Yes, in my Traveller gaming experience, it's never been important to the game to know a great deal about the entire sector. Figure your PCs are using adventure class vessels, which means that they are most likely limited to Jump-1 or Jump-2.
What a work on the entire sector is good for is to peruse and help you pick a subsector or two on which to set your focus. Most of the Traveller campaigns I've run haven't strayed too far from one subsector. If you want to be extremely complete, brush up on your main subsector and the eight others that circle it. The J-6 map that is suggested above is a good idea. Or, if your adventure/campaign is set on a linear course, from world to world to world, then it's easy to develop those worlds.
If "official" information is important to you, seek it out. But, also know that there's not a lot of "official" info on specific worlds (with a few exceptions).
If you've ever read
The Traveller Adventure, you'll know that it is an entire campaign set in a single subsector.
If you're just starting out with Traveller, don't bite off more than you can chew. Give the PCs a vessel capable of J-1 and land lock them. This is how
The Traveller Adventure begins.
Look HERE at the J-6 map centering on Aramis, the starting world of that campaign. Notice that there are only seven other worlds where a J-1 vessel can journey. Creating/Discovering details about those eight worlds--spread out over three subsectors--is more than enough to keep a beginning campaign going for a long, long time. As the game develops, a player goal may be to earn enough credits to either get a new ship or upgrade the current vessel's drive to J-2 (or, in the case of
The Traveller Adventure, obtain demountable fuel tanks that reduce cargo room).
Part of the fun I get as a GM is creating "character" for each world the players visit. Consider a name for the part of space where the planet sits. In the Traveller Adventure, those eight worlds, all linked by J-1, are called the
Aramis Trace.
The seat of government for the subsector is on Aramis, which is the personal fief of the Marquis of Aramis, but political boundaries prevent his domain from spread across the entire Aramis Trace. Of the eight worlds in the Trace, only four fall under the juridiction of the Marquis (as those four worlds are all of the Trace that falls in the Aramis subsector): Aramis, Natoko, Reacher, and L'oeul d'Dieu.
Reading the world descriptions in the Traveller Adventure is inspiring for a creative GM. Sometimes, there's not much to know about the entire world. Aramis has a toxic atmosphere and consists of one city (not even that big of a city) that exists, under ground, in an old mining cavern. Yet, Aramis is not only the seat of political power for the subsector, but also boasts the highest level of technology in the entire subsector.
I like to look at the "facts" a world gives me, then start making deductions about the place. For example, with Aramis, it's on an X-Boat route, has one of the few Class A starports in the region, includes a military base, a Naval base, and a Scout base, and has the highest tech in the region. Given the type of world (the surface I've always envisoned looks like that the crew of the Nostromo explored in the first Alien movie, except very cold), most of everything in the city must be imported. It's probably highly cosmopolitan, and a lot of shipping companines must call Aramis home. You can probably throw a rock and hit a Scout or a serviceman on leave. Judging by the size of the city, most of the manufacturing must be directed at local use. There isn't any room for large manufacturing concerns that export to other worlds in the subsector.
You probably won't see too many vehicles manufactured on Aramis, either. People in that city either walk or use the slidewalks. Notice how Marc, when writing the Traveller Adventure, went through the same exercice that I am suggesting here. He took the "givens" about Aramis and then extrapolated to make an interesting place for players to explore.
There's an "air tax". Interesting, huh? It makes sense. How is it enforced? People wear disposable bracelets that change color. If a policeman sees a person without a bracelet or one that is now colored black, he'll ask about it, possibly leading to a fine.
Let's speculate. What would the police in a place like this look like? Well, with the sealed environment and the high tech, I would think that they'd employ a lot of non-lethal weapons. A GM could have a neat time designing some interesting weapons for use in the game. Maybe a billy club that has a taser on the end? In the movie
Minority Report, there were these neat sound-based weapons that could knock over and incapaciate targets. I could see something like that in use here.
I would say that Leedor Security (Leedor is the name of the city) is entirely operated by the Marquis' personal guard. It's the Marquis' personal army (though they would be ill-equipped to face a real army on Aramis' surface). They probably don't wear any type of armor unless in a crisis. I would think that their uniforms are flowery with braid and design. If they do need to resort to weapons, then they use weapons with low penetration. Shotguns, riot helmets, Cloth armor, and tear gas launchers would be common.
I could go on and on. I enjoy this type of stuff.
You might want to read through the thread I have in my link that talks about
Reading A Subsector. That will get you thinking about creating the various details as I've been discussing, making the worlds your players visit memorable.
That way, when they think of Aramis, or Pysadi, or Natoko, or wherever, they'll always remember that place. It won't be, "Hey, remember that world we went to where..." It will be more like, "Hey, damn! Remember that joker on Aramis!"
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