Once again Reddit has provided a source of fan-based ingenuity and useful content. Cryp71c is in production on a fully interactive Inner Sphere through deep periphery star chart that, among many other things will show political affiliation of each known planet in the BattleTech universe across THIRTY separate time periods.
As mind-bogglingly vast as the BattleTech universe is, let’s just say I’m highly impressed by this undertaking. Already, the site uses mouse and certain keyboard inputs to pan and zoom, and cursor rollovers reveal the system’s name. Future updates will include canon planetary descriptions, gravity, moons, atmospheric data, USIIR ratings, known jump points, system history; even available terrain features with a single click.
The Inner Sphere: The Not-So Final Frontier…
You can click to highlight and turn off highlights on planets grouped by different political affiliations, including major and minor house lords. Supplementing the mouse clicks is an array of keyboard commands using a Vi keymapping system:
- “qweadzxc each (individually) pan the camera
- ik each zoom in or out
- jl each move the timeline forward or backward
- mouse can click+drag to pan the camera
- mouse wheel can wheel up or down to zoom”
One thing I will be keeping an eye on is the ‘game features’, According to Cryp71c anyone will be able to create an account and log in to make personal non-canonical changes for games. Something like this would be PERFECT as an addition to an online interstellar operations game. I’m not clear on this part yet so stay tuned.
Lately it seems there are almost as many quality non-official products for BattleTech as there are official ones. The fans are as passionate and as dedicated as any in science fiction, so I think its a good thing.
Well bargained, and done.
Gah … no download … at least yet…
Will be watching this one with great interest.