So...I've been hacking away at my world generator program, and I'm really pleased with it. I had a few cool ideas for the maps it generates, so I thought I'd share them with you guys.
The program generates single or multiple worlds, subsectors or sectors, totally randomly and in accordance with the MGT world generation rules. There's also a couple of switches there for preferential choices, like the Hard SF or space opera rules (man, does Hard SF lead to lot of X---000-0 worlds though !)
Best of all, it outputs nice subsector and sector maps. Here's one it generated; the only tweak is a personal prefences setting that increases the likelihood of higher tech worlds.
Here's the overall sector map (click for bigger, but still not full size, version):
A map of subsector L, Turrivan
and the listing for the entire sector
I originally just had a black circle for each world, but I realised that that's not particularly helpful. I mean, It's pretty hard to buy a black and white only printer these days, and we're all using colour monitors, right ? So I tweaked the map formatting with the following features, and I think it really aids the utility of Traveller star maps:
Firstly, underneath the world icon I print the tech level, just like the starport type is printed above it. I also added a 'High Population' icon (silhouettes of 3 people) - see 0305 Mstical for example. These two things make it easy to pick out where everyone's living on the map, and if they're doing it in style or not.
As for the actual world icon itself: firstly I scale the size of the icon based on the size digit of the UPP - so bigger worlds have larger circles, and smaller ones have smaller circles.
The solid colour of the icon represents the Hydro UPP digit, more or less - black = 0, grey <= 4, brown-sh > 4, blue for water worlds. Green represents a world that's got the Garden code, pale blue a world that's Ice Capped. So now it's getting easier to pick out those nicely sized, uncrowded garden worlds for your holiday. But what about the air qualtiy ?
So, the STROKE of the icon (the line around it, the 'halo') represents the atmosphere of the world. Black again means none, blue means untainted, darker blue means thicker, orange means a taint of some kind, and orange-red means exotics.
I find that these simple additions to the map make it really easy to quickly pick out a nice destination, or realise what sort of clothing you need to pack for the next jump
It would be nice if I could squeeze icons for all the other travel codes on there too, and have some way of indicating other parts of the UPP - government, law level, etc. I don't want to clutter up the map too much though.
There's no X-boat routes though, as that's something best left as a manual task
The program generates single or multiple worlds, subsectors or sectors, totally randomly and in accordance with the MGT world generation rules. There's also a couple of switches there for preferential choices, like the Hard SF or space opera rules (man, does Hard SF lead to lot of X---000-0 worlds though !)
Best of all, it outputs nice subsector and sector maps. Here's one it generated; the only tweak is a personal prefences setting that increases the likelihood of higher tech worlds.
Here's the overall sector map (click for bigger, but still not full size, version):
A map of subsector L, Turrivan
and the listing for the entire sector
I originally just had a black circle for each world, but I realised that that's not particularly helpful. I mean, It's pretty hard to buy a black and white only printer these days, and we're all using colour monitors, right ? So I tweaked the map formatting with the following features, and I think it really aids the utility of Traveller star maps:
Firstly, underneath the world icon I print the tech level, just like the starport type is printed above it. I also added a 'High Population' icon (silhouettes of 3 people) - see 0305 Mstical for example. These two things make it easy to pick out where everyone's living on the map, and if they're doing it in style or not.
As for the actual world icon itself: firstly I scale the size of the icon based on the size digit of the UPP - so bigger worlds have larger circles, and smaller ones have smaller circles.
The solid colour of the icon represents the Hydro UPP digit, more or less - black = 0, grey <= 4, brown-sh > 4, blue for water worlds. Green represents a world that's got the Garden code, pale blue a world that's Ice Capped. So now it's getting easier to pick out those nicely sized, uncrowded garden worlds for your holiday. But what about the air qualtiy ?
So, the STROKE of the icon (the line around it, the 'halo') represents the atmosphere of the world. Black again means none, blue means untainted, darker blue means thicker, orange means a taint of some kind, and orange-red means exotics.
I find that these simple additions to the map make it really easy to quickly pick out a nice destination, or realise what sort of clothing you need to pack for the next jump
It would be nice if I could squeeze icons for all the other travel codes on there too, and have some way of indicating other parts of the UPP - government, law level, etc. I don't want to clutter up the map too much though.
There's no X-boat routes though, as that's something best left as a manual task
