my sector mapping adventure so far

[JimMarn]

I am mapping 2 galactic arms, opposite side of the galaxy from the Imperium, so its all open area.

I have one sector map in one Arm fairly detailed as far as X-Boat routes and planet names/locations. But looking over several books I have purchased... I found one empire was 512 x 300 plus parsecs. Well, I realized one column of 6 sector maps per Arm wasn't going to cut it.

I got to thinking this past weekend about that.

I came up with, Columns A through J. Each column has 19 sectors. That is for one Galactic Arm. Double it for both Galactic Arms. Plenty of room for Empires, confederations, independant systems, etc.

I have been working on 3 sectors per Galactic Arm. Only one is detailed since I started.

Well, that should keep me busy for a few years.

A typical list for one location would be:

Vespucian Arm, Column B, Sector 1, Sub-Sector B, hex number

What do you think of the idea ?

 

[robject]

Well, I do like your idea of using an "arm" as a unit of galactic mapping. It just makes sense.

Just this afternoon, I was using Polar coodrinates: distance from the Core, and offset from a "zero line".

But I think I like Arm Notation better. Yes.

The tricky part is, where do you START the coordinate notation? From the "center" of the arm? From the tail end?

The other tricky part is, do you align sectors towards the Core, or do you align them along a hypothetical "long axis" of the Arm itself?

And if the latter, then how would you calculate a hundred-parsec jump from one arm to another arm? (Yes, I have to think about these sorts of interesting problems).

 

[robject]

I can answer some of my own questions.

1. An Arm's coordinate system begins with a Ley Line - a galactic line established for the purpose of aligning the various Arms with each other. The Line proceeds in either direction along the Arm. The Zero Point of an Arm contains a galactic position for calculating galactic distances. Local positions are relative to this Zero Point.

2. The Arm is mapped as a horizontal entity. Even though Arms curve, the starchart is a projection map that, if all sectors in an arm were laid out side by side, would look like a gradually thickening band of stars many sectors thick.

3. Therefore, Local positions are relative to whether they are Spinward or trailing of the Ley Line, and coreward or rimward of the Zero Line.

 

[robject]

Well, that should keep me busy for a few years.

Something a few of us are cooking up is a consistent method for generating sector data -- for data which is currently undefined or unallocated: if you give the program the same coordinate key, you get out the same data. Existing data supersedes this data, so for example data defined for Charted Space trumps this. For that matter, any data you generate would supersede any data generated by this system. The basic assumption is that data is generated on a per-hex basis, rather than a per-sector basis, so (for example) if a five-hex radius in an entire sector are detailed, the rest can be programmatically generated.

It won't generate borders, alliances, and whatnot. And of course the starport, population, law, govt, and TL data is only valid for a given "snaphot" in time. But the astrography should be good for a sufficiently large period of time.

There's a proof of concept here: http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/survey/t5-prog/t5sysgen-cgi-burtle.pl. It appends the hex number to a sector key, hashes on that, and uses the hash to seed a small but long-period pseudo random number generator.

The "Sector Key" is a string uniquely identifying a sector. The format is somewhat up in the air, but my suggestion is [galaxy]-[arm]-[offset]. For example, hex 1910 in sector "Coreward 45, Spinward 30" in the Kishad Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy may have a key of "MW-Kishad-c45s30/1910". The offset is relative to the assigned center-point of the arm, wherever that's established to be (i.e. if you're the first to map it out, that's your reference point).

If the offset were rimward 45 sectors from the reference sector, then it'd be r45s30.
If the offset were rimward 45 sectors and trailing 30 sectors, it would be r45t30.

It's in the testing phase: there are simplifications to be made to the algorithm.

 

[Reban]

I really like the idea of stable Sector data. I look forward to seeing it come about.

One thing I don't like about Traveller in all its versions is mapping. Why are Sectors and Subsectors rectangular? Because that fits on a standard page.... :nonono: That just doesn't work in my head for a far future mapping system.

