Milky Way Galaxy

[bartmoss]

I agree with that... I haven't decided what to do with world maps yet... I have FT and CC3 and like both, but haven't started to experiment with exports. I am not crazy about the old icosahedral maps, but I don't like the SWRPG hemispheres either...

That's why I went with a simple top-down view. If/when I do regional / local maps, I'll probably use a +/-x notation next to the names to show z-axis. Not clever, but probably works.

These are interesting ideas... maybe the engines/capacitors have some kind of consumable part that has to be repaired after each jump? I vaguely remember reading of some USAF plane (B1 maybe? I forget now) that essentially required an engine overhaul after each sortie.

There were a couple of novel suggestions in the d6 Space book too, along the lines of using animals or aliens somehow as a necessary requirement... those are a bit too fantastical for what I have in mind, but food for thought. I'd like my campaign to bear some resemblance to d6 and Trav so I don' t want to abandon the whole thing.

Thanks for your thoughtful responses... I'll let you go back to your maps now

The repair idea is great for a "first steps into interstellar space" setting, thanks! - As for using aliens: Starflight had a plot twist where it turned out that the starship FTL fuel actually was the "ancients" race of the setting. They were cristalline and extremely slow so nobody realized it until after the sentient races of the galaxy had inadvertently comitted massive genocide by powering their FTL engine with those poor beings.

I always thought this was an excellent idea, but it works best in a "darker" setting.

(Sorry if I spoiled Star Flight for anybody, but it's an ancient game so I figure nobody who does not yet know it will play it anymore.)
Wish I could draw maps - Got no tablet right now. :'(

[bartmoss]

So I've restarted this map, following the "simple style is best as long as I concentrate on world-building" approach I've taken for Enderra. The map's still basic; you'll also see a bit of a shift though: The two main nations, the Federated Systems and the Second Republic, are no longer aligned along the direction of spin, but are now "parallel" to each other. The region that used to be the core of the human colonial empire, and that holds Terra, lies inside a region that can best be described as a galactic sargasso. Ships that jump into this region never, ever, return. The central light gray areas are regions of greatest star density; the darker gray contains fewer stars; and the "outside" white is least star density. The concentric rings around terra are distance markers, each ring is 1000 light years.

[bartmoss]

Another update. Rearranged borders a bit, added colors, added detail.

[mearrin69]

Looks pretty good. Reminds me of the map from Imperium (a boardgame set in the Traveller universe). Be interested to hear what happened to the space surrounding Terra...
M