Crossfire 1.8 Maps

Diablo, if you'd explore more, you'd see the way how OP put the systems in the map is Not by the direction of the JG, on none of the 3 maps.

take example Zhiklor, or better, Pyrddra... where the Mepther gate is fully south, but on the map it's nearly north, and sadurn is nearly north but it's direction goes east and Cellra gate is west, but on OP's map goes east too Most of the directions are not correct, even few of them may seem so, but mostly a coincidence of a slot where to put it

Real Pyrddra ( A lil Spoiling )

Spoiling unspoiled lol

Also, if you want an ALL in 1 (3 in 1) you have to give up a feature for another You think you're capable of making a map with good letters, with all systems positioned at the correct direction, and the map not be 3 times bigger than the screen ?

Edited my 2 last posts...

Well, I'll let the cartographers make their maps
some ppl just know to complain

Alright, well, that's exactly what I'm going for OP, recreating the maps individually and actually giving thier location within the Milky Way Galaxy based loosely off real astronomical data. (with our star, Sol, the actual Sirius star, the actual Altair star and the direction of the center of the galaxy from those stars used as reference points, i.e. galactic center/a psuedo galactic "north")

For instance, we are located on the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy, Sirius is about roughly at a 135 degree angle from Sol when using the galactic center as our "north", i.e. it's galactic east from Sol and within 8-9 light years away. Altair on the other hand, is 16.7 light years from Sol, opposite to it's galactic west and located within the Orion Arm as well. As for the Inner Core sector, I'm going to hypothize since there is most likely a super-massive blackhole at dead center driving the spin of the galaxy, the Inner Core systems are somewhat at near the edge of the galactic core, say maybe 3000-4000 light years out from the center as it's only 10,000 light years in diameter, in the direction facing Sol in the Orion arm of the galaxy. Oh yea, it's estimated the Milky-Way is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter.

This will help give you guys an idea of what I'm talking about...

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/12lys.html

Meanwhile, I've kept the locations of the vanilla FL systems in their locations on the map, but I've moved all the newer Crossfire systems around to make it easier to read names and trace jumpgate/jumphole routes. Thankfully Altair and the Inner Core maps are not so congested so I'll try to keep them as they have been shown so far, unless someone wants to help me get a more logical arrangement of them due to the jumphole/jumpgate locations in the respective systems as Micheal mentioned? (or maybe YOU can help me Micheal! )

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Originally posted by Ryleous Arkane
I'm still debating whether a background image is really going to do much good IMHO, it will make the names of the systems difficult to read

My vote is no background image. Preferably a white background.

I sometimes like to print a map and make notes on it. Printing a color background wastes a ton of ink and makes the map very difficult to mark up.

Also, as you say, it is just plain easier to read with less background visual "noise".

Quote

Originally posted by Ryleous Arkane
Alright, well, that's exactly what I'm going for OP, recreating the maps individually and actually giving thier location within the Milky Way Galaxy based loosely off real astronomical data. (with our star, Sol, the actual Sirius star, the actual Altair star and the direction of the center of the galaxy from those stars used as reference points, i.e. galactic center/a psuedo galactic "north")

For instance, we are located on the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy, Sirius is about roughly at a 135 degree angle from Sol when using the galactic center as our "north", i.e. it's galactic east from Sol and within 8-9 light years away. Altair on the other hand, is 16.7 light years from Sol, opposite to it's galactic west and located within the Orion Arm as well. As for the Inner Core sector, I'm going to hypothize since there is most likely a super-massive blackhole at dead center driving the spin of the galaxy, the Inner Core systems are somewhat at near the edge of the galactic core, say maybe 3000-4000 light years out from the center as it's only 10,000 light years in diameter, in the direction facing Sol in the Orion arm of the galaxy. Oh yea, it's estimated the Milky-Way is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter.

This will help give you guys an idea of what I'm talking about...

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/12lys.html

Meanwhile, I've kept the locations of the vanilla FL systems in their locations on the map, but I've moved all the newer Crossfire systems around to make it easier to read names and trace jumpgate/jumphole routes. Thankfully Altair and the Inner Core maps are not so congested so I'll try to keep them as they have been shown so far, unless someone wants to help me get a more logical arrangement of them due to the jumphole/jumpgate locations in the respective systems as Micheal mentioned? (or maybe YOU can help me Micheal! )

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but then you will have to reconfigure the positions of all the systems on the map and it eill not match the positions of the systems in the game

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Originally posted by Bullwinkle

My vote is no background image. Preferably a white background.

I sometimes like to print a map and make notes on it. Printing a color background wastes a ton of ink and makes the map very difficult to mark up.

Also, as you say, it is just plain easier to read with less background visual "noise".

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Alright, there's a vote for a no-background image, anyone else?

