GSP: Galactic Starmap Project

[Hannable]

ORIGINAL: Osito
I would like to see a Star trek version of this map, and may well do one after I have a satisfactory version of the base map - unless someone else undertakes to complete that project.

Hey Osito, check this map out. I thought you might want to tweak your map to a Star Trek map for others to use in a ST mod ... since ST does, in fact, take place in our universe and stars have the same names as a real map (aside from some of the fictional systems).

This map also has a tool that you can measure the exact distance in light years between any two systems you want.

Here's the map:

Stellar Cartography

[Osito]

@FingNewGuy: yep, Vrilja is in

@mensrea: I would certainly approve the use of the map by others in mods. Or they can take the base mod and improve it. I would welcome contributions like that.

@Hannable: thanks, I have seen that site. I have some ST resources, including 'Star Trek Star Charts' by Geoffrey Mandel and 'Star Trek Stellar Cartography: the Starfleet Reference Library', by Larry Nemecek.

I did all my work independently of these reference works, and I have been impressed with how accurately they have previously mapped out the correct positions of the stars. They clearly took the trouble to look at the distance from Sol and the direction. I haven't followed their approach precisely, as I think they have projected each star directly onto the galactic plane, so the apparent 2D distance from Sol is incorrect, whereas I have adjusted to get the distance from Sol right.

Anyway, I have now created a preliminary 'full galaxy'. This is really a precursor of the final product, just to get an initial view of what it will look like. I shall post some screenshots tomorrow, and hope to get some feedback from you guys.

Osito

[feygan]

I fully agree this should be a standalone thing and you do not need to worry about things like modding hyperdrives etc. What I think is amazing about this project is how wonderful a reference tool it will make for those folks who do end up modding ship speed etc. It is going to give a very clear idea of the distances between stars in a way we can all comprehend (let's face it, no one really grasps just how far a light year is when they try to picture one).

Modders are now going to be able to simply say "right one sector = x light years, I want a hyperdrive that travels x times the speed of light. Thus I need hyperdrive speed to be x so it takes 6 months to reach x distance". It is going to do wonders for proper immersion, and for the strategy aspect of things.

[Osito]

There is a problem with getting the speed right, Feygan, in that I don't think you can balance interplanetary speed with interstellar speed. See my post here:

tm.asp?m=3615456&mpage=1&key=scale%2Cgalaxy�

However, I agree you can certainly fix the interstellar speed. On a Milky Way galaxy map, the 12000 speed Gerax would travel at roughly 25000 times the speed of light.

Below I have posted some pics of what the complete galaxy might look like with my map. This is just a preliminary build, and at this stage I can very easily change it. Therefore, I am really looking for opinions and criticisms of the galaxy. Any suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Note that the galaxy approximates to the commonly accepted structure. As with previous pics, the black holes are there purely for guidance and will be deleted. I have marked the traditional names of the galactic spiral arms (with alternative names in brackets). The arms are surprisingly thin, perhaps only a few stars wide. This is probably inevitable as I'm trying to represent a galaxy of 100,000,000,000 stars with about 1400 stars. Sol is located in the Orion Arm (which is also known as the Local Arm - I forgot to mark that in the pictures). I think I need to make the Saturn-Centaurus Arm and the Perseus Arm more prominent relative to the others.

I intend that the final galaxy will have around 1400 stars. DW:U would actually let me add considerably more stars, but I'm wary about doing this, as it may cause slow downs in playing the game. Elliot presumably had a good reason for limiting the maximum number of stars in a game-created galaxy to 1400. I am contemplating adding a few extra empty star systems purely to add colour to the game. I have a feeling that adding empty star systems would not slow the game down significantly, as there would not be anything that could be done with these systems (other than exploration). It's probably the number of colonisable and mineable objects that matters. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Osito

[Osito]

The dark side of the galaxy.

[Osito]

Galactic Core

[Osito]

You are here:

[Dd_01]

Wow. That's incredible amount of work, and it's totally amazing.

[fenrislokison]

hello

Incredible work there!

About empty stars systems, they usually have my preference for establishing monitoring stations, since useless systems are unlikely to be visited by pirates or enemy empires and with a stealth system, it makes these monitoring stations undetectable.

I know it's a very little use for empty systems but since you asked...

[Premislaus]

Very nice. Unfortunately limit of 1,400 stars makes it look like baldness.

Around the solar system is more stars, so humanity will have the advantage.

[Osito]

Good point, fenrislokison, I hadn't thought of that.

It was actually not very time consuming to make the whole galaxy, as I was just plonking stars down rapidly. It will take more time to do the final version.

I'm wondering whether I should:

1. Go beyond 1400 stars, but that would probably require some information from Elliot about performance. Or I suppose I could test it myself. If I set up a game with a 1400 star galaxy, then add another 600 empty star systems and see whether that affects game speed.
2. Switch down to a 10x10 galaxy, so the space seems more full.
3. Perhaps better than option 2 would be to retain the 15x15 space, but make the galaxy smaller, so it only occupies, say, 12x12 sectors. In that sort of structure I could throw in some globular clusters or even a Magellanic Cloud.

Either 2 or 3 will necessitate redoing the work I've already done. Sigh! I really wish Elliot would add an undo button in the editor.

