Major Worlds in TWIN EMPIRES
Format taken from "Mekton Empires" for Mekton 2, and some from Rob Hull's (a great Mekton Zeta programmer!!).
Planet Types
- Molten Rock - Airless, super-hot place; Mercury.
- Rock - A plain rock ball with no appreciable atmosphere; Moon.
- Hot Waterworld - No land, just miles of boiling seas, occasionally swept by acidic clouds; a wet Venus.
- Jungle - Shallow seas, swamps and huge, dense jungles; Venus, the way the Victorians thought it was.
- Waterworld - Very little land, most of it in scattered archipelagos and islands; the Pacific Ocean without the major continents; also known as an Islandworld.
- Temperate - Forests, mountains, deserts, but mostly habitable by Humans; Earth-like.
- Steppe - A world with a hospitable environment and between 30% and 50% of liquid water.
- Cold Waste - A dry, chilly place, filled with scrub, desert and ice, but without liquid water; Mars.
- Asteroid Belt - No major planetary body at all, with whatever population existing in hollowed-out asteroids.
- Chunk - A small airless world less than 1000 km in diameter.
- Iceworld - All oceans have frozen solid. The terrain is sheets of ice, glaciers, and occasional craggy mountains. Beneath some of the ice sheets are deep, near-frozen oceans; Antartica.
- Gas Giant - Nothing but clouds and gas at incredible pressures. It may be possible for life to exist in the upper atmosphere; Jupiter.
- Ringed Gas Giant - Same as above, with spectacular rings; Saturn.
- Cryosphere - A totally airless iceball, with no features except deep rifts, craters, and fields of frozen air; Pluto.
- Hot Desert - Huge expanses of shifting sands and uncomfortably high temperatures with little standing water; the Sahara (or Dune).
- Failed Core - A planet which accumulated an atmosphere but which never accumulated enough mass to become a gas giant; Triton.
- Hot House - A planet with a large greenhouse-effect atmosphere.
Moons
How many moons the planet has orbiting it.
Gravity
The level of gravity at ground level that the planet has (based on Earth values, so Earth has a gravity rating of 1 (an exact number, since this is the base line for the other planets)).
Atmosphere Types
- Density: 1 = Thin, 2 = Moderate, 3 = Thick
- Composition:
- Human Normal (no modifier designation).
- Tainted (TNT) = 2D6 hits/hour if breathed without a filter mask.
- Poisonous (PSN) = 2D6 hits/turn if exposed without suit.
- Insidious (INS) = 3D6 hits/turn if exposed without suit; atmosphere seeps in through seals of suits after 1D10 hours; sealed Mecha cabins are safe.
- Corrosive (COR) = 7D6 hits/turn if exposed without suit; atmosphere corrodes and breaks through suit seals after 1D10 minutes; Mecha cabin seals break down after 1D10 hours.
Technological Level
- 0 = No intelligent population.
- 1 = Hunter/Gatherer Culture
- 2 = Early Agricultural Culture
- 3 = Medieval (large cities, swords/axes, early seagoing vessels) (900-1300's Earth)
- 4 = Renaissance (gunpowder, printed word, age of sail) (1600's Earth)
- 5 = Industrial Revolution (steam power, telephone, electric light) (1800's Earth)
- 6 = Atomic Age (fission power, electronics, satellites) (1960's Earth)
- 7 = Postatomic Age (early fusion power, lasers, interplanetary travel, computers, early mecha, orbital colonies) (1990-2100's Earth)
- 8 = Interstellar Society (advanced fusion, jumpgates, jumpships, sentient computers and robots, limited artificial gravity, advanced mecha, early psionics, early force fields, limited genetic tailoring) (Tindal culture)
- 9 = Fast Interstellar (FTL radio, small starships, advanced psionics, matter teleportation, advanced force fields, antigravity, "terraforming") (Tindal technologists experimenting at this level)
- 10 = Superscientific (psionic machineless technology, worldmoving and worldbuilding, intergalactic exploration, easy genetic restructuring) (Ancient Artifacts)
Port Facilities
- G# - Ground Facilities:
- 0 = None - No prepared ground facilities
- 1 = Simple - Basic support buildings
- 2 = Moderate - Minor starport
- 3 = Extensive - Major starport city
- S# - Space Facilities:
- 0 = None - No permanent space facility
- 1 = Simple - Zero-G spacedock
- 2 = Moderate - Small spinner station
- 3 = Extensive - Major orbital habitat
- M# - Interstellar Mail:
- 0 = None - No service
- 1 = Irregular - One courier every 1D10 weeks
- 2 = Regular - One courier every 1D10 days
- 3 = Daily - One courier every day
- Special Facilities:
- * = Jumpgate
- B = Long-term Ship Berthing
- R = Ship Repair Facilities
- Y = Ship Yards
- Local or Interstellar Government Controls:
- T = Space Traffic Control
- C = Customs/Trade Control Station
- P = Police/Military Orbital Patrols
- N = Interstellar Naval Base
Unusual Characteristics / Notes
From Rob Hull's Mekton Zeta Star Program
- Extreme Vulcanism - The planetary crust is unstable either because the planet is still young or due to a gravitational factor like an oversize moon.