For me a Gurps Traveller Best of JTAS article called "Across the Galaxy" by Allan E. Johnson gave me what I needed: Kiloparsec maps. This map uses the hexgrid with each hex being 1000 parsecs across. At that scale it becomes manageable to map a galaxy at low resolution.

When you go down a layer of resolution you get C Sectors; hexes 100 parsecs across (which accounts well for the thickness of the galaxy too). Sub-sectors are hexes 10 parsecs across.

Just like JimMarn I get plenty of room for empires and galactic geography. Traditional Traveller Sectors are just too square for me but I have to say I like JimMarn's Arm-Column-Sector-SubSector-Hex co-ordinate system more than Robject's Galaxy-Arm-Offset.

Anyway that JTAS article is worth a look for anyone thinking on galactic arm scales.

 

[robject]

I have to say I like JimMarn's Arm-Column-Sector-SubSector-Hex co-ordinate system more than Robject's Galaxy-Arm-Offset.

In order to work universally, we need one additional element: a unique identifier for that particular segment of the Arm. Then we're golden.

I'll leave out the subsector notation here, since drilling down straight to the hex works fine.

Note: When mapping, we probably want to start in the middle column, since we're as likely to drop off the left side as the right. So, column E or F.

Thus, a hybrid: <galaxy>-<arm segment>-<column><sector>/<hex>
And, for the Milky Way, don't use <galaxy>-.

So, hex 1910 in sector column E, row 42, of the zero-th segment of the Kishad Arm in the Milky Way is:

Kishadan-E42/1910

Nice and compact; I like that.

Thus, hex 1910 in sector column E, row 42, of the zero-th segment of the Kishad Arm in Andromeda might be:

ANDR-Kishadan-E42/1910

(I'm using Vilani numbers to count the segments: Kishadan = Kishad arm, section 0, Kishadla = Kishad arm, section 1, Kishadma = Kishad section 2, etc) -- but note that the actual identifier only has to be unique; it doesn't have to follow any other rule.

 

[JimMarn]

I read part of the thread about that hash method. I followed it, but I want my maps to have more of a 'referee thinking bad and good thoughts' method of placement. Like several dry planets in a sub-sector, with 1 or 2 wet planets in the same sub-sector. Or vice-versa. Or a pattern, like a stick figure dancer, showing the X-boat paths. So the Arms I'm mapping aren't canon, and are 180 degrees around the galaxy from the canon areas.

My maps are laid out along the length of the Arm. Sector 1 for every column are together, then Sector 2, etc.

like this:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21 Column A
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21 Column B
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21 Column C
through Column J.

Start of the Sector maps is rather arbitrary. I have tried to place them, so far just in my mind, at a close start point. i.e. same number of degrees around the galaxy. I'll take the Galactic Map linked to below, and sketch map the areas where the sectors are located. I probably have the paths covering too large of the Arms length to ever be mapped as part of the 1 through 19 Sectors.

I made a 'galaxy arm' sketch. I placed 3 'path' areas between the galactic arms so starships can make Jumps to the other Arm.

http://travellergame.drivein-jim.net/articles/41/galactic-map

close up of the paths.

http://travellergame.drivein-jim.net/articles/81/paths-and-the-unknown

The outer sector columns will be the Arm edge on one set of Arm maps, and the opposite side will be partially blank to denote lack of stars, on the other Arm.

So column A on one Arm will be lacking in starts, except where it touches Path 1, Path 2, and Patch 3 ( need 'snazzier' names.) On the other Arm, Column J will lack stars.

Creating the planet maps is very quick using Fractal Terrains 3, then I export to a hexagon Traveller map. Takes about 1-2 minutes per map.

The time is taken up decided what to name the planet, what sector/sub-sector area to place it. Then update the navigation menus.

