Mapping a new universe

[JimMarn]

And what to do with those representation in 2d of a 3d unoiverse (eother by colours, by numbers or whatever it is) when 2 or more stars appear in the same hex (just at different "height"?

I'm afraid it can end being quite a messy map...

In this case, I gladly sacrifice realism for playability, but that's only my choice/opinion...

I hate it when my keyboard does 'select all' and I don't notice.

Anyway, I'll try again.

I'm using a 3D vertical map template to show the layers in each sub-sector.

So even if there are two stars in the same hex, looking down, the side view will show them separate.

The link I posted is going to be a cluster of stars just a few parsecs thick. I star cluster over a hundred parsecs thick is not in my future, I hope... Hopefully I wont rip my hair out before I'm done. And hopefully I don't stay awake thinking of ways to make the 100 parsec in diameter cluster work.

 

[aramis]

The colors are for layers, not the star type. Otherwise a good suggestion.

In CC3 I can set the map to print the black as white. I'll have to see what effect that will have on the text.

I got that first time - but using the same order for layers is going to help most people remember the sequence; the haphazard color sequence used is non-memorable, while most people know ROYGBIV, especially Astronomy Fans and Paranoia Players.

 

[SpaceBadger]

while most people know ROYGBIV, especially Astronomy Fans and Paranoia Players.

I'm sorry, Citizen, but you are not cleared to share that information. Please put your hands on your head and face the wall.

ZZZZZAP!

The Computer is your Friend.

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm - a 3d subsector is a cluster...

I like the terminology.

How many of these would be a sector equivalent? Eight for a 2x2x2 "cube".

 

[aramis]

Hmm - a 3d subsector is a cluster...

I like the terminology.

How many of these would be a sector equivalent? Eight for a 2x2x2 "cube".

The next larger size is 3x3x3, and that's 27 clusters. Anything over that's probably too big.

 

[Kilgs]

One way to keep things neat, I found, if you're using paper is to "explode" the maps.

Take a Sector map and sketch out the big picture of your setting. Then, instead of the subsectors depicted within, make them full Sectors or Quadrants. This lets you keep an eye on the overall depiction and borders when you're adding in the detailed stuff.

========
If you're actually going full 3D, I recommend a look at Astrosynthesis.

 

[JimMarn]

I got that first time - but using the same order for layers is going to help most people remember the sequence; the haphazard color sequence used is non-memorable, while most people know ROYGBIV, especially Astronomy Fans and Paranoia Players.

Its been decades since I last used ROYGBIV... I am using my sister's laptop, I don't have an air card in my desktop. My relative's don't use wired Internet. When I can get my desktop back on lone, I'll change it.

 

[Chuck Anumia]

Note if you want "realism" you will need to go 150 parsecs above and 150 parsecs below and you need to roll for every 1 "cubic" parsec for a system.

My problem with 150 parsecs on the X and Y access is the distortion you would encounter with Jumps from one system to another.
A 2D map shows two systems one jump apart. Now they may be 3, 6 or 100 jumps away from each other up or down. That would mess up the entire X-Boat route system.
I could see a three layer system with the middle level represented by the OTU maps and Upper and Lower levels made up of different systems plotted by GM's who only retain the sector and subsector names but have entirely different planet compositions.

 

[whulorigan]

My problem with 150 parsecs on the X and Y access is the distortion you would encounter with Jumps from one system to another.
A 2D map shows two systems one jump apart. Now they may be 3, 6 or 100 jumps away from each other up or down. That would mess up the entire X-Boat route system.
I could see a three layer system with the middle level represented by the OTU maps and Upper and Lower levels made up of different systems plotted by GM's who only retain the sector and subsector names but have entirely different planet compositions.

The way I do it is to define a z-dimension, with each occupied hex being up to +/- 5 pc above/below the plane. I note the +/- value in the hex. That defines the prime sector. I can put another grouping of subsectors above and below this one, and call it the North or South projection of the Sector (that is where I put non-canon or fanon versions of a sector (or my own creations). It creates a complete Sector that is 32pc x 40pc x 33pc.

