SWN Progress

As I mentioned in a previous article, I have decided to use the Star Frontiers (SF) setting as a foundation for my next Stars Without Number (SWN) campaign. In that post, I expressed my intention to modify the way spike drives, also known as jump drives in other systems, operate. I did so for two reasons: to align with the SF setting and to address my personal concerns regarding the standard spike drive mechanics. If you’re interested in learning more about the spike drive adaptation, I encourage you to read the linked article.

One thing I didn't discuss in that linked article are rutters.

A spike drill needs a course record, or “rutter” to guide the pilot. Ideally, this is an up-to-date and recent record of the metadimensional currents and energetic weather between the origin and destination of their course, one reported by a recent traveler. The older and staler the readings of the rutter, the more dangerous the drill. Most rutters for commonly-traveled routes are freely available, and significant trade corridors usually have ones only a few days old available to any pilot making the drill. Rutters charting heretofore-unknown paths between stars are often kept jealously secret by their owners, and may require an adventure or a favor to obtain.Star Without Number Revised

One mechanical effect of the standard jump drive is to limit where a ship can go, so that some star systems are more difficult to reach because they are a couple of hexes away from other star systems. But that's only the case if you don't have a jump drive with the required rating, if you do then it's easy for you to reach that system. In SWN there is another requirement, or limiting mechanism: you need a rutter. Like the old sea captains Christopher Colombus, Zheng He, or Grace O’Malley, keeping notes on safe passage through difficult waters, noting reefs, sandbanks, strong currents, etc., rutters give a pilot help navigating the metadimensional space between two star systems.

So rutters serve as a gating mechanism. This serves not only as a way to set star systems as more difficult to reach, it also opens a number of interesting plots possibilities. A megacorporation may have charted a course to a star system and kept it secret, but someone acquired a copy for example.

Another limiting mechanism that I am adding in my setting are nebulae. Nebulae disrupt the spike drive protective bubble, so you need to find a passage around them. In the SF setting that makes it possible to have the RIM only reachable through the Zebulon corridor for example.

Star System Generation

I adapted the star system generation tables from Traveller 5 to my needs and tweaked them a bit. For example the tables as they are generate planets and gas giants way too far from the star, in what's called the Oort Cloud region, so I limited the possible orbits. I also tweaked the population numbers for a more "frontier" feel. I added the computation of day length and year length for all planets and all satellites, taking tide-locked cases into account (different for a satellite of course). In the example above the first planet of type "innerworld" is tide-locked with the star, or a twilight-zone, so it doesn't have a day length, it's the same as its year length. But the first satellites at orbits 11 and 12 are tide-locked to their planet/gas giant (indicated by the '(L)') and in this case they have a day length because as they rotate around their planet the sun rises and sets.

I settled on this "third survey" UWP:

Mapping

I use the same dimensions as Traveller for sectors (32 hexes wide by 40 tall) and sub-sectors (8 hexes wide by 10 tall) with the sub-sectors labelled A through P. To keep the sector coordinates two digits exactly negatives are indicated by letters, so sector A0 is to the left of the sector 00. So all hexes on the map have unique "galactic coordinates."

Traditional Traveller mapping puts the main world at the center of the hex but I decided instead to put the star, or stars, in the center. I put a planet type to the bottom right. Blue for system where there is water available, sand for desert world, red for red-zones, purple for plague worlds, etc. The rest is the same: the presence of gas giants to the top right, naval and scout bases on the left, and above the star is the best starport in the system.

If a system is a binary star I put both stars. Stars colors indicate their spectral type (O B A F G K M), and the size of the star depends on their luminosity class (Ia-D).

Factions

SWN has interesting rules for faction and faction-play is a very cool referee thing. They go very well with the SF setting as well. I started their implementation but I still have a lot of work to do regarding assets.

Each faction has its own color so it's easy to see who owns a rutter on the map for example. You can also set the map to only show one faction or a set of factions.

Rutters

Rutters can be created/edited, specifying the faction that owns it, the end points, and how old it is.

Nebulae

You can create five types (colors) of nebulae: emission, reflection, planetary, supernova remnant, or dark. They're simply created by specifying all the hexes they cover.

Regions & Labels

The Star Frontiers map had regions, like the "Sundown Reaches" or the "Solar Major Corridor," so I added this to the map. You specify hexes and one of the 6 corners along the region outline and an algorithm fits a line between these anchor points to delimit a region. You can have the name automatically positioned at the center or you can set where it's written.

Labels are defined by a position, a size, and an angle. So you can put any label on the map.

Controls

There is a referee panel and a player panel. The player panel only shows what they know about, the systems they have surveyed, etc. The referee panel can show everything or selectively show/hide various aspects on the map. You can also set "factions list" and only show these factions on the map. I have one for the Starfarers League and all public megacorporations for example.

You can zoom in and out on the map. When zoomed out only the star is shown and as you zoom in the "surveyed data" is shown. If you click on a star system, a panel with all the information is opened.

What's next

So now I need to actually build the setting, adding details to what is already there, and continuing with the missing star systems and the Sathar region. I need to flesh out the factions and implement their assets. And I need to decide where the campaign will start!