OBT Forum

I got introduced to BattleTech in 3049 so the succession wars were history to me (literally). I could probably get into the 3rd and 4th wars, but earlier 2864 is probably too far gone for me, while the post Civil war is too distant a future for my taste. I'll probably start sinking my teeth into DA when I get bored of my other books. I'm just looking forward to HBHK and the juicy maps [generated static and real-time] that will be made once the maps therein have been mined thoroughly.

I've just added the 2767, 2772-2774 maps from H:LOTv1. Basically I did 2767 to be 2765 but with the Amaris Empire instead of Terran Hegemony, and 2772-2774 to be Waves 1a, 1b and 1c of Operation Chieftain.

Wish I had data on the LC assault on RWR, that would make my 2772-2774 just perfect.

Appreciate if there are pre-Star League fans who can tell me who owned which (with proof, of course) when. Doing this thing solo is just not getting anything done fast enough.

I also added 3030-3038 (Andurien Secession) from Brush Wars.

Systems By Era.xlsx
Systems.xlsx
Factions.txt
Planets.txt

have been updated to reflect the conflicts. Let me know if you see any errors in the locations or in faction ownership (though to date I think no one has)

Hey guys, Bad_Syntax decided to give up on battletech, and with that, the cartographer app that uses my database to automatically generate maps with faction colors and borders will cease development. The primary reason i worked on the database was for this app, and with no other app i know of that can do this, i've decided to stop updating he database. The procedure for retrieving coordinates from the pdf maps is on sarna.net so whoever has the patience to continue the work will be able to do so. I won't be taking down the files from my mediafire, but i won't be working on them anymore.

I'm glad my files were able to help you update your maps. Good luck, guys. Keep it real.

As far as I can read his postings in his blog the Cartographer will be in further develpoment by him

"Bad SyntaxMay 6, 2013 at 10:50 AM

Well I'm not actively doing new Battletech stuff....

But Cartographer was never meant to be "only" Battletech, and while the "CBT Cartographer" will not have any further development, the "Cartographer" itself could, and would support a list of systems and x/y coordinates, generate borders/hexes, search, do paths, etc, etc.

So when HBHK comes out, probably next year, feel free to update the coordinates and let me know, and I'll work on a new version of it to support that."

For me it sounds like that the Cartograph will have updates in the near future.

What would be nice though would be a map without borders, showing all 3139 systems, overlaid with 10LY-per-hex grid, then people can draw their own borders for custom campaigns. I'd make one myself but I have no idea how to get GIS to work.

I have the code for such a task.  I wrote it long before I started working on cartographer.  There is a 2mb, 3025 I believe, map at http://goodsects.gotdns.com/BattleTechNewMAP.png that you can view (be patient, its like 2.3mb and you gotta zoom in to see the 7.5 LY/hex grid).  It can also draw little lines between systems that are over 4 hexes away from each other, yet still are within 30 LY... an artifact of using a hex map.  It also outputs a list of hexes that have >1 system in it, which is why I went with 7.5 LY hexes (4 mp per jump, 2 in age of war times) as it had the best balance of duplicate systems to hex size to map size.

It would take me under an hour to convert that from hard-coded factions/planet coordinates, to using the latest excel spreadsheet of yours (saved in CSV), if you like that output.  Changing name/system/hex/background colors is all pretty trivial.

While I'm not doing battletech exclusive stuff anymore, I'm still very much into mapping of all forms.

well, I asked if it were possible to do a whole inner sphere vector is that it would be possible to generate regional maps from it without having to manually make regional maps every time one would be needed.

I'm thinking that if the hex and triangles could then be made as separate layers so that they can be hidden during printing, that would declutter the final image.

a sample of a vector map is what Blacknova has been doing (ie pdf maps) so that the lines and text would still be crisp regardless of zoom level, and it also makes the map searchable, but I think his maps are not multi-layer, and I don't know the extent of the capabilities of his GIS software.

Yeah, you're right. I count a little under 75k objects for a 2500LY x 1500LY 7.5LY-hex grid.

My intended use is a fixed generic map that anyone can print and draw custom borders on (or the other way around) for setting up an interstellar strategic game or tracking the "big-picture" effect of a planetary tactical one.

Scaled regional maps would then be printed out of the whole map and put together in a mosaic to make bigger maps (the max size of a map would depend on the density of that map).

I've done this using CAD on our large control systems diagrams for work, and it's a good tool for manually simulating portions of a system and such without having to work with the entire diagram.

Cartographer was already there, all that had to be done was for it to be able to print the displayed map. The shaded hex borders was a plus that I had not thought possible (and seeing border changes across eras was totally awesome), the only beef I have with it is that it's limited to a 10LY hex (at least on my laptop) and the hex isn't centered at Terra. Oh and when you display the shaded borders the planet circles and text disappear within the shading because i can't change the outline color of the system and text to make it stand out (based on pictures on your blog your unreleased version allowed you to change the planet circle outline colors).