Your Faraway Sector

[SpaceBadger]

My collegiate project one summer was a C-64 BASIC program to create entire sectors with every system detailed down to the planetary level, with orbit, UWP, climate, and number of moons for each planet (I don't recall if this was using LBB6: Scouts or an older system from a White Dwarf article by Andy Slack). I still have four thick folders, each with printouts for a single sector. Never did play in any of them, however.

 

[Kilgs]

Unfortunately mine's locked up in Universe data that I can't get at... stupid new OS.

 

[robject]

My collegiate project one summer was a C-64 BASIC program to create entire sectors with every system detailed down to the planetary level, with orbit, UWP, climate, and number of moons for each planet [...]

Do you still have the BASIC program?

 

[robject]

FYI, there are a couple of sectors such as these on TravellerMap, tucked in around the edges of charted space. Going forward I'll probably insist that they be located at distant locations. Still browsable, searchable, printable, etc.

(And I have a pending Varan update for Dalthor I haven't posted live yet. My bad.)

Varan is WAY out there, actually outside of the galaxy, or so it seems!

 

[inexorabletash]

Varan is WAY out there, actually outside of the galaxy, or so it seems!

Whoops! I was just picking numbers that were off by a factor of two or so. Fixed!

I've placed the "faraway" sectors (at this point, just Varan and the Judges Guild Gateway Quadrant) in the area that the T5 map shows as "Occasional human contact and exploration".

 

[Timerover51]

I have been going through the online Library of Congress Copyright Registrations, and verified that all of the Andre Norton and H. Beam Piper books that appear on Project Gutenberg are copyright-free and in the public domain.

Little Fuzzy is copyright-free but not the follow-on books, as those were published posthumously, and are still protected.

As long as I restrict a Norton-Piper sector to the copyright-free works, is there any problem with putting together such a sector?

I was hoping for some guidance from the moderators with respect to this. The idea would be for a supplement requiring Traveller rules to fully use.

 

[Orr]

I was hoping for some guidance from the moderators with respect to this. The idea would be for a supplement requiring Traveller rules to fully use.

You've already been given the example of John Scalzi and Fuzzy Nation, so some guidance exists whether you choose to believe it or not.

Scalzi originally wrote the book for himself, he didn't write it on spec or as part of a contract. When he gained success from the Old Man's War series, he realized his earlier "Piper fanfic" might be worth publishing. Although Fuzzy Nation only rebooted the events of Little Fuzzy alone, Scalzi, his agent, and his publisher felt it was still necessary to negotiate with the copyright holders of the two Fuzzy sequels.

You've a recent example of a real author, a real agent, and a real publisher acting on advice from real lawyers to negotiate with the copyright holders of the Little Fuzzy sequels before releasing a book which references only Little Fuzzy.

The parallel between Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation which "only" referenced the public domain Little Fuzzy and your proposed Piper/Norton setting materials which "only" reference those Piper/Norton works which are in the public domain should be rather obvious.

YM will undoubtedly V.

 

[aramis]

Keep in mind that the work itself might be public domain, but the trademarks might not be, and derivatives of it can and do tie up characters, unique settings, and unique polities.

IP law is particularly ugly stuff. Especially since the US doesn't actually require registration of Trademarks to enforce them, and has migrated character and unique setting protection into the copyright laws, and allows them to remain tied by derivatives in practice...

My unofficial viewpoint on it is this: I don't mind at all. Proceed with due care and non-monetized intent and it probably won't be an issue.

[m;]My official viewpoint is undecided at this time, and I'm not making a final decision. I don't have enough information to do so.[/m;]

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Farwhen Sector...

Well, I don't have a Faraway sector per sé, but I do have my ATU which is off the spiral arm and is the distant future though its connection to the OTU is nebulous at best. So, not sure if it counts, but I am interested in having it on TravellerMap.com.

 

[SpaceBadger]

My collegiate project one summer was a C-64 BASIC program to create entire sectors with every system detailed down to the planetary level, with orbit, UWP, climate, and number of moons for each planet (I don't recall if this was using LBB6: Scouts or an older system from a White Dwarf article by Andy Slack). I still have four thick folders, each with printouts for a single sector. Never did play in any of them, however.

Do you still have the BASIC program?

Possibly somewhere; I'm somewhat of a packrat. On the other hand, in recent cleaning of my office, I remember trashing some old spirals with program code in them (and I mean thoroughly trashing; this was mixed in with stuff from my law office, so it all got shredded).

The second problem is that whatever is written down would probably be first draft, before a bunch of bug fixes. Once I finally got something working, documentation was never my strong point.

One last chance is that I still have my C-64, along with the floppy drive and a bunch of 5-1/4 floppies. I've been trying to find a TV that still has the right connections (two screws for rabbit-ear antenna) to connect the C-64 so I can find out if any of the floppies are still good, or lost some bits over they years. If so, maybe I'll find the program.

 

[aramis]

Possibly somewhere; I'm somewhat of a packrat. On the other hand, in recent cleaning of my office, I remember trashing some old spirals with program code in them (and I mean thoroughly trashing; this was mixed in with stuff from my law office, so it all got shredded).

The second problem is that whatever is written down would probably be first draft, before a bunch of bug fixes. Once I finally got something working, documentation was never my strong point.

