On 19/8/20 5:59 am, Thomas RUX wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> While reading The Complete Starport (front cover) by  J. Andrew Keith
> in Far & Away Number 1 I stumbled across two items
>
> One of the items is that "...Class X ports are interdicted and not
> open to offworld traffic; hence these are not discussed here...."
>
> The text sent me to digging through the MT Referee's Manual. Looking
> on MT Referee's Manual p. 23 Universal World Profile Tables 2
> Starports Table the Type X port Quality entry is None was agrees with
> CT. 
>
> On Basic Mainworld Generation 1 Step 3 Mainworld Starport suggests on
> a 2D6 roll that Backwater, Standard, or Cluster systems do not have
> any starports.
>
> Basic Mainworld Generation 2 Step 17 Travel Zones p. 25 then throws a
> curve ball with the following text "Class X starports are almost
> always red zones."
>
> Per MT Referee's Manual  p. 23 a world with a starport code of X does
> not have a starport. In my opinion the information in Step 17 p. 25
> should be omitted.
>
> The other is about the availability of fuel at each
> starport/spaceport. In "The Complete Starport" J. Andrew Keith lists
> that Type E starports and Type H Spaceports have unrefined fuel
> available. IIRC one or more of Alex's AARs of his merry band of
> adventures landed on worlds with hydrographic codes of 1 or higher to
> refuel.
>
> Effectively those worlds did not have starports or spaceports which
> would be Starport Class X and Spaceport Class Y. The author added the
> note that "Unrefined fuel available if planet has hydrosphere 1+."
>
> How far out in a field am I on this one.
>
> Tom Rux
>
Tom,

Are you talking about before, or after, The Goofy Holler?

Beforehand, it was Drake's cheapness - it worked out cheaper (to tune of
10k per parsec of fuel), and left less paperwork for Lannie Plod to
follow up in pursuit of sneaky buggers.  Drake had the fuel for 2x J-2
aboard, and damned if he wouldn't use it.

After the Holler, the only choice El Capitane, Badass Badass-Moustache,
et al HAD was wilderness refuelling (and they were very happy for their
organic fuel refiners) - IIRC, Drake was the first sophont to set foot
on four separate worlds.  They rapidly evolved a marked preference for
ocean refuelling (power failure had far less interesting consequences),
but that was contingent on detecting terrestrial planets to refuel _from_.

After all, they were trying to get home, not survey each system. If
Badass-Moustache had rumbled a gas or ice giant and no terrestrial
worlds, then so be it, they're skimming (Rosa's Pilot (spacecraft) skill
of 1, 2 or 3 (depending on when they were), her DEX mod of -1, and a -1
DM to Pilot checks from ship quirk made this less than routine).

I'm not sure how far up the scale Word of Miller ranks for
definitiveness, but
(fromhttps://web.archive.org/web/20021020142743/http://www.geocities.com/traveller_core_route/proj001/faq.html
- Clifford Lineham's questions to Marc Miller about the Grand Zhodani
Walkabout, c 2000):

---

The "Zone of Barren Worlds" does not refer to only zho, it means there
is no intelligent life on most of them, thus ENNN000-0

I use E (hard bnedrock and little else for a spaceport) rather than X
which doesn't mean "no spaceport" but instead "no one allowed in (by
some interdicting authority)."

---

Seems fairly cut-and-dried - even with an unpopulated rock with
absolutely no artificial structures on it where the PCs are the first
sophonts to lob within co-ee since the Ancients' Mutual Suicide Pact,
"three fifths of one half of bugger all" maps to class E.  "PLAYER
CHARACTERS GO HOME OR PREPARE TO BE SALVAGED" maps to X.

This also seems to track with the CT stuff you dug up.

Alex