Hi @thehawk ,

I haven't gotten that far yet.

As of now, I've only been listing the different files in the Maps folder; to see which maps are created by CD and the different updates (see my previous post).

Speaking of which, @Don V Anderson Jr. , I found differences between your Update2 listing and mine. For example, mine includes Baghla.XCF and yours doesn't.

My next step, was to see which files were modified between CD and Update1, between Update1 and Update2, and between Update2 and Update3. These are the listings of files that are different:

I took Don V Anderson Jr.'s spreadsheet and added sheets of my own:

... and I added some colors and styles (for the "roflo1" sheet):

• Red for empty cells (files that don't exist in that installer)
• Orange for files that didn't exist in the previous installer
• Bold for files that are different than the previous installer

Now... the hard part will be figuring out which of the bolded maps are better than the previous version. I can't think of a better way than just opening them up individually and see how they look.

I ended up making 3 versions (using the magic of layers).

Cepheus Engine:

Cepheus Deluxe (the range chart is not really needed in CD, but it looks cool):

Mongoose 2E:

I guess I'm almost done. I just want to double check I didn't mix rules between systems.

EDIT: BTW, the range chart is my take on the "ruler" mentioned in this video: https://youtu.be/u0rPlnZ2uJE?t=599

About a month ago I stumbled into a "tactical battlemap" for Traveller (can't remember where), and I liked the concept enough to give it a try myself.

I don't know if I'll use it since my I'm playing my Traveller/Cepheus game in person. But, we make maps because we like to make them, right?

Anyway, this is what I have so far:

I did try to upload it to my preferred VTT, but I edited the image to have a transparent background (in case I want to later add something else as a background or something else).

I wanted to see if I can get some feedback on things to change, tweak, improve, or just what to put in the upper-right corner. Or how to choose better colors. I'm not the best at choosing colors.

Thanks!

I forgot to post this yesterday:

I toyed around with both Bevel effects and tried tinkering with the settings. I found it very hard to notice the slight variations between those attempts (especially since I really liked adding the blur afterwards), but here it is.

Now that I think about it, I didn't try a smaller Bevel, one that covers 1/3 of the width.. I guess I should try that next.

One thing I've been pondering for a while is creating images with white noise over transparent background. In my mind, I can get away with many, many textures in CC3+ just by playing with colours. And perhaps tweak with yet more transparency and colouring via filters.

So when I saw this post, I decided to go for a first attempt. I created this simple, tileable, base image (feel free to use it):

And then in CC3+, I dropped a blue rectangle as Sue suggested and then dropped my tiling image on top of it. There's three 'cloudy' rectangles (on top of the blue one) in this screenshot:

The left side of this screenshot is a Fill style based on the provided image (scaling 100x100) and I manually inserted the same image on the right side (Draw->Insert File). Then for kicks (and for variability), I added another rectangle with the same fill style on the bottom, but didn't snap to grid so the texture doesn't align with itself (of course, I could have used another base image and/or another fill style with different scaling).

If you also take Sue's suggestions and add "individual" cloud symbols, you should get a lot of variability.

PS:

That's... impressive. I don't think I'd even have the patience to start a project like that. ;)