Space Terrain - How do you use yours?

[Geekybiker]

Argh! Am I saying something not clearly here? I'm talking about tournaments that DON'T provide templates. I agree templates shold always be used, but if the organizer doesn't use them, what happens?

The players riot and beat the organizer untill he comes up with templates of course!

 

[Chernobyl]

I thought the generally accepted rule, was that the field is considered to be the outer bounding of the stems of the models, as shown:

The problem with this is when a ship moves into the asteroid field. Then you may well have to move the asteroids, and change the shape of the field...

I'll stick to flat representations. I have them all just fine in Word (at 32 Mb!), but when I make them into a PDF (only 2 Mb...) they shrink - a 5" planet becomes 4.8" for whatever reason, and everything else proportianately.

Wulf

I've found my cards are distorted by excel when I print to PDF. So I made one the proper dimensions, printed it, found how much it was distored in X and Y axis, and then modified the original so it would distort to the proper dimensions. It was crucial to the new cards since they're intended to fit snugly into the CCG card protectors.

 

[Hash]

That said, if they don't provide templates, a pro-active player could just cut some out of paper to create boundaries for terrain - assuming no one has any objections. Then bring them with him to the next round

That's a good tip - I think I'm going to do that from now on!

 

[Wulf Corbett]

I've found my cards are distorted by excel when I print to PDF. So I made one the proper dimensions, printed it, found how much it was distored in X and Y axis, and then modified the original so it would distort to the proper dimensions. It was crucial to the new cards since they're intended to fit snugly into the CCG card protectors.

Yes, I found Excel squashed them into ovals. I had to copy each planet & asteroid field individually onto Word, along with the text overlays. But there has to be SOME way to convert to an accurate PDF. People sell scale paper models in PDF for download & printing - you'd think someone would complain if they weren't properly to scale, do they have to jiggle the size before converting to PDF?

Wulf

 

[Chernobyl]

scaled drawings are probably created in something besides excel... :lol: like Autocad or Microstation or whatever.

for what its worth, my "squish adjustment" technique gets me under 1% so I'm happy with it. Another tip, is to adjust your cells and print area so that you're only printing exactly the image you want.

On the original question, if the terrain is 3d and mounted on bases, I'd say the outline of the stems is proably a decent method, but you should discuss it with your opponent before you start, and the tourney organizer should also provide guidance as well.