StarMaps/Warp Speed RE: CODA Thread

[SIR SIG]

Well people started asking over in the thoughts for the new Coda system.

So here's a thread on topic.

Ask and you may recieve

[Lockhart]

Well, I'll ask then.

Does anybody have a cross referenced distance or travel time chart between the major star systemsAPOPrth, Bajor, Vulcan, Andor, Cardassia Prime, Romulus, or just the Neutral Zone. That kind of thing? The ideal would be something similar to the following (albleit with more planets and real numbers in lightyears or travel times):

<TABLE border=1 cellpadding=5>
<TR><TD></TD>
<TD>Andor</TD><TD>Bajor</TD><TD>Cardassia</TD><TD>Earth</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Andor</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>#</TD>
</TR><TR>
<TD>Bajor</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>#</TD>
</TR><TR>
<TD>Cardassia</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>#</TD>
</TR><TR>
<TD>Earth</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>#</TD><TD>0</TD>
</TR></TABLE>

If you give me the names and numbers I'll format it later. Also, I don't care if the numbers are trek accurate or if they just facilitate play, but since my knowledge of the Star Trek galactic map is so poor, anything that's internally consistent would help me immensely, in any version of the game.

Lockhart

[SIR SIG]

Never really thought of it in this way before.

But off the top of my head with some rough numbers (until I can check and do this properly) and in Light Years:

Earth: Vulcan(16) Andor(12) Tellar(11) Alpha Centauri(4) Bajor(70) Cardassia Prime(75) Romulus(65) RNZ(60) Qo'nos(50?)

Albeit rough and my Earth-Romulus distances are still in need of some work.

[C5]

I'm glad this thread was created, since I like to have travel times as accurate as possible (thing is, I plan to have my players get a very fast prototype, so I'd like the difference to be perceptible), without of course slowing the plot.

Here is a question for Astronomy buffs out there : do we have an idea of the average distance between to neighbour star system ? So far I assumed the closest star system to another would be 4 light-years away (as does the warp speed table in TNG and DS9 corebooks), like Earth and Alpha Centaury, but do we have further data on that so far ?

[SIR SIG]

C5: In fact Stars at least in the Sol area can be even closer!

But an average of say 5ly is adequate.

As to some local stars here's a 'real' map that was touched up with Fed data from off the net.

It is 2D so don't go saying that Alpha Centauri isn't the closest star to Earth

[Imagus]

The problem we'll run into here is the old "just how close is Qo'nos really?" debate...

I think we did it to death in another thread a while back, but I did find a wonderful summary and argument on a site called Star Trek Dimension a little while back, if anyone's interested. (It's located at Star Trek Cartography (potential spoilers for those who haven't seen Enterprise yet) . I like it, especially the idea that there are two Qo'nos's !

[C5]

Originally posted by Imagus
The problem we'll run into here is the old "just how close is Qo'nos really?" debate...

Well there is a good way to avoid this problem IMHO : we agree not to enter that debate . After, as someone recently pointed out in another thread, Spock mentions once that the Enterprise needs 12 hours to travel 1000 light-years, and I don't think any warp scale can justify that.

But I like the explanation of the article you linked... it could explain many plot warp speed...

[SIR SIG]

Yep seen it before. Even quizzed Christian on it but he hasn't got back to me yet.

Can't say I saw the 2 Qo'nos's part but have heard the theory before.

Least we can reconcile the Rigel remark to another Rigel somewhat closer around 50ly. That we can peg as the Rigel IV member world. 'Al Rijil' I believe its name goes like.

Geoff Mandel and I proposed an idea around this once apon a time.

Still the Vulcan maps could be quite good and it really does take 4 days to go Earth-Qo'nos.

[tonyg]

I think the "best" way to use accurate mapping if for the GM to set up a sector for the campaign area- and then cheat when the players leave the area. Otherwise it takes too long to to get anywhere.

In my campaign I drew up a 8000 cubic ly sector map, with accurate travel times for the half dozen or so star sytems in the sector. I also made a note of the travel time to the nearest Starbase (about a month a Warp 6). I used to use the TNG chart when the players were moving within the sector, and pretty much didn't when they were travelling long distance (I used the old WF^5 rate from FASA, but didn't tell the payers).

By keeping most of the advnetures in the campaign area, everything worked out fine.

[Lockhart]

The Cochrane multiplier mentioned in the article on Star Trek Cartography might well help to explain numerous inconsistencies in the series, but some of the numbers given can only be errors. Still, given this information, I'd be happy to assume this is the case and liberally fudge distances. I still need some idea of the distances though. Also, I'm certain that these 'tradewind routes' could be very useful, but could they really speed travel as much as 100 to 1000 times? If you were going to write a guide for GMs to both use given distance numbers and this route based speed multiplier technique in games, would you stop at 100 times, or 500 times?

Lockhart

[tonyg]

Lockhart,

You are giving the writers and producer of Star Trek too much credit. The distances are messed up not becuase of error, but becuase they didn't care about the distances, they just wanted neat sounding names for a TV series. On TV (and in the films) travel time is soldely based on stroy needs, and the times and distance just don't hold up, even with some fudging.

While Rodenberry DID say that warp speed were the cube of the warp factor, it never made it on screen, not that it would have mattered much if it did. They would have ignored it in order to tell a story. At times they have enve contradicted thenselves (Early DS9 stuff did advertise DS9 as a lot father than 50 ly from Earth).

In the defense of the writers, the distances involved in space travel are so vast that it is difficult to really comprehend. If you try to do a scale model of the solar system, and make the Earth the size of a big blue marble (say an inch across), Mars would be something like 1500 feet away! Even at Warp 6 it would take a week for the TOS Enterprise to go from Earth to Alpha Centauri, and those two systems are realtively close. Imagine TOS if it took 6 months to get to the next star system. You'd either need a lot of "on the ship" stories, or cut through vast amounts of time.

[Highway Hoss]

SIR SIG, you may have heard of this site already, but I'll mention it for the benefit of everyone on the boards: Christian Ruehl has an entire webpage devoted to Star Trek Cartography at his Star trek: Dimension website. It is full of gorgeous maps and excellent articles on the cartography of the Trek universe.

[SIR SIG]

Originally posted by Highway Hoss
SIR SIG, you may have heard of this site already, but I'll mention it for the benefit of everyone on the boards: Christian Ruehl has an entire webpage devoted to Star Trek Cartography at his Star trek: Dimension website. It is full of gorgeous maps and excellent articles on the cartography of the Trek universe.

Yeppers

Some very good food for thought here! Althougth I have a problem with a few things on his map. But I'm sure people say the same about my maps

[SIR SIG]

An interesting little tidbit I was able to pick up from watching Voy: Friendship One was about the mapping grids.

I was to do a reasonble screen grab and measure off the grids against the shown path (132 ly) for Voyager to travel.

Now the measurements I got were around 30+ ly X 80 ly.

Now taking into account the 3d perspective, I could easily say 40x80 ly for a grid. Which would be 4 of the 'sub grids' shown in the DS9 TM (20x40 ly) or 8 standard sectors (20x20 ly).

Perhaps some insight into how the Feds map the galaxy eh?

[Phantom]

Sounds good. I have no idea what you just said, but it sounded really neat.