Looks like Type O got cut from that table, and the numbers were changed. Most notably (other than Class O’s cut) is that the Notable Phenomena table is now just at 20, not the whole 16-20 range.
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Which, I guess, seems reasonable give the rarity of the star type.
Even if you made the O-type Star the result if you roll a 20 on the Notable Spatial Phenomena Table, one of them is likely to happen in 1/8000 rolls (you’d need three 20s, or 0.000125% frequency). That means, in game terms, that the O-class Star shows up an order of magnitude more frequent than current science believes (~0.00003% frequency).
BC
Actually, since there is technically more than one “Notable Spatial Phenomena” table… (the probability to get a T-Tauri star is 1/40,000 if all sectors are evenly distributed among the… regions that are called sector, too). 
It would still be fare off, though.
I have a bunch of other questions. Some of these fall into the realm of “I’m trying to apply science-y math to a fundamentally math-light set of rules” but I have difficulty ignoring real world science, even if it’s in a realm that’s not fully understood.
So here are my questions:
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The Shackleton Expanse book uses some planetary classes that do not appear in the Core rulebook. I think, mostly, there’s enough information about the classes to understand what they are. The one I don’t fully understand is the Class-I (Ammonia Clouds) class. The Star Trek: Star Charts book describes Class-I planets as gas supergiants (not to be confused to gas ultragiants, Class-S and Class-T). Are these two Class-I designations describing the same world? The Star Charts book uses this text: “Tenuous, comprised of gaseous hydrogen and hydrogen compounds; generates heat.” Ammonia is a hydrogen compound. Is that what’s being described?
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There are, sadly, no instances of Class-H, Class-N, Class-T or Class-Y generated by the tables (there are a bunch of other classes, in Star Charts, but those four are listed in the STA Core book).
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The Inner Worlds Table and the Outer Worlds Table are the same (in my v1.1 version of the Shackleton Expanse book). Is that right?
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Some other RPGs (e.g. GURPS: Space) assert that most giant stars (e.g. Luminosity Ia, Ib, II) don’t have planets. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the rules about that.
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A thing I have difficulty wrapping my head around: the primary world’s orbit number is generated by die roll. I can, for example, roll up an M5V with 7 orbits, where the primary world (a terrestrial planet) is in orbit #5. But a star that insubstantial has a very close garden zone. (GURPS: Space says 0.1 to 0.2 AUs; Star Hero argues 0.025 to 0.042 AUs). If my terrestrial world is that close to the star, it seems unlikely that there are four inner orbits containing other planets. (Maybe I should imagine that the terrestrial world circles a gas giant that’s providing necessary heat?)
BC
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- That’s the same in my version. I suppose that the tables could be differentiated, perhaps with a heavier weight towards iceballs for outer planets, and maybe the addition of class Y for inner?
Of course, that leads to the issue you raise in 5: random rolling planet orbits leads to what is perhaps unscientific, in that stars have certain energy outputs that might determine planet types in a way that contradicts the dice. I suppose the planet tables could be expanded with certain tables per star type, or something…
But the question is does it matter? It might for a number of Star Trek fans (and I would prefer leaning to real-world accuracy and canonical consistency), but for a casual game, is it enough to just say ‘here’s a star and its planets’? The nice thing about an RPG is that you can do whatever you want, whether it’s because ‘hey it turns out Starfleet discovered loads of planets around Ia, Ib, and II stars’ or ‘this super powerful ancient race decided to experiment with planet building here’ or ‘that’s just how the system is’.
There’s also perhaps an argument to be made that most Star Trek games will focus on class M planets, and just the planets, which is what I recall most Star Trek episodes doing. Sure there’s other stuff in a system, but unless it’s plot relevant, I would assume the GM would just handwave it to an extent. Plot relevant system items or non-M planets are likely to be more involved than a dice roll generator anyways.
YES!
