Traveller in 3D

[BetterThanLife]

One other point on Mains. I seem to recall that while generating hte Spinward Marches several subsectors were defined as different. For example in Supplement 3 it is stated that Lanth is a Rift subsector. The mains may have been caused by having higher density subsectors within the sector. A Long Main is more likely in an area that is 2 in 3 stars instead of 1 in 2. Just like Lanth subsector is impossible in even a 1 in 3 ratio.

AS generates, or rather tends to generate systems in smears, instead of giving it an even density anyway, so the concept of Rifts, even small ones like Lanth Subsector, will come out in generation as will large ones. I don't have all the mechanics in how to tweek the settings in AS to get a Traveller Universe yet, I was waiting to get useable parameters first.

 

[TheEngineer]

Could one check this Z-axis dimension thing ?
Somehow I remember a thickness around 1000 pc.
Well, I'll check Hipparchos data...

Terms for the z-axis ?
Upwards, Downwards ?

 

[Plankowner]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
Another point since we are using up the disk in the Z-Axis there wouldn't be much above or below the Imperium, certainly not major powers so the Traditional Surronded would still be fairly easy to attain. We have basically eliminated 2 directions so the Imperium could still have enemies all around Spinward, Trailing, Coreward and Rimward. What terms do we use for the Z-Axis?

Been lurking for a while, but thought I would chirp in here...

There is still quite a bit of room above and below the Imperium. Those regions are scatter, sparse or rift in density as you move away from the galactic plane. Lots of room for smaller and poorer pocket empires, but probably not room for a major power. I say poorer pocket empires because a PE out on the rim will have most of it's systems pretty far apart. At J1 or J2, they will have HUGE fuel costs to keep trade going, limiting their size. Then again, such a situation might be ideal for more isolationist factions of all the races who want to be left alone.

I recommend that we use "North" and "South" for the +Z and -Z directions. North would be determined by Magnetic Galactic North. In the old 2-D terms, use out of the paper as North and into the paper as South.

If you end up with a mapping scheme that requires 2-3 interim jumps between habitable systems, I suggest you REALLY look at the fuel requirements for jump. Leaving the jump distances the same but significantly reducing the fuel will help keep the economics similar.

On the issue of the shape of the sub-sector/Sectors, I think you will have to drop the standard 8x10 hexes. In 3-D, you really need a Cubic shape, perhaps 8x8x8 or 10x10x10.

(Sinks back into the muck, eyes peeking through the mist...)

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by thrash:

* Provide a rationale for the canonical but currently inexplicable presence of pirates and armed private merchant ships

If you think an extra jump or two is too much to pay, feel free to try and cover as many bases at once.

I know I snipped lots. I personally would prefer a way to get the jump from inhabited system to inhabited system to be the norm instead of the exception. As far as Pirates and armed Merchants go. If you don't make Military sensors all powerful and all seeing then there are plenty of places for Pirates to hide, base, and operate. A Star system is a big place. If a system doesn't have a large space presence, Starport class D-, TL 8-, then as long as the Pirates hide, for example, keep a Gas Giant, or similar heavenly body between them and the Naval ship they will remain hidden. Or perhaps sit in a cave on an Asteroid or other piece of Rock. Or they could simply Jump out if the Navy came in on top of them by chance. This would support the small independent pirate or small group of pirates which appears to be canon. So would situations where local governments are supporting pirates, either as Privateers in a local interstellar war, or actually taking kickbacks/bribes in return for basing there. Similar to Silesia in the Honor Harrington books.

What Canon doesn't support is large pirate bands, except in special situations, large pirate ships, (Again except in Special Situations) and a general need to keep Pirate operations minor.

With lots of uninhabited, unpatrolable space, there is now a place for the large Pirate bands, the Large Pirate Cruisers, etc. Piracy stops being the occasional thing and becomes more of an Organized Crime problem. Look at the Canon Corsair. It is a 400 ton ship that isn't quite a warship but has enough juice to take on the typical Merchantman up to 400 tons. However it can't carry all the cargo of a 400 Ton Fat Trader. It is also a hit one ship then return home operation. Since Merchantmen obviously get bigger than 400 tons. If you give Pirates places to happily congregate and get up to no good in larger groups then you will see Corsairs in the Destroyer to Cruiser range. Running sweeps like the Navy and longer patrols picking up all sorts of merchants before heading home.

That is one of the issues I have with all the uninhabited systems in between the habitated ones.

