I don't think it is mentioned anywhere in T5 and in fact the implication is that real space and jump space are both 2d, as NAFAL drives allow for interstellar travel in T5 without Jump but there is no indication that a different map should be used. That is, if a system is a parsec away in jump space it is also a parsec away by NAFAL.
Real-universe jump distances
- Thread starter Adam Dray
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I don't think it is mentioned anywhere in T5 and in fact the implication is that real space and jump space are both 2d, as NAFAL drives allow for interstellar travel in T5 without Jump but there is no indication that a different map should be used. That is, if a system is a parsec away in jump space it is also a parsec away by NAFAL.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
But wait... again, confused.
In 1981, in the passage I quoted above from Miller's White Dwarf interview, Miller literally says that a 2D map is not a reflection in any way of "real space" or the use of any kind of specific technology. There's no reason at all to think real space or jump drives, or any other FTL tech is bound in any way by a 2D map designed specifically, as Miller states clearly, for the convenience of RPG play.
Having looked at T5, what I find regarding the the geography of jump space is this:
This actually defines very little, and leaves it to the reader to decide what the geography of jump space is for his or her setting. I'm not sure how
For my own reading, because I like it, a Navigator plotting a jump needs to find a unique jump space from the jump point to the exit point. (He or she is sorting out which of the continuous series of alternative spaces is the best one for this particular jump, given the distance to travel, the presence of interstellar bodies along the jump line and so on.)
That the tool used for RPG play is 2D does not mean that the reality of the fictional setting is trapped at all in a 2D environment. That Miller apparently said something different to aramis doesn't change the fact T5 doesn't say anything about this.
I continue to be baffled by the contortion people are putting themselves though to build a tech based off a Referee's tool for sitting down with friends to play an RPG. That said, I see the pleasure people are taking in these efforts and also admire the efforts.
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that is me as well: I play to have fun (not that arguing in a good way is not fun - see the last sentence below). But I also entirely ignore the MOARN (Map Only As Really Needed) ethos promoted in T5: I just enjoy mapping out a lot more than will ever get used in any games I run, but it is quite enjoyable for me.
I too am following along with the conversation, and I do enjoy the effort, and may even use parts of the conversation in games. Though I am of the vein of the maps representing jump space, not real space. Beyond that it gets hazy and as none of my players ask...
So two Jump Engineers were talking over beers about jump space, and the arguments started...yeah, I can see using bits and pieces of this thread.
Given that we now have almost ubiquitous computing, there is no practical reason to stick with 2D maps. Something like Astrosynthesis can produce perfectly clear and usable 3D maps and will run on a basic laptop.
A Traveller style 2D map can work so long as everyone accepts the map is of jumpspace relations only and is not depicting real space locations. Although I still don't see any reason to settle for that, these days.
Then again, it might be an interesting plot device using a 2D Traveller map to have a ship (or an invasion fleet) appear somewhere after a sublight-speed crossing from a system that is far away in jumpspace, but happens to be nearby in realspace...
A Traveller style 2D map can work so long as everyone accepts the map is of jumpspace relations only and is not depicting real space locations. Although I still don't see any reason to settle for that, these days.
Then again, it might be an interesting plot device using a 2D Traveller map to have a ship (or an invasion fleet) appear somewhere after a sublight-speed crossing from a system that is far away in jumpspace, but happens to be nearby in realspace...
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Because we're sitting around playing an RPG with friends, with the focus being Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far Future.
Since for some people learning a new programming and doing no plotting of the stars will take time and add nothing to play that a simple 2D map on a sheet of paper can't handle, there is no real need to focus on this.
I can also use a laptop to make 3D representations of starships, planetary terrains, mountain ranges, star bases and more... but that doesn't mean the game is going to get any better to do that work.
Since prep time is time, a question of "How is my time spent prepping best used?" is always valid.
For me (at least) the practical reason for sticking with 2D maps is that switching to 3D maps will have no effective change on a group of men and women with ambition and drive getting caught up in adventures across a subsector and will use time that can be spent doing anything else.
I'm not trying to push people to use 3D maps, but I do take issue with this misrepresentation that it is somehow difficult. There are inexpensive commercial applications available that are no harder to use than filling in a subsector map in pen and paper. No learning programming languages required.
Not only are they no harder to use, they can have advantages. The programme I use generates entire star systems at the click of a mouse.
