"There is!
Welcome to my favorite part of the Prosperity other than the Bridge - Stellar Cartography!
One of three rooms dedicated to the Astro-Navigation Department, Stellar Cartography boasts a horizontal viewscreen for generating and displaying star charts and maps.
Though not as large as the Bridge's main viewscreen, it is long and it makes planning and visualizing navigational flight paths far easier than any equipment I've used before.
The map on display above is actually a few of our recent mission maps merged together. It shows Sectors Sierra-12, Tango-8, and Tango-9 [plus a little extra here and there]."
The campaign has seen the Prosperity and its crew assigned to many different regions over the years. It would probably take a 100+ page 'Astrometrics Atlas' to detail all the places they've been to in the past 9 seaaons.
This Challenge is primarily focused on the PCs' current and recent operations in the Tango-8 and Tango-9 sectors and some areas adjacent to them. As such, that is what the map I'm presenting covers.
If you are wondering what the scale of the map is, how many parsec per square, and that sort of thing, well, I have no idea. The map doesn't represent exacting distances or sizes of things. It is purely to help the players and I determine where objects are in relation to other objects and the like. If I say, 'Your vessel has entered the Rho Gruis System', you can tell if that's closer to Starbase 25 or the.Taurus Nebula.
Much like the writers of the Star Trek shows, I want the illusion of verisimilitude but I am not worried about real world distances, speeds, and astronomy.
AD
Barking Alien
Map Update 02/12/2026
What do you mean you are not worried about it?? Half my fun is this giant spreadsheet I have of important stars and their distances and times from impluse to warp 9.9! ;)
ReplyDeleteBut serious this is very cool. I went out and bought STA 2nd ed today and looking forward to going through it all.
Heheh. An aspect of our game that is honestly hard to explain is how my players and I get really immersive about the 'living in the Star Trek universe' element and yet mention the actors who play the characters and a given episodes special effects budget.
DeleteWe want a map like this while we wink at the camera 'cause we know its just a TV show. lol
Now THAT looks like stellar cartography done right!
ReplyDelete