Traveller

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

The various maps of the #Traveller charted space borders are really not consistent drawing to drawing. The Rebellion maps are particularly hard to sort out (in terms of what the map coordinates of the borders are relative to the original map) because the borders are actually changing. But major features change position too.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

#Traveller automatic map generation: Now the borders for every alliance are determined, so long as the area controlled by the alliance is more than a few square parsec in size. All worlds from travellermap Milieu 1105 that are not Faraway or Unreviewed are included (about 68k worlds). Dots representing worlds are proportional in area to world GDP.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

It is, of course, necessary to verify that any tool you build for #Traveller also work for the real world (if you're trying to keep Traveller at least vaguely hard sci-fi). So, in honor of the upcoming solar eclipse, here's my Traveller system simulation tool predicting the path of the total eclipse.

video/mp4

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

The assorted surrounding mini-empires and states adds to the feel (I think) of the original map - Now every Allegiance represented in the travellermap data is included.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

#Traveller now adding in the assorted Vargr and Julian states coreward.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

Trying another method of automatically drawing the Imperium borders. For this one I do a Region Union of each imperial hex, then a series of dilations and erosions to get rid of smaller islands and holes.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

#Traveller ..starting to get a feel of the original. World markers are scaled by area proportional to computed world GDP

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

#Traveller Imperial Bureau of Propaganda and Statistics report: Resurce Unit distribution through some of the Imperium: A green disk represents a world with a positive RU value, a red disk is negative, black points are 0 (for whatever reason). Through the travellermap data, RU is distributed approximately as a normal distribution with mu = 496, sigma=1906. The size of the disk represents how many standard deviations above the mean that particular world is, with red disks how many standard deviations below 0 the world is. Between 0 and 496 are all collectively treated as 0. Interestingly, the Solomani Sphere doesn't have all that much economic power, world by world.

pauldrye,
@pauldrye@spacey.space avatar

@sudnadja It does put an interesting spin on why the Imperium was willing to end the Solomani Rim War without conquering the whole Confederation.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

's fragmented Solomani Sphere

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

The automatic border finding and drawing needs considerable work and it doesn't look good yet. I want to do the equivalent of a morphological erode and then dilate to smooth it out, but there's probably a better method. Still whittling on it

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

- automatically (or at least, semiautomatically) generating maps of the Imperium from travellermap datasets, but trying to match the general style of the original Imperium maps

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

1G Trader landing on Regina: Guidance computer control inputs to engine during terminal phase (arrows represent direction of desired thrust). The guidance computer is a discrete time controller and updates guidance every 1/10th second. Touchdown velocity < 1 m/s.

Hcobb,
@Hcobb@spacey.space avatar

@sudnadja What's the effect of aerodynamic lift and drag on a planet that has an atmosphere?

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

@Hcobb It depends on the density and extent of the atmosphere and the shape of the vehicle. I typically do not simulate anything other than atmospheric drag as running full CFD can be quite slow. The code I'm using now I originally did for back-computing a meteor's orbit from observed flight through Earth's atmosphere, and in the meteor case it doesn't really change things all that much (I was within the range of computed Chelyabinsk impactor orbits from published papers with atmosphere both turned on and off).

video/mp4

arkbrik,
@arkbrik@dice.camp avatar

Adapting the enterprise rules from Into the Odd for Classic

http://arch-brick.blogspot.com/2024/03/enterprises-for-classic-traveller.html

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

outgoing ship at 1G then incoming ship at 1G. Lighting set from the direction of Lusor, it turns out that both launch and landing occur at night (which I hadn't checked before setting this up). (City lights are randomly placed, I'll have to actually plot out the cities)

video/mp4

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

1G Trader launch from Regina in - the first 1000s. Even though Regina's surface gravity is significantly under 1G, it's enough that the 1G trader seems a bit sluggish getting off the ground. I'm presuming the spaceport is at -15, -60 (latitude, longitude) and the viewpoint is hovering over -40,-52, so the viewpoint is rotating with Regina in Regina's frame, but the path trails are in the non rotating cartesian frame.

