Star Maps

[gardclan]

I've been working on a nodal starmap for the 2300AD universe.

Node maps make no effort to place the precise location of the objects in question, but rather relative positions and distances with respect to how one moves between the various "nodes". A flowchart if you will. Given the lack of good quality starmaps online and the difficulty viewing them, I figured this might be easier for my players. I make no claims as to the accuracy of my work, but I think its fairly OK

I've also got the distances between each hop listed on the route line (in light years). The idea was to give merchant crews the ability to put a finger on the map, trace a line to their destination, and quickly come up with both distances and projected ETA.

An abysmaly low quality image of the map can be found at:

http://groups.msn.com/starshipendeavor/maps.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=75

The actual map exists in a PDF file, and is vastly easier to read. Please note, this is under construction and far from complete. Once I have the missing stars filled in, and the Chinese arm mapped out (on page 2), I'll post the PDF somewhere that it can be accessed.

In the meantime, if anybody would like a copy shoot me a PM or something and I'll send you a copy of the work in progress.

 

[kaladorn]

Nyrath the Nearly Wise (the Indispensable Cartographer of Space for the Full Thrust Universe):

http://www.projectrho.com/starmap.html

Checkout most especially the 'maps' he has already done.

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
Nyrath the Nearly Wise (the Indispensable Cartographer of Space for the Full Thrust Universe):

http://www.projectrho.com/starmap.html

Checkout most especially the 'maps' he has already done.

Excellent site. Thats where I got the idea for the node map. ^_^

 

[kaladorn]

Sorry, it was when you said no maps had been done up for nearspace - I've got a couple of the ones he did for GZG stuff and a couple of good catalogs - that's what made me think of it.

I remember fondly the old 2300 starmap (although it is the ONE thing I lost out of my original Traveller 2300 boxed set...^#%$@!!!!!!) and the whole idea of 3D space (even sans visualization) was fantastic. Yes, I know there were some bogus systems in it (or so I've been told, to prevent 'skyjacking') but it was still a damn good resource.

Nyrath's site gave me some good basic data for doing a 'real stars' game. If I was ambitious enough, I'd also build an appropriate viewer...

 

[gardclan]

Oh, agreed on almost all points. For the record however, I said "lack of good maps", not that there weren't any. I should perhaps have been more clear on that one. 3d starmaps among others have some very good ones, to be certain. But nobody maps the whole thing in one place unless you have the old black and white maps that came with the boxed set.

Also if you compare the number of maps to the sheer volume of mapped space in, say, Traveller? Its not even close (even considering the larger volume of space). And those that do exist tell you only where things are. With some stars named for colonies and others by the star name... it gets a tad hard to find things at times.

As to my efforts on the maps: Well, to be honest its rather relaxing. I've learned a lot even with the node format, and I'm ending up with something I can hand to my players for quick reference.

I had considered using one of the nodemaps i saw online... but that wouldn't be my map, it would be somebody else's. For whatever thats worth.

Anyway, I'm going to finish the chinese arm, clean up the first page I just posted, and then maybe (if I feel very VERY spry) figure out which other stars are close enough to reach from the existing locations by tug and tuning.

Thats the plan anyway.

 

[kaladorn]

I found even mapping the GZGverse was a challenge (as the canonical refs don't have any stellar background to speak of). The Traveller (3rd Imperium Traveller, as opposed to Trav 2300) map might very well suffer the same situation.

Nyrath's data at least gave me most of the stars in and under about 20-30 ly. And he had a weeded set that left the 'likely to be useful' ones in a smaller set (still large). That was a good start as when I started looking into the different stellar catalogs, my head started to spin round like the poltergiest bit....

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what you evolve.

 

[Vorlanth]

Awesome map Rhys Trask. Good work.

I had actually posted something similar (though not as fancy) back in March - you can see it here. Not certain what software you are using, but if you can make any use of the Chinese Arm Map I put together to speed your work, feel free.

And please post to let us know when the final work is done and where we can download it.

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by Vorlanth:
Awesome map Rhys Trask. Good work.

I had actually posted something similar (though not as fancy) back in March - you can see it here. Not certain what software you are using, but if you can make any use of the Chinese Arm Map I put together to speed your work, feel free.

And please post to let us know when the final work is done and where we can download it.

Actually, thats a huge help. If you don't mind my using it as a baseline to start from, I'd be most appreciative.

I am using Pagemaker to layout and format my maps. Its probably not the best for the job, but I know it well and can work quickly with it.

I've also found a nice solar mass to spectral type relationship, so I have a chart made up to relate the size of the FTL shelf with respect to the spectral type of the star in question. Thats going on the map set too when I'm done.

 

[BMonnery]

Nice, reminds me of the subway style map of the GG2 page, or my own subway style of of the American Arm.

Can the 7.83ly Wolf 461-Klaxun world by explained with a large outer body. Binary systems, for example, generally reference only the position of the central star, while the other star is a perfectly acceptable discharge point, and probably a few tenths of a ly distant, leading to effectively an increased reach.

The American Frontier seems slightly confused, Avalon and Aligeri (sp?) are not included, and together with Highland these are the future potential colony worlds in the area (ignoring the non-canon Beta Aquilae cluster, which was never needed anyway).

Bryn

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by BMonnery:
Nice, reminds me of the subway style map of the GG2 page, or my own subway style of of the American Arm.