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Originally posted by Hellraiser
but then you will have to reconfigure the positions of all the systems on the map and it eill not match the positions of the systems in the game

No, the vanilla system's locations stay put, you didn't read my post completely Hellraiser. Only the new Crossfire added systems are getting moved for the sake of clarity of the map. IMHO their locations aren't really logical anyway, as they should all be in another sector of thier own. Clarity and ease of reading the map gives way to accuracy in this case, besides, nothing is to scale anyway.(save maybe the galaxy mini-map I'm adding and even that's a relative scale) :] As for the Altair and Inner Core sector maps, our ship's scanners don't even work in those sectors, so those star maps reconfiguration is a moot point for them.

A white Background?
Bullwinkle ill have have to disagree with u on this
we should have background images

Quote

Originally posted by Hellraiser
A white Background?
Bullwinkle ill have have to disagree with u on this
we should have background images

Haha, obviously you don't stare at maps on a regular basis like I do. (it's what I do for a job, a draftsman)

Background mages do not help a map unless they are actual overlays of relevant data that the main data is added to over on top of it. Think of a topographical map that has a transparency sheet over on top of it with symbols, paths and other relevant data. A map can work like that, however, the images already shown for these maps are just "fluff" since they are not accurate galactic images of where these stars are theoretically at.

Again, IMHO I prefer substance and actual useful, relevant data over "fluff" when it comes to mapping.

I agree with Bullwinkle on the no/white background. Perhaps a background version can be made and a no background can be made.

i was thinking(maybe u already said it).
u could take a pic of the map of each system scale them down. and them pit them behind the dots as u can probably figure out the pica should be larger than the dots

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Originally posted by burro
I agree with Bullwinkle on the no/white background. Perhaps a background version can be made and a no background can be made.

That's two. [thumb]

Your idea is interesting, and the map would result square...
my plan was to make it productive and easy(at view), just to know which system goes where, all arranged in an order, but well

I would also go for the white, but perhaps with kind of a "mesh" underlay to make it look more "mappy".

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Originally posted by NucNuc
I would also go for the white, but perhaps with kind of a "mesh" underlay to make it look more "mappy".

Noted. I'll try to roughly calculate an average "parsec" square measured for a grid base in the background for all the sectors.

I wouldn't plan a map on white... it's bad for the eyes and also disturbing to watch at colored spots on white... it makes an unusual sight effect, then you see decolored spots when you move your sight from the map (if you've been watching it about 15-20 secs heh)

After a test printout of the Sirius sheet Micheal, I think I tend to agree with you... I'm going to at least put a black background on the sector map, the rest of the sheet I can leave white. However... There is a quirk with AutoCAD since it is basically a vector based graphics engine, all blacks appear white while all white appears black on a print out. Gotta figure out how I'm gonna get it to look right on a print out, namely the text.

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Originally posted by Ryleous Arkane
There is a quirk with AutoCAD ...
all blacks appear white while all white appears black on a print out.

That's not a "quirk", Arkane, that's a "feature".

It allows you to have a dark background with light text for viewing, and it prints out black on white without making a big, black, ugly, mess.

In other words, it sounds as though that is exactly what you want!

Unfortunately, most of us don't have Autocad, so you will probably have to render your maps in some other format?

Is there any chance that you might be able to render both with and without a background, so that we can print without the background if we want to?

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Originally posted by Bullwinkle

That's not a "quirk", Arkane, that's a "feature".

It allows you to have a dark background with light text for viewing, and it prints out black on white without making a big, black, ugly, mess.

In other words, it sounds as though that is exactly what you want!

Unfortunately, most of us don't have Autocad, so you will probably have to render your maps in some other format?

Is there any chance that you might be able to render both with and without a background, so that we can print without the background if we want to?

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Haha, no my good man Bullwinkle (dat kwazy Moose and Squirrrrel ) it's a quirk bro, I've been using AutoCAD since 95' and it's always done that, trust me, it's a quirk. When you have your black text set to a white background and it still shows up as black on black on a print preview it's a quirk. However, it's no longer an issue, I've fixed it,(more like worked around it) although the background is not really black, it's more of a gray, but IMHO works out better anyway.(and saves on toner w00t) I hope you guys like it, I definately dig them and have them now plastered on my wall next to my computer at home.

As for the background image, I can do it, that's not a problem... However I don't have any images to insert into the background at the moment, I'm going to leave you guys up to that for what you want on each sector. I am going to say this though, pick something SIMPLE for Sirius! It's still rather heavily congested information wise.(even after all I've done to fix that) The images you need to find guys need to be as high resolution as you can possibly find as well, I'll re-scale and re-size them inside AutoCAD as the background images instead of the flat gray background I like to use.

No Bullwinkle, I realize no one else here has any access to AutoCAD(although I can fix that ) so I'm going to export it out to a good format for everyone to have access to, most likely either PDF or JPG, although I'm heavily favoring PDF format as it is a pretty universal format nowadays for documents and anyone can easily download Adobe Reader to print them out.

Anyway I'll try to get something for you guys to look at soon as soon as the maps are peer reviewed by the Silver Arrows command.