Maybe I've missed this in the updates and posts but does anyone know if astrography will be two dimensional (e.g. CT, MT, TNE) or three dimensional (e.g. Alternity, Spacemaster)? I'm assuming the plane would be determined by Reference or Capitol's position for the Imperium, while other stellar polities would have their own (the Solomani, for example, might use Sol as a reference plane).
Astrography
- Thread starter Arsulon
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lord irial
SOC-12
Perhaps further down the line they can do a cd-rom with 3-d star charts and navigation/fuel consumption simulators. If I had anything near the programming expertise, I'd volunteer, but I can barely code html most days.
Several people have done work on converting Traveller astrogration to 3D. There's a program called CHVIEW (Here: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~jaymin/chview/chv0.htm ) which does an excellent job of showing a 3D.
If your're truly interested in 3D starmaps I suggest http://www.projectrho.com/starmap.html
Traveller, in all it's long years, has not gone to 3D mainly because there is no good way to print a 3D map on a piece of paper. And still cover 10,000 stars.
In order to keep the relative value of the jump drives, you would need to adjust the jump ranges.
None of this is hard, Chris Thrash wrote an excellent article about using CHVIEW for Traveller 3D. It's in the JTAS archives http://jtas.sjgames.com [You need to pay for a subscription].
You can make a Traveller 3D universe, but it's just not the Imperium anymore. You either end up with thousands of times as many worlds or the Imperium becomes much smaller. Or both.
If your're truly interested in 3D starmaps I suggest http://www.projectrho.com/starmap.html
Traveller, in all it's long years, has not gone to 3D mainly because there is no good way to print a 3D map on a piece of paper. And still cover 10,000 stars.
In order to keep the relative value of the jump drives, you would need to adjust the jump ranges.
None of this is hard, Chris Thrash wrote an excellent article about using CHVIEW for Traveller 3D. It's in the JTAS archives http://jtas.sjgames.com [You need to pay for a subscription].
You can make a Traveller 3D universe, but it's just not the Imperium anymore. You either end up with thousands of times as many worlds or the Imperium becomes much smaller. Or both.
I always just told my players that the 2d maps were a result of the unique topography of jumpspace... and that the maps don't represent the ACTUAL position of the star systems, but rather how you get there in jumpspace.
The only people who can map the actual position of the stars from the jumpspace maps are astrogators, whom have to use complex matrix and tensor calculations to plot them.
OK, so the idea was generated by a handwaiving octopus... but at least it seems to work well enough to quiet my physics professor players (or at least get them to groan quietly and go back to rolling dice)
The only people who can map the actual position of the stars from the jumpspace maps are astrogators, whom have to use complex matrix and tensor calculations to plot them.
OK, so the idea was generated by a handwaiving octopus... but at least it seems to work well enough to quiet my physics professor players (or at least get them to groan quietly and go back to rolling dice)
Well, if you can't handwave like an octopus in a SciFi game how we get by in real lifeOriginally posted by john gardner:
I always just told my players that the 2d maps were a result of the unique topography of jumpspace... and that the maps don't represent the ACTUAL position of the star systems, but rather how you get there in jumpspace.
The only people who can map the actual position of the stars from the jumpspace maps are astrogators, whom have to use complex matrix and tensor calculations to plot them.
OK, so the idea was generated by a handwaiving octopus... but at least it seems to work well enough to quiet my physics professor players (or at least get them to groan quietly and go back to rolling dice)
. I like your answer by the way. Simple and irefutable (your the GM after all). bozzutoman
SOC-12
That was the same explanation used in Star Control II (for any who remember that game). I used the same explanation myself.
