Suggestion - SciFi Co-op

[soltakss]

I'm looking at doing that at the moment.

I've downloaded a few co-ordinates of 40 or so stars and will try and put them on a star map. I've also got 30,000 stars, which is probably too many, with a different set of co-ordinates so I have to marry them up first. My first thought are that space is very big and there aren't that many stars, so any starmap will either be full of space and gave hardly any stars or will be so close togather that space travel is just a case of hopping between stars.

I've got a provisional set of rules for Space Travel which I'll post. However, I need to decide what scale the starmap is and how fast things can move between stars before I do a real map.

[soltakss]

This is still very rough at the moment, but here are some quick thoughts about Space Travel. I like such rules to be quick and dirty rather than particularly scientific.

Space Travel in BRP

I’ve had a few thoughts about how to generalise and abstract Space Travel in BRP. Of course, these are my own opinions and I don’t claim to be an expert in any way, in fact the opposite is true. That can actually be an advantage as I am not bogged down in hard-line astrophysics so I can safely ignore any attempts at real-space modelling.

The trouble with modelling space travel in any role-playing game is that it has to be easy and quick and needs to be at least reasonable, by which I mean that you can look at it and not think it’s a silly idea. You also have to be able to deal with different types of space travel and allow for different technology levels and technologies that use the same general rules-sets.

Mapping Space

Space, as we know, is multidimensional, which makes mapping it difficult. Some RPGs have used the “Flat Space” model which says that most Galaxies, in particular the Milky Way, are spirals which means that they can be modelled 2-dimensionally. This makes mapping a lot easier as you don’t have to worry about extra dimensions. However, you might want to give the galaxies a thickness which involves a third dimension. For gaming purposes, I am assuming that Space is mapped in 3 Dimensions.

How do you map 3 Dimensions easily? By using multiple 2-Dimensional maps. So, you have a number of maps overlaid on top of each other.

What scale is best? Whatever scale you think works for your setting. This mapping is extremely relative and abstract and can be used for different types of setting.

Mapping is on a stellar scale, so solar systems are lumped together and are only referenced as Stars. Stars are placed on a 2D grid with each star occupying a single square on the grid. How far apart the stars are on the grid depends on how many days you think it should take to travel between stars. If you think that starships should hop from solar system to solar system every day then put them close together. If you think it should be an epic voyage between systems then put them far apart. Personally, I think it should take a couple of days to hop between systems, so I’d have them fairly sparse but not too sparse.

You can map them in a paint/drawing package or in a spreadsheet. Excel is ideal for multiple level starcharts.

Moving Between Solar Systems

Movement between stars is relatively simple. Each Interstellar Drive technology has a Factor that determines the distance that technology can move. Some use a single jump/move, others allow the starship to move that distance in a day. Simply move your starship a number of adjacent cells left/right/up/down on the same plane or to the equivalent cell on an adjacent plane on the star map. You might even be able to move diagonally if your GM wants slightly faster movement.

Interstellar Drive Technology

There are many types of Interstellar Drive, all with their own difficulties and foibles. I have tried to abstract them and group similar technologies together for convenience. Although SciFi novels/films/series traditionally have a set technology that works in that setting, there is no reason why you can’t have different technologies working at the same time. I would guess that the technology would be species/culturally driven, so that each species/culture would guard its own special technology and leave the rest of the Galaxy to use the standard technology.

Jump Drive

This allows a starship to jump to another point in space. Such a jump is instantaneous as it opens up a temporary wormhole or join between two points and passes through the hole.

Each Jump Drive has a Factor and a Recovery Time. A starship can move up to the Factor in units on the starmap. Each Jump costs the Movement-squared in Energy Points, so a Jump 1 costs 1 EP, a Jump 10 costs 100 EPs. The Recovery Time is the minimum time between jumps. A starship with a small Factor and low recovery Time is sometimes faster and more economical than one with a high Factor but long Recovery Time.

HyperDrive

A HyperDrive allows the starship to travel through Hyperspace as if it were normal space. This allows Faster Than Light (FTL) travel without breaking Einsteinian laws such as the Velocity of Light in a Vacuum speed limit.

Each Hyperdrive has a Factor and a Cost. It costs 1 EP to Jump to Hyperspace and another to Jump to normal space. A starship can move its Factor in units per day, such travel costs a number of EPs equal to the distance moved multiplied by the Cost. So, a starship with a Factor 5 Cost 3 Hyperdrive can move 5 units a day, but this costs 15 EPs.

FTL Drive

Similar to a Hyperdrive, a FTL Drive allows faster than light travel but in normal space rather than in Hyperspace. This breaks Einsteinian laws by being clever, but that’s fine if allowed in your setting.

Each FTL Drive has a Factor and a Cost. A starship can move its Factor in units per day, such travel costs a number of EPs equal to the distance moved multiplied by the Cost. So, a starship with a Factor 6 Cost 2 FTL Drive can move 6 units a day, but this costs 12 EPs.

Jump Gates

A Jump Gate can open up a Jump Point between itself and another Jump Gate. Each Jump Gate has a Factor and can connect with another Jump Gate as long as the other gate is within its Factor. A starship can move through the Jump Gate, exiting at the other Jump Gate. Such a Jump costs the Movement Squared in EPs but this comes from the EPs of the Jump Gate rather than the starship.