The other issue is, that while it may not be profitable for Major Corporations to populate a system, or a Government might not for one reason or another. Establishing fueling stations along major routes for their ships, generally orbiting Gas Giants, would make sense. Then you could conduct minor repairs, load up on refined fuel without endangering your cargo with a fuel skimming operation. Generally keep the area around the fueling operation relatively safe. (well except against things like Destroyer+ Pirates operating in Wolf Packs.) Now a Megacorporation is likely to attempt to help realize a profit from such operations and would probably sell the same services to other merchants coming through. they might even have warehouse space and be set up as a transfer station for their goods that have to go in different directions. Some of that wharehouse space might be empty for periods of time, why not rent it out. Now some of these stations could be local operations. They are supplied with plenty of fuel. There is enough raw material to use fusion stills, for water. Ther is also sufficeint material for food sysnthesis. Now these stations would have to have a defense force, to keep themselves from being taken over by Pirates.

So now we have a bunch of people, which, in itself, qualifies under Traveller rules as an Inhabited system, sitting on their butts waiting for the next convoy to come through or the next Pirate attack. Mostly just sitting and waiting. Now an honest merchant minded individual such as myself, with access to a Small ship, say a Far Trader, sees an opportunity here. So I load up my ship with fresh food, the latest Holovids, and perhaps some passengers of questionable but buyable sexual morals and take a trip to this station. I sell the food, and the Holos, hang out for a week and return. (Passengers and all.) Some of the Passengers decide that they won't get bored for a while and stay there, others that I take on an earlier trip are bored and want to go home. Now I am making a nice profit but a friend of mine sees another possibility, he gets on as a passenger, rents out some empty space there, and some warehouse space and starts buying cargoes from Merchants passing through. Selling to others as they pass through. Suddenly we have spec trade going on here as well. The Station qualifies as, at a minimum, a Class B Starport. There is a population, rather quickly, in the less than 100 range but it still counts as Population 2. All driven by trade. Now if a Mega Corp doesn't see the profit in this but a local merchant from a nearby planet does then it could also be an independent operation. Since we have a defended base some Prospectoirs are likely to come through and take a look at the local Resource exploitation possibilities, ooops a Strike and within a short period of time you have a Major population.

But in anycase your uninhabited systems aren't likely to stay that way, especially if they are on Trade routes. And we are exploding the size of the Imperium. It might take a little time to get most of them with some kind of population on them, some of them might be military bases, some Scout X-Boat bases but they will all grow because where there is service to provide someone will provide that service. But in a period of less than 100 years they will virtually all be populated in one way or another.

Remember that Life Support costs occur when there is no access to resources. (Generally in Jump Space.) While there is some cost to lifesupport in a stationary orbit, there is also cost in systems with a Size 0 main world. Or on worlds with no or bad atmosphere. (Gateway, Stoner and Glisten come immediately to mind and there are dozens of others in the OTU.) Uninhabitable, in Traveller doesn't mean uninhabitated. So life support when you have access to resources has to be less than on a Starship, especially when you are on a starship in Jump Space.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Plankowner:

There is still quite a bit of room above and below the Imperium. Those regions are scatter, sparse or rift in density as you move away from the galactic plane. Lots of room for smaller and poorer pocket empires, but probably not room for a major power. I say poorer pocket empires because a PE out on the rim will have most of it's systems pretty far apart. At J1 or J2, they will have HUGE fuel costs to keep trade going, limiting their size. Then again, such a situation might be ideal for more isolationist factions of all the races who want to be left alone.

There could also be client states of the major powers, encroachments, and trade routes between major powers that don't traverse the Imperium. Hivers and Aslan trading has some delicious possibilities and would be very scary for the K'kree.

I recommend that we use "North" and "South" for the +Z and -Z directions. North would be determined by Magnetic Galactic North. In the old 2-D terms, use out of the paper as North and into the paper as South.

If you end up with a mapping scheme that requires 2-3 interim jumps between habitable systems, I suggest you REALLY look at the fuel requirements for jump. Leaving the jump distances the same but significantly reducing the fuel will help keep the economics similar.

On the issue of the shape of the sub-sector/Sectors, I think you will have to drop the standard 8x10 hexes. In 3-D, you really need a Cubic shape, perhaps 8x8x8 or 10x10x10.

(Sinks back into the muck, eyes peeking through the mist...)

Actually I was thinking about using polar graphing for Sectors and subsectors, instead of cubes. That way you still get frontier subsectors without cutting around cubes. Cubes tend to cause you to think in terms of the shortest distance between two points being an angle. And, at least to me, it seems to make more sense to measure stars as Right ascension, declination and distance from a central point, (Core/Capital perhaps?).

 

[Plankowner]

The RA-DEC stuff can get pretty fuzzy when you have a large area to work with. If you used Capital/Core as the "Zero" mark, by the time you got to Darrian space, the angle differences between the worlds would be pretty small. You end up with huge decimal places on your angles just to separate 2 worlds. Perhaps each Sector has it's own Zero Mark and only that mark is referenced back to the Prime Mark (Capital). This would make it similar to the hex coordinate used in the 2D model.

