Downloadable Spacemapping

"D.T.Collins" <dirk.collins.RemoveThis@verizon.net> writes:

> "Rainbow Warrior" <pizza.RemoveThis@sbs.com.fr> wrote
> > Anyone know of any good programs to do 3D mapping, even with
> > pre-setup worlds & some basic data would be cool too. I am
> > starting up a space campaign and dread the PC question "How far is
> > it from Planet A to Planet B in a straight line?"
>
> Google for "Heaven & Earth" + Traveller.

Not as useful as you might think. Google has recently gained the
"helpful" feature of searching for other forms of each word. Thus,
searching for "Traveller" will also return hits on "travel" and
"travelling", considerably muddying the search results in this case.

--
\ "This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't." |
`\ -- Douglas Hofstadter |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

In rec.games.frp.gurps Rainbow Warrior <pizza.TakeThisOut@sbs.com.fr> wrote:
>
> Anyone know of any good programs to do 3D mapping, even with pre-setup
> worlds & some basic data would be cool too. I am starting up a space
> campaign and dread the PC question "How far is it from Planet A to Planet B
> in a straight line?"
> I don't really need to go as far as orbit position calculations.
>
>

"Two weeks ship time, three months Station time." Is the answer the
players in my latest game got when they asked. And then I pointed out
that no one in the group had *any* shipboard skills other than vacc suit.

So far it is working out well.

--
My day today? Nothing major, just Xenon base gone, Scorpio gone,
Tarrant dead, Tarrant alive and then I found out Blake sold us out.
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

goldman.DeleteThis@visi.com wrote:

> In rec.games.frp.gurps Rainbow Warrior <pizza.DeleteThis@sbs.com.fr> wrote:
>
>>Anyone know of any good programs to do 3D mapping, even with pre-setup
>>worlds & some basic data would be cool too. I am starting up a space
>>campaign and dread the PC question "How far is it from Planet A to Planet B
>>in a straight line?"
>>I don't really need to go as far as orbit position calculations.
>>
>>
>
>
> "Two weeks ship time, three months Station time." Is the answer the
> players in my latest game got when they asked. And then I pointed out
> that no one in the group had *any* shipboard skills other than vacc suit.
>
> So far it is working out well.
>
Planets don't sit stationary waiting for you to make a trip, they move
around in those orbits.

Even assuming you have ship drives sufficient to make orbital mechanics
fairly ignorable, the answer varies depending on the date you plan to
make the trip.

The distance from Mars to Earth, for example, varies from .5 AU to 2.5
AU, since both planets orbit the sun, Earth at 1 AU and Mars at 1.5 AU
(rounding off a lot for simplicity). And the latter assumes a straight
line trip that goes right thru the sun, its likely any real route at
that point would be at least 3 AU distance.

Travel times also get funny, assuming you have a ship that can
accellerate constantly all the way (well, accelerate halfway and then
slow back down the other half), a trip of 5 AU isn't 5 times as long as
one of 1 AU.

And then there's the differences between one ship and another; Say a
passenger liner makes a constant 1G, a cargo ship makes do with .5G,
while military or private yachts make 2G and courriers can do 4G; that
courrier is going to make a much quicker journey than the slow cargo craft.

If nobody in your party has any knowledge of the intricacies of ship
operations, you can get away with just making up some travel times, but
since some of your players probably have a clue, it would help if you
included some of these variables to make it look like you'd actually
done the math;

Say you have 3 inhabited planets:
Cargo Passenger Courrier
A-B winter 2 weeks 1 week 3 days
A-B spring 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
A-B summer 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
A-B fall 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week

A-C year one 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
A-C year two 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
A-C year three 12 weeks 8 weeks 4 weeks
A-C year four 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks

A-C use same chart as BC but add a half week in the summer, subtract
half a week in the winter

Thats pretty bad, really, and I'm sure an hour with a calculator and
some scratch paper could give much better figures, but we'd need some
clue as to what descisions you've made in terms of ship capability and
so on.

Goldman's answer was reasonably correct for the ignorant; you may end up
sitting around the station for a while before the next departure, and
then the trip will take as long as it takes. On my chart above, will
anyone really launch a ship in the "summer"(of world A) or for trips
to/from C, during the third year of the cycle? Might want to wait till
the planets are closer together!

