Trade Alternatives

[Kegereneku]

I don't think so. In my precedent post I used a 1000 light-year radius because it kept many system around reasonable travel time.
If you wanted to see a difference in the distance between star you would need to stretch over way longer distance, in the order of 5000ly.
It's funny but it remember me a famous question from 'Foundation' (Asimov novel)

Speaking of misunderstanding, I would hope it to be clear that we shouldn't be talking anywhere of "accidentally" meeting a inhabited planet.
At any point we would be to assume that trader/cargo/transport ship voluntarily pass by inhabited planets rather than a straight line (and again, many sf trick can be used to justify that)

[Mathenaut]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to knock you for the same reasons as SSS on this one.

The Orion Nebula is just over 1k lightyears away, and that's within the Local Arm.

If we presume the Rimworlds to be further out, as described, then we'll need to look at longer times. Interesting enough, I think Tynan had a good sense of this.

[Kegereneku]

You do open interesting and constructive ways of finding a new solution.
Stars disposition in the galaxy (be it a disk or a spiral) isn't homogeneous nor gradual, so some zone are more packed with stars than other.

But to be pedantic I still believe to be right that speaking in term of distance with the galactic core to use the distance between stars as economic incentive is meaningless.
The 1000 light-year figure was chosen to keep civilization within a credible time frame for different tech-level, and at cargo/trade distance (though the idea of STL trading is soft-SF). Also, it's not like we would be lacking of planet to terraform even over 100ly.

So it would be righter to dissociate Rimworld from distance to the galactic core and associate them with star cluster within a 1000ly radius OR (to take idea from 'Foundation & Empire') make it purely a question of -I quote Tynan- sociotechnological development.

In short : a Rimworld being a rimworld because it is has low population density, little to no government and see various technological level.

I help that to me there is nothing making unbelievable to have a poor Rimworld in between Industrial, mid-world or Glitterworld. (as Trade that take 10years of travel can hardly make a difference or be possible)
MANY justification can be made as to why the Rimworld didn't sprout a government or why other aren't interesting in (re)colonizing it.

[Mathenaut]

You do open interesting and constructive ways of finding a new solution.
Stars disposition in the galaxy (be it a disk or a spiral) isn't homogeneous nor gradual, so some zone are more packed with stars than other.

This is it. This is exactly it. This is why it's senseless to make such wide, sweeping assumptions about what must and must-not be. It is entirely possible to have a cluster of closer systems with many planets or a scattering of isolated systems with few planets, or anything inbetween.

The 'muh realizm' arguments fall flat because reality is unrealistic for many people. These arguments against the existence of trade ships is entirely dependent upon things that don't necessarily have to be true.

Tynan is still somewhat accurate about distance from the core, however. While it's true that the outer edges can still sport pockets of high density, the core is almost exclusively a high density region.

This is easier to visualize if you draw a circle near the center of a nested spiral and compare it to a circle along the outer edges. The bases of every spiral touch near the center, so you'll see the highest density. Along the outer edge, there are regions that are denser than others, but on average there are way fewer of them.

I help that to me there is nothing making unbelievable to have a poor Rimworld in between Industrial, mid-world or Glitterworld. (as Trade that take 10years of travel can hardly make a difference or be possible)

Not only is this reasonable, it's more likely than you think. For proof, you need only look at our Earth. Disproportionately poor regions inbetween larger wealthy regions? Woefully common. Even for places that lie along the interstate or railroad. Even having an airport doesn't save places from being poor, because economy doesn't magically work like that.

[Kegereneku]

What I mean is that considering STL travel on a GALACTIC SCALE is absurd. And since I can quote Tynan saying : "Humanity is smeared across a region of the galaxy about 1,200 light years wide" here, maybe this is just an earlier draft or simple figure of speak.

Rimworld is a soft-SF space opera setting but since you could solve this... 'inconsistency' just by switching a few words double-entendre around in the universe description.

Not only is this reasonable, it's more likely than you think. For proof, you need only look at our Earth. Disproportionately poor regions inbetween larger wealthy regions? Woefully common. Even for places that lie along the interstate or railroad. Even having an airport doesn't save places from being poor, because economy doesn't magically work like that.

