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Redefining the TU

http://home.comcast/net/~starcharts/smallimperium/CoreSmall.PDF

I don't care as much for the above PDF. It doesn't seem to buy me anything. However, I think I'll make the antispinward rift a little bigger, reaching Sylea, and pull the Claw Rift over, thus putting Sylea comfortably in the middle of it all.

I was idly wondering if the "original" description of Capital was more intended for Vland...
 
Whilst we are on the subject of rebels against the Empire...what do you think the whole point of MT was? Lucan was certainly no fun fresh prince of Capital.

The Imperium was always what it was an Empire with its basis to be found in its citizens. Good an Evil except in few instances are relative terms. The early Imperium went through pacification campaigns that were bloody, brutal and oppressive. But, it also used its powers of persuasion through consent, compromise and inciting cooperation.

The idea that it can be classed light or dark merely trivalizes the concept of wheels within wheels...a long time assumption about Traveeler epics.
 
The point of MT? To stir things up, I heard? To loosen up the boundaries and provide lots and lots and lots of small-mercenary jobs?
 
kafka47,

Well, if you meant what was the point of Lucan . . . then, I'd have to say the author/designers needed a spoiled rotten brat who could go loudly insane on all the power he had and trample all over the already spilt apple cart.
 
robject, man you ROCK! That's GREAT work! Out-freakin-standing, man!
There are still a helluva lot of worlds I could do without, but this is DEFINITELY a step in the right direction.
Your efforts are SINCERELY appreciated.
 
Hi robject !

You are surely absoluty crazy to do that work, but its just GREAT !

Do You have all these data in one database ?

Respectfully,

Mert
 
Thanks Mert. Actually, the data is just in plain old SEC files. The links above are the data my program uses to generate the PDFs.
 
I was always looking for a plain text datafile containing all the available data, just with a sector name prefix in each line....
 
Yes, that's another option.

I chose this way because it was the easiest to cobble together. It's a compromise; all the data is in one place, which is easy to manage, and the sector data is almost exactly verbatim. The only change I made was to add a formatting line for each sector, indicating the offset for each sector.

A third option is to have a control file, which lists the sectors of data to use, how to translate each dataset, and the sector data file names. I think that's the most powerful solution, because SEC file can be used 'out of the box', without having to change them at all. The caveat is that you've got to manage N+1 files, where N is the number of sectors being displayed, plus the control file.

For this purpose, flat SEC files is the right way to go. No infrastructure required. If I had to do a lot of work to calculate more than what exists in the SEC files, I might prefer a more robust solution.
 
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
Well, people are posting their dot maps, I find this one to be particularly interesting, and it's only a 180kb .gif file.

Heaven & Earth 2: Galaxy Module Beta: Imperium Dot-Map

EDIT--------------------
And here's a picture of Corridor sector, to boot.

Heaven & Earth 2: Sector Module Beta: Corridor
Click to expand...
Simply beautiful. Very nice graphics.

Ah, and mine aren't dotmaps... they're the whole enchilada. Have a look at the smaller map... the hexes actually have the UWPs inside of them.

Unfortunately the Big Map is too small a scale to be viewable up close, plus PDFs are just bulky at that size.
 
robject,

Aha! No wonder the file was 2mb.
 
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
kafka47,

Well, if you meant what was the point of Lucan . . . then, I'd have to say the author/designers needed a spoiled rotten brat who could go loudly insane on all the power he had and trample all over the already spilt apple cart.
Click to expand...
Well, I don't think they wanted just another spoiled brat they wanted to illustrate that the Imperium is not a fortress of virtue but rather the decline of noblese oblige and the consquences of the republican ideal (as expressed in Dulinor).
 
Now, I've heard it said that some want to rework the economics. I'd start by making the computer programs cost only thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of credits, like the computers (tens or hundreds of thousands at most). This seems more like a system change, but would still have to be worked into the OTU.
 
Originally posted by kafka47:
Well, I don't think they wanted just another spoiled brat they wanted to illustrate that the Imperium is not a fortress of virtue but rather the decline of noblese oblige and the consquences of the republican ideal (as expressed in Dulinor).
Click to expand...
Yeah, that too.

<glyph of mightily restraining myself from launching into an anti-Rebellion Timeline diatribe . . . >
 
alpha.gif
..awaken..mute:off..commbuffer:open...

Kudos, Rob! Thanks heaps for this highly useful thread. Muy Bueno!

This is very much along my own lines of thought for MHTU (my HERETICAL traveller universe
file_22.gif
): combine handpicked worlds/clusters from ALL favored sources/eras, handwritten bits inspired by other sources (other SF games, novels, etc.), and filled out with carefully generated H&E random output. Re-arrange some astrography (rifts), borders, scale, and history to fit. You can still use virtually any adventure written for Traveller with minor modification.


You are currently way ahead of me (I just got started), but I will put forward my 0.02Cr on alternate astrography.

I intend to use square sectors and subsectors. I like hexagonal star maps, but not 8.5-to-11 proportions. My subsectors are slightly smaller than canon, at 8-columns wide by 7-hexes deep. A conventional sector would therefore be 28 parsecs across (32x28) and approximately square. I may consider smaller sectors, perhaps 21 parsecs (24x21.., 16x14 seems kinda small for a "sector", hmm...).

Additionally, I intend to map "wilderness" stars throughout known space, i.e., emtpy or uninhabited systems. I will stick with the "one system per hex, exactly centered" trope for simplicity, but not all occupied hexes will contain "worlds". Many of these systems will be simple brown dwarfs (or similiar "trash" stars) with little or no system features or fuel sources. A rare handful will be actual navigation hazards with dangerous local effects. Fully inhabited Jump-1 mains will be somewhat rarer and much more significant. Better hiding places for unethical merchants and more scout patrol opportunities, even well behind political borders. Higher jump numbers more useful than even before. So.., smaller, but also more spread out. Long distances can still be maintained.

My heresy has just begun, but I thought this little bit might compliment your thinking...

omega.gif
 
Great points, Silent. I've thought of square sectors and subsectors, too; I decided the leap was too expensive for what I was doing. For now, I wanted to get the most bang for my buck, which means using the familiar 8x10, 32x40 styles.

Daryen has also been contributing to my dementia, by talking about the lack of true, uncharted, unknown wilds bordering the Imperium. So I've been thinking about where to put them in MTU. Foreven, I'm thinking. Also thinking of shifting Zhodane a bit coreward and trailing... etc.
 
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