Quote:
Originally Posted by acrosome
I'd need a 3D starmap, for starters. Hell, I'd buy a well-executed map of the stars within 50 or so light years of Earth on it's own. As it is, though, you need to use a computer and software to have any realism there (I've done it).
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50 ly is too narrow a scale, especially if you're trying to spray-paint a gloss of realism over your action adventure framework. From past discussions we could only come up with 6 candidate stars within 40 ly and I think you'd be lucky to come up with 1 Earth-like planet is 6 chances.
Due to its' cinematic nature Space Opera can be luckier than that but if you want that glossy overlay of realism the ability to cover greater distances would be helpful.
Space Opera ships _must_ go "Whoosh!" and generally carry Our Heroes forward at a rapid pace relative to the scale of the setting. I'm pretty sure most _do_ want antigravity and reactionless thrusters and don't want a warp drive as limited as the one seen in 2300.
If you go with Hyperspace or Jump drives one of the major reasons you do it is to avoid the complexity and limitations of a realspace map.