Galaxy Map - Sector Map Finished!

I like this map, but it's hard to tell the arms apart. Most of our old races are on certain specific arms.

I'd like to revive this topic, as the need for a new galaxy map has become apparent to Darkel and I.

I think that the above map curius made is good for our purposes, but before everyone puts their empire somewhere, we need to define the various sectors of Ravena and establish a manner of laying down empire territory. I took the liberty of doing so myself using dotted lines to show where the various sectors would be - However, it doesn't look particularly good, so we may need someone with more experience in this kind of thing to lay these down after we establish the names and such.

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These are the initial sector boundaries I laid down. It may look confusing due to the dotted lines, which I used because I didn't feel like drawing everything and it lined up with the dotted grid used. Here is a version with the color of each sector within it for clarification. I made this all on the same psd file with layers so it can be removed easily.

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We now need names for each sector. So far, we have two, but we'll need more input as to what these should be. Additionally, with a project of essentially redoing our backstory, races will need to be established within sectors rather than arms. Here's the map again with the sectors that have names.

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We need the rest of the community's help on naming these sectors. Please do not name a sector after your race or something, as, lore-wise, these were established before the Loccalians actually came to power. Thank you.

I feel that many of these names will depend on the placing of 34 Pires throughout the galaxy. I don't think I could do much here without more context.

Like I said, these will have been established prior to the vast majority of empires in RG coming into existence. You can basically make stuff up for names.

Right then. I'll think of some names.

The farthest points from the core should be referred to as the "Outskirts Sector" or something similar to identify the deepness of the area. I think that a lot of the names should be distance-based actually, either that or they are named after the things which are located in that sector. By this I mean physical locations and objects, not races.

We should also decide how large is the domain of the dominant races.

My initial opinion would be that:

Large empire, dominant influence over two map "squares".

Huge empire, three squares.

Galactic superpower, four squares.

Also, even though the squares are larger farther away from the middle, the star density also decreases, so they are pretty balanced.

Exploration Fringe should be for the outermost sectors.

I think I'd like to make a better definition version of the map. I also believe that the squares are actually of the same area all around.

Here is a system I thought of for division of areas.

The largest divisions will divide the galaxy into Quadrants. The Quadrants being the largest fragments of area. Down from that are the sectors. After that come subsectors.

Perhaps after subsectors, we have millisectors. Perhaps just before subsectors we have Megasectors, which could be those pizza-slice divisions. Just thinking out loud here.

New grid for the map:
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I like the sector idea, although I would make the areas in the grid smaller, still. That's generally because my empires are small, though. I tend to imagine everything taking up a smaller area than it really does.

I think curius' suggestion for a grid is a good idea, though when it comes to coordinates the circular pattern may be confusing. We should just have a traditional grid, for precise coordinates, on top of the sectors that Dark suggested.

I think we should continue work on this.

I think a good idea would be to use map and grid that curius created along with the sectors I created. Named sectors would be easier to RP with than numbered and create more lore/history. First, let's name the sectors and work on integrating them on the new map, then we can define where all our stuff is.

before that, I could make the grid tighter if you want, to increase available detail

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I like that idea. Nice work curius. We had a few names already made. I believe the Loccalians existed in what we will call the Revaut Sector. Correct me if I'm wrong Zar.

Maybe we should also make just a plain white sketch of the grid with the sector names on it, so that we can label them big enough for everyone to see, without interfering with whenever we try to put down colors for our races.

Do you mean like just the grid without galaxy background?

Yes. If we try to label the sectors with a background, it might get really confusing, but if we just have two images, one with a mapping of the sectors, people can just use that as a reference when they look at the shaded areas that are considered to be our races' territories.

That would probably be good. For reference, the sectors I created are a page back. My only issue as of yet is making the sectors have a definite separation from each other. Like, how would we show sector borders and such?

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Here.

I'd like there to be a sector that has been relatively unexplored. I'm afraid the only names I can come up with are the Unexplored Sector (lame) or else the Undefined Sector (also lame). This would be where the Vara used to live.

The sector names won't be in that style aside from the Central Sector. I've explained this to Darkel, but I'm not sure if I let anyone else know - the sector names are based off of races that lived/events that occurred in them long before even the Loccalians existed. For example, the Novus Sector, where the Novus Alliance existed, is named after a war that occurred there, not after the coalition. The knowledge of these sector names and their histories have been passed down throughout the ages, most notably the Loccalians, as they saw it fit to educate the other species on them. It's important to note that there are certain things the Loccalians did not teach anyone about for their own security, one notable example being the Eldraunn. We can have a relatively unexplored sector but it will have a unique name.

I would imagine that the outer sectors might be largely unexplored as the distances between stars is longer and the stars itself are older and smaller in general. Also, we have lots of sectors now, we could have one "slice" of the galaxy, like one sixth or seventh, be largely backwater and wasteland. Galaxy is a large place.