New Big Project (Battletech)

Heya Folks!

After trying some new styles, I've decided on playing with Pasis' style and using it for my Big Project (TM).

I've been doing some planetary maps lately (see Sci-Fi section for one) for a new hobby I'm starting up with a few friends, namely Classic Battletech, the Tabletop Game.

We want to start up a roleplay Campaign about building up a mercenary company and as I am the guy who plunges into new hobbies and RPG's with a happily-mad giggling and glee, I've begun a to make a planetary map for said campaign.

So there was born Ionus II, the planet I'm talking about here.

About one day of work went into creating the Alpha-Map for this huge thing and since yesterday I begun making the map "real".

So yeah, here is a small part of the world and a "locator" picture, that lets you see where on the big map this part is.

For informations sake, the map is 8000 * 5000 pixels at 300 dpi

This is going to be my Big Project (TM) for the upcoming weeks! :)


P.S.: The part shown is not yet finished. It's a first-look on the map.

Ok.. that's gonna be HUUUUGE. Cool. Look forward to seeing this progressing.

Have fun stitching this thing together, I would never have enough patience. Looks good so far tho.

Yeah I'd never have the patience either, but I agree - looking very nice so far.

For some things, I do have patience. Like mapping and all other RPG-related stuff. I once even wrote a 60 page "book" written completely in-game because one of my players wanted to buy a book, so he could rationalize getting Knowledge (The Planes) in our D&D game (was back in 3.5E). After two weeks he got his wish, a complete book, "Adharals Magical Compendium".

Man that was some freakish stuff... :D

Oh yea, it's all about the passion. I used to do things like that but now...not so much :)

Yeah my "freakish stuff" meter is going down too, mostly because of college and other stuff. I hope that beginning Battletech Classic will bring back some of the fire ;)

And currently it certainly does. I'm reading and working about it all the time, mostly because Battletech is representative of the good thing in my childhood. I've learned about my personal idol, Michael A. Stackpole, through Battletech and I read a lot about it... :)

Aaah, the good old times o' being a child.

Little update, more coming later this day.

The picture shows the planetary info, derived from the usual Classic Battletech Data on any given planet, with some added info (planetary day, diameter).

For those interested in it, I'll explain the stuff a little.

Star Type is the Spectral Classification of the star, K3V means basically it's a Orange Dwarf (Main Sequence) Star (warning, basic knowledge only, learned this today). The recharge time is how long a jumpship needs to load it's reactor with solar energy before it can begin a jump.

Time to Jump Point is the time you need from the Planet with a Dropship to the Jumpship Jump-Point (obviously).

Recharge Station basically means whats the space station near the jump point (my guess here, I'm still new to this ;) ).

HPG-Class means which class the interstellar communications-equipment is. Class C means that every week once or twice the comm equipment will send a bundle of all collected "mail" to the next planetary relay station up to 50 parsec away. It's the 2nd lowest class.

Highest Native Life means - logically - the highest form of evolution from this planet before human settlers came.

Socio-Industrial level is a collection of 5 categories, each explained in short below:
1. First letter (D) stands for the Technical Sophistication, which here means Low-Tech world, equivalent to 21st century technology freely available.

2. Second letter (C) stands for Industrial Development, which here means Basic Heavy Industry, equivalent to 22nd century earth.

3. Third letter (C) stands for Raw Material Dependency, which here means self-sustaining.

4. Fourth letter (C) is Industrial Output, which here means Limited Output - limited export, but can care for itself.

5. Fifth letter (B) is Agricultural Dependence, which here means Abundant World - enough to sustain itself and enough to export food.


That's it for now. Map update coming later this day - hopefully.

The recharge station is indeed a space station for charging jump ships. The station sits collecting energy for a jump ship to use. This cuts down on the time it takes to recharge the jumpship. The recharge station is usually situated at one of the two permanent jump points above (zenith) and below (nadir) the solar poles. It may be worth noting which location your station is located at.

There are also pirate jump points which are places in-system where the gravity well cancels out. These shift around as the planets orbit.

Sweet! Thanks a lot for this information. I've got a lot of knowledge about the Universe, but I never cared too much about the Space Travel stuff!

If I might ask, is there any "formula" or anything to the recharge time, or is it generally just "this number looks good!" ?