With Astronef on the horizon (relatively speaking) Tas and I got to talking about a map. After some consideration of how to make something like this - http://sajri.astronomy.cz/asteroidgroups/hildatroj.gif - a game aid (with tokens and spaces), I have decided that the most useful Astronef game map would show Jupiter with Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. This map is in progress and should be posted soon.
My decision not to show the solar system (at least as far as Jupiter) was not merely based on simplicity. Tas believes that most of the interaction in Astronef will be a much more limited scale. If you are engaging and enemy near Deimos, it will not matter if he has additional ships deployed near Mercury.
Still, you owe it to yourself and your crew to visit the link above included.
Reply by Tas:
I envision an azimtuh projection of the Inner planets, but cenetred on Earth not the Sun. The idea being it would be an Astrogator's chart for navigating from Earth to other destinations (which are depcted in their relative motion to earth). There would then theoretically be a correspnding chart for each of the destination to return.
Idea floated so far are a Stellar Meridian (for standard emasrement of time) and units of measurement being Aetherial Leagues.
For tracking Jupiter's four most well-known moon's:
ReplyDeletehttp://img172.imageshack.us/img172/
3531/jupiterinnerki8.gif
For additional moons, keep in mind that the period covers many of those discoveries. Instead of Earth-bound scientists, however, perhaps Æther Captains are finding the moons further out (and off the chart).
I haven't put in the scale of the "ætheric fathoms" (or whatever the term may wind up being) as yet. This is more of a place-holder for now.