Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Retsof on November 07, 2008, 07:16:57 pm
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I'm having some trouble finding a good starmap to aid in planning missions. I'm working with Dubhe, and I can't find a good map that includes it. I need to be able to find out what systems are close to it, and probably a ones close to that one, and so on...
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Wait, a real starmap or a jumpnode map?
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Dubhe's on the official Volition Nodemap (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Nodemap). Down in the bottom left there, with links to Barnard's Star, Alphard and an Unknown system.
Incidentally, unless you wanted an actual real starmap this belongs in Gen FS.
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The unlabeled systems on that nodemap are Epsilon Pegasi and Gamma Draconis... what "unknown system"?
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... what "unknown system"?
DIVE DIVE DIVE HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT!!
...actually, it might be the StarForge/Rakata Prime system as well, if you ignore the game context. :drevil:
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I meant a real star map so I could plan what's behind the "Unknown System" node.
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... what "unknown system"?
DIVE DIVE DIVE HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT!!
...actually, it might be the StarForge/Rakata Prime system as well, if you ignore the game context. :drevil:
I meant on that map.
The map has no systems beyond Gamma Draconis on it.
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I hate to break it to you, but the locations of the stars in real life have no correlation to the connections between them formed by the jump nodes in FreeSpace (either in the original's star maps or the updated ones in FS2).
Also, Gamma Draconis is considerably farther away than any of the other real star systems found on the FS2 node map.
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Nor should there be any reason for them to correlate.
Subspace is a different dimension than realspace. Of course the connections will be different.
I think that if you're going to pick a system, any system in the Milky Way should probably work (even outside would work, given that the star wouldn't have exploded by then).
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Load up Google Earth and switch to sky mode.
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Get a program called Celestia. Best 3d starmap program I've ever come across. But yeah, as people have said, no need to correlate reality with the FS Starmap. Just pick one with a cool name and go from there.
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Allrighty then, I was under the impression that the nodemap reflected the "real" positions.
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(http://fubar4.fubar.org/fubar/dubhe.jpg)
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(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/KappaWing/RM-GTVA.jpg)
This is the one I use. The northwest section isn't actually canon though.
I find it looks much better than the "official" nodemap, which seems to have been drawn over an empty FRED grid....
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I use CP5670's one:
http://pi.hard-light.net/extras/starmap.gif
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I am currently I am making my own. Because the official Freespace 2 Star map did not fit into my campaign.
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Well sure...you can do that too.
Though really, unless you're doing some other universe, I wouldn't suggest moving all the nodes (or it'll make no sense).
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Not really there's always that nova causing a ripple effect in subspace moving jumpnode destinations loophole.
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But moving everything?
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But moving everything?
Do you, sir, have a Ph.D in subspace physics?
I thought not. :p
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and you do? ;7
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Well, if you do that, you better reflect the chaos that would ensue throughout the GTVA because nothing leads wherei t should anymore.
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You make it sound like the GTVA is an ant colony and we're the little boy shaking the box up...
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I can just imagine it now, a fabulous campaign idea. The Shivans reroute subspace because they have a sense of humor after all. GTVA are scared as hell to do any intersystem jump because half of them lead to Shivan systems! ;)
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But moving everything?
My star map is vastly different then the Freespace starmap.
For example SOL got three jump nodes. 2 are real and one is artificially made.
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May I have a reason why?
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May I have a reason why?
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May I have a reason why?
Who you saying it to.
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You.
Well, I can't speak for Snail, but that's who I intend to ask. :P
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The Freespace Starmap did not fit into my campaign that well. So I made my own.
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Circular logic?
The questions I'm asking are "why doesn't it fit?" and "shouldn't your campaign fit the star map not the other way around if its in universe?".
Ok, maybe I didn't say that explicitly, but I thought it was implied.
I thought wrong :P
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/me inserts something random.
The Unknown System in Into The Lions' Den is known as the Binary System on FSWiki. http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Binary_System
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That's only because Snipes called it a binary system, isn't it?
Binary systems give me the creeps
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That's only because Snipes called it a binary system, isn't it?
Binary systems give me the creeps
This is strange, then what is Alphard? On IceFire's map, Alphard is divided into two systems. Perhaps if the distance between the stars in a binary system is small enough, it can still be one system from a subspace point of view.
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I made my starmap and I need to refined it more and I send it to this site.
NOTE: It is very different then the Freespace one.
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(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/KappaWing/RM-GTVA.jpg)
This is the one I use. The northwest section isn't actually canon though.
Doesn't that name in the upper left corner look like it says NADS ;7. I'd assume it is NAOS, but since it isn't canon it really could be called anything that the creator wanted.
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*facepalm*
... Oh, hey, a new guy.
:welcomeorange:
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What is the Bernard's star system like? Is it just a normal system?
(Couldn't find it on FreeSpace wiki.)
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I think it's a red somthing... either giant or dwarf.
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I was going to do a mod that took place there. But to do it I had to rely on the assumption that Bernard's star was actually a huge nebula system. It's probably a good thing I didn't...
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You could pick a system that is currently a red giant, then say that in the tiiem it took the light to get here the star has already puffed off into a planetary nebula.
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It's Barnard's Star and it's a very small red dwarf. It's about 6 ly from Sun and it has the largest proper motion (or angular velocity) of all observed stars - it moves 10.3 arcseconds in a year, which means that in 6 years it moves roughly an arcminute and in 360 years it moves one degree (the apparent diameter of Sun and Moon is roughly half a degree, so it's rather a large velocity for a star 6 light years away).