Lance
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D.T.Collins wrote:
> "Rainbow Warrior" <pizza.RemoveThis@sbs.com.fr> wrote in message
> news:DMGzg.4703$rP1.1003@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> > Anyone know of any good programs to do 3D mapping, even with pre-setup
> > worlds & some basic data would be cool too. I am starting up a space
> > campaign and dread the PC question "How far is it from Planet A to Planet
> > B in a straight line?"
> > I don't really need to go as far as orbit position calculations.
>
> Google for "Heaven & Earth" + Traveller. Eminently compatible with just
> slight adjustments for GURPS.
>

It's still 2D.

300 years from now, people are going to joke about you because you
think the galaxy's flat.

--
C.
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

> It's still 2D.
>
> 300 years from now, people are going to joke about you because you
> think the galaxy's flat.

"Hey Mom, did you know that in the 21st century, they thought we'd never
move faster than light? Pretty stupid, if you ask me."

--U
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

Unobtrusive wrote:
>> It's still 2D.
>>
>> 300 years from now, people are going to joke about you because you
>> think the galaxy's flat.
>
> "Hey Mom, did you know that in the 21st century, they thought we'd never
> move faster than light? Pretty stupid, if you ask me."
>
> --U
>
>
there was a time when people said you couldn't live at 60 miles an hour.
Things change, they always do.

However to create a method of mapping in 3D you might need to create a
area of 3d space, and then take measurements. Easy to set up but slow to
get results to begin with, unless you can find a computer program to
handle it all for you.
It's really a question of what's handy to use in a game.
Will you players mind if you take a moment to plot a couple of points in
your computer just for them to decide they don't want to go that way anyway.
If the answer is they won't mind, then go for it.
If the answer is yes they'll feel it will slow game play down, then the
best option is a 2D representation of the map.

The other option I can think of depends on how often they will go from
one star system to another in real time.
If they are only going to make a single trip in a given session of the
game, you could pre-calculate the distances to each other system they
might fly to and have them hard copied for reference.
Then between sessions, you could do the math for whatever system they
are currently in.
As long as you don't let them travel about to much, you could build up a
library of information as the game goes on.
Pagrin
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On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:58:09 +1000, Pagrin wrote:

> However to create a method of mapping in 3D you might need to create a
> area of 3d space, and then take measurements. Easy to set up but slow to
> get results to begin with, unless you can find a computer program to
> handle it all for you.

You could also do what I do, and slap every star system likely to be
used in the game into an Excel spreadsheet. Put the star systems in one
column, each of the co-ordinates (X,Y,Z) into their own columns and then
link everything together with two more cells with drop-down lists
(origin system and destination system). Use a formula to calculate the
distance between the two points using a variant on Pythagora's Theorem,
with the equation being SQRT((x1-x2)^2+(y1-y2)^2+(z1-z2)^2). As you add
more systems to the mix all you have to do is modify the Data Validation
rule for each of the cells with drop-down lists.



Doug
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

My answer was based on the theory that you were trying to do this within
a single star system.

If what you are asking has to do with going from star to star, its
unlikely that you'll care at all about the movement of planets within
their respective star systems, nor about the movement of stars, which is
at a glacial pace compared to anything needed to travel from one star to
another in a game related pace.

Once again, though, its going to be more interesting to figure
distances, so that you can look at time traveled via different speed craft

