3D Galactic Map

General Discussion
1

I’ve been playing around with a 3D galactic map for known stars games. It doesn’t have the same amount of information as the 2d map, but it is good for visualizing the layout of different alien empires in 3D space and how connections might be made.

You can zoom, rotate, drag and change the centre star for rotations. You can choose colours for alien races and show their controlled systems. Stabilised links are on/off.

It’s experimental at the moment and not intended to replace the 2D map. It just allows a different perspective

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18 Likes
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7 Likes
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Absolutely a-ma-zing!!! Any chance that it will be implemented together the old view?

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4

This is really, really cool! Is this something we will expect to see in a later update?

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Yes, assuming it holds up to testing, it will likely be in v2.8. You can access it via a button on the normal 2D Galactic Map. This is intended as an extra view, not a replacement.

7 Likes
6

Looks great!
I know it’s harder to represent much of useful information on a 3D map, yet maybe it would be possible to just switch color shemes of the systems with different “layes”. Like, switch from the colors of the system owners to:

  • Navy presence (blue - your dominance, green - allied, yellow - neutral, red - enemies, white - unknown)
  • Maint presence (white - maint base present in the system, blue - 1 JP from, green - 2 JPs, yellow - 3 JPs, orange - 4, red - path unknown or blocked)

Maybe even with a second parameter indicator in a form of the size of the circle or halo (like - more Navy tons results in larger circle).

7

Yes, something on those lines should be possible.

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An update on the 3D work.

I’ve decided to use a multi-coloured ring around systems to show locations. So the solid dots show colours for different selected alien races, plus a large yellow dot for the currently selected system (around which the map rotates).

The circles around the dots show characteristics of the system. In this view, green means a population and blue means a maintenance location. Half green and half blue means both.

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This view adds unsurveyed and unexplored jump points. If all four were true, the circle would be split into four colours.

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8 Likes
9

Looks marvelous!
The only suggestion - make green colour a bit more greenish and/or blue one a bit more blueish, to make them easier to discrete.

10

I really appreciate you implementing and spending time on this feature, I enjoy building my universe in long games but I end up in an organization nightmare trying to make a 2D map with crossing jump-point link lines look right in a way I’m comfortable with. I think this 3D view adds a lot of versatility and would make it easier to visualize game universes for planning and story building.

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Quick suggestion: if currently selected system (around which the map rotates) is a large yellow dot, I think it would be best to avoid assigning yellow color to any of the alien races.

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You can set the colours for each race yourself on the Intelligence window.

6 Likes