So my Battletech game was humming along quite nicely, when the players did something I didn't expect. They've decided they want to settle out in the deep periphery (basically, past the edge of civilized space). That means developing the planet(s) they convince to join with their new alliance, including at least one world that's essentially unsettled.

I'm looking for something that covers building and development on a strategic scale. It's ideally something they can play through as a minigame or something I can use behind the scenes to determine building costs, time, manpower, population, etc. If it matters any, I used Diaspora's system generation rules for creating the star systems.

So...any ideas?

DonJon has a free online fractal planet generator if you need a random world map. FracPlanet, if you want to download and roll your own planetary surface. Sometimes just seeing a map is enough to inspire landing/settlement sites and weather conditions.

Since you're already using Diaspora for general traits, you probably don't need anything hardcore. But, if you do, I can always dig up my customized version of Accrete and post that. [Oh hey, StarGen is pretty close... http://www.eldacur.com/~brons/NerdCorner/StarGen/StarGen.html]

As for a development mini game, maybe the later stages of Dawn of Worlds would work...
http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf

The idea being that you could use the core mechanics and hack in the BattleTech specific terms.
--
TAZ

This is actually a small tangent from your question...

but I hear this is a pretty good resource:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Periphery-Bat ... 1555602762