Cosmoprincess Mapping

Space Travel Overview

Travel is via star lanes

Generally insterstellar lanes go from the largest non-radiant mass, so long as its not too close to the local star (ie hot jupiters don't count) - large solar flux disrupts star lanes. This body is known as the Gateway and is generally both the first line of defense and the most inconvenient to defend.

System lanes will then radiate outwards to most other massive objects. Some deep-space or unusually placed star way "nodes" are known however.

Most high-mass objects (ie, planets) generate an 'influence' inside which kernel-drive propulsion operates normally. An area of reduced operation (typically 1/2 to 1/3rd motive performance) extends for roughly ten times this distance. Outside of this, motive performance drops to no better than 10% baseline. A gas giant such as Jupiter could have a zone of influence with a radius of 10 light seconds or more, inside which the actual arrival/departure nodes of the star lanes are much smaller.

Quick-o rules

• Everyone has a hand of tiles and cards. They may place one each during their turn; they may pick from their hand or randomly roll what they will have to place.
• Once every player has taken a turn placing, the map round is over and it restarts from the top. (TI rules of reversing direction for SD context)
• In the first round players may not place cards, only tiles. This establishes the beginning of the map.
• Tiles must be placed adjacent to at least one other tile.
• Places without tiles become voids on the final map - no star lanes cross them.
• A player may pass on placing a card, but must place a tile. They may opt to place a void tile instead of rolling or taking from their hand.
• Cards may be placed on any existing tile, not just the tile recently placed.
• To get a properly chaotic, organic map it is encouraged that players do not discuss their hands or their (planned) placements with each other.

Tiles

Tiles fall into several general types in generally decreasing level of occurance. Tiles represent the first-order astrography of where the interstellar star lines arrive in a star system (the Gateway)

Gas Giant: Most gateways are gas giants outside the green zone of a star system (eg, Jupiter or Saturn).

Low-Mass Gateway: Some systems lack gas giants (or they have migrated in too far to function as gateways) and the gateway is instead some manner of relatively low-mass object. This being relative to a Jovian-sized gas giant however, this means they are probably some sort of oversized super-Earth, a frozen rockball a dozen times the mass of Earth. The influence zone here is small and thus they make good defensive lines. A habitable card represents a conventional habitable world in the system.

Brown Dwarf: Stars small enough to not disrupt star lanes with their radiance. Probably don't have habitable worlds, though it's not impossible. Unlikely to have significant other planets, though comets are a certainty. To represent this rarity, brown dwarves discard 1/2 (rounded up and most valuable first) of any habitable cards put on them. Brown dwarves also cover rogue planets (the difference is small) though obviously a rogue planet cannot host a naturally habitable world.

Starzones: These may be deep space or near a star. They are such things as unusually dense (hollywood-style) asteroid or cometary drifts or nebulae. In exceptionally unusual cases Starzones may have habitable worlds (in which case they presumably have a local sun) and the gateway is the habitable world and its surrounding mass of space junk. As habitable worlds are very rare in Starzones, they discard 2/3 (rounded up and most valuable first) of any habitable cards put on them.

Deep Space: A few star lanes 'dip' back into the sidereal universe in the depth of interstellar space. Aside from the rare wandering comet these places are entirely bereft of anything interesting, though their position light-years from any star makes them an excellent place to put highly sensitive radio telescopes for astronomic observation. Habitable cards may not be placed in deep space for reasons that should be obvious.

Void: This represents large sectors of empty space with no star lanes. They tend to form natural borders.

Stellar Exotica: A rare number of star lanes end up near exotic objects such as black holes or neutron stars, or even some of the true weird wonders of the Known Cloud that defy easy classification such as the Firefountain of Ur or the Great Lens.

Cards

Tiles are (mostly) relatively generic star systems; Cards are what makes them noteworthy. This includes habitable planets as well as various space terrain, man-made features of note and unique quirks or exotica.

Any number of cards can be placed on one tile (exercise a bit of self-restraint) and any player may cards place on any tile. The exception is Worlds, by default tiles may not have more than one world.

Any card title (color) is mostly for local interest and you may play one on top of your normal card play. If rolled randomly, you may place it and roll randomly again. You may continue to do so until you fail to roll another (color) card.

Stellar Exotica: A rare number of star lanes end up near exotic objects such as black holes or neutron stars, or even some of the true weird wonders of the Known Cloud that defy easy classification such as the Firefountain of Ur or the Great Lens.