June 2023 Challenge: The Banatu Sub-sector

[Greason Wolfe]

... I do wonder if it would look better to have the star names next to the stars instead of way off to the side?

I thought the same thing about 5 minutes after I posted. Fortunately, reorienting the ornaments will be easy enough to accomplish. Been rethinking what info will go with/in the ornaments. Thinking that the top of them will have name, spectral class and orbital body icons (still need to come up with something simple and somewhat intuitive for those). The closed section just below will have position data. Wasn't going to include that originally, but seems to make sense now along with the typical travel times table I will include below. The last two sections will more than likely include exportable resources and technical resource availability. Still trying to keep things simple and uncluttered, but make it all "useful" to whoever might be using the "map" to plan a trip.

Edit: The only question I have about listing the positions is whether I should make them relative to the physical center of the sector/Sub-sector, or relative to the unofficial capital system of the sector/Sub-sector? Thoughts or suggestions?

[Chashio]

... whether I should make them relative to the physical center of the sector/Sub-sector, or relative to the unofficial capital system of the sector/Sub-sector? Thoughts or suggestions?

Hmm...some thoughts... Do you envision the people(s) in the unofficial capital system to be somewhat self-centered or arrogant or where most would naturally call the center of civilization/hub of trade or is it the home system of the cartographer and/or the cartographer's patrons who commissioned the map? Any of those might point to naming the capital the center.

[Greason Wolfe]

Ah, it is a bit of a tricky situation. This "little" area of space is caught between two (possibly even three) warring empires, each with their sights set on taking control of the area. The people in the area want nothing to do with that whole situation so have a "gentleman's agreement" to help each other out in times of crisis. Am thinking along the lines of guerilla warfare/pirateering so will probably go with the "unofficial capital system" as the zero point reference. Hope to have a visual update here in a few hours, but may not be ready until tomorrow.

[Greason Wolfe]

Not quite as much of an update as I was hoping, but tweaked the label ornaments to give myself a bit more room to work with, and oriented them so that the system names are next to the stars. Also added in the travel time data block. Hoping for better progress tomorrow and/or through the weekend. Need to spend a couple of days generating planetary and resource icons along with the pertinent data they represent. Oh, and some back story/history type of stuff.

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[Ilanthar]

Nice & very clean! I like the dark nebula background. Do you plan to change the color/details of some stars? I think some diversity (apart from the sizes) could be nice.

[Greason Wolfe]

@Ilanthar
Tried doing that when I was first laying them in, but couldn't get a consistent "intensity" to their appearance, and the more I thought about it, particularly since I was going to use a consistent symbology for everything else of a graphical nature, ended up going with a single icon for the stars with their size being indicative of their distance rather than actual size. If I have time when it is done following the current path, I might take another shot at varying them up a bit.

[Bogie]

Nice Work GW!

[Simkin]

I like the general vibe of the map. It is really "cosmic". Even if space is mpost of all empty, are you planning to add something else (I mean, like icons for planets in each solar system)?

[Greason Wolfe]

As a matter of fact, I do have more to put in graphically, but before I do that, I have to fix the travel times. When I first calculated them I was using random positioning in all three coordinates instead of two fixed positions based on the location of the dots and one random position for "depth." Silly me....

Edit: Did I mention that the last week and a half at work has been insanely busy? Hope to get some work done on this in the coming days.

[Greason Wolfe]

So managed to get something done this afternoon/evening. Realized I hadn't left myself a spot for a title, so reworked the frame to make room for that. Also tried to take Ilanthar's suggestion to heart and reworked the stars. Got some variation in and was able to better show the Conora binary. The visual size of the star is still indicative of distance rather than spectral size. Lastly, got a bit more data in place.

Still need to come up with planetary, facility, and other resource icons plus a whole load of informational text/data, but that will have to wait until the next few days.

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