video/mp4

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

Play area (limited) family portrait

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

Trader detection of stern convergence intercept: A player without active sensors: that is to say, they don't know range or range-rate, but they do know the spherical position in the sky might have difficulty determining a firing solution or even determining if a pirate / customs boat (really all the same, isn't it?) were performing an interception. However, if you plot the object angular motion over time it becomes obvious that an interception is occurring. Here, for example, a pirate is doing a convergence intercept. Plotting the angular velocity of the pirate (blue) vs innocent outgoing trader (purple) and background celestial objects (Speck, Harcourt, and Assiniboia - this is in the Regina system as configured in Traveller5).

image/png
image/png

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

: A journey from Sol to Aurore (Eta Bootis). Of course no 2300AD ship can make the journey in one direct hop, but this is how the sky chart changes during the travel from Sol to Eta Bootis (home of probably the most famous world of 2300AD, Aurore). I plot any star with an apparent magnitude of 6, and only plot names of stars in the 2300 NSL, but I also plot the bright constellation stars so there's a sense of how the familiar constellations warp during the journey. Orion, for example, remains recognizable but it does change.

video/mp4

isaackuo,
@isaackuo@mastodon.social avatar

@sudnadja This makes me realize that a pure ASCII first person space game similar to Elite could be done ... no need for fancy graphics just the names with a "distance dot" underneath.

The " distance dot" is a digit from 0 to 9 telling distance magnitude.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

@isaackuo I’ve done it in pure text with no graphics for traveller-like space combat, where the players are not given a geometric representation of the combat environment, just a list of contact spherical coordinates - and they didn’t even get the radial distance unless they were willing to radar or lidar ping the contact and then only if within sensor range (typically 1 light second). Distance had to be inferred by the angular velocity of the contact and possibly by apparent visual magnitude, which they sometimes had. It was kind of fun.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

Another view of the play area. This going from -125 LY to +125 LY with a full 360 degree view rotation during the transit.

video/mp4

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

And a more distant view. Asteroids are an underrated playing area for traveller, I think. You can circumnavigate the entire world, possibly jump to escape velocity (for small asteroids) and the non-uniform gravity fields make orbits around the asteroids unstable and somewhat unpredictable.

video/mp4

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@sudnadja @nyrath Thanks, now I wanna write a short story about a shootout on an asteroid between two rival illegal-mining gangs or something.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath @michael_w_busch @sudnadja I didn't yet but I'll probably check them out for inspiration!

But yea the thing I have with spaceborne societies (aside from the largest of habs) is that they either have strict social control (if human) or have mindsets either natural (alien) or engineered (transhuman) to be able to properly maintain small habitats and asteroid colonies over generations.

With baseline humans, asteroid mines are at least partially dependent on the in-system inhabited worlds.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

Abandoned or Derelict MCruiser in orbit of the primary asteroid of a dual asteroid system. Rendered and simulated with Mathematica.

video/mp4

nyrath, (edited )
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

@sudnadja

Bonus points if you are enough of a scifi nerd to decipher the obscure joke behind the red logo...

UnlikelyLass,
@UnlikelyLass@dice.camp avatar

@sudnadja @nyrath Dunno if I’m right, but my first thought was the Terran Federation logo from the Star Trek mirror universe.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@vivaldi.net avatar

If you only plot OTU canon sectors, and leave out InReview and others that aren't formally canon, there is a fair amount of uncharted space to spinward of the spinward marches. The Foreven sector is there on the map, but it doesn't carry the OTU tag in travellermap (as it is the 'referee's private reserve). It'd almost be better to just leave it blank, giving the impression that the Spinward Marches really are a frontier to a sort of interstellar wilderness.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@dice.camp avatar

#Traveller orbit decay

video/mp4

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@dice.camp avatar

Inbound to Regina from 100 diameters. Assiniboia also in frame. Note how empty it looks without a starfield - thanks to the 2d nature of the default setting.

sudnadja,
@sudnadja@dice.camp avatar

Still whittling on the vector movement intercept problem.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • traveller
  • Durango
  • DreamBathrooms
  • thenastyranch
  • ngwrru68w68
  • cisconetworking
  • magazineikmin
  • Youngstown
  • InstantRegret
  • rosin
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • mdbf
  • kavyap
  • modclub
  • JUstTest
  • tacticalgear
  • GTA5RPClips
  • normalnudes
  • osvaldo12
  • everett
  • anitta
  • ethstaker
  • tester
  • Leos
  • cubers
  • provamag3
  • megavids
  • lostlight
  • All magazines