Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2
I'm more than a little foggy about just what virtue 3D mapping has...except when you are travelling at such speeds that multiple celestial bodies are within your field of engagement.
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3D mapping becomes interesting once your ship attack ranges are comparable to your typical speed per turn (e.g. if both range from 1 to 5 or 10 hexes or other standard units). It becomes even more interesting if ship sizes are comparable to hex sizes . . . (Yes, this is an SW example, was there ever any doubt?)
3D mapping generally means the grid is no longer hexagonal (there would be no sense in that). The simplest replacement grid is made of cubes, though I wonder if some other shape is viable (I think not). Using intersections of grid lines, instead of centres of grid sections, also seems a bit more convenient IMHO.
If there is no automatic alignment along the Z-axis (the axis parallel to ship vector forward), this will also remove the other effect of '2D Space' - the fact that
when two ships approach each other, no matter where they come from, they will always be oriented the same way; you never see a ship flying "upside down".
The question how many people would use it remains. Just how many people are using ericbsmith's spaceships sheet? (Speaking of which, importing any sort of data from an xls is out of the question.)