In Review: Cano, Alde, Newo, Lang, Tien, Gash and Tren

Similar post made over on Citizens of the Imperium.

After a long break, I can announce some progress on the T5SS effort.

Marc continues to have a high level mandate to create a stable, consistent data set for the OTU as a tool for authors. This allows him (and others) to e.g. understand the impact of the Wave on charted space from 1105 to 1900, or figure how how the Vilani formed the Ziru Sirka along J-1 mains thousands of years earlier.

The canonical data set resides in Marc's hands. I've spent time over the last few weeks reconciling it with changes made by DonM between October and December 2015 that never made it back to Marc, as well as a handful of corrections applied directly to the site. We now once again have a consistent basis for the T5SS, and I can resuming make updates to the site from it.

Over the last few days I tackled three big additions to the T5SS data set. These are all now considered "In Review":

• Randy Dorman's Solomani sectors: Canopus, Aldebaran, Neworld and Langere
• Jim Kundert's Zhodani sector: Tienspevnekr
• Jeff Zeitlin's Julian sectors: Gashikan and Trenchans

Feedback should be directed to the COTI T5SS thread.

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Milieu Support

Traveller uses the term milieu (plural: milieux) to describe a particular setting or era. Milieu include the Golden Age (described in Classic Traveller and Mongoose Traveller, circa 1105), the Rebellion (described in MegaTraveller, circa 1120), the New Era (circa 1202, 1248), Milieu 0 (from T4, from 0 through 300), Interstellar Wars (from GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars), and even alternate settings such as the GURPS Traveller alternate timeline (a.k.a. "Lorenverse").

The Traveller Map defaults to the Golden Age (circa 1105), which is the focus of the T5SS effort. It now offers experimental support for other Milieu. To enable it:

1. Go to the Settings menu (gear)
2. Check "Enable Experiments"
3. A new Experiments menu (flask) will appear
4. From that menu, select a milieu:

You can play with some other experimental features that are there.

The available milieux are currently:

• The Interstellar Wars - featuring only the Solomani Rim as depicted in GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars by Drye, Wiseman and Zeigler. Data adapted by adapted by Dom Mooney
• 990 - Solomani Rim War. Features the data from Gateway to Destiny (the Gateway Domain) which is all I have handy for that time period, from Gateway to PDF.
• 1105 - this is the default, with data from T5SS and unofficial contributions
• 1900 - the Galaxiad setting. This is a work in progress with just the Spinward Marches and parts of Gvurrdon, c/o Rob Eaglestone.

Submission of data to flesh out these milieux or start others are welcome!

The API docs are updated to include milieu parameters where supported. Note that the values currently supported are: IW, M990, M1900 - and leave the param off for the default. If data is not present for a sector in a given milieu you'll get 404 Not Found errors.

When generating images, placeholder markers (*) will be shown for systems where default (1105) data has a system.

There are some caveats with the experimental support:

• Search does not consider milieux, so the results won't match what you see.
• Routes do not consider milieux so those results will also be off, too

There are a few more bugs noted in the issue tracker. Additional bug reports welcome.

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Data Overview 2016

Once a year we look at the current state of the Traveller Map and the changes that happened over the last 12 months.  (Past Overviews)

This year starts on a somber note, having lost some luminaries in the Traveller community, most notably Don McKinney who was heading up the Traveller 5 Second Survey project to produce an official dataset for the OTU. Don was responsible for sending me updates for the official data used on the map, and shepherding data through a review process. The process included dusting off fan-favorite sectors previously considered apocryphal, reviewing submissions by other Traveller writers and referees, and getting feedback after making the preliminary data available via the map. Don will be missed, and the T5SS process will definitely take a bit to get back on track.

Thanks primarily to Don's efforts, 2015 was a year of tremendous growth and refinement in the official dataset. And momentum was started that has continued since his death. I've delayed posting this because there is a lot of work coming down the pipeline, and it's tempting to wait for it to land. But let's get to the picture - or pictures this time, of what's in there now:

Data Overview

The usual round-up of changes in 2015:

• Cultural Regions/Member States/Reservations called out in the Imperium, Solomani Confederation (work in progress), and Zhodani Consulate (WIP)
• Luretiir!girr, Gur and Un'k!!k'ng placeholders by Jim Kundert added (WIP)
• Tienspevnekr reworked by Jim Kundert
• Armory Cluster added
• Aldebaran, Neworld and Langere sectors by Randy Dorman added
• Caesillian sector (well, one world) by Marc Miller added
• Land Grant sectors now under T5SS review: Far Frontiers, Vanguard Reaches, The Beyond, and Theta Borealis
• Trailing sectors now under T5SS review: Spica, Gateway and Crucis Margin
• Coreward sectors now under T5SS review: Tuglikki and Provence (David Drazul), Windhorn (John G. Wood), Meshan, Mendan and Amdukan (Mike Mikesh)

It's useful to toggle the "Dim Unofficial Data" setting to see what's in the T5SS review pipeline:

Unofficial Data Dimmed

I've also added a few overlay options to visualize stuff for the T5SS reviewers. Droyne/Chirper world locations:

Droyne Worlds ★ / Chirper Worlds ☆

Populations - the area of the circle is proportional to the population of the world, so you can only really see worlds with 10 billion or more sophonts. The large circle to Trailing is the (possibly apocryphal) Nooq Sphere, with a larger population than many entire sectors. This also shows where unofficial data may need some work:

Population Overlay

And here's an overlay highlighting world Importance (a T5 stat derived from the UWP):

Importance Overlay

One last picture, that compares coverage versus the area from the original Imperium poster:

Charted Space

I'm sure there's more data to come soon, but I need to publish this before January runs out.

Happy 2016!

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Data Overview 2016

... is coming soon.

SPOILERS: Despite the sad events of 2015, it's been a huge year for data and there's been a recent influx of data. I'm waiting for it to calm down a bit before posting.

Hang on, travellers...

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