There is normally a cost associated with using Jump Gates as they are run as commercial ventures.

Starships with a functioning Hyperdrive may use Jump Gates to jump into Hyperspace. This is useful if they are short on EPs or have lost the ability to jump into Hyperspace.

Wormholes
These are naturally occurring phenomena that link two regions of space. A starship can pass through a wormhole at no cost, emerging at the other end. Stable wormholes are very useful for interstellar navigation and are often guarded by Starbases of some kind.

Some advanced technologies can create wormholes. These then become semi-permanent and can be summoned for fast travel.

Obstacles to Interstellar Travel

There are many obstacles to Interstellar Travel, some are just annoying, others are dangerous and others block travel completely.

Hyperspace Scars

Sometimes an area of space can be damaged by a natural event such as a Supernova or an artificial event such as a powerful ancient weapon. These areas are called Hyperspace Scars and have an effect on Interstellar Travel.

Black Holes

No starship may cross a cell containing a Black Hole and any travel through a cell adjacent to a Black Hole costs double Movement. No Jumps can be made to or from a cell adjacent to a Black Hole.

Dust Clouds

Dust Clouds exert a gravitational pull that affects the local space and hyperspace. Travel through a Dust Cloud costs double Movement.

[rust]

Yep, looks good to me !

I especially like that your system allows for different methods of space tra-
vel and different technological levels.

[soltakss]

I've put together some star maps in text format at present. you can find them at www.soltakss.com/starmap.zip.

There are 10 Text files - starmap01.txt to starmap10.txt.

Each file has a number of grids, each of which is a Z-Co-ordinate Plane. Empty space is marked by a dot (.) to help with navigation and stars are marked as letters. Navigation is by moving along adjacent dots.

What I have done is taken some files from Halo Stellar Cartography and converted them into a grid format. I turned each co-ordinate into an Integer then divided them by a factor and saved the stars off in grids.

I'm not sure how useful they are because they are either very sparse or very clumped together. Maybe I need more stars to work with.

I haven't included the maps between each plane as they are all blank with no stars at all. They are handy for navigation, though.

If anyone else has any index of stars then I can do much the same with them to add more stars. All I need is an Excel or CSV file containing the Star Name and Relative X,Y and Z co-ordinates.

If anyone has any comments or ideas of how to improve the maps then let me know.

[soltakss]

I've done some star maps using the 30,000+ stars at various scales.

You can find them at www.soltakss.com/bigstarmaps.zip and they are more of the same.

Each text file contains multiple planes. I have sorted the stars by name order, if I have the name, or by catalogue, if I have that, otherwise I have named the star according to its Star ID, which is a number in the file I downloaded.

As before, I have divided the distances by a factor of between 1 and 10 to see which looks best as a starmap. The best ones shouldn't be too close together or too far apart.

Let me know what you think of them.

[Dredj]

Originally Posted by Harshax

If someone doesn't beat me to it, I'll fire up one of my galaxy generators and post a map. Then we can carve up the galaxy and populate with all of our ideas.

Would that be ok?

How realistic will it be? All the Star Wars maps I've seen have populated planets in the galaxy core. All the scientific stuff I've heard about galaxies say that would be impossible, since the closer you get to the center of a galaxy, the faster the stars and stuff rotate. Matter near the galactic core rotates near the speed of light.

When I have some time, I will dig out Worlds Beyond and post the FTL travel guidelines from that. Since the travel in Worlds Beyond had the use of star maps already in mind.

[soltakss]

I've created a Star Map HTML file at Star Map that contains stars within 70 or so parsecs of the sun.

It is best viwed with the smallest Text Size as that makes it one screen-width wide, or it does on my PC.

It uses an on-line resource that contains 119,618 stars, but not all of them have made it onto the starmap as they are too far away.

The star map is in layers, with each layer representing a 2D slice of the mapped cube of space. Z Co-ord 0 represents the layer containing Sol and the others are roughly 1 parsec apart (I think).

There are some hyperlinks at the start of the web page pointing to the different planes.

I included stars with names, stars with catalogue numbers and stars without names for completeness. However, it would be a simple matter to take un-named stars out, for instance.

As I am not an artist, I haven't a clue how to convert these to images, so they will have to remain as text files.

What do you think?

Are they:
1. OK
2. Too detailed (too many stars)
3. Too complicated (too many symbols)
4. Too big (too many charts)
5. Difficult to use
6. Not suitable for a SciFi RPG

Feedback and comments are welcome.

[soltakss]

I suppose it would be handy to include whether a solar system has colonies on, what species owns the colony and so on.

This is dependent on the setting, though, and might nor suit all settings.

Would you only include systems with colonies or all local stars?

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by Dredj

I guess it's true: there is no such thing as a truly original idea I'll have to see if this Perry Rhodan series is translated into English.

The Perry Rhodan books are guilty of half inching a few concepts from elsewhere in SF too!

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by soltakss;14383[FONT=Times New Roman

Hyperspace Scars[/font]

Sometimes an area of space can be damaged by a natural event such as a Supernova or an artificial event such as a powerful ancient weapon. These areas are called Hyperspace Scars and have an effect on Interstellar Travel.

Nice idea!