Osito

[mensrea]

If you are not adding asteroids I wouldn't worry as much about slowdown when exceeding the 1400 star limit. With an auto generated map there are usually lots of asteroids, probably with almost the same system requirements to run each cluster as barren worlds and gas giants. Further, if you do decide to push it past that you could always offer two different maps, one with less than 1400 and another for over 1400.

The empty systems approach sounds great, too. Galaxy size is fine at 15x15.

It would be great if you would post whatever you have so far. I'm very eager to play on this map and check it out in general.

[FingNewGuy]

Ubercool that you threw in the galactic central singularity! Despite the relative stellar sparseness alluded to previously, I would like to play the map as is at least once m'self before looking at Options #2 or #3.

Oh, and I'm sorry Osito, but I always laugh whenever I see your avatar pic- still!

[FingNewGuy]

P.S. There is this dude at NASA who is making noises like a warp bubble drive is actually doable. If so, with your GSP, DWU would be catapulted to the status of a Galactic exploration/conquest simulator at-well-warp speed!

Bwa. Bwa-ha. Bwahahahahahahahaha!!! [:D]

[necaradan666]

I'd like to play it too before you change things. But I vote to put more in, I'm sure my pc can handle it.. I wish there was a larger size map available actually, hard squeezing mod races in the normal huge size.

[feygan]

ORIGINAL: FingNewGuy

P.S. There is this dude at NASA who is making noises like a warp bubble drive is actually doable. If so, with your GSP, DWU would be catapulted to the status of a Galactic exploration/conquest simulator at-well-warp speed!

Bwa. Bwa-ha. Bwahahahahahahahaha!!! [:D]

It's a rehash of the Alcubierre drive that was first put forward in the 90's. They have done some more math and made it a little more efficient by changing the shape of the bubble. However it still requires a power source similar to the entire USA yearly consumption. When you consider how much it costs to just throw a tiny satellite in orbit I can't imagine anyone fronting the cash involved for a project like this. It's mind boggling just how large the craft would need to be before you even get to adding any form of life support etc.

Unless the Kepler2 project can manage to produce evidence of habitable atmospheres then any trip is no different from a blind fairground throw. However if they were to suggest it as a means to cut down travel inside the solar system it could be a viable thing. A much smaller power source could produce a far weaker bubble that may make trips to Mars and beyond something in the order of days/weeks instead of years.

Although I think this will not become practical or viable until someone cracks fusion.

[Osito]

Ok, first, a simple question: do you prefer option 1 or option 2 in my two posts below?

Now on to some details of where I've got to:

I found a rather obvious solution to placing the bulk of stars in the right position in the galaxy: use a galaxy map as the background. Duh!

I found a rather nice artist's impression of the galaxy, which is shown in the pic at the end of this post. I am using it primarily for star positioning, but I will supply it with the map, in case anyone else wants to use it. I will also supply an annoted version of the background, naming some of the features of the galaxy, such as the spiral arms. It's at the following site, and there don't seem to be any copyright issues with supplying it with my map.

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/1 ... -Milky-Way

I have had some real problems with getting the scale right. Obviously I know the galaxy is about 100 kly (kilo light years) across, with the core being about 25 kly from Sol, and in my map that means each sector is about 6.25 kly square.

I found my original positioning of the stars didn't actually fit the galactic structure, so I've had to discard it. There's a fundamental conflict between showing on the map stars nearby to Sol and showing the huge scale of the entire galaxy. The basic problem is that if you want to display Alpha Centauri even remotely realistically you're limited to a playing space about 1200 light years across. That's pretty much enough to play "local space" Star Trek, but it represents only 0.15% of the galactic area (I say 'area' because we're in 2D here).

So I'm left with two solutions: option 1 is to keep stars like alpha centauri and Sirius, and fudge the distances and directions. This sounds terrible, but remember that any map representation is inevitably a fudge owing to the need to project it onto the 2D playing area.

Option 2 is to go for maximum realism, within the constraints of what the game allows. In option 2, the nearest star to Sol is Betelgeuse at around 400 light years. This also creates some difficulties. Why would a prewarp human empire scoot right past all the nearer stars and head straight for Betelgeuse? I suppose the answer to that is that the map is only representing the most important 1400 stars in the galaxy, and that Betelgeuse is considered to be the closest star of interest.

Incidentally, regarding the star numbers, I started a 15x15 game with 1400 stars, edited in a further 600 stars, then let the game run itself for 150 game years with the 2000 stars. Didn't have a problem running on my system.

Osito

[Osito]

This is option 1. We keep the nearby stars, but the distances are completely unrealistic. For example, alpha centauri is about 4 ly from Sol, but in this map it's around 400 light years away

[Osito]

And this is option 2. The distances are realistic (within the constraints of a 2D environment), but you miss out on well known stars like Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Barnard's Star, Vega, Castor, Pollux ... the list goes on.

[Hannable]

My vote already goes to option one. I'd rather make the assumption that we're not really dealing with an entire galaxy here and instead just a small part of one. I don't think there are many computers that could handle a 100 billion star game. Plus, if you got rid of the "nearby" stars, that would pretty much trash the majority of stars that actually have real names. If Betelgeuse is the closest star available in a map with full realism, then there won't be many named stars except for those with highly artistic and imaginative names like HD25632 or something.

If 80% or more of the stars are fictional names, then having a realistic galaxy really doesn't matter because most of the stars won't be, uh, real. Know what I mean?