I agree that 1 single line of text is insufficient.  In fact, I don't care for Traveller's system generation much at all.  I prefer the one in GURPS Space (4th ed.) (altho even that needs some tweaks…).  But then, I *like* such complexity. :)

If you're *going* to summarize the system so tersely, I'd include the best trade class in each category.  Thus, if *any* world is Agricultural, the system is, etc.

Regarding planets around a dim star (or technically *any* multiple system): GM should calculate the blackbody temperature of each planet by summing 278*(L^.25)/(R^.5) for all stars.  L is the luminosity of the star (Sol=1), and R is average distance of the star in AU.  This would produce somewhat different temperatures from your maximum contribution method, but yes, it could lead to a large habitable zone around an M dwarf that orbits a much brighter star.

On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 11:12 PM, Christopher Sean Hilton <xxxxxx@vindaloo.com> wrote:
On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 06:11:58PM -0700, Evyn MacDude wrote:
>    On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 3:30 PM, Christopher Sean Hilton
>    <xxxxxx@vindaloo.com> wrote:

[ snip... ]

>      Traveller system doesn't seem to embrace such things. There is a
>      mainworld that has the system tech level, trade classification, etc.
>
>    The "Mainworld" system is the suggestion that stuck, in Book3 it was
>    briefly discussed using the repersented system to generate further
>    worlds in a system.
>

Well, you could have quite a setting at TL 9 or 10 in a system with
8~10 inhabitable worlds. I think that it would be really
hard to dice up a sector using the Book 6 Extended System manually and
in 1983 when Scouts was published the combination of computer
programming talent and time needed to build an extended system
generator was probably too expensive. So, "Mainworld" may have taken
hold solely because people didn't know back then that these types of
systems were possible.

>      Does anyone have thoughts about better ways to represent such
>      systems? For example: A system with a small vacuum world as
>      mainworld
>      and a subordinate F466nnn-t planet only registers as "Farming" and
>      does not make the system "Agricultural".
>
>    Not as a single line item which was the Traveller standard in the early
>    days.
>    Recently I have been pondering a different system creation system,
>    using the standard system for generating the number of Belts and Gas
>    Giants then adding a 1d6/2 rounding down with a minimum of 1 to
>    describe the basic system. Then use the standard system to generate the
>    "habitable" worlds. The other change is the Starport, which is changed
>    to a Station in the cases Port classes A through C, D through X
>    describing individual world ports (this is the part I am still working
>    one)

I don't think that you can describe any star system in a single line
of text adequately. I'm just wondering if the fact that a system has a
farming world should be reflected at the system map and trade
classification level. I'm thinking that the existance of cheap space
travel effectively adds the Agricultural trade class to the system and
that's just one example.

It's just something to think about at the end.

--
Chris

      __o          "All I was trying to do was get home from work."
    _`\<,_           -Rosa Parks
___(*)/_(*)____.___o____..___..o...________ooO..._____________________
Christopher Sean Hilton                    [chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com]
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