The Cube approach, IMHO, is the most straightforward and would allow you to map things on paper, if needed. Remember, not every map will be able to be projected from a computer monitor. Even then, you are still trying to show a 3-D map in 2-D.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
The RA-DEC stuff can get pretty fuzzy when you have a large area to work with. If you used Capital/Core as the "Zero" mark, by the time you got to Darrian space, the angle differences between the worlds would be pretty small. You end up with huge decimal places on your angles just to separate 2 worlds. Perhaps each Sector has it's own Zero Mark and only that mark is referenced back to the Prime Mark (Capital). This would make it similar to the hex coordinate used in the 2D model.

The Cube approach, IMHO, is the most straightforward and would allow you to map things on paper, if needed. Remember, not every map will be able to be projected from a computer monitor. Even then, you are still trying to show a 3-D map in 2-D.

I agree it might be the most straightforward. And other regular shapes don't work in 3D (except for Tetrahedrons and double Tetrahedrons.) Though maping Tetrahedrons and stars within one might be a royal pain as well.

OK So There are Domains, Sectors and Subsectors within the Imperium. To avoid changing the balance of Noble power too much we should keep close to the 2D sizes in terms of how the Domain/Sector/Subsector break down. I figure we can go either 4x2x2 subsectors per sector (Preserving 16) or 3x3x2 (giving us 18.) How do you stack sectors for the domains? 2x2x1, or 1x2x2 or do we go wild and go 2x2x2 and double the number of sectors per Domain? (Making the Archdukes really powerful especially compared to the Dukes.) If we try to maintain the general size of the Imperium at about 11,000 systems and not add an abundance of Dukes, we should keep about 4 Sectors per domain, Though 3x2x1 giving us 6 might work. In both cases Domains are pretty flat.

There are 7 domains, though before the Solomani Rim war there can be made an argument for one or two more.

If we call it 9 we can do a Rough Sphere, like I described earlier in the thread, and while it would be a pain in terms of coordinates locally, it makes nice 3D Imperium. Similar to Thrash's Oblong Sphere. Though I am not sure how to break that down, perhaps the same way as my Sphere.

 

[Plankowner]

I am leaning towards the 2x2x2 scheme all the way up.
8x8x8 hexes per Sub-Sector
8 Sub-Sectors per Sector - Duke
8 Sectors per Domain - Arch-Duke
8 Domains per "Region" - Viceroy(?)

Depending on the Barren to Inhabited system ratio, the number of Main World systems within a Sub-Sector could be in the 40 range (Standard Density in 2D terms).

 

[aramis]

Plankowner:

May I suggest regions be 8 sectors, with a Grand Duke, and domains 8 regions with an Archduke...

I've also been thinking a 2x2x2, with 8x8x8 subsectors.

 

[Plankowner]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Plankowner:

May I suggest regions be 8 sectors, with a Grand Duke, and domains 8 regions with an Archduke...

I've also been thinking a 2x2x2, with 8x8x8 subsectors.

Aramis, Grand Duke, I like that!

When I threw this out last week, I didn't really look too much at the Span of Control (how many people report directly to you). That would need to be balanced in any polity. If you get more than about 10 direct reports, then the leader begins to loose control and you need to add an intermediary level. The 2x2x2 keeps the Span of Control at 8, which is pretty good.

 

[aramis]

One other fun thing about the rank of Grand Duke: It is canonical, but undefined by SS. (IIRC, the explanatory is that it's for close relatives of the throne... demoted princes/princesses...)

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Aramis:
Plankowner:

May I suggest regions be 8 sectors, with a Grand Duke, and domains 8 regions with an Archduke...

I've also been thinking a 2x2x2, with 8x8x8 subsectors.

Aramis, Grand Duke, I like that!

When I threw this out last week, I didn't really look too much at the Span of Control (how many people report directly to you). That would need to be balanced in any polity. If you get more than about 10 direct reports, then the leader begins to loose control and you need to add an intermediary level. The 2x2x2 keeps the Span of Control at 8, which is pretty good. </font>[/QUOTE]Actually proper span of control is generally 3-5. 8 is rather large. However that is why I always assumed more local control and less hands on from above.

 

[Plankowner]

True, 3-5 if normal now, but I figured that by TL 15, with additional computer resources, it wouldn't be too unreasonable to increase the span of control to 8. I read an Isaac Asimov article somewhere in the distant past where he discussed governing a galactic empire. I remember that he use 10 for the span of control. His bureaucracy for a 1 million planet galactic empire required something like a billion people to make it work. If Asimov can you 10, we should be able to use 8 pretty comfortably.

 

[aramis]

Typical subinfeudation was 5-15 vauvasars (Vassals of Vassals) for most of the barons. The king held almost all the barons in fealty. A few great and powerfuls had dozens of vauvasars.

