> Star
> maps in Traveller are the greatest thing yet in that they are cognitive
> maps for starships.
Nice concept.
Except that Traveller maps are 2D and everyone knows that real space is
3D, so your game sucks!
I heard that a lot. 2300 tried to fix that (unsuccessfully as has been
pointed out, with newer/better data), but it basically worked out that you
just had 1D linear or 2D "Arm" maps, so it was kind of a distinction
without a difference for those with fine sensibilities. (Let's not go into
Brown Dwarves.) 3D is just too hard with the tools readily available, so
for me the Traveller abstraction worked fine. The Milky Way is a disk, so
is kinda sorta flat, and solar systems should basically all be in a single
ecliptic plane (Pluto), so all travel is effectively 2D. The latter
abstraction works a little better than the former, until we learn more
things that challenge our assumptions about solar system formation.
I tried once to tear apart a bunch of Battleship games and make stacked
game boards, but it's just too hard, and it would be too expensive to make
those and sell them as a game.
> On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 1:51 PM, <> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Yikes! Math!
>>
>
> Only a little bit.....
>
>>
>> Off the top of my pointy little head I would say the theory is a little
>> on
>> the tautological side, and to pull it over into Traveller you have to
>> accept that with the interstellar maps "topography" is the primary
>> effect
>> which is abstracted out by the theory. In that way Traveller is more
>> along
>> the lines of why many settlements in the US developed along the eastern
>> seaboard fall-line, how ports and other transshipment points develop,
>> etc.
>>
> Topography always trumps theory, or the very 1st thing they teach you when
> you get to cartography portion of a Degree in Geography is "All maps are
> lies...." In that they are rough representation of what is there, and Star
> maps in Traveller are the greatest thing yet in that they are cognitive
> maps for starships.
>
> --
> Evyn
>
> maps in Traveller are the greatest thing yet in that they are cognitive
> maps for starships.
Nice concept.
Except that Traveller maps are 2D and everyone knows that real space is
3D, so your game sucks!
I heard that a lot. 2300 tried to fix that (unsuccessfully as has been
pointed out, with newer/better data), but it basically worked out that you
just had 1D linear or 2D "Arm" maps, so it was kind of a distinction
without a difference for those with fine sensibilities. (Let's not go into
Brown Dwarves.) 3D is just too hard with the tools readily available, so
for me the Traveller abstraction worked fine. The Milky Way is a disk, so
is kinda sorta flat, and solar systems should basically all be in a single
ecliptic plane (Pluto), so all travel is effectively 2D. The latter
abstraction works a little better than the former, until we learn more
things that challenge our assumptions about solar system formation.
I tried once to tear apart a bunch of Battleship games and make stacked
game boards, but it's just too hard, and it would be too expensive to make
those and sell them as a game.
> On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 1:51 PM, <> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Yikes! Math!
>>
>
> Only a little bit.....
>
>>
>> Off the top of my pointy little head I would say the theory is a little
>> on
>> the tautological side, and to pull it over into Traveller you have to
>> accept that with the interstellar maps "topography" is the primary
>> effect
>> which is abstracted out by the theory. In that way Traveller is more
>> along
>> the lines of why many settlements in the US developed along the eastern
>> seaboard fall-line, how ports and other transshipment points develop,
>> etc.
>>
> Topography always trumps theory, or the very 1st thing they teach you when
> you get to cartography portion of a Degree in Geography is "All maps are
> lies...." In that they are rough representation of what is there, and Star
> maps in Traveller are the greatest thing yet in that they are cognitive
> maps for starships.
>
> --
> Evyn
>