Rendering Order

Prolific nitpicker 77topaz pointed out that subsector names render on top of borders. That's not new, but I agree it's not ideal given that the subsector name is less critical than the world details at large scales. Sector and subsector names used to render at the same "layer". I've split them up.

Here's the new order, starting at the "back":

• "nebula" background (Candy style only)
• "galaxy" background (spiral arms)
• pseudo-random stars
• rifts (which black out the pseudo-random stars snd backgrounds)
• "macro" borders
• "macro" routes
• sector grid
• subsector grid
• parsec grid (hexes)
• subsector names
• "micro" borders
• "micro" routes
• sector names - which need to be on top of borders/routes to be legible at relevant scales
• "macro" capitals/home-worlds
• "micro" government names
• worlds

Changing the order is pretty straightforward so suggestions are welcome.

Note that individual words are rendered a hex at a time. In the future I'd like to do this in multiple passes, so that for example all zones are rendered, then all names so that zones don't overlap long names of neighboring hexes.

Unrelated: thanks to cubiq.org if you visit the touch map on an iOS device you'll now get a pop-up letting you know you can add it to your home screen as an application.


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TODO List

Here's my "To Do" list for the site. Many of these are probably incomprehensible, but I thought I'd share anyway

• FEATURE: Support custom data for sector.htm LBB generator
  
• LOC: Detect language setting "Accept-Language:", serve Japanese version (it turns out a lot of the site traffic is from Japan. Go figure!)
  
• IMPL/FEATURE: Style object that's data only
• Cache object for brushes, etc
• Allow passing in via parameters (options and scale are presets)
• Scale is just a seed - use next-highest scale
• FEATURE: Search by regex on (UWP, PBG, ...)
• BUG: Terra should look like Earth in Candy style
  
• BUG: iframe doesn't show if "Disable script debugging" is unchecked (WTF?) - IE bug? Maybe cookies can't be loaded or something?
  
• IMPL/PERF: Add more condensed route storage (perf, size)
• QUALITY: Investigate DrawClosedCurve for candy borders
• FEATURE: Style options - hexes at every level
• QUALITY: Up the JPEG quality for Candy a bit
• DATA: Incorporate Theron sector from BeRKA (?)
  
• DATA: Incorporate Uistilao sector from BeRKA (?)
• DATA: Use Kaa'G!kul data from HIWG (?)
• DATA: Incorporate MWM's new T5 data
• IMPL: Reconsider JavaScript class/object style
• Use Class.prototype.func = function() ... rather than this.func, and other extern logic
• Verify that inline functions for event handlers aren't leaking memory
• FEATURE: Support different data sets (Judge's Guild, etc)

What else should I have on the list? Ω

What's Missing?

Apart from dorking around with experiments, the actual content of the site is reasonably stable. So I was pondering... what's missing? What are the gaps in the data that we should endeavor to fill in? Let me throw that question out to the readers.

Off the top of my head:

• Borders in K'kree space
• Borders in Hiver space
• Coreward half of Far Frontiers (I have an email out to James Kundert)
• Routes in Ilelish, Zarushagar, Gushemege, Delphi, Alpha Crucis
  

What else?

This is a subtly different question than "what should I do next?" - I'll post an updated roadmap soon for comments. Ω

Recent Feedback Feedback

Candy looks great, but can you get more images so they don't repeat?

Sure, you render them and I'll include them. 120px x 120px, 24-bit PNGs with 8-bit alpha. Let me know what UWP ranges they should represent.

Can you add a secret parameter to make the candy-style images have higher image quality?

I'll try. I tried making them PNGs to get really crisp results but the compression blew out the memory available for the server process.

Can you make a version I can take with me?

Alas no. Actually crafting a local version isn't that hard, but the overhead of maintaining a desktop application is not something I'm willing to take on. I've shipped widely used desktop applications professionally for many years, and it's not trivial to get something that's decent quality. I took on the web site because it was easy!

Can you add a key? I like Traveller, but I don't know what all of these symbols mean!

Urk, I can't believe I didn't do that. It's on my To Do list. For now, though, here's the cheat sheet.

• The circles in the middle represent the "mainworld" of a system (most important). White = no easily available water present (all in ice caps, desert world, etc), blue = liquid water present (easy refuelling), 4 diamonds = asteroids (it's the easiest thing to draw)
• Small white circle in the upper right indicates a Gas Giant in the system, for fuel skimming
• Symbols in the upper left and lower left indicate bases. Triangles are scout bases; red are scout way stations. Stars are naval bases. (I don't think I render non-Imperial bases at all correctly at the moment.)
• Letters at the top indicate starport class - A = Best, E = Worst, X = nothing
• A circle around the system indicates the travel code; yellow = amber zone (Danger!), red = red zone (Interdicted by the Navy)
• Two letter code in the lower right indicates allegiance (Cs = client state of the Imperium, Zh = Zhodani, So = Solomani, etc)
• Capitalized world names indicate a population >= 1 billion
• Red world names indicate a local capital

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Routes for Dagudashaag

Based on the excellent Traveller fanzine Signal-GK, I've added routes for Dagudashaag.

The routes are based on the sector xboat route maps printed in Issue #1. One of the routes shown there are missing from the subsector map in #4 (1409-1709), but the route is logical so I left it in.

Hats off to Leighton Piper for the reprinting work, Andrew Pickford for the original subsector map work and the rest of the Dagudashaag Development Team: J.Duncan Law-Green, Adie Stuart, Stuart Machin, Jae Campbell and Alison Nash.

I tweaked inter-sector routes into Vland and Core to join things up. I'm still not happy with the mess in Laraa near Reference (Core 0140) but I guess I need to wait for the rest of the reprints.

PS: Where's Telura Subsector, in issue #7 according to the Traveller Bibliography? Ω

Waroatahe... anyone?

I finally picked up a copy of Alien Realms (one of the last Classic Traveller publications by GDW) for a not too hideous price on eBay, and lo and behold it has a map!

Okay, it's a tiny little map, 8 parsecs by 6 parsecs. But it's of the Waroatahe sector deep in the Aslan Heirate. Cool! It even has tidbits (not UWPs) of several worlds:

• Eauahkusoilr
  
• Ra'akhtaisaaoeah
• Ewew
• Aihuarouea
• Hlaiheih
• Suisahruistalal
• Eaausaarai
• Haiftakh (on the map, but no details)

Interestingly, none of these show up in Google, although several links to Waroatahe data do. The version my map has was "...created from the dot-plot in Solomani & Aslan by jaymin@maths.tcd.ie"

Has anyone taken a stab at reconciling the dotmap with the Alien Realms map? I'm not seeing anything that matches. Ω