Plankowner
SOC-13
What if you used an Octagonal jump-unit instead of a hex like the Imperium? Would it work then?
Sub-Sector / Sector Size
- Thread starter Plankowner
- Start date
Plankowner,
Octogons won't work. It's like Kepler's sphere packing problem. If you used them but you'd need other, different sized shapes to fill in the resulting gaps. Look at a soccer ball, it uses a variety of shapes and sizes to 'fill' or 'cover' the space it has to.
Your remarks concerning dukes and duchies are spot on. I don't know if you have G;Nobles yet but it pretty much kicks the legs out from under to whole "Subsectors Alway Equate Duchies" idea. The Regina duchy controls all of the Jewell subsector along with parts of the Lanth, Aramis, and Vilis subsectors while the Rhylanor duchy controls another part of Aramis with the remainder of that subsector going to the Pretoria duchy 'over the border' in Deneb.
As for the shapes other races use, hexagons and squares of various sizes are all you can work with if you don't want the 8x10 rectangles of canon. any other shapes will need 'fill-in' shapes in the same manner as a soccer ball's 'skin'.
IMTU, subsectors are merely leftover IISS mapping designations. Remember, nearly every subsector was once a district like 268 in the Marches. The Scouts parceled up the territory they had to map in neat little 8x10 parsec boxes for ghu knows what reason and the shape stuck more out of social inertia than anything else.
So, IMTU:
- The nobility doesn't really use them as it is a very rare duchy that incorporate exactly one subsector.
- The Navy doesn't use them for pretty much the same reasons the nobility doesn't. External threats and internal patrolling needs don't follow subsector borders.
- Megacorps use them out of habit but, like the duchies, their 'subsector' regional offices rarely incorporate exactly one subsector.
- They work for the Army because the Army is neccessarily interested in hi-pop worlds and not the Imperium's internal interstellar borders. The Army's day-to-day work is at a level 'below' that of subsector, so where the subsector borders are drawn don't really effect them that much.
- The bureaucracy likes them because subsector borders are different from duchies' border and that gives the Filing Cabinet Commandos a nice bit of wiggle room; i.e. "Sorry Duke of Earl, ArgleBargle-IX may be in the Earl Subsector but it is not part of the Earl Duchy."
- Everyday folks use them because they're like postal codes. That fellow from Towers is from Towers/Aramis/Spinward Marches and not Towers/Pretoria/Deneb no matter what the Duke of Pretoria says. It's like flying into Cincinatti, the airline says Cincinatti, Ohio but the people who live there know it's really Covington, Kentucky.
Have fun,
Bill
Octogons won't work. It's like Kepler's sphere packing problem. If you used them but you'd need other, different sized shapes to fill in the resulting gaps. Look at a soccer ball, it uses a variety of shapes and sizes to 'fill' or 'cover' the space it has to.
Your remarks concerning dukes and duchies are spot on. I don't know if you have G;Nobles yet but it pretty much kicks the legs out from under to whole "Subsectors Alway Equate Duchies" idea. The Regina duchy controls all of the Jewell subsector along with parts of the Lanth, Aramis, and Vilis subsectors while the Rhylanor duchy controls another part of Aramis with the remainder of that subsector going to the Pretoria duchy 'over the border' in Deneb.
As for the shapes other races use, hexagons and squares of various sizes are all you can work with if you don't want the 8x10 rectangles of canon. any other shapes will need 'fill-in' shapes in the same manner as a soccer ball's 'skin'.
IMTU, subsectors are merely leftover IISS mapping designations. Remember, nearly every subsector was once a district like 268 in the Marches. The Scouts parceled up the territory they had to map in neat little 8x10 parsec boxes for ghu knows what reason and the shape stuck more out of social inertia than anything else.
So, IMTU:
- The nobility doesn't really use them as it is a very rare duchy that incorporate exactly one subsector.
- The Navy doesn't use them for pretty much the same reasons the nobility doesn't. External threats and internal patrolling needs don't follow subsector borders.
- Megacorps use them out of habit but, like the duchies, their 'subsector' regional offices rarely incorporate exactly one subsector.
- They work for the Army because the Army is neccessarily interested in hi-pop worlds and not the Imperium's internal interstellar borders. The Army's day-to-day work is at a level 'below' that of subsector, so where the subsector borders are drawn don't really effect them that much.
- The bureaucracy likes them because subsector borders are different from duchies' border and that gives the Filing Cabinet Commandos a nice bit of wiggle room; i.e. "Sorry Duke of Earl, ArgleBargle-IX may be in the Earl Subsector but it is not part of the Earl Duchy."
