Hexbased Star Map Style Test

[bartmoss]

Hm, look like I lost my reply.

Anyway, I agree, the gray hexes worked best. Here's an update; I made the gray darker after test-printing this map; the lighter gray was almost invisible.

Scale is 2ly/hex. The lower-left portion (and the top row) has randomly-distributed star systems. The irregular gray line marks what hexes I rolled for. I added some dummy system names, had to use a very small font to make them fit. Overall I gotta say that this is simply too small and "messy". I'm also wondering if I shouldn't just simply stick to the 1 hex = 1 parsec scale if I do something like this.

[bartmoss]

Reduced #of hexes, down from 40x41 to 30x31, with corresponding larger hexes.
Lower left corner is at 50% system probability.

Still messy, but slightly better.

It's actually quite nice for a less dense population (center of map).

[bartmoss]

Reduced hex grid to 20x20. I haven't added a chunk of random systems to this yet, but I think this is finally a scale that doesn't look messy anymore, and it does print well.



Edit: And as a PDF.

[bartmoss]

Minor Update -- random systems added.

[MadCartographer]

Incase your intrested in doing a 3D thing... Check out NBos's AstroSynthesis v3. It's AWESOME!

http://www.nbos.com/

Enjoy the pic.

[mearrin69]

I do dig AstroSynthesis but I've never been able to really output the results into a useful 2D form (go figure, right?) If I ever used it for a game I would either have to run it at the table as a reference or just use it as a behind the scenes tool for prepping. I've been wanting to run a 'long night' sort of space opera campaign for some time now...maybe the PCs work for the Silesian Scouts (Traveller) or the Foundation or something. I think AS will be a nice tool for that.
M

[bartmoss]

Yeah I know that software. Looks neat but it's not useful for me.

3D maps and I don't get along. I am now convinced that for any kind of game they cause more problems than they add, the exception maybe being very, very limited "Near Sol space" type settings. If you only deal with a dozen or so systems then yes you can create usable maps of 3d space. Otherwise? Just don't bother with it - and this goes for computer games almost as much as it goes for tabletop games.

[atpollard]

Grey hexes looked best. I preferred the lighter grey of the earlier version.

Where you are drawing political borders, might I suggest changing the shade of grey for the background based on the 'Galactic Empire'.

Looks like a pretty good start to me.

[tilt]

neat - looking forward to seeing it when all the stuff is in there

[bartmoss]

I had originally darkened the hexes to a shade that looked good on paper.

Current version, without gray hexes.