Beyond the ease of generation, I also disagree that it adds nothing to play. Have you actually tried it? In 3D, at least the way I do it, inhabited systems are a small proportion of the total. The feeling is "points of light". The "empty" systems could have *anything* in them. You get much more sense of the vastness of space.
I don't want to push people into playing one way or another, but neither do I want to see people discouraged from trying something different.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
I am sorry for the confusion.
I never said using mapping software was "difficult." I said it was extra time. It literally is extra time to learn how to use the software. And it is extra money.
Your claim was that there is no practical reason not to use 3D mapping. My counter is that there is no practical advantage, and the practical reasons are time and money.
I am not arguing people should not use 3D software. People should also painting miniatures, build terrain for encounters, print out 15mm deck plans for the PCs' starship, and any number of wonderful props and visually stunning elements they want for their RPG. All of ths stuff is wonderful! I do things like this too!
But I see nothing practical about it. I see the fun of such things, I see the visual delight of such things (which is not to be discounted). But there is no practical benefit. One can play the games without any of these things -- just as one can use a single sheet of paper and a pencil to quickly draw a subsector map.
I'm not discouraging anyone from anything. But when you wrote "... there is no practical reason for anyone to stick with 2D maps..." I think you have overstated your case.
I never said using mapping software was "difficult." I said it was extra time. It literally is extra time to learn how to use the software. And it is extra money.
Your claim was that there is no practical reason not to use 3D mapping. My counter is that there is no practical advantage, and the practical reasons are time and money.
I am not arguing people should not use 3D software. People should also painting miniatures, build terrain for encounters, print out 15mm deck plans for the PCs' starship, and any number of wonderful props and visually stunning elements they want for their RPG. All of ths stuff is wonderful! I do things like this too!
But I see nothing practical about it. I see the fun of such things, I see the visual delight of such things (which is not to be discounted). But there is no practical benefit. One can play the games without any of these things -- just as one can use a single sheet of paper and a pencil to quickly draw a subsector map.
I'm not discouraging anyone from anything. But when you wrote "... there is no practical reason for anyone to stick with 2D maps..." I think you have overstated your case.
A very interesting point!
I can think of several reasons I don't use 3d universes...
- Extra prep to build the maps
- extra time in play to either do the trig or use the software
- I dislike using computers during play
- I don't want players using electronics in play at all due to temptation to tune out.
- Most players don't think about travel nor combat in 3D
- if I'm doing 3d, I have the urge to to space combat in 3d as well...
- 3d space combat only matters once you hit 4 ships. (it takes 2 points to define a line, 3 a plane, and 4 a volume);
- 3d space combat requires a lot more math
- 3d space combat benefits strongly from flight-stand systems, which I cannot afford
- Players often have troubles visualizing 3d combats without props or computer displays
I prefer my fiction in 3d, but in game, 2d works so much easier and without the disruptive influence of computers at the table.
I use a software package that costs USD35; of course, it's up to individuals to consider how that might fit their gaming budget. Writing as a middle-aged technophobe, I was up and running with it in about 5 minutes, and it is on net faster for me than manually rolling dice to fill out a subsector sheet. Hence, I believe my case is well-grounded, and rather, that you are overstating the difficulties.
Whenever the topic of 3D mapping arises it always seems to run into a sort of wilful obtuseness about the possibility, which I blame on folk memories of clunky experiments with stacked paper subsector maps or written-on Z coordinates.
Anyway, with time on my hands during lockdown, in the course of an evening I set up the Interstellar Wars era space around Sol (from the GURPS book) in a real-stars 3D sector, using a list I found in another thread that mapped Traveller worlds to real stars. I look forward to giving it a spin when my face to face gaming resumes.
More of my (more generous than normal) prep time is focused on a non-OTU sector based on the old trope of a volume of space at the other end of a wormhole, which gets cut off for a few hundred years, and then opened up again. Inspired not least by creativehum's blog, I've tried to think quite carefully about what sort of circumstances could lead to a sector that works more or less according to Books 1-3.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
I'll repeat: If you're having a good time with mapping with 3D software, I'm really glad! It sounds like you are!
Folks care about how long it takes to get from X to Y, up, down, right, left, north, south, doesn't really matter.
Most folks flying from the West Coast to Europe know or care that the plane follow a "great circle" route. Most who might give it a second though probably think the planes just head east over New York and the Atlantic.
What are you using as your source of Traveller to real stars? I've got a list going too, and it's a mix of canonical mappings and conjecture, but even at that there are a number of nearby real world stars that as far as I know don't have Traveller counterparts. Here is my map of <=6 pc space. Traveller names in large black text, associated stars in smaller red text and smaller blue text represent stars that do not have (to my knoweldge) Traveller analogues.
