On 25/8/20 7:43 pm, Timothy Collinson - timothy.collinson at port.ac.uk
(via tml list) wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 08:43, Kelly St. Clair <xxxxxx@efn.org
> <mailto:xxxxxx@efn.org>> wrote:
>
>     It's /almost/ like all of this stuff was made up, I mean written by a
>     lot of different people with different ideas about what the Imperium
>     actually is and does over several decades.  Crazy, huh?
>
>
> !!
>
> My 'defence' of the standard rules (much though I rather like Jeff's
> additional detail as it's helpful to referees) is that these are only
> approximations anyway.  The fun is in finding that for whatever reason
> your A class doesn't have quite the facilities you thought it might
> have (maybe something's broken or damaged by the last lot of PCs to go
> through) or you *can* indeed get x, y or z at a C class 'port (maybe
> it's *just* been installed and the rating hasn't been upgraded yet or
> for political reasons isn't going to be). 

What, did Sublieutenant Collinson crash-land a dread-only-Collinson a
few months ago?

Or, as referenced in GT: Starports, there be bureaucratic infighting
between the subsector office and the port director.

The director wants their port upgraded, subsector says no, director says
"SOD THIS!" and, forgiveness something something permission, does a
whole bunch of individually-minor improvements off their own bat and
budget.  Of course, this really brasses subsector off when they tumble
to it.

>
> The UWPs cover a *lot* of ground (literally) in just a few
> letters/numbers and I think they do a great job of this.  I'm not sure
> I'd want a High Guard style string of dozens of digits that's only
> readable with a decode sheet.  (Though I'm aware that newbies can't
> usually look at a UPP or a UWP and 'see' the person/planet behind. 
> But six digits + prefix/suffix of starport and tech level seems like a
> good trade off.)
Can you think of another format that combines that level of information
density and ease-of-use and is a big enough improvement over the UWP to
be worth hassle of switching?
>
> So I think I'm saying, treat the starport type as you would government
> type or law level - or more explicitly tech level which we know
> 'varies', rather than size or hydro which is an easily measurable digit.

More latitude for GM silly buggers.  I like it!

"Can't fuel 'ere mate, refiners is busted" - Willium "Mate" Cobblers.

Alex