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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Planet Type:
• Moons:
• Gravity:
• Atmosphere:
• Tech Level:
• Port Facilities: