For generating the planets I obviously use the Traveller world creation system but I also use a handy little quick generator by Morrus at EN World.  I quite like this. It’s a fun, simple way of generating the outline of a star system. I had to cheat a bit, though as the star creation is weighted toward red stars and I wanted more yellow main sequence stars, simply because each of my main planets is an earth-like biome and so, whilst they don’t need to be exactly the same as our Sun, they need to be similar. I have made some exceptions where it would make the planet more interesting. Also, with gas giants usually having around two dozen moons in the Morrus generator, there is more real estate to set adventures on than I imagine I could ever need in a campaign. So I created the system using the Morrus generator and then picked a planet in the system to be my hero planet and statted it out using the Traveller world creation, cheating a bit in places as I’d already decided on each planet’s dominant biome. Also, as unrealistic as it is, I want most, if not all the main planets to have a largely Earth-like atmosphere. PCs might need a mask or environmental clothing for some but on the whole, they should be habitable without a vacc suit. At the moment most main planets share the name of their star (or vice versa). I can’t decide if it would be more or less confusing to give them separate names. Let’s work through them for now.

The Morrus Star System Generator can be found here:

Morrus Star System Generator

So let's look at the first star alphabetically:

Adana

Single Star System. White Main Sequence Type F

System Features: Spatial Anomalies and Psychic Phenomena

8 orbiting Planets

1: Adana - Rocky Planet - Desert - Small - 0 Moons

2: Rocky Planet - Water - Giant - 13 Moons

3: Gas Giant - 16 moons

4: Gas Giant - 19 Moons

5: Rocky Planet - Icy - Large - 1 Moon

6: Gas Giant - 28 Moons

7: Gas Giant - 25 moons

8: Dwarf Planet

Planet Adana 

Size: 3 Small

Atmosphere: 5 Thin

Hydrographics: 0 Desert

Population: 4 10,000

Government: 4 Representative Democracy

Law Level 3: Military Weapons and Flak armour banned

Starport D - 20 Cred berth, Unrefined Fuel, Limited Repairs.

Tech Level: 6

Bases 0

Trade Codes: De, Ni, 

This is going to be my Tatooine. It has a single, white, main sequence star Type F. I imagine stars like this probably give off huge amounts of radiation and would likely sterilise any planet in its orbit but we’ll handwave that and say that it doesn’t. Adana is, however, going to be very hot, desolate and sandy. It has a thin atmosphere, due to the paucity of water and plant life. Also, due to the harsh conditions of the planet it has a low population of around 10,000. Probably mostly employed in and around the starport or on scattered ranches farming livestock, water or crops, maybe even sand-whalers. They have a representative democracy, so I’m guessing it would be a collection of farming cooperatives and officials at the starport and there would be a government meeting hall at the Starport itself. The Starport was a C which I wasn’t sold on. This is a podunk backwater with a very small population. I want all my major planets in each system to be at least a D. Starports E and X are reserved for the minor planets and moons. I think a D suits this place much better so I changed it. There are no bases here, which is fair enough and its trade codes are Desert (obvs!) and non-Industrial.

Other than the starport change I’m quite happy with that. The star system generator also created other planets in the system that are predominantly ocean and ice but I’m ignoring them as I already have an ocean and ice world. I imagine that there might be small mining settlements on each but otherwise they are inhospitable and not worth visiting most of the time. Morrus also randomly generates weird phenomena in the system. There’s a lot of repetition, sadly but this system has Spatial Anomalies and Psychic Phenomena. I don’t know what I’ll do with those yet and I might well ignore them, but they might make for interesting quirks upon entering the system. Echoes of ancient technology.