Tabletop help ... sorta

[binidj]

So I'm starting to plan this sci-fi tabletop game which features stable wormholes linking locations (think of a less-cheesy version of Stargate: Atlantis or an inferior version of The Algebraist) and I'm wondering if there's some kind of (easy to use and free) mapping programme that anyone knows of to show solar systems and their relationship to each other based on the wormholes?

Any help gratefully received.

Comments

[curlwomble.livejournal.com]

There's a boardgame called Starfire which uses wormholes for FTL. there might be some software folks have written for that.

This page:
http://www.starfiredesign.com/starfire/features/4thupdates.html

Has two star system generation utilitues which might do what you want.

http://www.cfar.umd.edu/~keverill/Games/Starfire/Computer.html

Has another system generator

Being wormhole based, though, the actual physical location of the systems is irrelevant (and possibly very dfficult to determine, depending on just how far the wormholes can throw you) unless you've another practical method of interstellar travel and you could most logically depict the links as lines across a circle, with each system being a point on that circle's circumference. Since it's a circle, any system can be linked to any or all other systems and it's easy to see the important ones cos they have lots of lines...

if you do have other methods of interstellar travel (like SG and the Algebraist do) then you're tied to drawing lines on a 'conventional starmap' (if it's Algebraist stylee), or just marking a special symbol on a 'holed system if you can jump from any wormhole to any other (a la SG).

There are, as jfs sez, plenty of resources in the Traveller continuum to help with drawing 2- and 3-D starmaps to superimpose a grid/pattern of wormholes upon.

[binidj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that Womble.

The setting is rather more like The Algebraist or The Praxis (if you've read that) than SG. However whatever created the wormholes isn't around any more (I'm thinking extinction rather than ascension/excession) so there isn't a culture around that creates wormholes either by FTL or sub-light hauling. At some point in the future I might need to think about plotting actual positions if the players decide to spend years travelling somewhere, though why they would choose to do that is beyond me. Mind you, there is plenty of precedent for unexpected player actions eh?