Category Archives: Traveller

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Mapping, Traveller

Another big hex

4 Comments

I thought I should try a variation on the big hex style. This time for an important star system in the Spinward Marches.

All planets (except Cipango) was made with GIMP plug-ins. The Cipango ring system was made with the planet rings GIMP plug-in. The planet Cipango was made from an old texture that I have used for other maps of Cipango.

Cipango

The distances for the planets from their “sun” Cipango-Taiyoo is calculated using a modified Titius-Bode law. Using the formula below for the Cipango system:

a = 0.7 + 0.2 · 2 m

For our solar system the formula is:

a = 0.4 + 0.3 · 2 m

Where a is the distance in AU, and m is the orbit number. (Where m is 1 for Earth.) The modification of the Titius-Bode law was needed to fit two planet orbits into the habitable zone. This gives the Cipango system a total of 3 garden worlds.

Mapping, Traveller

New hex style

15 Comments

Travelling between different places in a solar system takes time. Sometimes it will even be faster to make a micro (in-system) jump than using the M-drive.

When jumping to a system, it might be important to know where to get free fuel. If you have a cargo or passengers for the main planet, then it might not be economical to go to a gas giant (to get free fuel) in the outer system as well. Even if the main planet has oceans, you might not be allowed to refuel in these. If you don’t have any cargo or passengers or any other business to the main planet, then you might want to jump directly to the gas giant instead. There you can refuel and jump to the next destination.

How can you plot all the relevant information for a system in a hex on the subsector map? My idea is to divide the hex in six triangles, and show the most important planets with the important moons in each triangle. If there aren’t enough important planets, just leave some triangles empty. But as a minimum 2-3 triangles should have planets. I have put the gas giants in the right part of the hex, just like where the gas giant icon is usually placed.

This is my example for the Terra system. What do you think?

Terra Hex

Mapping, The Base, Traveller

Jerry Mapes

7 Comments

There was some very sad news about JR Mapes, (a contributor to the Zhodani Base). 😥

At his traveller blog You can find his cleaned up Spinward Marches data and some other goodies.

His posts at the Zhodani Base:

For his big contribution to the traveller community, the planet at position 1234 in Foreven Sector is now called Mapes. I selected this planet since it is a peaceful place. When we visit it, we will think of him. New version of Harem Subsector below.

Continue reading Jerry Mapes →

Mapping, Traveller

Aek Elakfough – Gvurrdon 0439

6 Comments

The biggest problem with this planet is that has TL-G and a population of zero. In the maps here at the Zhodani Base that uses data from Galactic, the population has been modified to reflect the situation a few years later. But in the original source (AM-3 Vargr) the UWP is:

0439 A000002-G     Lo nIn As   220Va  K8 V  M7 D

Okay, so we got 2 Vargrs running a class A starport at TL-G. That seems a bit unlikely… It might be that they have lots of robots running the starport and the TL-G production facilities. Where did all those TL-G robots come from?

Another idea is that the only thing they produce at their asteroid base is coffee, and that they once visited Darrian and bought an old coffee machine. When the Impie Scouts visited Aek Elakfough they noticed that the only thing produced was coffee from a TL-G coffee machine. So these scouts followed their scout protocol and noted that this was indeed a TL-G world… They also noted that the two Vargrs were engineers and could (if they wanted to) overhaul starships on their asteroid base. Voila, it must be a class A starport…

Another problem with TL-G for Vargrs are that on page 29 in AM3, the maximum TL for Vargr is F. But on the other hand, that is the same page that have a table for Aslan Morale.

Roger Malmstein has also tried to answer the questions about Aek Elakfough and has written a document about it.