Could use a hand with this map

Micco40

All,

Fairly new user here. I'm trying to figure out how to "spice up" a map i am building for a Traveller campaign. I'm having a real hard time trying to figure out how to make this map more interesting than the two layers of colors. The planet is essentially a "swamp world" with more open terrain only at the poles.

If anyone has some ideas, please let me know and i'll see what i can do.

Thanks so much for any tips.

Monsen

Perhaps add some more colors to it. Swamps near the equator is probably different vegetation that the swamps near the polar area, so use different colors. Perhaps some brownish or yellowish swam areas.
Maybe some water. If it is a swamp world, it is filled by water by definition, so it is not that difficult to imagine that some small lakes (Large enough to take a hex or two) with just water, no vegetation have formed.

Micco40

Something like this?

sdavies2720

I often use my artistic intuition to drive game solutions. If this looks too all-the-same to you, then it probably will to the players as well. That's ok if you're trying to hide a needle in a haystack. But if you want them to focus somewhere, put something in for them to focus on. Ideas:

* Area that is blighted, without vegetation
* A mountain
* A city/habitation/ruin
* Mist-covered area
* Rift

Whatever it is will draw attention, which will in turn focus the adventure. And, it gives the map a focal point that can ease your artistic ache.

Steve

JimP

Most fiction I have read about expansive swamp areas had one or more volcanoes in it.

Micco40

Sdavies and JimP,

Both good points. Let me go back to the mad scientist lab and see what i can come up with. I agree that it needed more, but spent too much time staring at it with no ideas.

I really appreciate all the feedback, it truly is helpful.

Thanks.

JimP

No problm, and if I do the same. Point out what my maps need.

Micco40

OK i have run into a little snag.


I've tried creating a new layer AND a new sheet, labelled "Mountains" but for the life of me i can't get it show up when i am doing redraw. Whenever i do a default landmass draw it reverts back to a different sheet called "symbols". How do i make a new sheet with the mountain background stick?

Micco40

Posted By: JimPNo problm, and if I do the same. Point out what my maps need.

I can only hope to be that good someday. I'd just be happy if something i said made sense :-)

JimP

Well, some of my maps look terrible. I just keep making new ones. My surface maps are an ongoing, years, of redoing them. I have to. Crestar's surface maps are in several styles. I kept jumping from style to style.

Now that I have over 1,600 maps, I have been making an attempt to get the surface ones all the same style. Long ways to go.

sheets
land
mountains

If you did this:

sheets
mountains
land

the mountains are under the land. That is why they don't show.

sdavies2720

Posted By: Micco40OK i have run into a little snag.


I've tried creating a new layer AND a new sheet, labelled "Mountains" but for the life of me i can't get it show up when i am doing redraw. Whenever i do a default landmass draw it reverts back to a different sheet called "symbols". How do i make a new sheet with the mountain background stick?

IIRC (I'm not at my CC3 computer) some of the drawing tools automatically draw on a specific sheet. If so, there is probably a setting to change for it. I know that's pretty nebulous -- if Jim's suggestion doesn't take care of the problem, and you don't see what I'm talking about, raise your hand again and someone who knows what they are talking about will inevitably come by and help.

Steve

Micco40

sdavies,

Thank you! That is exactly the ticket. I didnt realize that i needed to change the default location for the item. I created a sheet AND a layer labeled "mountain" which is where i put the mountains. It works perfect since i can now move them independently instead of worrying about how to make them show up and where.

Micco40

One question apparently leads to another. It's funny in a sad way :-)

OK, so now i have the mountain background. My next hurdle is that when i try to place any items on top of that background, when i refresh they completely disappear. I apparently can't move priority for layers as i can do sheets, so do i create another sheet that has the mountains on them and put them in front of the sheet that has the background?

Monsen

Yes. The trick is always to create sheets for this purpose. If you need something to be on top of something else, create a new sheet for it, and set an appropriate sheet order. Sheets that contain "background" stuff should always be moved near the top of the list.

Note however that you can change the order of items that are on the same sheet with the send to front/back commands, so you generally don't create new sheets for objects of the same type.

You also might want to keep an eye out for when it is appropriate to reuse an existing sheet, and when to create a new one. The important point however, is thinking about the sheet order.

Micco40

Posted By: MonsenYes. The trick is always to create sheets for this purpose. If you need something to be on top of something else, create a new sheet for it, and set an appropriate sheet order. Sheets that contain "background" stuff should always be moved near the top of the list.

Note however that you can change the order of items that are on the same sheet with the send to front/back commands, so you generally don't create new sheets for objects of the same type.

You also might want to keep an eye out for when it is appropriate to reuse an existing sheet, and when to create a new one. The important point however, is thinking about the sheet order.

Monsen,

OK i understand what you are saying. Still having a tough time making that happen. How do i select ONLY certain items with the "front/back" commands? I've only been able to move things like the grid and the mountain background selected. Is there a way i can set that to happen before i place the item or does it not work like that?

I tried to reuse an existing sheet that didnt appear to have anything on it, but my mountains still just drop behind the background. Getting just a bit frustrated not being able to figure out something that i think should be simple. Must be missing something is all i can think.

Thanks for the help.

Monsen

Symbols select their sheet automatically, so it doesn't help you if you select a sheet first, then select and place a symbol, as the symbol will always be placed on their preferred sheet (The program behaves this way because you want this behavior more than 90% of the time for most maps).
Symbols looks for sheets named SYMBOLS SOMETHING however, so if you make a sheet called SYMBOLS MOUNTAINS and make this sheet active before placing symbols, you will see that the symbols do end up on this sheet automatically (As opposed to a sheet named just MOUNTAINS which the symbols would never automatically end up on). If the active sheet is NOT named SYMBOLS SOMETHING, the symbol will default to the standard SYMBOLS sheet.

To use front/back with individual items, you just have to select them the same way as you do any object. If you have problems with more entities being selected than desired, try clickin another point on the entity when selecting, a point that doesn't contain any other entities as well. Also, remember, you can specify rather complex criteria by using the And, Or and Not modifiers from your right click menu during selection.

Another tip is to use Prior when selecting entities. This will select the last entity you placed, or the last entity (or group of) selected. This makes it very easy to select the last item placed.

Also remember that the front/back only moves entities to the front or back on the current sheet. You cannot use Front to move something in front of an entity on another sheet. For that, you need to move the entire sheet (from the sheets dialog), or move the entity to another sheet.