So in the traveller "Bastard Feudalism", we essentially have a 5 layer system defined:
Emperor
Archdukes
Sector Dukes
Subsector Dukes
All others.

So the 8 proposed is far from outre.

 

[sarahnewton]

Hi all,

I've approached the issue of a 3d OTU from the simple point of view of dealing with the unrealism of trying to explain away a 2d starmap to players. In other words, I've always wanted a rationalisation of why the starmaps look that way, and why jump drive works the way it does. I've always avoided the crunch issue of redesigning the OTU maps into "true" 3d starmaps simply because of the destructive effect it would have on the rich Traveller background. What I've ended up with is a "pseudo-3d" rationalisation of the 2d starmaps, as follows:

i.) I've assumed that the starmaps have a built-in implicit Z-axis offset equal to the 2d separation between systems (ie two systems separated by 2 hexes have an implied Z-axis separation also of 2 hexes). Adjacent hexes imply a separation therefore of just 1 parsec.
This has led to the following "absolute" distance separations:
2D 2 hex separation = sqrt((2x2) + (2x2)) = 2.8 parsecs
2D 3 hex separation = sqrt((3x3) + (3x3)) = 4.24 parsecs
2D 4 hex separation = sqrt((4x4) + (4x4)) = 5.66 parsecs
2D 5 hex separation = sqrt((5x5) + (5x5)) = 7.07 parsecs
2D 6 hex separation = sqrt((6x6) + (6x6)) = 8.48 parsecs

ii.) I've then assumed the jump rating of a ship does not equal the hexes / parsecs covered, but the distances from the table above. Thus a J6 drive covers 8.48 parsecs, not 6.

iii.) I've then assumed the distances covered by jump engines are a RANGE rather than an absolute distance. Thus a J2 engine actually covers an <i>average</i> of 2.8 parsecs (so probably something like 2-3.5 parsecs). The J1 engine is assumed to cover a range up to 1.5 parsecs, which allows6 J1s to cover the 8.48 parsecs or so of a J6.

iv.) These numbers appear to work fine for Jump ratings up to 6.

Remember of course this is a pragmatic solution, and allows me to explain away the 2d starmaps. As far as the actual distances between a marker star in one (sub)sector and another is concerned, I don't actually need to know for game purposes. I retain the "almost-2D" shape of the Imperium and its sectors as the result of the linear spread of colonisation; Imperial space then becomes something of a "crumpled sheet" with a thickness of 12 parsecs or so - subsectors and sectors sit adjacent to one another rather than on top or beneath.

I've never tried it, but I get the feeling I should be able to use Astrosynthesis for subsector and sector maps (although sectors will look a bit "flat").

Just how I've approached it!

Happy Travelling!

Sarah

 

[mike wightman]

Welcome aboard Sarah

Interesting idea. Have you considered keeping the 1-6 parsecs as final results and then calculating the separation in light years?

 

[sarahnewton]

Hi Sigg,

Have you considered keeping the 1-6 parsecs as final results and then calculating the separation in light years?

If I understand you correctly, then it's not something I've considered - I wanted to keep the "easy to read" bit of the maps intact (ie 1 hex = 1 parsec, and if there's a 6 hex separation, it needs a jump 6 - doesn't really matter what the parsec distance is at that stage). I guess you could turn the calc around, but I can't see it'd be all that clear what each hex would then represent. But then again it's a bit late here and my already-feeble maths brain switches off early these days!

Happy Travelling,

Sarah

 

[Icosahedron]

Originally posted by Shaira:
I've approached the issue of a 3d OTU from the simple point of view of dealing with the unrealism of trying to explain away a 2d starmap to players. In other words, I've always wanted a rationalisation of why the starmaps look that way, and why jump drive works the way it does.

<snip>

Imperial space then becomes something of a "crumpled sheet" with a thickness of 12 parsecs or so - subsectors and sectors sit adjacent to one another rather than on top or beneath.

I've never tried it, but I get the feeling I should be able to use Astrosynthesis for subsector and sector maps (although sectors will look a bit "flat").

I'm sure I read somewhere in the canon that the official explanation for the 2d maps IS a crumpled sheet, just in a different way. It was explained that Jump Space maps 3d space the way a crumpled ball of paper represents a sphere. This means that stars that in reality are only a parsec or two apart may be many hexes apart on the 2d Jump Space map and it may take longer to travel to a star 1 parsec away than to a star 6 parsecs away, because the local 'curvature of Jump Space' may not allow a direct route and you have to travel through perhaps 10 parsecs of Jump Space to reach the nearby star. Of course the 'real' separation doesn't matter to the game, all that matters is how many jumps you need to get there.

I'll probably go for Astrosynthesis myself when it gets more Travelleresque features.