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In any plug-in, there seems to be hundreds or thousands of descriptions (descs), which are often very lengthy. While outfits and ships are easy to write about, finding "inspiration" for a planet (moon, station... space object) is often difficult.
This leads to a two questions:
What is the minimum for a planetary description? I doubt that a few words is adequate for a significant world, but it's difficult to "invent" a thousand different histories.
Where, if anywhere, do the rest of you devlopers out there find inspiration for planetary descriptions, especially minor outposts and semi-trivial alien worlds?
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Actually, I get my ideas from the same place Harlan Ellison gets his: a company in Schenectady, NY. I send'um 25$ (US) and they send back a fresh six-pack of ideas. It's really quite a deal.
Based on my very limited experience, Una: I'd say that the length and content of any spöb description depends on the demands of your storyline. No matter how large the galaxy, there are only so many truly significant stellar objects: important locales at which your player perfoms significant actions, or else places where your player learns useful information. Everything elseall your other spöbsare just filler, essentially. If you don't want to, you needn't do much with them at all. All you really want from these secondary space objects is that their descriptions not contradict or confict with the information you attach to more important locales.
Actually, I'm finding that you can have some fun with the descriptions of these secondary space objects and their taverns; you can tweak them, changing them just a bit from what they were in the original game scenario. You can add humor or make them awfully grim places; you can make a planet or station the home for an important corporation or a very minor pirate. Or you can drastically alter the spobs, even denuding them of all life, taking them effectively off the board.
No, this is not very specific advice, but I think it's sound. How you describe the lesser spöbs in your lifeand whether you need to at alldepends on how well you understand the requirements of your plot. But I'd love to hear what true veterans here have to say on this.
------------------ PlanetPhil
if you lived here, you'd be home by now
1. In the plug I'm currently working on, I've set myself a minimum of 500 characters per spöb. 2. Part plot necessity, part taking ideas from books, part divine inspiration. I dislike to produce useless "placeholder" planets, like Orion in EV. My TC plug will only have about 30 inhabited systems and 40 planets, even less than EV, but each of them will be described in far more detail.
------------------ "I'm beginning to see the flowers from the wrong side"
-The prophet Zarquon, shortly before passing away
My desriptions were so long I had to go into Res-Edit and make the Desc window MUCH bigger...