Monday, December 6, 2010
As Requested
As per Rob Conley's request, here's an image of the star map to Universe. I apologize for the poor quality of the image, since the map is a flat black color that reflects ambient light easily, making it hard for an unaccomplished photographer such as myself to produce anything worthwhile. Still, it should give you some idea of the game setting's overall scope (a 30 LY sphere centered on Earth).
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Did that come before Traveler: 2300, or after?
ReplyDeleteBefore. It was released in 1981 and 2300 was '87, I think.
ReplyDeleteI used to have that map hanging on my bedroom wall from 1981-1984.
ReplyDeleteThanks, if you look at the TL timeline for Universe you will see a 100 year gap between serious space travel and FTL travel.
ReplyDeleteSo what I did is make a sublight colonization timeline including population expansion. I assumed they could get up to 20% of light speed safely at first increasing to 60% during the last decades.
Pulled out my Casio FX and computed the LY distance. Rolled up the star systems and played a little mini-game of let's colonize space.
I need to hunt for a copy my personal copy is much battered and missing the map.
Again thanks.
Oh and one the reason I really like 2300 AD is when I pulled out it map and saw the familiar stars of Universe. But only now it was expanded out even further!
ReplyDeleteAnyone who likes that map (and you should, it's awesome) needs to check out this:
ReplyDeletehttp://members.iinet.net.au/~avalon11/Universe/APC.htm
Download the zip'd pdf file of the "Lite" Interstellar Charts and prepare to be impressed. I don't think I'll play Universe again anytime some but it is an amazing resource for any game set within 30ly of Sol...
Wow. I had no idea the game or the nifty star map existed back then. I would have funneled my allowance into Universe rather than Star Frontiers, definitely. I loved the 2300 AD star maps and read them over and over again - even though the actual game mechanics kinda . . . sucked.
ReplyDeleteStar AMp enthusiasts may enjoy WINCHELL CHUNG's site at http://www.projectrho.com/starmap.html . He's come up with some brilliant maps -> http://www.projectrho.com/smap12.html .
UT
This is a resource originally designed for SF writers, which should also come in handy for gamers. It depicts all the stars in a 50ly cube centered on Sol.
ReplyDeleteOne thing the Lite Universe Interstellar Charts have going for them, besides being free which while the Astrogator's Handbook is (in pdf) Chung's work is not, is that the charts are the same exact map/data as the poster just in a handier form. But that is probably only a really big deal to those actually playing Universe I guess...
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