Imperial economy. Method. The tonnage the Imperium will dedicate to defending a world is equal to the freight tonnage passing between this world and its largest trading partner per week (perhaps, MCr1 of ship value per dton of freight). The tonnage of colonial forces the world will maintain in addition to Imperial presence is equal to ten raised to the trade index of that world (perhaps worth dtons x KCr10). This is considered to be mortgaged equipment, rather than owned outright, and comes out of the starport's revenue and world subsidies. Note that world defenses might not necessarily be invested in ships; for instance, some local defense money might be spent on a mortgage for a deep meson site. System Defense Example - Jae Tellona Jae Tellona   2814A560565-8  N Ni De      Xb : 3 points Porozlo       2715A867A74-B    Hi            : 3 points Rhylanor      2716A434934-F  A Hi Cp      Xb : 6 points Celepina      2913B434456-9  A Ni         Xb : 3 points Major trading partner: Rhylanor. Freight = 10 ^ ( sqrt ( 3 x 6 ) ) = 17,378 dtons per week. This means the Imperium has 17,000 dtons' worth of system defenses keeping guard over Jae Tellona. Total fleet price: 17 billion credits! Moreover, Jae Tellona has a colonial force totalling only 1000 dtons, worth about MCr 10 in yearly mortgage fees. But with the Imperium there, who's worried?   System Defense Example - Treece Treece is a backwater on the Spinward Main, with a trade index of -3. With a little creativity we should be able to figure out what's happening there. Treece        2311 D232866-8    Na Po    : -3 points This tells us that Treece itself has no system defense; however, there should be some number of Imperial patrols that cruise through. Square the index. The result is the number of weeks between visits by Imperial patrols. That means that, for Treece, for every week an Imperial patrol squadron does a flyby, there are 9 weeks of insecurity. This means a trade index of 0 (zero) implies there's probably always one patrol squadron passing through the system, though there may be occasional gaps.

 

Summary A few months ago, Jon Buller and I cooked up a relatively simple way to calculate trade between two systems, and by implication a way to calculate the total interstellar trade in one system. From this, then, we have attached a revenue onto every system. Since the 3I protects trade, then, the budget for this protection can be tied into the commercial revenue of a system. By making a few major assumptions (i.e. one week of trade in a system equals the system defense budget and determines the patrol schedule for that world), hard numbers have been derived as to how well-guarded any given system is. Moreover, the results appear to scale nicely, allowing people to scale defense up or down based on how the Imperium operates in their Traveller Universe.

® Traveller copyright by and trademark of Far Future Enterprises. In addition, any program/article/file on this site cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author who contributed it.