Monday, September 5, 2011

System Coordinates

Due to some nazi rules on the CBT forums I got banned for a week.  Not saying its a bad thing though, I waste too much time on there anyway and may try to avoid them in the future unless its to post a new program update.

Anyway, a few people have been going over the coordinate list I made a couple weeks ago.  We have found a lot of various issues, not really related to the coordinates but just systems that were renamed, duplicates, and I added all the systems on the faction creation maps that weren't in that faction.  I also updated cartographer to work with the new systems, however I think some of the last features I implemented are gone, oops :(  I'm working on a new update though.

This is a list of system names and coordinates only.  Some systems have another name and year+ in parenthesis, this means it was renamed.  Some systems have a faction code (FWL, HL, Clan, Periphery, etc) following the name in parenthesis, this represents duplicate names usually.  Some systems have "Last YYYY" in parenthesis too, this would be the last map year that system was drawn on, and sometimes it could have been renamed and reappeared later.  The first 2 lines represent the version, and whenever updated this URL will be valid.  It is about 73kb.

This file has a list of faction abbreviations (FWL=Free Worlds League), and the RGB color codes I use to represent them.  If you want to give me a new pallet of colors to use instead, I'd be very happy to use them, I just grabbed colors randomly.  The first 2 lines represent the version, and whenever updated this URL will be valid.  It is about 3kb.

This file represent the whole shebang.  It has system names, coordinates, and owners for every year we have a published map for.  The owners are comma separated list, the first element is the faction, after that it'll have things like region/march/province/etc names.  At the end of the owner there can be things like Faction Capital, Major Capital, or Minor Capital.  The first 2 lines represent the version, and whenever updated this URL will be valid.  It is about 1mb.  

This is a version of cartographer that works with these same files.  It isn't fully featured, and can be considered an "alpha" release.  There are a LOT more features I plan on implementing before the next release (see previous post), and some features (like links to sarna.net and isatlas) have been removed.  This doesn't really replace previous versions, but it does show you new coordinates and you can push F1 for help.  There is no version, and it could be updated anytime.  It is about 165k.

Let me know if these links don't work for you or you have any questions on the stuff at bad_syntax@ yahoo.com.

11 comments:

  1. Hey, Syntax: the jump radius appears to be 30 lys in diamter. Wouldn't it be better to have it 30 lys in radius, to reflect what planets are within range of the origin planet?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well you are totally right!

    However, let me get a bit more done on this next version, I just added like 100 menu options last night and none of them do anything at all :) I'll work on it today and release some updates tonight. I wanted to get clusters and nebulas drawn on the map and work on a 1 LY hexagonal influence map (to dynamically make background colors based on system ownership) before the next release.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Quick response! And good news, too. 100 options! If they all failed to take off, it sounds like the 'fix' will probably be something that will turn them all on. I'm looking forward to it.

    Also, I really like the ComStar map logo (Explorer Corps, right?). Is there a way to get the various grids to work within the circle, rather than only just the arms? I could see the hex grid being valuable for home IO campaigns.

    I'll presume you updated the Cart file into the entry on this blog post and give it a go when I get home tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Not sure what you mean by getting grid to work within the circle?

    I did the following graphics updates last night:

    - Range circles out from Terra. Defaults to 500 and 1000 LY, but any value can be specified, as well as any number of circles out. Can set color. These are all menu based options.

    - Set the Square, "Squex", and Hexagon grid. Can change color. Can set size of them in LY. Updated them so it only draws the grid where there are systems, well the minimum/maximum X/Y where there are systems. These are all menu based options.

    - Configured menu option to show ComStar logo.

    - Updated the range circle and enabled it in the menu. Allow setting of the range and color, though it defaults to 30 LY.

    - Re-enabled support for various capitals being rendered slightly larger.

    - Menu option to set graphics render method.

    - Menu option to set text render method.

    - Better progress display upon loading stuff, so you know what the app is doing.

    - Mouseovers no longer show systems that aren't displayed on the map.

    - Added a tooltip for mouseovers, the little black on yellow mouse following label for the system you are nearest to.

    - Added menu options to change the background color, not sure why one would want to though.

    Tonight I'm hoping to work on getting clusters, nebulas, and graphics showing on the map, influence mapping, and continuing to work on the easy menu options.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The ComStar logo has the 'points' all radiating from a circle centered on Terra. When the various grids are on (this is about yesterday's update, not the one you may have loaded today), they show in the points and out, but not within the circle, as if their purposefully keeping the circle clear.

    As for background color: if it can be set to white, that will enable affordable printing (and great campaign maps).

    Can't wait to test out what you've posted above. I'll give it a 'go' tonight.

    - Rev

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oooooh, I see, that is crazy, not sure why that is happening. Perhaps its a render order and my first circle is filled or something. I'll take a look tonight when I get back to coding, should be an easy fix. I haven't uploaded the updates I made last night yet, will post an update tonight if I make a lot more progress and get rid of a lot of "unavailable" menu options.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry, no update today, Space Marine came out and used up my evening :) Maybe tomorrow or friday.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Copy that. I'll be without dependable inet connection until the latter part of the month, so...good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hy Bad Syntax i like your data base very well, but i have a question, all the system infos (Stars, Position etc.), is this all BT canon info? Ok i found a lot of this in the sources, but you provide a mass of this info...WOW, where came all this data from, thanks.--Doneve

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well there is NO canon info, period.

    However, I took the 3075 map as the base, opened it in illustrator, put Terra at 0,0, and grabbed all the illustrator coordinates for each system (accurate to .001 LY) and manually entered them. For other systems not on that map I just triangulated them to get their coordinates.

    This list is, as far as I know, the best list anywhere for BT coordinates. It is also very accurate with the only exceptions being an undiscovered typo, or errors on the official maps (there are many of those). There are 2991 systems in my database, most of the others online are around 2200, and date back to the original coordinates in the original 5 house books. Those were filled full of errors, and have been basically converted to non-canon with the release of all the new maps, so using those coordinates is actually less accurate than mine.

    ReplyDelete