BattleTechWiki talk:Project Planets

• Archive1

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I found two more planets for you guys: Siroc and Gwithian. --Neufeld 12:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Also: St. Jean --Neufeld 12:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Guys, how's the renovation coming along? I have sad news, Bad_Syntax stopped working on CBT_Cartographer because he got pissed off at the CBT forum mods. I've decided to continue part of his work (identifying the systems, their coordinates and which faction owns them at a given era) Do you guys think you'd be able to use that data? The coordinates are not canon, and my initial study showed that there are some coordinates that are rather off, (such as Far Reach in RWR) so I hope you guys don't use them yet.

As for the number of systems, based on Oystein's maps from various publications, Syntax and I came up with 3,004 systems with established coordinates, and I'm about 90% done with the faction ownership per era (I actually have 3063 100% complete, with 3067 a close second at 99.93%)

I could use some help with checking the coordinates against the published maps (by comparing the image produced from his CBT_Cartographer and the map to see which systems are in the wrong place), and verification (and filling in the blanks) on the faction ownerships. Drop me a PM in the CBT forums (under "VoltAmpere") if you guys want a copy of my current database (just 1 excel sheet at about 700kB). I'm just waiting for the House Kurita Handbook to fill in the rest of the blanks, but I don't expect to get 100% on all of the eras I'm working on.

Also, I haven't really started with the maps of the founding of each house. -Volt 15:34, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

No Record

Hi Guys, question on Ownership History, does "No Record" mean we have no record IRL, or the system is either undiscovered/abandoned in-universe? -Volt 16:32, 28 February 2012 (PST)

Hy Volt, this indicates we found the planet on no canon map, i hope this helps.--Doneve 16:40, 28 February 2012 (PST)

Copy, thanks Doneve.-Volt 18:09, 28 February 2012 (PST)

Doneve has the right of it - "No record" was a compromise worked out by the team to deal with the situation of not having a planet on the map, but also not having a confirmed founding date for any colony or settlement on the planet. The statement by TPTB that the worlds which show up on maps, particularly Periphery worlds, are simply those worlds worthy of note or of significance and that many other worlds have a human population but aren't important enough to show up led to the problem of a world not appearing on a map being absence of proof, rather than proof of absence. TPTB are tricksy like that! BrokenMnemonic 23:38, 28 February 2012 (PST)

Distances between Planets

I tried to make a matrix that lined up each planet horizontally and vertically then shows the dynamic distance between the two (like the multiplication table). Suffice to say that my laptop crashed after I pasted the formula on the 9,051,072 cells... hooray for technology not evolving fast enough to be able to do what the human mind wants done...-Volt 18:12, 28 February 2012 (PST) Oh and the file shot up from 800kB to 7MB in a matrix of 96 x 3009 systems... guess that's just not practical at this time.-Volt 18:18, 28 February 2012 (PST)

With this much data, you'd probably be better off looking at some sort of customized programme designed to chew through the co-ordinates one system at a time, rather than a spreadsheet... although, you could probably get away with doing it in a spreadsheet, if you did it in stages. I think S.gage was working on producing new tables showing the nearest neighbours for planets and the distances involved, but he was working one planet at a time to keep things manageable. Trying to map 3,009 systems against each other... that's getting into DNA mapping territory ;) BrokenMnemonic 23:47, 28 February 2012 (PST)

I haven't given up :) I'm going to make a dedicated file for the relative distances, just because there isn't one available yet [yes, I got hit by the crazy bus as a kid]-Volt 00:56, 29 February 2012 (PST)

HAHA 125MB!-Volt 18:04, 5 March 2012 (PST)

OK... I'll wait until I get home before downloading that one! Given that Doneve is updating all the owner histories at the moment, I think I'll start adding the nearest neighbours tables tonight using your table of doom. BrokenMnemonic 23:36, 5 March 2012 (PST)

ETA: Sadly, I've only got Office 2003, and that has issues opening the spreadsheet. It can't handle the number of columns, and can't handle the formula in those cells it can see even after running through the MicroSoft file converter :(

Would it be possible to upload a version that has just the values in it (not the formulae) broken down into something like one letter of the alphabet per worksheet for the columns? BrokenMnemonic 11:34, 6 March 2012 (PST)

Hi BM, sure, gimme a couple min to convert and upload it.-Volt 15:14, 6 March 2012 (PST)

Sorry to cut in, guys, but BM: look for and download the opensource OpenOffice.org suite. It stays updated with MS file types and, of course, it's free. I only use MS Office at work now.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:28, 6 March 2012 (PST)

Well, for those who have not yet installed OpenOffice, I'm currently uploading the xls 97-2003 compatible version as requested. The file is 150MB so it will take a bit of time to upload. I'll post the link once it's up.-Volt 17:20, 6 March 2012 (PST)

XLS 97-2003 compatible-Volt 19:31, 6 March 2012 (PST)

Thank you I'm using a version of OpenOffice on my netbook at home, but not on my home desktop. My desktop is getting a little cranky with age, and as it's got all of my video editing software on it I try not to upset it too much, just in case! BrokenMnemonic 23:32, 6 March 2012 (PST)

I've been sitting on a lot of inter-system distances, and I am not certain if those I have generated are correct (I was apparently using old numbers...?). Does this file correct these displacements?--S.gage 21:09, 7 March 2012 (PST)

Um, this file may be a bit large for my 3-year old laptop...--S.gage 21:17, 7 March 2012 (PST)

