Recent content by HSlam

Yep, I did read the description of how voyager did it. I also read the shared NASA data that includes references to possible better options in the future. NASA scientists question the capability of repeating the zero line due to timing differences. The part about picking a surface feature is...

Actually they got to the surface in a scout, they got to that particular island on a raft. They got off the island by swimming to a boat just off shore and they got off planet on a free trader. All of that is totally inconsequential. The question is how does one set a reference for land...

"Yes, hand-waving is clearly what got them into this mess. If the vehicles were properly described, it would be clear that the players have everything they need to go back to where they were, just like you could with the GPS in your car. Realism, yo." Can you elaborate on properly described...

Well, still ongoing. The group split so most of them don't know that the briefcase is "lost" right now. The two characters that do know are one (or maybe 2 depending on decisions) jumps from joining the main part of the group. The briefcase was stolen from a pirate ship captain affiliated...

A pdf errata sheet would be nice.

No they sure hadn't, but taking a picture of the spot would have been a lot more straight forward than designating some sort of zero longitude or rotational plane zero reference, marking it somehow (or doing even one full orbit map of the surface) and then using the data to get back to the spot.

That's a very interesting take. None of us here took the imagery route. Thanks

LOL, I found myself asking the same question while they were doing it. It's a really long story actually and some of the most interesting parts involve one of the players trying to accurately portray a traveller with an intelligence of 4 and an education of 2. Well "accurately" by her...

I was reminded that the whole problem with frontier planets/lifeless planets/large moons etc would be two fold. Identifying a zero longitude is all well and good, but whatever your using as a navigational aid while traveling the surface also has to be able to find that zero line. So, in the...

I suppose I'm meaning featureless as in a liquid covered planet (or in the case of the original question: very nearly liquid covered, merely spotted by many many thousands of less-than-ten-acre islands). Of course, if you've got a really really good orbital sensor I suppose you could use an...

Thanks for the thoughts folks, helps a lot. still need to do some thinking on featureless and balkanized planets but you've given me some great starting points

In this case the players are TL 13. Its not so much whether or not I have maps or they've been taking notes... latitude and longitude work. The problem is setting a zero longitude if no zero is currently mapped out. Now if there were GPS satellites there would be no problem, and I'm assuming...

Not so much a rules question as a general process question... How do you folks deal with land navigation and coordinates on frontier/unexplored/low tech planets? No GPS satellites in orbit, and maybe not even any prior maps - which raises the question of how you establish a zero line for...