Lance Berg wrote:
>
>
> goldman DeleteThis @visi.com wrote:
>
>> In rec.games.frp.gurps Rainbow Warrior <pizza DeleteThis @sbs.com.fr> wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone know of any good programs to do 3D mapping, even with
>>> pre-setup worlds & some basic data would be cool too. I am starting
>>> up a space campaign and dread the PC question "How far is it from
>>> Planet A to Planet B in a straight line?"
>>> I don't really need to go as far as orbit position calculations.
>>>
>>
>>
>> "Two weeks ship time, three months Station time." Is the answer the
>> players in my latest game got when they asked. And then I pointed out
>> that no one in the group had *any* shipboard skills other than vacc suit.
>>
>> So far it is working out well.
>>
> Planets don't sit stationary waiting for you to make a trip, they move
> around in those orbits.
>
> Even assuming you have ship drives sufficient to make orbital mechanics
> fairly ignorable, the answer varies depending on the date you plan to
> make the trip.
>
> The distance from Mars to Earth, for example, varies from .5 AU to 2.5
> AU, since both planets orbit the sun, Earth at 1 AU and Mars at 1.5 AU
> (rounding off a lot for simplicity). And the latter assumes a straight
> line trip that goes right thru the sun, its likely any real route at
> that point would be at least 3 AU distance.
>
> Travel times also get funny, assuming you have a ship that can
> accellerate constantly all the way (well, accelerate halfway and then
> slow back down the other half), a trip of 5 AU isn't 5 times as long as
> one of 1 AU.
>
> And then there's the differences between one ship and another; Say a
> passenger liner makes a constant 1G, a cargo ship makes do with .5G,
> while military or private yachts make 2G and courriers can do 4G; that
> courrier is going to make a much quicker journey than the slow cargo craft.
>
> If nobody in your party has any knowledge of the intricacies of ship
> operations, you can get away with just making up some travel times, but
> since some of your players probably have a clue, it would help if you
> included some of these variables to make it look like you'd actually
> done the math;
>
> Say you have 3 inhabited planets:
> Cargo Passenger Courrier
> A-B winter 2 weeks 1 week 3 days
> A-B spring 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
> A-B summer 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
> A-B fall 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
>
> A-C year one 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
> A-C year two 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
> A-C year three 12 weeks 8 weeks 4 weeks
> A-C year four 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
>
> A-C use same chart as BC but add a half week in the summer, subtract
> half a week in the winter
>
> Thats pretty bad, really, and I'm sure an hour with a calculator and
> some scratch paper could give much better figures, but we'd need some
> clue as to what descisions you've made in terms of ship capability and
> so on.
>
> Goldman's answer was reasonably correct for the ignorant; you may end up
> sitting around the station for a while before the next departure, and
> then the trip will take as long as it takes. On my chart above, will
> anyone really launch a ship in the "summer"(of world A) or for trips
> to/from C, during the third year of the cycle? Might want to wait till
> the planets are closer together!
>
> Lance
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

"Douglas Jackson" <NoAddressForYou RemoveThis @up.yours.spammers.com> wrote in message
news:104681248207890.NC-1.61.NoAddressForYou@news.tpg.com.au...
> On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:58:09 +1000, Pagrin wrote:
>
>> However to create a method of mapping in 3D you might need to create a
>> area of 3d space, and then take measurements. Easy to set up but slow to
>> get results to begin with, unless you can find a computer program to
>> handle it all for you.
>
> You could also do what I do, and slap every star system likely to be
> used in the game into an Excel spreadsheet. Put the star systems in one
> column, each of the co-ordinates (X,Y,Z) into their own columns and then
> link everything together with two more cells with drop-down lists
> (origin system and destination system). Use a formula to calculate the
> distance between the two points using a variant on Pythagora's Theorem,
> with the equation being SQRT((x1-x2)^2+(y1-y2)^2+(z1-z2)^2). As you add
> more systems to the mix all you have to do is modify the Data Validation
> rule for each of the cells with drop-down lists.
>
> Doug

Cool that sounds like the best idea I heard yet, lacks any visual, but lets
them know what they want to know. I'm thinking next they will ask me
something like how far to the nearest class 3 stars?
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

Very true, jumps from star to star might happen too, just to make things
really complicated

