World Map generator for T5

[starship_captain62]

Thanks for all the good work.

I have been playing with this a lot over the last few days.

Couple of things I have noticed.

The map legend is really great. I did notice the terrain type that should have been printed next to the hex on the far right of the legend was missing. It is obvious what it was however - a mountain hex.

The other thing is that not all of the sectors in the OTU (see Traveller map) are not listed. For example, I would like to pull up some maps of the Meehan Sector (an old stomping ground of mine from a few years ago). One can always enter data manually, but being able to dial up a planet you are interested in on the fly is so much more convenient.

Cheers

 

[David Johansen]

Here's a thought / question that might be handy in terms of an official set of canonical maps. Would it be possible to run the whole imperium off of a non-seeded random number generator. Many random number generators work off a fixed list and are seeded from a clock or other source so they start at a different point in the list each time. If you don't seed the list it will put out the same results each time you run it.

So, theoretically if the generator was seeded by the location on the map, it might be possible to have every use of the generator turn out the same map for everyone when they access a world on Traveller Map.

Does that make any sense?

 

[OjnoTheRed]

The map legend is really great. I did notice the terrain type that should have been printed next to the hex on the far right of the legend was missing. It is obvious what it was however - a mountain hex.

The other thing is that not all of the sectors in the OTU (see Traveller map) are not listed. For example, I would like to pull up some maps of the Meehan Sector (an old stomping ground of mine from a few years ago). One can always enter data manually, but being able to dial up a planet you are interested in on the fly is so much more convenient.
Cheers

It does make me happy to know fellow Travellers are having fun with this.

Thanks - I'll look into the map key thing.

The data is already drawn directly from Traveller Map. What I have done is only accepted sectors tagged as "Official OTU" - there are other OTU sectors in there but I was overwhelmed to start with! Rest assured, I am planning on expanding the range of sectors on offer.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Here's a thought / question that might be handy in terms of an official set of canonical maps. Would it be possible to run the whole imperium off of a non-seeded random number generator. Many random number generators work off a fixed list and are seeded from a clock or other source so they start at a different point in the list each time. If you don't seed the list it will put out the same results each time you run it.

So, theoretically if the generator was seeded by the location on the map, it might be possible to have every use of the generator turn out the same map for everyone when they access a world on Traveller Map.

Does that make any sense?

It does make sense. I was reflecting on exactly that when reading requests to expose the random seed. Because pseudo-random numbers are a sequence rather than actually random, if the sequence of numbers required is the same each time (e.g. in a map-making algorthm based on strict rules!) then the seed is all that is needed to "save" that map. The seed is then like a key that unlocks that sequence of numbers to produce that result.

However, in practice many of the worlds in the OTU were not produced with dice rolls but hand-crafted to suit the adventure an author wanted to build. So they don't obey the rules can can't be reduced to a seed.

More directly on the series of random numbers that are not seeded ... well ... that's what a UWP is. Traveller worlds have to be the most elegant compacting of data out there. One line of text. Delicious, precious world stats.

 

[David Johansen]

True but as the stats exist and can be generated into the map generator, it would only be the randomizers in the map generator that would need to be unseeded.

The interesting thing is that rather than needing thousands of world maps being saved, the program could provide the same set of maps to everyone without needing to manage all that data.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Yes; saving a string of the random (or not so random!) numbers to make a particular map would probably be much more compact than the map.

An SVG (i.e. text instructions for drawing) for a size 4 or 5 world comes to around 200kb. A PNG file (I've just updated it to give this option) for the same map comes to around 50kb.

I'd estimate a sequence of around 800 - 1000 random numbers would be needed to generate the map. Assume 1000 numbers saved as random numbers between 0 and 1 (to be converted to 1-6 values etc by a formula) and generously assume 8 bytes per number for floating point. This brings down the storage to around 8kb per map; and the actual number of random numbers needed won't change much by size and often will be less. This figure would be halved if we used fixed point instead of floating point.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

The generator has been updated to enable Twilight Zone worlds to be mapped by the rules.

This is important as Tz worlds are quite common if the T5 rules are strictly applied: pretty much any main world around a Class M or Class K primary will be a Tz world because the habitable zone is in orbit 0 or orbit 1 which makes the world tidally locked.

There are some other minor updates to the layout of the page and relevant links put in.

For now, all settled areas (cities, towns, arcologies, rural areas, crop land, noble estates and starports) are placed anywhere on the map, regardless of the Twilight Zone.