It would definitely not be a nebula system. :p
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It's Barnard's Star and it's a very small red dwarf. It's about 6 ly from Sun and it has the largest proper motion (or angular velocity) of all observed stars - it moves 10.3 arcseconds in a year, which means that in 6 years it moves roughly an arcminute and in 360 years it moves one degree (the apparent diameter of Sun and Moon is roughly half a degree, so it's rather a large velocity for a star 6 light years away).
It would definitely not be a nebula system. :p
:eek2: I guess not..............
You could pick a system that is currently a red giant, then say that in the tiiem it took the light to get here the star has already puffed off into a planetary nebula.
If I did that, then the mod would have to be a couple hundred billion years in the future. I don't know if they would have Hercs one hundred billion years in the future.
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Just throw in the handy one-size-fits-all "time travel" explanation.
Hey, it works for the Stargate shows (wormhole + solar flare = time travel), so why couldn't something similar like (node + massive explosion = time travel) work?
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I like the dual Alphards.
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The time isn't really a problem. There's really no way at all to know if the locations connected by the nodes are in the same "timezone" - in fact, there's a lot of reasons to doubt it.
The thing with space and time and observations is that there is no universally defineable moment of "now". That's based on our everyday experiences, and interstellar distances don't really conform to our expectations...
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Just throw in the handy one-size-fits-all "time travel" explanation.
Hey, it works for the Stargate shows (wormhole + solar flare = time travel), so why couldn't something similar like (node + massive explosion = time travel) work?
True.
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The time isn't really a problem. There's really no way at all to know if the locations connected by the nodes are in the same "timezone" - in fact, there's a lot of reasons to doubt it.
The thing with space and time and observations is that there is no universally defineable moment of "now". That's based on our everyday experiences, and interstellar distances don't really conform to our expectations...
Now that's an interesting idea. Although the GTVA could have proved it either way fairly easily. Simply go to Barnard's star, watch SoL for a while and then compare the variability of SoL 6 years ago. They should match perfectly. You could probably do that much with modern technology let alone the GTVAs.
So I suspect that the GTVA would know whether or not this was the case. However that doesn't mean that it isn't a fact noted in some scientific journal which only subspace physicists and astronomers care about. :)
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Come on, these are the guys that didn't think of starting to send old style messages toward Earth by high powered radio/laser transmitter from Alpha Centauri after the Great War and you expect them to do scientific research like that? :lol:
Granted, it's scientifically plausible idea that would let them match the "timezones" between systems, but only within observation time limits. For systems at longer distances from each other, it would take a long time to confirm simultaneity that way.
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Not really. I'm sure that records on the suns variability for the last 20-30 years are fairly easy to get hold of so 300 years in the future they'd have 300 years worth of data. Which means they could check the time is the same for any star within 300LY of Sol.
That said if Sol is in the past or the future it does give a good explanation for why they didn't just use a radio telescope. :) You would have to wonder why no one was in a system where Capella was a nebula though (or why no one spotted this fact!).
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Mabey the nebula beyond Gamma Drac was Capella :P.
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Remember you can make any system you want to.
Like my campaign does not revolves around the GTVA. It revolves around some alien Empires.
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Just use a Knossos, or mention unusual readings from a node and say it sent your ships half way across the galaxy to a previously unknown system.
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Come on, these are the guys that didn't think of starting to send old style messages toward Earth by high powered radio/laser transmitter from Alpha Centauri after the Great War and you expect them to do scientific research like that? :lol:
Your basis for them not doing the research is that they didn't send communications to Sol, yet if they did do the research and discovered time discrepancies, that would explain them not sending the communications quite nicely.
You would have to wonder why no one was in a system where Capella was a nebula though (or why no one spotted this fact!).
Capella may have happened to be the furthest forward.
A potential problem with the time travelling node theory though is the way you can have two nodes getting to the same system, and ships which enter both come out at the same time.
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Capella may have happened to be the furthest forward.
Bit of a coincidence though isn't it?
Unless of course that's the reason WHY the shivans blew up Capella rather than GD. :)
A potential problem with the time travelling node theory though is the way you can have two nodes getting to the same system, and ships which enter both come out at the same time.
Not really. If you suppose that an existing node makes it easier for a second node to punch through at that point in time rather than punching through at a different one then it makes sense.
Of course once you suppose that it does raise some very interesting ideas about what would happen if a node closed and you then tried to reopen it. Especially if the node was closed by something cataclysmic which might make other time periods easier to open a node at. :D
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Of course once you suppose that it does raise some very interesting ideas about what would happen if a node closed and you then tried to reopen it. Especially if the node was closed by something cataclysmic which might make other time periods easier to open a node at. :D
Or different timelines... :drevil: *cough*blueplanet*cough*
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I am searching for a certain map displaying several hostile systems beyond gamma drac. The only thing I remember is that a certain player on fsnet, named AlphaOne had it in his avatar.
:(
Thanks in advance!
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I saw a map like this, but there were only two. The system after Gamma Drac was named "Formalhaut" and the system after that was unnamed.
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Damn, Ross 128 is like 2 jumps from Sol.
I always figured it was like on the edge somewhere. It's a bit odd that the Shivans weren't noticed earlier than they were.
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Damn, Ross 128 is like 2 jumps from Sol.
I always figured it was like on the edge somewhere. It's a bit odd that the Shivans weren't noticed earlier than they were.
They wanted to nail the Zods first, so they look the long way around?