I think it's more likely than you think that I think. I do not usually take surface-based case to transpose them in space, the situation are too different.
My logic is simply that solar system in STL universe are indeed near entirely disconnected (as Tynan assume) and Trader would not (realistically) play a role in their economic wealth. But you can shape assumption to have traffic between world.

[hector212121]

Enough of the arguing over the illogicality of this. There's something you guys didn't consider, a absolute, unquestionable benefit of this:

Trade. REQUESTS.

You could call, for instance, a tribe, and say, "Let's trade weapons." They send over a combat caravan.

ETC.

[Kegereneku]

I agree.
We have pondered enough on space colonization and STL ship dynamic.
Myself I'm filling that under "Diplomacy" because I think Tynan will want a slightly more complex system than "If they aren't hostile with us, we can forcedly trade them things we don't need for their precious things".

Plus, who can trade what ?
Obviously a tribes wouldn't trades high-tech equipment, but can they trade gold and plasteel ?
Then 'Equal faction', even if they are expected to be bigger wouldn't have as much as "traders".
And which one might sell/buy slave ?

There's a thread about Ransom demand from Raider and prisoner exchange.

[SSS]

I don't have much further interest in talking about this either; I've been waiting a few days to muster the resolve/interest, but it still hasn't come.

@Kegereneku: My point was, in the end, that just because the game is soft from a sci-fi perspective, that doesn't mean everything else should be unrealistic either. One of the main benefits of a colony over a shipwreck is foreknowledge of your presence; everyone knows you're there already, which solves the wandering-by problem. I have no problem accepting another possibility if it's equally logical (within the soft sci-fi context, which doesn't make anything unrelated to science suddenly reasonable).

@Mathenaut: I don't claim to be an astronomist, but making blanket statements about how much I know isn't going to solve anything, especially considering you don't know for certain what I know. For example, I am aware that I was exaggerating (in your arguments favor) how likely gravity would be to stop you at near-lightspeed, since you do indeed need to be get very close. (I figured you could infer that where I mentioned flying through a system without "hitting anything".) I also know that the spread of systems isn't uniform throughout the universe, but given the time frame in Rimworld there hasn't been enough time to reach the galactic core, and even in areas where systems are "close", that's only relatively speaking. Even one light-year, or half a light-year, or a twelfth of a light-year is a huge distance. When talking about systems that could possibly support life, we're dealing with a diameter of light-hours- very, very small in comparison to the vast distances between even "close" systems, and very easy to miss. You could launch fractions of a degree off-course and miss such a narrow area, and hitting "something eventually" doesn't work because (1) it assumes the universe is infinitely large and that something "must", for whatever reason, appear in a given direction for some unexplained reason; (2) it neglects that STL travel would make traveling such a distance eliminate the possibility of encountering so much space civilization after landing, if a suitable place was perchance "eventually" found; and (3) such a distance isn't even allowed by Rimworld's timeline.

If you have no interest in discussing with me, then don't. I've already lost most of my interest in talking to you due to your method of response anyway (namely, attacking me rather than my reasoning). If you're that sure my logic is bad, then feel free to link to some sources that contain evidence that some part of my reasoning is incorrect, or that contain more credible minds talking about the subject; but don't just say "you don't know what you're talking about" when you don't know that in the first place and (for all I know) you might not know what you're talking about yourself. What Kegereneku has said to me, I say to you. If you are unable to accept that you could be wrong, there's no point in talking.

[hector212121]

Keg, why wouldn't they be INTERESTED in high-tech stuff?

It'd be neat if tribes had a little "tech" stamp that determined their level of technology. If you sold them something advanced, like a personal shield, "tech" would go up several notches. Tech would determine armaments and available goods.

In fact, ALL groups should have techstamps and work like that... Add a new level to diplomacy/trading. Selling a gun to a tribe=awesome pricing, but they might start tinkering with it and learn to make their own... Basically, anything over the techlevel of the trading partner would have a chance to increase their tech level or progress them to increasing it.

