This is due to the setup in that traveller catalog you are using. For the standard traveller map, a gas giant is treated as a modifier to an existing symbol, to be displayed in the corner of a hex, not in the center where a regular planet goes.

This means that the symbol is quite offset from it's origin, which should be noticeable already at 1x scale, but as you scale up, distances are also scaled obviously, meaning that distance is now 16x larger. (This special placement for traveler is also why it is so small)

The gas giant in the regular planets catalog is more normal, but that is a height symbol, which isn't what you want here.

My recommendation is to create your own symbol catalog. Just make a copy of the traveller one, and then go in and scale all the symbols so they are properly scaled related to each other, and not for the abstract traveller use, and change the origin of the gas giants to be in the middle of the planet.

That's a pretty good question. The earliest map I could find in my collection that I actually made and used for a game is dated 2005, but that was not the first time I used CC.

I think my first encounters was with the cut back version - Campaign Mapper - which shipped with the Core Rules 2.0 product back in 1999. I remember picking this up pretty early after it's release. I think I also got the FR Atlas around that time, probably around 2000.

Most of my early maps were simple modifications of the FR Atlas maps.

Red X'es like this means that CC3+ isn't able to find external art files referenced from the map file.

Check this blog article for details:

The only way is really to just load them up in the house style editor [HOUSEOPT] and look at them one by one.

To quickly look through them without clicking yourself to death, take advantage of the fact that Windows GUI components are keyboard friendly. Simply use the top dropdown and click on the very first style in the list to select it and collapse the list, then as long as you don't click any other controls, it will be the active control, and you can go through the styles using the arrow keys.

I haven't read the text from the annual issue, but if the instructions feels unclear, don't hesitate to give Ralf a word about it. There are many people reading those things that don't hang around here.