Can the 7.83ly Wolf 461-Klaxun world by explained with a large outer body. Binary systems, for example, generally reference only the position of the central star, while the other star is a perfectly acceptable discharge point, and probably a few tenths of a ly distant, leading to effectively an increased reach.

The American Frontier seems slightly confused, Avalon and Aligeri (sp?) are not included, and together with Highland these are the future potential colony worlds in the area (ignoring the non-canon Beta Aquilae cluster, which was never needed anyway).

Bryn

The data set I'm using is from the 2300AD near star list, and the 2320 near star list (which seem pretty much the same from what I have). Where things seem odd I have been cross referencing with Gliese3. ONLY where they seem conflicted or where the distances on the route map seemed odd to me.

The 7.83ly hop between Wolf 461 and DM+17 2611 is highlighted in red to denote that its a longer hop than the 7.7ly limit. Its listed as 7.83ly because thats what the math says it is. Those stars I did double check against the gliese, and their coordinates are correct (at least as far as I can tell).

As to the explaination? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Given that its an exploratory route, it could be that this particular hop is done only with the aid of tugs or tuned drives.

Avalon and Algeri are not listed anywhere in my data set, and thus they are not included on my map.

 

[gardclan]

The map has been updated again. This time its three pages long. Included are the american, french, and chinese arms. Added is a spectral class to solar mass comparison and FTL shelf size by star type chart, some basic travel and commerce data, and some other things.

Missing items: There are two stars in the American arm that simply cannot be gotten to, yet are shown with routes on the old maps. I think these may be BMonnery's missing colonies. However, with a mean distance of 18ly and no other nearby stars, I opted to omit them from the map.

Also, in the chinese arm, there are some routes which were too long. Those were either omitted or conjecturally listed as tug routes. See the designer notes on the maps for details

YMMV.

 

[TJP]

Excellent work, Rhys! These would be great for the coming 2320AD book (hint, Colin!).

Is there any chance that you'd get a higher resolution version of the maps to the pictures gallery, as the documents section requires me to have a MSN log-in and I'd rather not have one.

Also, I noticed that in your positional map, you've dubbed brown dwarfs as Type D. However, Type D is what's used for white dwarfs not brown dwarfs. Can't now remember what the brown dwarfs were classified as, Type L?! In the map legend, you could just list them as "Brown Dwarf" and not "Type D". Or something.

 

[gardclan]

Sadly, MSN limits the resolution of the pics in the gallery But, since the service and the page is free its always worked well enough for game headquarters purposes. The actual doc is in an acrobat format. If you shoot me a PM with your email addy I can shoot the thing to you.

As to the brown dwarf, I'm pretty sure those get classified as BD or something similar. I'll go look that one up and maybe update the map after I've let it sit aside for a while.

Thanks for the compliment though.

 

[Colin]

Only a couple of brown dwarfs exist in 2300 (Back Door and ISO 417) Back Door gets a BD designation, while ISO 417, is, well, ISO 417...

As for using these maps in 2320, I did mention in the playtest that I would like to see "subway" style maps. Maybe each arm could have a "subway" style map, while all of Human space could get the more traditional flat 3-d map. Then there's Alien Space...

Colin
2320AD writer

 

[gardclan]

Yup, brown dwarves are type "L". I'll get that updated on the map. As to brown dwarves themselves, the confirmed list according to NASA is as follows:

Gliese 229b (that one is near Kapteyn's star)
PP115
Teide 1
Calar 3
Kelu 1
Denis-P J128.2-1547
and
LP 944-20

There may well also be a nearby neutron star or two. If I can find those, I'll put them on the map.

OH, there is an overview map on the page now as well. Its a positional 2d plot of all three arms on one page.

Colin: I had intended these for player use, and not really meant for publishing. Thus, they contain non-canon data. If you would like to use these, I can produce a more canon set to your liking without too much modification to this format. Ping me a PM or something and we can sort that out.

 

[Alain]

I liked the last map (subway)! I wonder if you could expand you map up to a radius of 50LY? I'm asking because I'd like to extand the setting for a game of... 2450AD!

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by Alain:
I liked the last map (subway)! I wonder if you could expand you map up to a radius of 50LY? I'm asking because I'd like to extand the setting for a game of... 2450AD!

The current map already goes to about that, but mainly in the french arm. Expanding the map is going to be a great deal of work because its not simply a matter of dropping in more star systems (like in Traveller). Each point along each arm will have to be checked coordinate wise for nearby stars inside the 7.7ly limit.

The data set provided in 2300AD is pretty limited in that regard. However, in a star map i am working on for a different game I used the hipocaros/gliese dataset provided at

http://www.projectrho.com/HabHYG30ly.csv

THAT sucker uses a completely different coordinate system than 2300AD does, but does have the benefit of additional stars closer in. Which means, it might nicely expand any or all of the arms (or maybe none of them), but to find out you have to start over with the new coordinates. If you would like to do your own maps its a fairly simple proposition. 3dstarmaps.com has some good pointers to get you started.

I may try that at some point, but right now its not something I intend to invest effort in for a game my players have decided not to play anyway.

 

[BMonnery]

I'd suggest using the Warp98 software. There's a link on my webpage.

www.geocities.com/Area51/9292/2300/

Bryn