- Atmospheric Contaminants - The atmosphere is polluted with various gases or dust.
- Meteors Storms - The planet suffers frequent meteor storms, often including large asteroid or comet impacts, making the planet's surface a dangerous place.
- High Radiation Level - This world has a radiation level much higher than Earth-normal.This could be due to several factors:a thin atmosphere, radioactive minerals or a nuclear war.
- Violent Storms - This could be dust or sand storms on arid or desert planets, a frontal activity between well defined climate belts ...
- Microbes - Unusual micro-organisms are present in the atmosphere.This could cause several different results,the most common is the presence of diseases.
- Orbital Conjunction - A body in the system passes close enough to the world to cause any one of a number of effects (extreme vulcanism,tidal waves ...) Such a conjunction would happen rarely,occuring only once in a matter or decades or even centuries.
- Rugged Terrain - The planet's land surface is almost entirely covered with mountains and rough, rocky terrain, with practically no flat plains or rounded hills.
- Retrograde Rotation - Like Venus the rotation is in a retrograde movement.
- Unstable Climate - The climate undergoes severe and unpredictable changes from year to year.
- Orbital Eccentricity - The planet has an erratic orbit,such a world would combine the result of extreme axial tilt and extreme vulcanism with extreme variation in temperature.
- Strong Magnetic Field - This world has a strong magnetic field,an effect that can have consequences in the biological makeup of the natives.
- Cloud Cover - The planet has a permanent cloud cover over its entire surface; it probably rains most of the time.
- No Axial Tilt - The world's axis is perpendicular to the plane of ecliptic. Therefore, there are no seasonal weather changes.
- High Tides - A large, close moon or sun produces extremely high tides.
- Tidal Lock - The world's period of revolution about its primary coincides exactly with its period of rotation on its axis;that is,its year is the same length as the day.The consequence is that one side of the world will always be turned toward the sun.
- Extreme Axial Tilt - The planet's axis is tilted closer to the plane of the ecliptic than Earth's.There will be extreme variation in seasons,with bitter cold temperatures in winter and searing heat in summer.
- Native Intelligent Lifeforms - The planet has a native sentient life form, which may or may not have advanced technology.
- Native Semi-Intelligent Lifeforms - The planet has a native life form which is not fully sentient yet, but comes close, and may develop further.
- Unstable Planet - The planet is fatally unstable and it might be in danger of blowing up in the forseable future.
- High Humidity - (Only for worlds with water) high humidity at high temperatures can prove to be uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous,it's like living in a steam bath.
- Low Humidity - (Only for world with water) at high temperatures will cause rapid drying of mucus membranes,dehydration and eventually delirium.
Earth
- Planet Type: Temperate
- Moons: 1
- Gravity: 1
- Atmosphere: (2) Moderate
- Tech Level: (8) Interstellar
- Port Facilities: G3 S3 M3 *BRYTCP
The home world of the Human race.
Tinderaal
- Planet Type: Temperate
- Moons: 2
- Gravity: 0.85
- Atmosphere: (2) Moderate
- Tech Level: (9) Fast Interstellar
- Port Facilities: G3 S3 M3 *BRYTCPN
The home world of the Tindal and Deraal races.
Imarii
- Planet Type: Jungle / Hot Desert
- Moons: 1
- Gravity: 1.2
- Atmosphere: (3) Thick, Tainted
- Tech Level: (6) Atomic Age
- Port Facilities: G3 S2 M3 *BTCPN
The home world of the Mephit and Felinzi races.
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