One last chance is that I still have my C-64, along with the floppy drive and a bunch of 5-1/4 floppies. I've been trying to find a TV that still has the right connections (two screws for rabbit-ear antenna) to connect the C-64 so I can find out if any of the floppies are still good, or lost some bits over they years. If so, maybe I'll find the program.

all you need is a balun - to connect that 300 ohm twin lead to a 75 ohm coax antenna in, on any TV with an analogue tuner. You can get them as low as $2 + shipping. Know the right term, and a google will find you lots of options. But the truth is, if you've got an RCA-plug out into the switchbox/adaptor, and the switchbox/adapter has a twin-lead to the TV, you can skip the switchbox/adapter completely, and just get a coax male to RCA female adaptor for about $5.

 

[Ulsyus]

My current project has been ongoing for a while. I tried to go to mapping it in 3D after running a 2300 game for a number of years, but for the sake of simplicity have warmed to the concept of going back to regular Traveller mapping.

I had done a lot of this using TNE, and built a starship design spreadsheet for that version of FF&S, which converted the final details into Battle Rider stats to use for miniatures games. (Necessary as I have far too many space/starship miniatures and need to play more games with them...)

 

[robject]

all you need is a balun - to connect that 300 ohm twin lead to a 75 ohm coax antenna in, on any TV with an analogue tuner. You can get them as low as $2 + shipping. Know the right term, and a google will find you lots of options. But the truth is, if you've got an RCA-plug out into the switchbox/adaptor, and the switchbox/adapter has a twin-lead to the TV, you can skip the switchbox/adapter completely, and just get a coax male to RCA female adaptor for about $5.

Barring that, you can find Commodore fans on the 'net who will digitize a C64 floppy, often for free. The result: a handy-dandy D64 file emailed back to you, ready to run in an emulator (like VICE).

 

[inexorabletash]

Stealing Rob's term, here are work-in-progress guidelines for how I'll segregate sector submissions going forward (and perhaps retroactively):

http://travellermap.com/doc/submit

Well, I don't have a Faraway sector per sé, but I do have my ATU which is off the spiral arm and is the distant future though its connection to the OTU is nebulous at best. So, not sure if it counts, but I am interested in having it on TravellerMap.com.

Yep - see above link.

Alas, it's manual work for me at this point, and I don't have tools for submitters to validate their data before they send it to me. Working on it...

 

[inexorabletash]

Barring that, you can find Commodore fans on the 'net who will digitize a C64 floppy, often for free. The result: a handy-dandy D64 file emailed back to you, ready to run in an emulator (like VICE).

Yes, please pursue this if possible! I archived my old Apple II floppies a few years back (okay, maybe a decade ago now), but I had all the hardware available (at the time) to do it myself.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Yay!

Stealing Rob's term, here are work-in-progress guidelines for how I'll segregate sector submissions going forward (and perhaps retroactively):

http://travellermap.com/doc/submit

Yep - see above link.

Alas, it's manual work for me at this point, and I don't have tools for submitters to validate their data before they send it to me. Working on it...

Coolness! I will have to get back to the sector data validation then. Thanks.

 

[Brian Smaller]

My Faraway Sector is Holowan riwmard of the Solomani Rim. I originally had it called Rim Worlds but that was taken in the official universe. It is up on travellermap.com. I wanted somewhere far enough away from The 3I and the Solomani Sphere that they were places "somewhere out that way". Technology is generally lower - TL12-13 is the highest in the region for the most part. Lots of pocket empires, small interstellar states and independant planets. They were mostly settled in the Terran Diaspora around the time of the Interstellar Wars - and then subsequent waves of secondary colonisation from established colonies - so they have a lot of national flavour - modified by thousands of years of history, rise and fall of technology etc etc. One human minor race is present.

http://www.travellermap.com/?x=-13.001&y=-223.063&scale=21.859375

 

[rancke]

Well, I don't have a Faraway sector per sé, but I do have my ATU which is off the spiral arm and is the distant future though its connection to the OTU is nebulous at best. So, not sure if it counts, but I am interested in having it on TravellerMap.com.

I don't have a Faraway sector either. To me such a sector would lack the greatest benefit of campaigning in the OTU -- all the material developed by other people that I can use. If I were to create a Faraway sector, I'd either make very sure that there was some contact with the Third Imperium or I'd make up my own universe out of whole cloth.


Hans

 

[inexorabletash]

Alas, it's manual work for me at this point, and I don't have tools for submitters to validate their data before they send it to me. Working on it...

Still a work in progress, but a sector data checker is up at:

http://travellermap.com/tools/lintsec.html

My Faraway Sector is Holowan riwmard of the Solomani Rim. I originally had it called Rim Worlds but that was taken in the official universe. It is up on travellermap.com. I wanted somewhere far enough away from The 3I and the Solomani Sphere that they were places "somewhere out that way".

I may ask to move it farther away from Charted Space at some point as the T5SS progresses. Right now it's in the boonies, but still not quite "faraway".

 

[Brian Smaller]

Still a work in progress, but a sector data checker is up at:

http://travellermap.com/tools/lintsec.html



I may ask to move it farther away from Charted Space at some point as the T5SS progresses. Right now it's in the boonies, but still not quite "faraway".

No worries mate - I just love having it online on your fabulous map - makes it so easy for my gaming group.