Now if I really want to, I can put other complete Sectors (which would have different respective names) of this type stacked above/below the main one up to 5 to 10 above/below, respectively, at which point you reach the Northern and Southern boundaries of the Galactic Plane.

I just keep the OTU and its polities largely within the confines of the prime sectors and their respective North and South projections (my rationale being that that is where the Ancients terraformed, for whatever reason, and modern colonization followed those more or less hospitable colony-worlds).

 

[Hanson's Roughriders]

One way to keep things neat, I found, if you're using paper is to "explode" the maps.

Take a Sector map and sketch out the big picture of your setting. Then, instead of the subsectors depicted within, make them full Sectors or Quadrants. This lets you keep an eye on the overall depiction and borders when you're adding in the detailed stuff.

========
If you're actually going full 3D, I recommend a look at Astrosynthesis.

Thanks for that - brilliant stuff Ill adapt that.... Now to work on my factions.

 

[JimMarn]

Its been decades since I last used ROYGBIV... I am using my sister's laptop, I don't have an air card in my desktop. My relative's don't use wired Internet. When I can get my desktop back on lone, I'll change it.

I've started working on this... the neighborhood internet fails for several hours each day at about the same time. Maybe it will improve once school starts.

 

[JimMarn]

Done reworking the Vespucian Arm, Sector 6 map from aramis' suggestion. Moved the stars around as well.

 

[JimMarn]

Wowsers on the date. I had hoped to get back to this before now.

I came up with how I am going to handle a star cluster. I'm using my laptop, but hope to get my desktop ( bigger monitor and a better video card) online this year.

Here is the link to the color-coded by layer Sector map:
http://travellergame.drivein-jim.net/articles/657/vespucian-arm-column-g-sector-6-map

I'll be making a Sector map for each layer. There are 7 layers in this map. I decided the vertical slices showing every level and how they connect may be too confusing; however, I may have to draw those as well.

A little over 600 stars in this cluster... that will more than double the number of systems on my site. Of course, UWPS only on a few planets are done.

Stars per level: Level one 68; Level two 35; Level three 191; Level four 186; Level five 64; Level six 54; Level seven 38.

 

[JimMarn]

For some reason I keep forgetting this is here.

Anyway, I started looking for certain planets in my ATU as I wanted to put in downports, villages, etc.

Turns out some of my planet articles aren't linked from the sub-sector they are in.

And a few planets are listed as being in the wrong sub-sector, or sector.

So for about a week I have been checking each one. About 100 done, 1119 left to check.

So if you stopped by my site and got a 404, my apologies.

I'm working on it. Hopefully I'll get done this year. Then add more UWPs and planet surverys.

 

[nobby-w]

I would love to see a way to represent a 3D galaxy, in map and location of the stars.

Well, at a scale usable by my eyes.

You can use a 3D map that looks like this (http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/12lys.html) that can project the 3D positions of the stars onto 2D. This will work with positions of stars but doesn't really help much in visualising borders or regions of space. For a subsector-sized region of space it would work OK without too much clutter.

In practice, it won't really scale up to a large region of space without getting unwieldy. For a sector-sized region of space (about 100 LY across) you would have 64 maps. However, the relatively short ranges of Traveller starships are designed to facilitate sandbox gaming in a small region of just a couple of subsectors. With a jump 2 ship you could easily set a whole campaign in a map with maybe 8 (2x2x2) subsectors the size of the example shown in the link. With the density in the map that would be about 250 systems. You could have (say) 1/3 of them inhabited and have enough worlds for a reasonably substantial sandbox campaign in a region about 50 light years across. You could also build subsectors off the edge of that region as needed.

Past that, you get into using a computer to do the mapping, and build an application that allows you to zoom, move around and look at regions from different angles. You might also need to be able to filter stars out of the view to reduce clutter on large regions.

I'd say modern mobile tech such as an iPad would be convenient enough to use an app of this sort at the table, but it would be a significant effort do develop it. I'm not sure such an app exists as such, and it would require development skills and a non-trivial effort to write. Whether this would be worth your time for your campaign is debatable, and making an app polished enough to publish and support commercially would be a major undertaking.

