Help! Notable locations for "local" space opera setting

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Brett

That is a volume that is general close enough to use real star catalogues (reasonably complete out to 35 light-years if you aren't interested in M-class junk), and there are some good maps available. Look at Winchell Chung's actual starmaps page. Winchell's HabHYG 50ly hab and HabHYG 20ly will probably be useful to you, and are free. It you are prepared to shell out a few bucks, Winchell has hard-copy poster maps available: the Nearest 100 Stars is close to your 20-lightyear sphere, but I recommend the 30 Light Years Map, which is much more legible as being printed on a white background. I got mine laminated, and store it flat, Blu-Tack®ed to the back of my study door. You might also like the Astrogator's Handbook: the standard edition goes out to 25 light-years, and the electronic version is a free download. (The De Luxe Edition goes out to 75 light-years, and hard-copy in a binder cost me only $30 plus postage.)

Thanks, those should come in handy.

Originally Posted by Brett

When you say "points of interest", do you mean to include points of scientific interest (such as, say, Sirius), or only what we might call "points of social interest", i.e. habitats and artifacts?

Looking mainly for points of social interest - places the PCs could get into (or cause) trouble rather than places that would be of scientific interest.

Originally Posted by Brett

1. I don't understand why Ocean planets (in the sense GURPS Space uses it, anyway) should not be found elsewhere, e.g. orbiting class A stars but doomed in a timespan too short to expect a [natural] oxygen catastrophe.
2. Are you not interested in planets that have come tantalisingly close to being settlement candidates? I understand that with an open frontier there is no economic justification for terraformation, but such worlds would be of scientific interest.

For the Ocean planets, I was looking mainly at planets that would be "Earth-like but with 95%-99.95% water coverage". I'd have to look to see whether those would be viable in the comfort zones of A-class stars. (Sirius is unlikely to have one, due to Sirius B's orbit, but Altair and Vega are possibilities.)

Planets that are settlement candidates on the frontier are also useful. Some of them could be uncharted settlements - pirate havens, refugee settlements, etc.

The time-frame of the setting is roughly the 2550s, with the medium progression as listed in GURPS Ultra-Tech (IDHMBWM, but I believe that's TL9 at 2040, TL10 at 2200, TL11 at 2400.)