"Lance Berg" <emporer RemoveThis @dejazzd.com> wrote in message
news:abKdnQ4uL9cu4mjZnZ2dnUVZ_rmdnZ2d@dejazzd.com...
> My answer was based on the theory that you were trying to do this within a
> single star system.
>
> If what you are asking has to do with going from star to star, its
> unlikely that you'll care at all about the movement of planets within
> their respective star systems, nor about the movement of stars, which is
> at a glacial pace compared to anything needed to travel from one star to
> another in a game related pace.
>
> Once again, though, its going to be more interesting to figure distances,
> so that you can look at time traveled via different speed craft
>
> Lance Berg wrote:
>>
>>
>> goldman RemoveThis @visi.com wrote:
>>
>>> In rec.games.frp.gurps Rainbow Warrior <pizza RemoveThis @sbs.com.fr> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Anyone know of any good programs to do 3D mapping, even with pre-setup
>>>> worlds & some basic data would be cool too. I am starting up a space
>>>> campaign and dread the PC question "How far is it from Planet A to
>>>> Planet B in a straight line?"
>>>> I don't really need to go as far as orbit position calculations.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Two weeks ship time, three months Station time." Is the answer the
>>> players in my latest game got when they asked. And then I pointed out
>>> that no one in the group had *any* shipboard skills other than vacc
>>> suit.
>>>
>>> So far it is working out well.
>>>
>> Planets don't sit stationary waiting for you to make a trip, they move
>> around in those orbits.
>>
>> Even assuming you have ship drives sufficient to make orbital mechanics
>> fairly ignorable, the answer varies depending on the date you plan to
>> make the trip.
>>
>> The distance from Mars to Earth, for example, varies from .5 AU to 2.5
>> AU, since both planets orbit the sun, Earth at 1 AU and Mars at 1.5 AU
>> (rounding off a lot for simplicity). And the latter assumes a straight
>> line trip that goes right thru the sun, its likely any real route at that
>> point would be at least 3 AU distance.
>>
>> Travel times also get funny, assuming you have a ship that can
>> accellerate constantly all the way (well, accelerate halfway and then
>> slow back down the other half), a trip of 5 AU isn't 5 times as long as
>> one of 1 AU.
>>
>> And then there's the differences between one ship and another; Say a
>> passenger liner makes a constant 1G, a cargo ship makes do with .5G,
>> while military or private yachts make 2G and courriers can do 4G; that
>> courrier is going to make a much quicker journey than the slow cargo
>> craft.
>>
>> If nobody in your party has any knowledge of the intricacies of ship
>> operations, you can get away with just making up some travel times, but
>> since some of your players probably have a clue, it would help if you
>> included some of these variables to make it look like you'd actually done
>> the math;
>>
>> Say you have 3 inhabited planets:
>> Cargo Passenger Courrier A-B winter 2 weeks 1 week 3
>> days
>> A-B spring 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
>> A-B summer 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
>> A-B fall 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
>>
>> A-C year one 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
>> A-C year two 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
>> A-C year three 12 weeks 8 weeks 4 weeks
>> A-C year four 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
>>
>> A-C use same chart as BC but add a half week in the summer, subtract half
>> a week in the winter
>>
>> Thats pretty bad, really, and I'm sure an hour with a calculator and some
>> scratch paper could give much better figures, but we'd need some clue as
>> to what descisions you've made in terms of ship capability and so on.
>>
>> Goldman's answer was reasonably correct for the ignorant; you may end up
>> sitting around the station for a while before the next departure, and
>> then the trip will take as long as it takes. On my chart above, will
>> anyone really launch a ship in the "summer"(of world A) or for trips
>> to/from C, during the third year of the cycle? Might want to wait till
>> the planets are closer together!
>>
>> Lance
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

Rainbow Warrior wrote:

> Cool that sounds like the best idea I heard yet, lacks any visual,

graph it.
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

> Cool that sounds like the best idea I heard yet, lacks any visual, but
lets
> them know what they want to know. I'm thinking next they will ask me
> something like how far to the nearest class 3 stars?

Colour-code the cells, and colour-code the text. Cell colour for star
colour, and text colour for size.

--U
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping 

Lance Berg <emporer RemoveThis @dejazzd.com> gasped the following in horror:
>
>
>
> goldman RemoveThis @visi.com wrote:
>
>> In rec.games.frp.gurps Rainbow Warrior <pizza RemoveThis @sbs.com.fr> wrote:
>>
>>>Anyone know of any good programs to do 3D mapping, even with pre-setup
>>>worlds & some basic data would be cool too. I am starting up a space
>>>campaign and dread the PC question "How far is it from Planet A to Planet B
>>>in a straight line?"
>>>I don't really need to go as far as orbit position calculations.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> "Two weeks ship time, three months Station time." Is the answer the
>> players in my latest game got when they asked. And then I pointed out
>> that no one in the group had *any* shipboard skills other than vacc suit.
>>
>> So far it is working out well.
>>
> Planets don't sit stationary waiting for you to make a trip, they move
> around in those orbits.