For some roleplayers, world-building (or, say, star system building) is as much fun as playing in said systems. The Traveller group I occasionally play in has (repeatedly) spent entire sessions on collaboratively going through the same random tables over and over again, coming up with great (back)stories on each walkthrough.
For some GMs, random tables are an add-on because the randomness sparks ideas they never had before. Take e.g. the GM that focusses on M class worlds (because they’re so predominant on screen) who, because of the random tables, has to think of a plot set on a Y class demon planet, because that’s what the tables gave them.
And for some GMs, random tables are great to reduce preparation time. You never know when a player asks “okay, and what besides this M class planet do I survey in this system?”. If you got random tables, you can just open them, take a few dice and answer, smiling: "Well, let’s see… "
The randomness will guarantee that not all systems have a medium sized yellow or a big red star, one M class, one gas giant and an asteroid belt…
The new “Captain’s Log” stand-alone solo RPG provides several metric tons of randomness that are more than useful in a hex-crawl setting. Some of the tables I used above are updated (including the star generation table which now contains class O stars). If I find the time, I might compile an update to my initial posting.
Until then, I more than heavily recommend all hex-crawlers to consider buying “Captain’s Log” – imho it’s the one thing you really need for a Star Trek Adventures hex-crawl! 
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I am really looking to use some of your hexcrawling ideas. Great thread 
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Sorry, what is the challenge die for? We ignore the result if it’s not an effect or?
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Good question, actually. 
I stumbled over this one myself; it seems that I was interrupted mid-thought, wenn I wrote this. And then I forgot it for a second time, thanks for bringing this up!!
To be honest: I don’t know exactly, anymore, what I planned with this.
But I still know the problem I was going to solve, being: How many phenomena does every sector entail?
The Sector Generation rules both in Shackleton and Captain’s Log seem to indicate either “one phenomenon per sector” or “choose how many you want”. Don’t like both, actually; I wanted more randomness.
Maybe the CD was planned for “only if effect is rolled” (1/3) or “only if there’s no blank side up” (2/3) there would be one phonomenon. Maybe it was “roll d20 on number of notable systems, add CD, substract 1 if effect is rolled” or something. I’d go for this, actually.
I will have to think about it and I think adding modifiers for the “regions” is in order.
So, I promise to come back with a better fix to this.
In the meantime: Really big thanks for actually using this thread and reporting this error I made. You’ve really brightened my day, thank you!
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I’m currently creating my map Let me know if you plan on developing the Spatial Phenomena aspect in the immediate future! But yes, the resource is very helpful!
Don’t know why I did not add this comment already when the book came out, but: The Federation-Klingon-War Tactical Campaign Supplement, in particular it’s tactical campaign ruleset, can be adapted to a hexcrawling-campaign.
The principle can be seen in this blog post over at Continuing Missions where the author combined Captain’s Log and the Tactical Campaign for, let’s mint in in a classic hex-crawl term: random encounters.
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I love this! I just purchased the Shackleton Expanse and will be attempting to run this with my family (wife and sons) before and after the Khitomer Accords during the Movie Era.
I grew up playing WEG Star Wars and fell in love with The DarkStryder Campaign. I would like to give the same sense of raggedy edge to Shackleton Expanse as the WEG Kathol Sector, and I think using a hex map to track discovery and movement is brilliant.
As an aside, has anyone had success in incorporating the FASA Triangle in the Shackleton Expanse?
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The Triangle is actually on the Shackleton Expanse maps, roughly where you would expect it: nestled in between the UFP and the two empires, just east of the Azure Nebula.
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Thank you! I was able to skim before traveling for Thanksgiving but will need to give a deeper read tonight.
It’s on the map, but you won’t find it mentioned in the text - FASA material is non-canon, after all.
Sorry if I was unclear.
The Triangle and a couple of the worlds contained in it are mentioned in The Klingon Empire core book. The Klingon Empire core map also includes the Triangle on it (same map was used in the Shackleton book).
The various STA writers and I have dropped in a bunch of beta canon elements into STA over the years from FASA, comics, etc.
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