Unless you really want to go down this route I suggest you stick with a 2D map. I made a decision like this once, although I was doing the game about 25 years ago before mobile technology such as iPads were available.

Given the schematic nature of Traveller subsector maps, they really have to be treated as an abstraction for gaming convenience (after all, GDW was originally a wargaming company). While we have enabling technology now that wasn't available in the 1970s, I don't think the schematic nature of the maps detracts from the game at all.

 

[JimMarn]

Atlas of the Universe is one of my fave sites.

Another method I came up with to show a star cluster, was a regular Traveller sector, but I used different color dots to show layers.

This is the drawing I made.

http://travellergame.drivein-jim.net/articles/657/vespucian-arm-column-g-sector-6-map

 

[Straybow]

JimMarn: Your system needs a way to present stars on multiple layers in the same hex, otherwise it is just a lumpy 2D layout

 

[JimMarn]

Yeah, I do have a CC3 template for a vertical map for each sub-sector. Unfortunately that would double the number of maps for that cluster. That means over a thousand maps just for that one cluster.

I don't intend on making multiple clusters.

 

[nobby-w]

I'd suggest that if you're getting into thousands of maps then you're probably a bit ambitious - it would be a campaign of biblical proportions that could actually use a map that big. Unless you want to publish an alternative setting I can't really see the point.

What you need is a region that sits in the border between two or more interesting polities. The polities themselves can be as big or small as you like.
Although the 3rd Imperium and surrounding bits are huge, nobody ever really does a campaign that spans the whole region.

With a 3D map you can easily expand to a very large number of stars within a comparatively short range. If you keep your starship ranges to typical Traveller levels of 2-3 parsecs, a 3D sector map (of any type discussed here) would let you map out a big enough sandbox in a region just a couple of subsectors across. Remember, Traveller is designed so that you can do a sandbox trading campaign in just a couple of subsectors.

Maybe I'm teaching you to such eggs, but ...

Having been a bit of a grand world builder for 35 years or so now, I find that the setting is best sketched up with a few notes and maybe a brief (no more than a few pages) timeline. Come up with about one level of detail below your basic concept so you have a view of how the bits fit together.

Now design the bit you want to set your campaign in. Do the bits you need to start with. If it's a sandbox trading campaign you might need to roll up enough subsectors to do a few dozen worlds. Then write up as many adventures for the campaign as you want to prepare to start. Write up background material (e.g. library data) as you go.

Even today I find that I can start out world building and then produce stuff that never gets used. It's useful to give yourself a sense of the setting but then it's better to go into the adventures and fill in detail to support them.

Recently I've been tinkering with a space opera setting for FATE, which is intended to be appreciably more pulpy than a typical Traveller setting. Although I've used a Traveller-ish mapping scheme for the sectors (If Sine Nomine Games can get away with it, so can I) I might go to a 3D scheme with ships having about a 10LY range at some point.

If I get involved in reffing another Traveller game (the Weald seems to have a dearth of Traveller players) I'm tempted to take a more story-oriented approach to world building for that as well.

Which brings me back to ...

If you start with just enough universe to set your campaign in and just flesh out the background enough so you can see the region in context, you can probably get a useful start with just a few subsectors rather than having to roll up hundreds or write something to automatically generate them.

 

[JimMarn]

Well, my Crest of a Star, 1st edition ad&d, site had a small continent area to start with. Its now an entire planet. (Edit: over a period of about a decade I made Crestar larger.)

My Traveller maps seem to be very popular. Over a gigabyte of maps downloaded, one at a time, last month.

I just like to make maps. I'm using Fractal Terrains 3 from Profantasy to make the planet maps. The only thing I have to do to the maps is look in my spreadsheet of planet names I made up, put one on the map, save the png, upload it, and post an article to my site on which sector and sub-sector it belongs to, etc. The whole kit and kabodle is on the other side of the galaxy from Earth. I picked the 'astronomy shadow' area, approximately, so there wouldn't be conflict with already existing system names. I also changed the galaxy arm names.

I don't think of it as a campaign/game session area, more as me drawing up interesting places someone out there might be interested in gaming with. I certinaly get lots of visitors. Most less than 30 seconds, but there are some who spend over an hour there.