Fleet Management Mk2

You may remember that back in December I rolled out a little corkboard plotting table so that I could track the locations of various fleets in the deWulf universe. And at the same time I observed that as an idea it was good, but the square notes that each pin was holding made it almost entirely useless (as the squares did a rather good job of blotting out the map). And since I don’t have the space to properly replicate a plotting table à la Battle of Britain, I have to work on refining the idea instead of just making it bigger. Though I must confess, a bigger board like that would make gaming VERY enjoyable…

Still, one has to work within one’s budget, and in this case I got a bit lucky. I was able to borrow a label printer, and now each one of those little pins has a small flag attached to it, indicating what fleet, survey group, task force, or support unit it was. Like on the Mk1, the pin colour indicates what navy the flag is for. While it’s not perfect (the labels don’t quite like being folded in on themselves), it’s a LOT more usable. Add in a few colour coded index cards to show who is who, a parking space for unused fleet pins (always good to have spares), and a convenient turn tracker so I can see at a glance who still has work to do (spoilers, it’s everyone), and we get…

The deWulf Sector Plotting Table Mk2!

This thing’s already starting to sound like a bit of USN hardware…

It’s definitely a lot more usable than the Mk1, and I have a few ideas on how to fix the tags from not unsticking themselves. Mostly based around some superglue. But for now, it’s fully operational!

I’m thinking that later this year, after I’ve gotten everything caught up and running, I’ll do a Mk3 version. That one will have a fully replaced and re-rendered map that will both be fully up to date, but also more cohesive and uniform. You may notice that the maps here are a mix of my earlier paint-renders and some optimized maps generated via a Viso-like tool, which makes for an information imbalance depending on where you look on the map.

For example, the lower star systems actually have some information on what is in-system; you can tell if a system is a nebula, a binary/trinary, and if it has any colonized habitable worlds. The upper ones have NO data whatsoever visible beyond what fleets are where. But that’s a case of improving the tool, not making it usable. And hopefully that will get paired with a revamp of all of my maps at the same time.