>Certainly.
>
>Figure five star systems. We can try to map them in actual 3-space,
>trying to keep star distributions "normal", and distances realistic.
>
>As an aside, if we do use 'realistic' coordinately, I favor the
>Traveller directions:
>coreward - towards the galactic core
>rimward - towards the galactic rim
>spinward - towards the direction of galactic spin
>antispinward - away from the direction of galactic spin
>
>I think Traveller had a lot of 2d maps, so I suggest "up" and "down"
>for the third dimension. Fortunately, spiral galaxies are pretty
>flat, so it's easy to decide on arbitrary directions.
>
>Say we have our central system, A.
>B is 50 ly spinward of A, 10 ly coreward, and 5 ly up.
>C is 75 ly antispinward of A, 2 ly coreward, and 10 ly down
>
>and so forth.
>
>Mapping this will involve some pain. There are a couple of PD 3-D
>star mapping programs out there; I'll see if I can find my notes
>on them. It's pretty time-consuming to precisely specify every
>star, though, particularly the uninhabited ones.
>
>If we decide, though, that FTL only happens through a nexus, or
>wormhole, or hyperspace bypass, we _do_ limit technological
>creativity, but we can create a much simpler star map.
>
>Then, we could draw a map as follows:
>
>[Ascii art alert...]
>
>C-A-B-D
> |
> E
>
>We can see that "C" is sort of a dead end path, that "B" is a strategic
>nexus, and that "D" and E" are more likely to be the frontier.
>
>We can also assign arbitrary travel times to the distances between
>the stars (although higher tech ships will go faster) without
>having to precisely fit them into a real-world position. ("Eddies
>in the space-time continuum" and all that.)
>
I don't like this idea. I want to be able to jump to one system directly to
another system lets say 20-30 lighyears away without needing to go via other
systems to get there. Makes easy to blockade key systems to get to another.
Have you ever played Star Control? The first game? Then thats something you
are suggesting, except in the game is 3d like map. Want a simple map, play
Star Control 2, theres a simple map i would like, but a lot more better to
fit our game. Its the players who would really create a lot of worlds and
solar systems too, its we be hard to update such a map your suggesting all
of the time. Also, what if a player wanted to create a space born society?
Liek a Amoeda race? or a Sentient Gaseous like race in that St:TNG episode
where Q turned human? (for more details on that race, they do have some new
TNG books with the Enterprise-E encountering this race again.) -LordLMP
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