It's... not full of stars!

[F33D]

Do you happen to know what the latest estimate is as to % of stars being Browns?

Zero? (brown dwarfs are not stars )

Though seriously, what I originally said appears to be out of date: WISE didn't find as many BDs - at least in the solar neighbourhood - as had previously been assumed to exist. It looks like there's about 1 BD for every 6 stars near Sol, unless WISE is missing some really cold (less than room temperature) objects.

See: http://www.space.com/16112-brown-dwarf-stars-sun-rare.html

It could vary with location though - in or near young star clusters there may be way more BDs than can be found around here.

Okay, even 1:6 could alter the jump routes in a sector considerably (at least for those cool enough to skim.)

 

[Reynard]

If we assume the Traveller standard of 50% occurance for regular stars and there are only 16% BDs for each star. For each empty hex you have an 8% chance for a BD or roll 11 to 12 on 2D6.

Reality has only a 3% chance for stars. 1/6 of that is... tiny.

 

[F33D]

If we assume the Traveller standard of 50% occurance for regular stars and there are only 16% BDs for each star. For each empty hex you have an 8% chance for a BD or roll 11 to 12 on 2D6.

Reality has only a 3% chance for stars. 1/6 of that is... tiny.

Once you get a fairly short distance from Earth (a few subsectors) the average stellar density in this part of the galactic arm is about 1 star per cubic parsec. http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec26.html

Earth it seems, is in a bit of a rift.

 

[Yatima]

Check out this analysis of the density of stars in 2300 AD's Near Star Map by Anders Sandberg:

http://www.aleph.se/Nada/Game/2300AD/Escape/Escape.pdf

It's a really fascinating analysis of the 2300 ad setting, and how that would change if newer, more accurate star catalogues are added, or if tug-reachable clusters are incorporated into the game.

It also shows that the 7.7 LY limit to stutterwarp drives in 2300 ad is an exact fit for the type of setting GDW wanted - a higher limit and the arms disappear as every system is reachable from anywhere adjacent; a lower limit and few star systems are reachable at all, limiting the setting to isolated clusters of stars.

Fascinating analysis if you are designing a realistic 3d star map for any traveller universe.

J