True. The above is for Star to Star travel. They've a destination
in mind, about 2 to 3 months ship's time away. So far they aren't
planning to make a return trip. They realized very quickly just
how bad the time dialation is.

> Even assuming you have ship drives sufficient to make orbital mechanics
> fairly ignorable, the answer varies depending on the date you plan to
> make the trip.

The players spent 1 month of game time in the Earth solar system. I
didn't give the planets much time to move around.

The next system they've visited, they are getting only 2 weeks there.

I suspect that their ride will want to leave the third system within
hours.

Movement of planets isn't an important factor in the game. None
of the players really feel cheated. Role playing wins out over
realism, and the players are having a blast.

>
> The distance from Mars to Earth, for example, varies from .5 AU to 2.5
> AU, since both planets orbit the sun, Earth at 1 AU and Mars at 1.5 AU
> (rounding off a lot for simplicity). And the latter assumes a straight
> line trip that goes right thru the sun, its likely any real route at
> that point would be at least 3 AU distance.
>
> Travel times also get funny, assuming you have a ship that can
> accellerate constantly all the way (well, accelerate halfway and then
> slow back down the other half), a trip of 5 AU isn't 5 times as long as
> one of 1 AU.
>
> And then there's the differences between one ship and another; Say a
> passenger liner makes a constant 1G, a cargo ship makes do with .5G,
> while military or private yachts make 2G and courriers can do 4G; that
> courrier is going to make a much quicker journey than the slow cargo craft.

I simply do lots of hand waving. The players aren't interested in
the hard science in the background.

I've set things up so that there are 4 speeds of 'Deep Spacer' ships,
Scout Ships, Small Merchant, Large Merchant, and Military.

The Small Merchants take the most time to get between stars, but suffer
the least time compression. The Military ships are *fast*, but at a
terrible cost to your friends left behind.

> If nobody in your party has any knowledge of the intricacies of ship
> operations, you can get away with just making up some travel times, but
> since some of your players probably have a clue, it would help if you
> included some of these variables to make it look like you'd actually
> done the math;
>
> Say you have 3 inhabited planets:
> Cargo Passenger Courrier
> A-B winter 2 weeks 1 week 3 days
> A-B spring 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
> A-B summer 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
> A-B fall 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
>
> A-C year one 4 weeks 2 weeks 1 week
> A-C year two 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
> A-C year three 12 weeks 8 weeks 4 weeks
> A-C year four 8 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks
>
> A-C use same chart as BC but add a half week in the summer, subtract
> half a week in the winter
>
> Thats pretty bad, really, and I'm sure an hour with a calculator and
> some scratch paper could give much better figures, but we'd need some
> clue as to what descisions you've made in terms of ship capability and
> so on.

I do like the above. I would do something like that if I was letting
them sit around in one place long enough.

But if they stay still, the Old Ones might get them. As it is, one of
the players is "most likely to be offered a crew position" on a big
merchant ship. She's been making some interesting friends in the budding
Merchanter's Alliance.

Several players are aware of the actual math. But that's too much like
work for them, so the real math is dropped.

> Goldman's answer was reasonably correct for the ignorant; you may end up
> sitting around the station for a while before the next departure, and
> then the trip will take as long as it takes. On my chart above, will
> anyone really launch a ship in the "summer"(of world A) or for trips
> to/from C, during the third year of the cycle? Might want to wait till
> the planets are closer together!

The TV series "Jupiter Moon" handled it well. They had 'optimal launch
windows' for between planets and moons.

I suppose this really comes down to a question of how much realism you
want to throw in? When I really want to find out how orbital mechanics
and time dialation works, I just have to go visit my parents and ask
over dinner. Way too many PHDs in Physics at holiday dinners! (My dad,
sister, her husband, and frequently others as well!)

Cheers!

MDG

--
My day today? Nothing major, just Xenon base gone, Scorpio gone,
Tarrant dead, Tarrant alive and then I found out Blake sold us out.
 >> Stay informed about: Downloadable Spacemapping