[Kegereneku]

I don't have much further interest in talking about this either; I've been waiting a few days to muster the resolve/interest, but it still hasn't come.

@Kegereneku: My point was, in the end, that just because the game is soft from a sci-fi perspective, that doesn't mean everything else should be unrealistic either. One of the main benefits of a colony over a shipwreck is foreknowledge of your presence; everyone knows you're there already, which solves the wandering-by problem. I have no problem accepting another possibility if it's equally logical (within the soft sci-fi context, which doesn't make anything unrelated to science suddenly reasonable).

Well, my point is that within the realm of fiction you can make up enough likely scenario to make shipwreck no less unrealistic than colony.
You have been overestimating the wandering-by 'problem' as if it was a matter of absurd luck although it isn't and (as demonstrated) you can easily make realistic context that justify Rimworld known yet not being colonized.
On this, a colony have its own set of tropes potentially incompatible with what we've set to achieve, trading and Rimworld as defined here.

I totally agree that a trade-to-colony can be made credible, but I prefer making a context logical for Rimworld's particular situation.

Keg, why wouldn't they be INTERESTED in high-tech stuff?

Entirely true, my mistake.
I was just thinking that they wouldn't SELL you Glitterworld medecine or personal shield.
But then there's the diplomacy system needed to gain from selling medium/high-tech to tribes.
Next... I don't think we need to go into an actual arm-race with tribes. Not only it sound painful to code but you've got to let player an advantage over other faction.

[AllenWL]

"Hey guys my spaceship blew up and I managed to cobble together a radio using Gilligan's Island technology to contact you in SPACE but yeah... as much as I could use a new pair of your Calvin Klein hyperweave underwear to replace the ones I totally soiled in the crash in exchange for my silver and gold - can you swing by and pick me up instead?  

Don't worry, soon you will be presented a number of half-assed excuses for this obviously blatantly plothole...Ah, the things we ignore out of love   

Here's what I think.

The trade ships are special traders manned by a advanced AI that goes around planets selling and buying wears(This is how I explain it buying the shoddy 14% stone shive I took off a raider. Even if they're buying for practically nothing, why the heck is it buying a obviously useless tool they'll never sell when they're better of saving cargo space?) This lets them trade at every planet they come across while traveling between destinations and still stay in cryptosleep and stay nice and not-as-old(or dead) Because the AI is only programmed to sell, it doesn't answer to requests like 'Take me off this damn rock'

Also, items are dropped by drop pod, and picked up by a long-range tracter-beam item teleporter thingy, instead of landing to pick up the goods. This probably means that the ship is not equipped to land on the planet, nor is the planet equipped to take in the ship(same reason why you can't ask a passing passenger liner to pick you up when you're lost in the rainforest. Where's it going to land?) The ship simply flies along near the planet in the comm's range, trades, then keep on going.

Finally, the traders don't know you. You could just as well be a group of bloodthirsty pirates who are waiting for the traders to land before you swoop in and kill them all and steal their goods.
I flip around on those theories depending on my mood

Anyways, it takes years, and even decades and centuries to do interstellar travel(as stated in game description). Crytosleep pods are a must. And I really don't think traders will have extra cryptosleep pods on their ship taking up space just in case they meet a poor sap who needs to be rescued.

But it'd be cool to trade with other colonies or something.

The only problem I see is that unless it's a spaceship from another planet, you'll never be able to get high-tech stuff like bionics or hyperweave, glitterworld medicine, advanced guns, doomsday/triple rocket launchers, etc. You are on a uncivilized rimworld with a low, low tech after all.

[Kegereneku]

We can reuse something for that last problem : occasional pod crashing
Just like we crashed here ourself you could have the cargo from a wrecked Glitterworld cargo ship, or more realistically a less-advanced cargo ship carrying Glitterworld cargo crash or break in orbit with its pods coming down occasionally.
If the cargoship was big enough (to make it count for a 10year travel) you would certainly have enough supply for many years but spread over the entire world.

So at some point player will ask for way of exploring other zone, but that another subject.

Nothing to say about the rest, there's parts of logic I would use too.