 

[ShapeShifter]

I was under the impression that galaxy-scale mapping was frowned down on for any Traveller edition. A few years ago I wrote an article on the very subject of mapping the whole galaxy and submitted it to MGP at their invitation but they said that the concept of such large-scale cartographic efforts "wasn't Traveller enough" and refused to pubish it.

One thing that I like about gaming in the Star Wars galaxy is that it is truly vast, whereas the Charted Space in the OTU is small enough to fit into a thimble -- very cramped, IMHO.

 

[tjoneslo]

Right. Part of the problem with Traveller (until the release of T5) was the limited range of the Jump drive. The thimble of space represents more that two years of travel time, longer than any campaign is likely to last.

In JTAS online, there is an old article titled "Across the Galaxy", which details both a jump drive capable of much longer distances (call a Hop, or a Skip drive in T5, depending upon the distance), and the mapping of the local arm of the galaxy for interested party. Plus adventure ideas.

At the current jump technology, the Zhodani core route project exploration limit of about 8,000 parsecs represents about 100 years of travel time; an entire lifetime of work.

The space drive used in star wars has a distance limited only by plot. And much like Travellers over extended time line could be compressed, I think the space the Star Wars universe takes up could be a lot smaller.

 

[JimMarn]

I was under the impression that galaxy-scale mapping was frowned down on for any Traveller edition. A few years ago I wrote an article on the very subject of mapping the whole galaxy and submitted it to MGP at their invitation but they said that the concept of such large-scale cartographic efforts "wasn't Traveller enough" and refused to pubish it.

One thing that I like about gaming in the Star Wars galaxy is that it is truly vast, whereas the Charted Space in the OTU is small enough to fit into a thimble -- very cramped, IMHO.

Mine is 180 degrees around the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. I like mapping. I have over two thousand maps on my Crestar site, for AD&D 1st edition. Since Fractal Terrains 3 lets me export CC3 maps using a Traveller icosahedron map... I think I'll have plenty of planetary maps soon.

One of my relatives is going to run a Traveller campaign. I might do so as well.

As for long distances. My AD&D game world had 3-5, depending on what year I refer to between 1980 and 1985, adventure groups all over my game world. My campaign lasted for 5 years.

As for that publishing company, I think they should have bought your maps. Most gamers have horizon itch. They have to explore and find out what is over there.

 

[aramis]

I was under the impression that galaxy-scale mapping was frowned down on for any Traveller edition. A few years ago I wrote an article on the very subject of mapping the whole galaxy and submitted it to MGP at their invitation but they said that the concept of such large-scale cartographic efforts "wasn't Traveller enough" and refused to pubish it.

One thing that I like about gaming in the Star Wars galaxy is that it is truly vast, whereas the Charted Space in the OTU is small enough to fit into a thimble -- very cramped, IMHO.

Mongoose has a somewhat skewed view of Traveller. I'm not certain they even have a cogent view of Traveller as a game, and their art director certainly lacks such a view.

Their core game is good... but it has some broken bits (like certain columns on the Law Level table).

here's a fun link for you: http://www.astro.indiana.edu/~gsimonel/temperature1.html

 

[Shonner]

I was under the impression that galaxy-scale mapping was frowned down on for any Traveller edition. A few years ago I wrote an article on the very subject of mapping the whole galaxy and submitted it to MGP at their invitation but they said that the concept of such large-scale cartographic efforts "wasn't Traveller enough" and refused to pubish it.

One thing that I like about gaming in the Star Wars galaxy is that it is truly vast, whereas the Charted Space in the OTU is small enough to fit into a thimble -- very cramped, IMHO.

How would you explain a completed map of the galaxy for Traveller?

 

[ShapeShifter]

How would you explain a completed map of the galaxy for Traveller?

