Design Notes - Incremental Progression

With new figures to paint and a full diary, progressing development of Gazolan Subsector has temporarily stalled. I have, however, located the current (1109) subsector capital, Thiroor, at 2213.

Thiroor lies on the “lower lip” of the Wedding Cup, Miigaurshish and, incidentally, was one of the early systems in Gazolan Subsector to be occupied by the Imperium. House Hendrian of Thiroor, Subsector Dukes of Gazolan, have been slowly increasing their power and influence since the Sakul Wars of the late Ninth Century. With the death of Sector Duke Edenar in 1097, Akansair Hendrian was able to present both himself and his House as the most suitable candidate to succeed to the Sector Duchy. Akansair I was succeeded by his son Mekal in 1104. Mekal was succeeded by his brother, Akansair II, in 1107.

I need to re-examine the systems of the Wedding Cup as these would appear to be the core worlds of Gazolan Subsector – the centre of power that House Hendrian as protected and nurtured since the Sarkul Wars. It is these worlds that have given House Hendrian the wealth and resources to replace House Ulanor as Sector Dukes, and to hold their own against their enemies – both internal and external.

Interlude

As often happens when I’m working on a project, instead of continuing with the development of Gazolan Subsector I suddenly decided that I needed to re-examine the economics of the RimWorlds using GURPs Traveller: Far Trader. This then involved trying to beat the various GURPs economics formulae into a spreadsheet. After much swearing and Googling, I developed a semi-automatic method for generating the various World Trade Numbers, and then a manual method for linking them together to generate the Bilateral Trade Number.

Currently, I have worked up numbers for Lymethius Subsector and have just started moving out into Gamelea. I am starting to see the beginnings of trade routes, though the Far Trader rules demand relatively high values for routes.

Heaven and Earth would generate the trade routes for me, but it doesn’t seem to present all the World Trade Numbers. Also, I’m finding the exercise useful in getting me to see different patterns in my subsectors. I’m looking forward to extending the numbers up the Julnar Reach into Gazolan Subsector to see if the story I was beginning to create about the Reach in my last post is backed up by the economic data. Lastly, generating these numbers, while useful for the background of a trade game, will also give me a feel as to the true volume of shipping travelling the routes of the Subsector.