Best Projection for a Ring World

[bartmoss]

Step back for a second. Consider this question:

How big is your ringworld?

If it's got the surface area of more than a dozen earths, here is my advice: Forget mapping it. You surely could automate it and produce a lot of random stuff but that is not compelling, and you will not map that much territory, ever. I have done some prototyping on "small" ringworlds - Banks orbitals - with a surface area of about 1100 earths and once you play around with the scale for even a few minutes you will see what I mean.

Just do regional maps. Honestly, a ringworld is only a gimmick anyway.

[Oops that was not the preview button..]

For everything else, just do flat maps and be done with it.

If your ring world is very small, you need to remember that you have issues with either "gravity" - created by centrifugal force - or day length. You'll also have really odd effects if the curvature is very tight. Flight paths of thrown objects, jumping/flying creatures etc.

I have done the math and if I recall correctly, a 1g ringworld with a 24h day/night cycle had a radius of 1.8 mio kilometers, and a surface area of the above-mentioned 1100 earths.

[Thurlor]

Step back for a second. Consider this question:

How big is your ringworld?

If it's got the surface area of more than a dozen earths, here is my advice: Forget mapping it. You surely could automate it and produce a lot of random stuff but that is not compelling, and you will not map that much territory, ever. I have done some prototyping on "small" ringworlds - Banks orbitals - with a surface area of about 1100 earths and once you play around with the scale for even a few minutes you will see what I mean.

Just do regional maps. Honestly, a ringworld is only a gimmick anyway.

[Oops that was not the preview button..]

For everything else, just do flat maps and be done with it.

If your ring world is very small, you need to remember that you have issues with either "gravity" - created by centrifugal force - or day length. You'll also have really odd effects if the curvature is very tight. Flight paths of thrown objects, jumping/flying creatures etc.

I have done the math and if I recall correctly, a 1g ringworld with a 24h day/night cycle had a radius of 1.8 mio kilometers, and a surface area of the above-mentioned 1100 earths.

I've pretty much come to the same conclusion regarding mapping the whole thing.

[Ryan K]

You'll also have really odd effects if the curvature is very tight. Flight paths of thrown objects, jumping/flying creatures etc.

Oddly enough, according to my maths, the ringworld would seem to be flatter than ours, only concaved!