3D Traveller

John Orthoefer (haven't seen you on icb recently, John 8-)
commented that 3-D traveller isn't too bad, given computer
game aids and such.  He's right, but it's still not a good
idea for many campaigns.

Doing a map-based (and 3D maps work, slowly and painfully ;-)
3-D system is possible if clumsy, and can be put into source
books and such, and doesn't require that the user have a particular
type of computer or calculator.  The problem is that it's very
clumsy, unless you think really hard first.

Doing purely co-ordinates based, using a computer or calculator
for relative distance calculations, is more elegant and much harder
to reproduce.  It's great if you're doing a campaign for your
own use... you can set up the computer program or calculator
functions to do the number-crunching for you, and don't have to
worry about having anyone else use the programs.

It's not portable.

The issue isn't doing one campaign, it's creating a system which
can be put on paper and sold in a source book, which is much much
harder.  You can't put a calculator program in such a source
book and expect people to go buy that brand of calculator.
You might get away with shipping 3 floppies, one with a Mac
version of the program, and a 3.5 and 5.25 floppy with PC
versions which will run on anything from a 286 on up.
But that's going to add three or four dollars to the product.
[Or you could ship three different versions 8-)]

There are still some problems with doing it that way.  It's
hard to visualze these 3-d representations, and the further
you get from having them on paper the harder it gets.
When it's a single subsector, it's not that bad... but at
larger scales, it's very hard to tell where you are relative
to nearby systems.

I don't like this.
I want to see a system which can be put down on paper,
can be mapped on paper, can be used without having to
resort to a calculator or computer, though those aids may
be very helpful.  Such a system is possible.

- -george william herbert

> John Orthoefer (haven't seen you on icb recently, John 8-)

I'm around, just not very vocal anymore.

> He's right, but it's still not a good
> idea for many campaigns.

Well I liked it in mine.  But then I'm not sure if I like the campaign
or the hacking to get the software working.

>  The problem is that it's very
> clumsy, unless you think really hard first.

My point was that you don't have to think hard.  You just map all the
subsectors your intressed in a spherical system (I like to put  it
around a central world).  Then you map all the central worlds with
respect to each other.  Getting jump distances is then trival (trival
meaning there is a big nasty formual to do it, but you code it once
and then ask your computer tell you how far it is).

> It's great if you're doing a campaign for your
> own use... you can set up the computer program or calculator
> functions to do the number-crunching for you, and don't have to
> worry about having anyone else use the programs.

it sure is.  and you get nifty star maps and you can play what if
games just like your character are.  Because it's no longer ovious
which way you want your trading routes to go.

> It's not portable.

I don't think I ever claimed this.  I simply claimed it could be done
from experiance.

I think that you'll find in any group of people play RPGs today
atleast one of them knows something about programing.  I also think
that most of them atleast one owns an HP-48, at least at U of F you
had to have one to be an engineering student.

So if you write say a 48 program to do the math.  And a PC and Mac
version that does both the math and visulation (a 3-d scatter plot).
Make the program under something like the Gnu Public License (GPL).
And I bet you would do well.  Then you tell people to either call your
BBS and downlaod the s/w or get it off the net.  Not net incress in
the cost of the book (at least SJI seems to be doing well with
theirs).

Speaking of visulation I did fine with a flat display.  I used a + or
- - to repersent the world and a number to tell you the hight/depth of
it on the page (also the spherical coordants)  I knew excaly where
things where.

> When it's a single subsector, it's not that bad... but at
> larger scales, it's very hard to tell where you are relative
> to nearby systems.

Thats why you only map subsectors and then your orient your
subsectors into sectors.

> I want to see a system which can be put down on paper,
> can be mapped on paper, can be used without having to
> resort to a calculator or computer, though those aids may
> be very helpful.  Such a system is possible.

I'm not computer-phobic infact I use computers all the time when I
don't really need to.  And YES if I get stuck on some backwaters
planet I may not be able to build a ship to achieve orbit.  But that
is to be talked about some other time :-)

I don't care if I need a computer to use the system, becuase I know if
I'm playing I'm going to have something atleast as powerful as my 48
to use.

johno

Actually, having had it brought to mind, I finished up
work on my 3-d system (which was actually intended for
a slightly nonstandard background, but works for any
Traveller area anyway...).

It's got subsectors which are 5x5x5 cubes, and a
workable subsector map (whose prototype (postscript) will be
FTPable from the Traveller directory at ocf.berkeley.edu
by the end of the day).  Sectors are 2x2x2 subsectors.
There are 125 cubic hexes in the subsector, 50% more
than the flat subsectors in normal traveller but
quite usable.  That should average perhaps 40
worlds per subsector, a manageable number.

- -george william herbert