Re: 3D traveller

> 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