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http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThe PAU & the IF
are closer that it appears on the Full Thrust Empire Map...
http://www.projectrho.com/ft/FTLinkMap.gif
The Pan-African Union & the Islamic Federation look to be on opposite
sides of the known universe, but it's an abstraction caused by a 3-D map
rendered in 2-D.
Using the GZG star list with planetary data...
http://wam.umd.edu/~ddr/
I found the listings for the PAU & the IF. Only 2 systems are listed for the
PAU & 5 of 6 for the IF. I'm guessing that system Gl 370 is marked on the
Empire Map as New Zimbabwe. And that the systems of the Islamic Federation are
Gl 438, Gl 506, LTT 5455, Gl 453, & Gl 432 A. Using a trig equation provided
by Winchel Chung...
DIST=SQRT[ (X1-X2)^2 + (Y1-Y2)^2 + (Z1-Z2)^2 ]
I found that Gl 370 (New Zimbabwe) & Gl 438 (New Persia - I think) are
only 3.4 parsecs from eachother. If I'm wrong, the next nearest is Gl
432 A, which is 3.85 parsecs. Both are only 2-3 jumps away for military
ships.
As always, I invite your comments.
> John Brewer wrote:
> Islamic Federation are Gl 438, Gl 506, LTT 5455, Gl 453, & Gl 432 A.
> only 3.4 parsecs from eachother. If I'm wrong, the next nearest is Gl
> 432 A, which is 3.85 parsecs. Both are only 2-3 jumps away for
Yes, I know. They are about 3.4 parsecs apart.
John B said
> The PAU & the IF are closer that it appears on the Full Thrust Empire
Yep, but you wouldn't know that unless you had the stars' xyz coordinates and
calculated the distances. Nyrath and I have been discussing how to change the
map to bring out that point.
> John Brewer wrote:
> Islamic Federation are Gl 438, Gl 506, LTT 5455, Gl 453, & Gl 432 A.
> only 3.4 parsecs from eachother. If I'm wrong, the next nearest is Gl
> 432 A, which is 3.85 parsecs. Both are only 2-3 jumps away for
OK, just to have full disclosure, what has happened is that John has caught me
trying to get away with taking
short-cuts. <grin>
The full 3D starmap is pretty, but it is almost impossible to use for a
campaign map. Much easier is to use a
2-1/2 D map or a "node" map.
http://www.projectrho.com/smap13.html
But any time you try to smash a 3D map onto a 2D piece of paper, there are
going to be distortions.
When I was using my custom software to generate the map, I figured it would be
good enough to just draw links between each star and that star's two closest
neighbors. (note that this will make some stars have five or more links, due
to the geometry of the map) This, I thought, would give a good enough
approximation of the three dimensional connectivity of the map.
And if it didn't, I figured who would ever know?
Well, I was wrong. <grin>
Laserlight noticed that while the IF and the PAU were chosen from the 3D map
to be close, ended up on opposite sides of the node map. I looked into it and
found to my horror that he was right. What it boiled down to was that just
linking to the two closest neighbors was *not* good enough.
This was an education for me, up until this point the other node maps I had
made seemed just fine with two neighbors. I suspect that the operative word is
"seemed". I also suspect that if I looked at my other node maps as closely as
Laserlight looked at this one they too would prove to be inadequate.
For test purposes I made a node map with links between a star and its *five*
closest neighbors. This gives a better approximation of a 3D map.
Unfortunately it makes the existing map a tangled mess. To accommodate this, I
would
basically have to re-do the entire map.
This would also move all the stars around, so the new map would look totally
different from the old map, which might upset some people.
So I figured I would take a short cut, and only add manually a few of the new
links, just enough to link the IF and the PAU.
About this time John Brewer caught me
> Laserlight noticed
Horror even without sheep!
> as closely as Laserlightlooked at this one
I didn't look at this one that closely. When you first published the list of
stars and their XYZ coords, I did a spreadsheet and saw that PAU and IF and AE
were all close. When you first posted this node map, I thought you'd just
decided to move the IF and AE. It was only when I looked up the original AE
stars and realized that they were the same as the "new" stars, that I realized
what had happened.
> I still think that by just adding a few lines
IMHO, three links would be better than two. That way when you come in from
Link A, you have a choice of B and C as exits.
That wouldn't necessarily solve the "wrap around the map" problem, of course.