I can't go into specifics, but it was heavily inspired by the civilisation in Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy books. In the article's accompanying proposal, I mentioned Asimov's "Foundation", and that the game was inspired by a variety of literary sources including that one. The editor seemed to have never heard of him or it, and thus couldn't see the relationship to Traveller. o: :nonono: That was the moment that I knew that I should have refrained from any association with MGP. It's a cracking good article that I'm quite pleased with, and eventually I would like to get it published somewhere suitable -- or perhaps put it into the CT fanzine I was planning on until RL kicked me in the goolies.

here's a fun link for you: http://www.astro.indiana.edu/~gsimonel/temperature1.html

FUN! I wonder how accurate it may be...

 

[Shonner]

I can't go into specifics, but it was heavily inspired by the civilisation in Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy books. In the article's accompanying proposal, I mentioned Asimov's "Foundation", and that the game was inspired by a variety of literary sources including that one. The editor seemed to have never heard of him or it, and thus couldn't see the relationship to Traveller. o: :nonono: That was the moment that I knew that I should have refrained from any association with MGP. It's a cracking good article that I'm quite pleased with, and eventually I would like to get it published somewhere suitable -- or perhaps put it into the CT fanzine I was planning on until RL kicked me in the goolies.

So how do a billion or so star systems in our galaxy get mapped and be of any use to someone in the Traveller universe? And how long would it take the 3rd Imperium to map the entire galaxy?

 

[Reban]

So how do a billion or so star systems in our galaxy get mapped and be of any use to someone in the Traveller universe? And how long would it take the 3rd Imperium to map the entire galaxy?

There is a difference between mapping and surveying. We're already "mapping" parts of the Milky Way through observation. Using telescopes and spectrographical data we can locate stars and massive planets and gas giants. Using Long Baseline sensors (like Longbow in TNE) or by sending a sensor well above the galactic plane you could map a lot of galaxy using 3rd Imperium technology.

How long would it take the 3rd Imperium? Well at least decades and probably it would be an ongoing project of the IISS. We know its being done because there is a galactic map in T5 with vague references to the existence of galactic civilizations.

What "mapping" doesn't give you is a full UWP. That is what you get from completing a survey. Mapping will give you "System Presence" and "Gas Giant Pressence" plus a few other details that will tell you if you want to make the long trip there.

In galactic terms the 3I is really small in terms of area. There's nothing stopping anyone setting out in a J6 ship and spending there whole life trekking across the galaxy. The addition of hop and skip drives with T5 and the many many homebrew alternate FTL and exotic drives that have been designed gives some referees the need to map larger areas.

For example in one of my ATUs the drives I use cover between 1 and 6 parsecs per day rather than per week, so there fore I use a campaign area 1000 parsecs across, or 167 days from core to frontier and back again by high speed courier.

 

[Shonner]

Don't care what alternate Traveller universes use for jumping and mapping. It's un-Traveller. I can see why Matt was not sold. But that shouldn't stop anyone from going ahead and finishing mapping the rest of the galaxy. I'm curious if sectors will be polar mapped around the galaxy or if the sectors will just be x,y coords with the galaxy centered on the map.

Then what names to call every subsector and how many will be needed to cover the galaxy?

 

[robject]

I'm curious if sectors will be polar mapped around the galaxy or if the sectors will just be x,y coords with the galaxy centered on the map.

Then what names to call every subsector and how many will be needed to cover the galaxy?

That is a big job indeed. As you may have seen, I like the OP's method: cartesian relative to a local arm. At the end of the day, adventures take place in a handful of locations, regardless of how much or little distance separate each location.

The relative slowness of jump lets us concentrate on the worlds in charted space, while also giving every Traveller fan room to "start over", in an OTU-compatible way, in a different part of the galaxy.

 

[JimMarn]

@robject. Yes, lots of room for several adventuring groups. No need to worry about meeting each other and messing things up, getting the accolades first, etc. Of course, that also means no player character help within light years.

 

[JimMarn]

I think I finally figured out UWP. I'm slowly updating the planets on my site. Got about 20 done. Maybe I'll be able to work on some details my next vacation.

 

[JimMarn]

@robject, how is your mapping system coming along ?