On Sat, Jan 20, 2018 at 09:34:35PM -0500, Caleuche wrote:
> They've established orbit via typical Traveller complete lack of
> concern about efficient approaches, but you do have state vectors
> and give them their orbit elements from that:
>
> Eccentricity 0.0499883
> Semimajor Axis 31837185 meters
> Inclination 57.2958 degrees
> Longitude of the Ascending Node 360. degrees
> Argument of Periapsis 359.999 degrees
> True Anomaly 156.421 degrees

I've never described (or even generasted) orbital parameters for
objects in a Traveller game like that, any more than I would describe
a building's location in terms of surveying markers.

It's assumed that any competent astrogator does understand such
specifications (and more) in universe, but the players certainly
don't.  For that sort of orbit, I would normally describe it as just a
highly inclined, slow orbit a few diameters out from the planet.  If
they wanted more information (e.g. orbital period), I could estimate
it on the fly (e.g. "about an Imperial day"), or compute it in more
detail if it was important.

However, I would much more likely start with the relevant facts about
the orbit, and generate some numbers later if necessary.  It has
almost never been necessary.

> what I have yet to do is find if there is a standard, digital format
> for Traveller world surface maps and if someone has both done the
> work of writing an import/exporter (in any language, I just want to
> use it as a template) and if someone has written a utility or
> .. whatever that can take the corner points of one of the map
> triangles and output latitude and longitude of that point.

> Second, stylistically I'm trying to get to the point that the plots
> resemble the old NASA 60s and 70s plots, something like this:
> https://www.honeysucklecreek.net/images/other_stations/red_lake_images/MA-9_ground_track.jpg

One big difference from Traveller space travel is that significant
orbit changes for current spacecraft are very expensive and are
planned very carefully.  Such plots are very useful since orbits
change as little as possible.

Traveller spacecraft can radically change their orbit within minutes,
basically for free.  A ground-track plot becomes useless as soon as a
captain decides that they'd rather be over Europe in 30 minutes
instead of Australia.

> Do you do anything during games to give the games a "golden age of
> spaceflight" feel?

Not much.  In the typical Traveller era, spaceflight has been common
for longer than Earth has had wheeled transport, and the mechanics of
Traveller space travel make most of the realistic concerns irrelevant.

> Are astrometrics ever a concern at all in your games?

Sometimes, but very rarely.

> Even so, I'm curious what you do to project a feeling of
> spaceflight, or that Traveller is indeed taking place in space.

Looking back over our games, they mostly didn't take place in space
except in the sense that everything in the universe is "in space".
Most adventures took place on planets, and space was just something
you went through to get to them.  Even of the sessions that actually
were in space, there weren't very many where the specific nature of
space played a large part in the plot.  Many hostile environments
would have served equally well.

- Tim