One minor bitch I've always had about Traveller (Classic,
Mega or New Era) what that space is two-dimensional. You can lay out
the map of the Spinward Marches flat on your table. They don't
even try to rationalise it anywhere. (The best rationalisation I've
heard is that the 2D map represents what is close to what in jump-space
and does not necessarily relate to real-space)
Part of my motivation for doing the Sysgen software was so
that I could have a 3D universe without losing all that detail on
those maps. I've been running Traveller in a 3D universe (off an on)
for about 4 years now. I thought I might make a few observations.
_Space is big_ Really big. A small 10x10x10 parsec cube,
what I had envisaged as a sub-sector, is really only comprable with
a sector. Simple maths shows there are 1280 hexes in your standard
2D 32x40 sector and 1000 in a 10x10x10 cube. In all that gaming they
have never left that area.
Yes, _borders are close_. If you are sitting in the centre
of a 2D sector you have to jump at least 16 parsecs to get out of
the sector. Yet, in a 3D "sector" you are only 5 parsecs from the
border. A jump-6 ship would make it to the edge.
_There is much more choice_ In a 2D universe the standard
Jump-2 freighter has a choice of 18 destinations. In a 3D universe
this leaps to 32. Jump-1 remains at 6, but Jump-3 and higher escalate
surprisingly. So when you are selecting profitable points you have
more to choose from.
_Almost anywhere is just a few jumps away_ Because of the above
the number of planets within a few jumps is very, very, large. My players
wanted to find a tech level 10, Starport A world that was likely to
have bulk freighters in standard production. Calling on my program it
produced 27 systems within a 4 parsec radius cube!
_Navigation isn't that bad_ The most common objection I have
heard is that it is difficult to think in 3D and mapping is a bitch.
Once we had done out a little cubic diagram of what range their ship
had the players had no problem at all working out where they could
jump. To my annoyance they never use the on-line computer map I wrote
for them but are quite happy with their 5 page printout of the sector.
We don't do normal ship movement in 3D. In fact, being largly
a trader type campaign we don't do ship movement much at all.
I don't know how a 3D universe might be on a strateigic level.
It would be *really* interesting to see a TCS game run in a 3D space.
Any takers?
Jo Grant