Is the cube 6 pc on a side, or are the start within 6 pc of Terra? (thus the cube being 12 pc on a side)
Given Dingir and Forlorn are mapped, it looks like 12 pc on a side.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
Uh, no... you've just shown that any "2D jump space" is, indeed, a retcon (retroactive continuity, a plot/writing device introduced later to explain something that didn't make sense or that changed).
The whole 3-D star map thing got settled for me very quickly.
Traveller came out near same time as that SPI weirdo classic, StarForce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarForce:_Alpha_Centauri
So I looked at using that, had a nice workable map and it's not a big deal to just multiply jumps by parsecs.
Just not worth the effort for play effects.
Nowadays I just use the Imperium map with J-1 limits and refueling at Oort clouds (not minding the need for gravitic 'stop wells'). Noted all the star types, built my systems off RTT Worldgen per stellar effects and first 100 years, done.
Whatever works.
Ironically, the Alien RPG map reminds me a lot of a simplified but bigger Starforce map, a lot less drawing lines on routes but still ship speed and refuel limits, works for that game. Just a different gig.
Traveller came out near same time as that SPI weirdo classic, StarForce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarForce:_Alpha_Centauri
So I looked at using that, had a nice workable map and it's not a big deal to just multiply jumps by parsecs.
Just not worth the effort for play effects.
Nowadays I just use the Imperium map with J-1 limits and refueling at Oort clouds (not minding the need for gravitic 'stop wells'). Noted all the star types, built my systems off RTT Worldgen per stellar effects and first 100 years, done.
Whatever works.
Ironically, the Alien RPG map reminds me a lot of a simplified but bigger Starforce map, a lot less drawing lines on routes but still ship speed and refuel limits, works for that game. Just a different gig.
The Milky Way 's disc, for example is approximately 1 kpc thick but thickness can vary for discs in other galaxies."
Just FYI, the above is, What is generally considered fact.
From that, as Earth has only just crossed the galactic plane, we have about 500 pc above us, and below us.
And as "Not all systems above and below are represented", max jump for a TL 15 world is Jump 6., we can infer a +/- 3-6 off the galactic main (z axsis)
Allowing for Imperial Standard tech of J2 (TL 12) and providing we can assume that the slice of worlds listed on the Traveller Map/AKA Charted space is a flat "slice" and not twisted or bent, the plane for 3I mapping is only 4 pc thick.
We can infer from this, that countless worlds are available for those wishing to make their own "Congruent" Jumpspace maps, so long as they do not propagate closer than 36 parsecs form Earth. (the minimum distance allowed by a 1d6 x 1d6 misjump to be possibly fully off the map.)
My opinion. Have fun. Sci fi is able to handle all of that, and "20 minutes in the future", it can handle an alternate Mileu just outside of Jump distance.
Just FYI, the above is, What is generally considered fact.
From that, as Earth has only just crossed the galactic plane, we have about 500 pc above us, and below us.
And as "Not all systems above and below are represented", max jump for a TL 15 world is Jump 6., we can infer a +/- 3-6 off the galactic main (z axsis)
Allowing for Imperial Standard tech of J2 (TL 12) and providing we can assume that the slice of worlds listed on the Traveller Map/AKA Charted space is a flat "slice" and not twisted or bent, the plane for 3I mapping is only 4 pc thick.
We can infer from this, that countless worlds are available for those wishing to make their own "Congruent" Jumpspace maps, so long as they do not propagate closer than 36 parsecs form Earth. (the minimum distance allowed by a 1d6 x 1d6 misjump to be possibly fully off the map.)
My opinion. Have fun. Sci fi is able to handle all of that, and "20 minutes in the future", it can handle an alternate Mileu just outside of Jump distance.
To be clear on how I'm generating this map, I use the canonical Traveller systems->real world stars list, supplemented with another group of conjectural systems, then look up the real world positions and plot the system as the real world location. Dingir, for example, I have listed as CD-34 11626 which is 143 mas of parallax and therefore 6.99 parcec away. The geometric map distance on the travellermap would be 7.21 parcec away, but we also know that canonically space is not defined geometrically and the "actual traveller distance" is 8 parsec.
When I draw the map, sometimes I will draw objects outside of the bounding box and depending on how I rotate the view, it might appear inside. It's hard to draw 3d on a 2d screen