OK, I got this to open, but before I go nuts putting in distances, I want to make certain, how were the initial locations of each of the systems generated. If we start putting these into the articles, are we going to need to re-enter these in the future?--S.gage 21:26, 7 March 2012 (PST)

Volt's best placed to answer this, but my understanding is that some of the source maps used turned out to have an inaccurate axis because of the way the images are stretched to make them fit onto pages. So, Volt's recalculated the co-ordinates using those maps where the axes are consistent, and it's those adjusted co-ordinates that are in the document. So, that's what Doneve and I are using for the nearest neighbour distances. The co-ordinates for the existing planets will probably need adjusting slightly in a lot of cases, but that's a job being put off until Handbook: House Kurita appears and gives us the remaining missing maps from the Handbook series. BrokenMnemonic 01:19, 8 March 2012 (PST)

Well, anyway this spreadsheet was generated, I simply cannot manipulate it - I started trying to sort, realized the .xlsx was too large, then gradually tried copying smaller and smaller portions of the parent doc to do any work. Finally, I tried to copy a single column, waited for 1 hour to allow for processing time, and still found my computer's Excel had frozen. My computer is just too slow--S.gage 08:09, 8 March 2012 (PST)

Hi Gage, I think Doneve actually called that piece of work the "Doom sheet". I made a more user-friendly file, it's larger at 150MB, but I chopped up the workbook into several sheets by letter and made the coordinates 3-decimal fixed values instead of formulas based on the extrapolated+consolidated coordinates.

To answer your question, BM got the gist of it. Bad_Syntax's original work was based off of the 3075 map, which Oystein said had probable scaling issues when the layout artists fit the map on the sourcebook pages, he mentioned further that it was possible that most other maps could have that issue as well. So, to minimize the potential for error I decided to use a base that was not from a sourcebook [ie independent work, as Oystein suggested] so I used the 3130 map from his website. I followed Syntax's methodology to the letter and even used his source file as reference for generating my master file so the only discrepancy between our coordinates should by due to scaling differences and the odd typo [so far we've only found one].

For the deep periphery, HL, NC, JarnFolk & Clan systems, I had no choice but to use sourcebook info [3067 deep periphery map from War of Reaving] because no other info was available at the time. I have a master file that records raw coordinates [not converted to LY] that will dynamically rescale and offset the [so far] 3,009 systems to Terra-origin reference If/When new information becomes available on the distances, scales or even coordinates.

I've asked Oystein if it were possible for him to give me a working scale, distances, or coordinates for 5 systems but of course I knew that was not going to happen and he politely indirectly refused. So until then, I really hope these numbers are acceptable. I have yet to compare the maps generated by this list to the official maps but I'm hoping they're at least within 0.5LY accurate.-Volt 03:04, 9 March 2012 (PST)

2765 data

Hi guys, I know this is going to be a major headache, but can you hold off from updating the distances on the systems that are NOT found in the 2596 and 3040 map but are present in the 2765 map? I will be migrating to the 2765 coordinates on these systems to get a more consistent scaling. Also, head's up, I inadvertently forgot to add Dalmantia to the 3009 systems. I remember Bad_Syntax recording it in his version 0 list before but we've since stricken it out because we couldn't find it. Turns out it was visible in the 2822 and 2864 HB:HD maps beside Oshika [DC]. I'll add the coordinates and the distance in the next update once I've completed incorporating the 2765 map. Potential "new" systems will make a mess of the Nearby Systems list I think.-Volt 21:45, 9 March 2012 (PST)

Ok i stop to revamp the nearby systems, how long you need to update the spreadsheet?--Doneve 06:32, 10 March 2012 (PST)

I will probably need a week to complete the transfer of my source [raw] coordinates from the handbooks to the 2765 map, as well as catalog the new systems. I will upload the new coordinates and distances list once I'm done.-Volt 13:55, 10 March 2012 (PST)

DC 2765:

19 new systems, 2 of which were already visible in the previous handbook maps but I was not able to incorporate. 18 systems that might change coordinates as I will transfer the raw data from the handbooks to the 2765 two-page map: Celebes, Grootfontein, New Sumatra, Okaya, Miyazaki, Tangerz, Hildaman, Elix, Nai-Stohl, Périgueux, Oldsmith, Wittington, Westfield, Goldlure, Tovetin, Belacruz, Dunklewälderdunklerflüssenschattenwelt and Christiania-Volt 18:07, 11 March 2012 (PDT)

CC 2765:

4 new systems, 144 existing systems might change coordinates, and 3 systems' names changed sometime between 2768 to 2822.-Volt 04:40, 11 March 2012 (PDT)

TH 2765:

No change-Volt 05:06, 11 March 2012 (PDT)

LC 2765:

FS 2765:

FWL 2765:

Periphery & Independents:

Cooperland coordinates might change. 2 new independent systems. Rezak's Hole erroneously appears on the map-Volt 06:33, 11 March 2012 (PDT)

MOC, 16 coordinates might change, no new systems.-Volt 17:29, 11 March 2012 (PDT)

Hmm, when the 16 systems change the coordinates to the existing, we become new cooardinates to nearby systems and that change some value on the spreadsheed, but i think we use the newest cannon map, and work from this, and leave notes on the planet articles, but this give me some headache.--Doneve 17:24, 10 March 2012 (PST)

Well, I'm not done with Capellan Confederaiton yet but I already have 127 systems that MIGHT change coordinates, which is why I asked to hold off on doing the nearby systems because at this time I don't know if the changes will be significant. I guess this will put my integration formulas to the test to see just how accurate they will be.-Volt 03:50, 11 March 2012 (PDT)