I will be bringing in mapping options to control this behaviour. But before I do that I need to change the way that oceans are generated as this changes assumptions about continents and oceas. Stay tuned!

 

[starship_captain62]

Hi

Couldn't resist seeing what Azun (Solomani Rim) looks like with this mapping software. Created a few renditions of it. In almost all cases several of the Acrologies were placed in the sea. This is not how I imagined Azun Acrologies to be like. There is actually no reason why they can't be in the ocean. Maybe there are important resources nearby that can be exploited. Also, remember that these are big structures.

 

[tjoneslo]

Can you expose the random seed as an option, so that deterministic generation is possible?

+1 for this option.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Thanks for the interest guys!

Yes, I am definitely planning on exposing the random seed, and I'm doing some research on javascript libraries that let you do this. At the moment I'm using the built-in javascript random number generator that does not expose the seed.

Having just done the Twilight Zone option, I realised it would be great to keep a map you've just generated, check the Twilight Zone option and see how it turns out.

On settled areas - in particular, arcologies - I have left placement at random where the rules do not specify any restrictions. A computer using a random number is different to a human making a decision based on a historical or geographical knowledge. Hence the arcologies being placed in oceans as much as land; cities being placed on ice-caps (if land is underneath), and nowhere in relation to the resource hexes that are placed.

I am planning on implementing a set of map generation options for users, e.g. only place Arcologies on land or favour land hexes next to seas or oceans for cities.

At the moment the only house rule I have implemented is that if the trade code Lo or Ni appears, there is one town, and the starport is always placed in the same hex as that town. It makes no sense to me that the major population centre in a population number perhaps only a few thousand people would not be within 1000km of the starport.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Sorting out Size 1 worlds with a Twilight Zone turned out to be no sweat. There are so few hexes (a total of 10 plus the two poles) that it was easy just to deal with modifying each hex individually - a total of 6 out of the ten need to be modified. New update applied.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Updated again - now oceans are random shapes instead of just world triangles marked as ocean.

The maps look a whole lot better!

 

[starship_captain62]

Hi,

Just been playing with the map generator again. The new random shaped continents makes the maps far more pleasing to the eye.

Just a small detail with the Twilight mode is that the Twilight zones at the top and bottom of the map are frozen. I would have thought that a Twilight zone would have a 'temperate' climate throughout it's entire circumference with no cold spots at the top and bottom of the map.

If I can offer a suggestion, maybe it would be better to depict a Twilight world with the temperate zone running around the nominal equator. I have often drawn such maps this way. I tend to put the hot zone in the top half of the map, the cold zone at the bottom and the twilight zone around the middle.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Thanks Philip. I wholeheartedly agree, the effect is much better.

Now you mention it, that would be a much easier way of drawing a Twilight Zone map. I seem to vaguely recall something in MegaTraveller or Grand Survey / Grand Census about this.

Yes, I had left the ice caps deliberately based on the 5.09 rules, "Terrain in the Twilight Zone remains as previously created." So there's still ice-caps at the north and south poles based on that. But having said that, I have only a small amount of knowledge of models of Twilight Zone worlds and it does seem reasonable to me that the whole atmosphere on the sun-side of the planet would heat up and leak over the Twilight Zone fairly evenly.

I'll include it as an option to stray from the rules. I think what this generator gives us an opportunity to do is critique the mapping rules themselves, and provide options for straying from them.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Updated: seed for the random generator is now exposed. You can enter in a 256-character string for a seed of your choice, or leave blank to let the app generate one for you.

I've tested it on a variety of maps and it produces the same map each time given a particular seed.

You can copy and paste random seeds to save somewhere on your computer for maps that you like. You can even type in meanginful phrases like "Traveller is an awesome game" for your seed.

 

[tjoneslo]

Generating Fantasy Maps is an article with code about how to generate realistic terrain for maps. This may have some interesting ideas for you to apply to the maps you are generating.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Generating Fantasy Maps is an article with code about how to generate realistic terrain for maps. This may have some interesting ideas for you to apply to the maps you are generating.

Ooooh! That does look interesting, with examples in Javascript (what I'm using). Thanks heaps.

 

[Capital_Q]

Great job so far. I would suggest adding a scale to the map sonthat you know the distance of each hex based on world size.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Yes - I'll put a scale on. I'm currently working on World Hex maps being generated when the user clicks on any hex in the world map.

 

[coliver988]

Just have to say this is really great.