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Map Distance Increase?

Well, there does seem to be some support for this. Would you guys be interested in doing a community vote like we did with the 2011 Setting Changes, conducted soon and with the results taking effect at the start of the new year (2015/YE 37), subject to availability of the new map? The poll could ask:
  1. Should Wes allow a retcon of distances on the star map, to allow for longer distances between frontier systems and core systems?
  2. Do you support Wes commissioning new map artwork that would reflect the above changes?
 
Would this also be an expansion of say "Known Space"?

Would this include potentially new regions of space with spooky crap that can kill us?

If so, I'm all for padding the map bigger!
 
Thanks Wes. That's what I wanted to see from you. I'll do you one more, though:

Voting for 1 and 2, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't matter. There's no need for a community vote - anyone interested already chipped in favorably, and we already have an artist with a work in progress that the community is favorable on, so...

I support Khasidel continuing his work to polish up the starmap. I think he has a good track record for delivering things that help detail and improve the setting, and he's already invested. If he's agreeable with increasing distances, which he seemed to be when I last read his input, then he can just be given the greenlight. If he'd like compensation, I'm fine with paying him myself for it. It's something I was ready to do to compel Exhack to finish; and the same goes for Khasidel.
 
Well considering that the map is quite dense star-wise when comparing it to real-life, I have to say I'm all for extending the distances. As for commissioning a map, @Arieg has been working on an updated map recently. Would it be to hard for him to modify it to our specs?
 
I agree with Abe's assessment.

I would also like to mention the problem of tactics rather than narrative.

Tactically speaking, Wes, with the numbers the way they are now, someone could get the drop on a single planet or place and begin firing almost instantaniously with no immediate reprecussions. Even if someone were a second, or millisecond too late, the rate of our travel is such that I could warp a Yamataian fleet into orbit of Lor, glass the planet, and there's nobody stopping me except public opinion and - well, I can't say 'nothing', since by and large Doc tends to be paranoid and Osaka is good at writing tech. Still, it's the sword that I proposed to hold at the Lorath throat; Yamatai was less powerful in the region, but still had first-strike capability without any observable bases of operation short of a mobile station.

But the same strategy could easily be used on Yamatai with the current travel times and distances. There isn't a single fortress that a suicide run couldn't breech. It's the Nuclear Cold War, all over again; if one person presses, we all press. Mutually assured destruction.

Slowing these times down would make interstellar warfare make slightly more sense, and less dependant on this sort of strategy.

Although to a large extent "Ships move at the speed of plot" and what I just said above doesn't matter, because it would never, ever come to pass with any sensible GM, it's just an example of how the current system might not make perfect sense as written.

We've updated a lot of things about the site as the member base has grown more intelligent and discerning, and if some people want this to happen for whatever reason, I'm sure it's something that they're planning to use to answer that old question of "Well, we could actually get there in 15 seconds..." I think that was someone else's point though?
 
Agreed. With the distance increase, though it's more difficult to respond to IC due to the travel times themselves, we receive earlier warning in return. With the short distances we currently have, the only thing that make sense is a quick, bloody war where it's M.A.D. as Gallant pointed out. We may have territory coming under attack at the borders with the change, but overall? The Empire is safer this way - better to lose a colony or two and win it back as part of a plot's story than end up possibly being "Cored" like a mech with its reactor pierced from a shot aimed between the armor.
 
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The setting definitely needs a distance increase between systems. The rates of travel of most of these ships are simply ridiculous and render interstellar logistics when it comes to waging any kind of more or less irrelevant because fleets can just keep bring more forces in at an extreme rate and can simply flood their opponents so that whoever has the most forces will win no matter what tactics a defending fleet or system uses because the rate of travel is just so absolutely insane that nothing can hold against the amount of force a prepared opponent can field almost instantly with the current distances and speeds.
 
Let's not rag on the point of the disadvantages and flaws of the current version - we've already pointed that out and Wes gets the picture.

I get the thing about travel delays. The issue was brought up recently, and people would think we might even try to adjust SARP speeds again. But that involves a lot of wiki edits I'm sure most of us want to avoid, especially considering that there isn't a good plan to do it.

If the starmap is remade to be scaled up at the same time, it addresses Elapsed-Time-to-Arrival to a degree... and it's also a single article edit. Logistically, for SARP at large, it's much more economical. There's a lot that Khasidel does that's really well thought out, so, I'd personally want to see what he'd have to propose as a preference first.
 
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Centurion0507 said:
The setting definitely needs a distance increase between systems. The rates of travel of most of these ships are simply ridiculous and render interstellar logistics when it comes to waging any kind of more or less irrelevant because fleets can just keep bring more forces in at an extreme rate and can simply flood their opponents so that whoever has the most forces will win no matter what tactics a defending fleet or system uses because the rate of travel is just so absolutely insane that nothing can hold against the amount of force a prepared opponent can field almost instantly with the current distances and speeds.
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Omigod we have brought EVE zerg fleets to the fictional future too.
 
Fred said:
If the starmap is remade to be scaled up at the same time, it addresses Elapsed-Time-to-Arrival to a address... and it's also a single article edit. Logistically, for SARP at large, it's much more economical.
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That's not the case. Many articles list the star system's distance from Yamatai or nearby star systems. Every star system article will have to be individually reviewed if any change is made to the map.
 
Still not insurmountable. You and I have tackled bigger issues with the housekeeping moving items out of the root space before we had the move feature. :)
 
In all honesty a lot of the systems that are of a concern are rather.... lacking in much if any detail.
 
Well, most already know my stance :)

For me, an increase in the distances adds plenty more to RP; as it'll allow for some rather interesting situations.
 
If it's worth any consolidation, I'm willing to go ahead and edit what articles that happen to do need work done thanks to the change. Even if a new map is not made anytime soon, the quick edit to the current map with an extra 0 added in to all the values would be a good starting point. From there, any other new maps following it would have the convention.
 
Just my two cents.

I find it to be a bit myopic to focus all of our energy on the issue of distances for now, rather than instead focusing on expanding the map size to allow for more opportunity, then revisiting the issue of distances later.
 
Koenig808 said:
Just my two cents.

I find it to be a bit myopic to focus all of our energy on the issue of distances for now, rather than instead focusing on expanding the map size to allow for more opportunity, then revisiting the issue of distances later.
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I agree with this. But also we need to reinvest in bringing some of the existing systems up to a decent level of detail.
 
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