- Everyday folks use them because they're like postal codes. That fellow from Towers is from Towers/Aramis/Spinward Marches and not Towers/Pretoria/Deneb no matter what the Duke of Pretoria says. It's like flying into Cincinatti, the airline says Cincinatti, Ohio but the people who live there know it's really Covington, Kentucky.
Have fun,
Bill
I had a previous discussion topic covering this from the more practical meta-game side of the curtain.
Realistically, I don't think there is any "in-game" reason for the use of hexes at all. I accept them as a useful gamist compromise.
Personally, I have adopted 8x7 hex subsectors for MTU, primarily because they form an even "square" (at least approximately). I also like the smaller size. In great appreciation of the ideas collected around the fantastic proto-traveller threads, I am shrinking my "Imperium" along similar lines. Cutting the size of the subsector by 30% doesn't hurt that effort at all.
Realistically, I don't think there is any "in-game" reason for the use of hexes at all. I accept them as a useful gamist compromise.
Personally, I have adopted 8x7 hex subsectors for MTU, primarily because they form an even "square" (at least approximately). I also like the smaller size. In great appreciation of the ideas collected around the fantastic proto-traveller threads, I am shrinking my "Imperium" along similar lines. Cutting the size of the subsector by 30% doesn't hurt that effort at all.
Szurkey,
Excellent stuff. Consider it stole^^^ ahem borrowed!
I'll vote with Mr. Downs for 1 radius.
I and many others will be waiting anxiously.
This mapping scheme is wonderful in so many ways, not the least of which that a 7 subsector sector resembles the Hiver body plan with a central 'hub' and six equal sized 'limbs'.
Thank you again,
Bill
B
Black Globe Generator
Guest
That's slick, szurkey - well done! Consider your concept pilfered...
I don't know anything from GT: Nobles, but I've never really been fond of the "subsector=duchy" thing - IMTU, a subsector is administered ("ruled" is too strong a word) by a governor, a sector by a governor-general, and a domain by a viceroy. These are political offices, recommended by the Moot and appointed by the Emperor. More often than not, a governor-general will be a duke, but a governor could be a marquis or a count as readily as a duke, particularly on the fringes of Imperial space. Influence, rather than position in the peerage, determines the selection of governors and governors-general.
I mean, without Imperial governors, who's going to hold onto the Dark Lord's leash?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
szurkey, that is brilliant.
Thanks for sharing it
Thanks for sharing it
After looking at it, I agree that changing to clockwise would be good and I also would propose that the hex column proceeding up should be the 0 Radian instead of 6. But, changing to radian, radius, displacement, I do not agree with. Consider that the 'displacement' is a fractional part of the radian, so I would keep radian and displacement together with radius as either first or last.
This is Hiver space, right? Get really Hiver. Maybe changing the radian-displacement idea to radian-fractional hex, e.g. at radius 2 the hexes would be '200', '203', '210', '213', etc. At radius 4, they would be '400', '402', '404', '410', '412', '414', etc.
That could be really funky...
This is Hiver space, right? Get really Hiver. Maybe changing the radian-displacement idea to radian-fractional hex, e.g. at radius 2 the hexes would be '200', '203', '210', '213', etc. At radius 4, they would be '400', '402', '404', '410', '412', '414', etc.
That could be really funky...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
If it were a human design I'd number it clockwise (and I would very much like to see this version).
It's typical of the Hivers to do things differently
Plankowner
SOC-13
I suggest that you keep it counter-clockwise. It is just non-human enough to throw you off a bit, but still very usable. CW or CCW shouldn't really matter, but it will "feel" different to everyone involved.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
P
Pickles
Guest
I'm sticking with hexaons in my ATU. Including hexagonal subsectors and hexagonal sectors. Well, 'sector', actually - there's only one.
Each subsector consists of a central hex surrounded by five concentric 'rings' of hexes. Each subsector contains 76 hexes.
The sector has one central subsector and three rings of subsectors, for a total of 37 subsectors.
It doesn't fit neatly on a standard page size, but it fits better with expansion patterns in my ATU. Oh, and because there's only one sector, that's called 'charted space', and the subsectors are called sectors.
Each subsector consists of a central hex surrounded by five concentric 'rings' of hexes. Each subsector contains 76 hexes.
The sector has one central subsector and three rings of subsectors, for a total of 37 subsectors.
It doesn't fit neatly on a standard page size, but it fits better with expansion patterns in my ATU. Oh, and because there's only one sector, that's called 'charted space', and the subsectors are called sectors.
