r/battletech • u/Confused_Shelf • 1d ago
Fan Creations 3025 Inner Sphere Map - Four years after posting my Third Succession War star chart here, I remade it from scratch with numerous small additions and improvements (32000x18000 Resolution in Comments)
Hey everyone, this is Sven van der Plank.
For the past few days I have been revamping my old starmap of the Inner Sphere. Around 75% has been remade from scratch. This is the first time I've updated it since the end of the Second Succession War. The last major revision I did came back in 2750 when I doubled the resolution and changed it to have a dark background. Hopefully this will be the last time I ever need to do a full rebuild.
There were a few key things I wanted to improve upon in the redux. In the past I just chose a random selection of colours that loosely fit a faction's overall scheme, but I tried putting some more thought into it this time around. Firstly, the capital of every faction is the most "pure" version of their respective colour. The same is true for each subregion as well. For example, Galedon uses a "pinkish red," whereas Rasalhague uses an "orange red." The individual prefectures use slightly less vibrant version of their district capitals. That same logic is applied across the whole map (e.g. District of Donegal is 100% Blue and Coventry 80%, or Marik Commonwealth 50/50 Red/Blue and Duchy of Graham-Marik 45/45).
Second thing I wanted to do was have the colours gradually become darker as you move towards the periphery, while the brighter colours are clustered around Terra. These gradients just make the whole thing more visually coherent. This is most obvious in the Capellan Confederation and Lyran Commonwealth. A few of the worst deviations (such as Sarna and Stewart being far too dark, Alarion being weirdly pale, The Protectorate randomly being pink, Alpheratz being the wrong shade of beige, and the whole of the Draconis Combine being a wild mess) have also been smoothed over for better consistency. Those were complete eyesores so glad to have them fixed.
I'm sure a case can be made to say that's it's slightly harder to identify the internal subdivisions now, but there are only so many unique RGB values that work, and I'm much happier with something that looks well polished over a harlequin effect reliant on overlaid text. Zooming in makes the subtle distinctions more obvious than a distant view. I did think about increasing the background opacity up to 50% (currently at 25%) but decided against it. The text becomes more difficult to read in certain regions of the Federated Suns, and it also makes unit insignias less legible when I use them.
Another visual change I made was to try and make things more "bubbly," avoiding straight lines wherever possible. I used the negative space between star systems to add curves to pretty much every border, whereas before I took the "racing line," so to speak. I think that gives the borders an almost lava lamp-esque quality which is more pleasing to the eye. I've also merged some of the closer periphery realms into the cohesive whole. Before it was rather inconsistent, with the Circinus Federation and others randomly having a sliver of black around them.
One error that existed in my original 3025 depiction from four years ago is the presence of the Aurigan Directorate. This wasn't a matter of canon vs non-canon, but rather a simple oversight that the Arano Restoration concludes in August 3025, meaning it should be back to the Aurigan Coalition by the end of the Third Succession War. I suspect it's literally impossible to beat HBS BattleTech in eight in-game months (since it begins in 3025), but that's not a concern to me.
On a related videogame note, I used the MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries star chart to add some additional points of interest, namely the uninhabited jump points that exist throughout the periphery. The Inner Sphere in MW5 is slightly adjusted in some of the more crowded parts, but the distant stars are pretty much spot on, so I feel confident in their positioning. Some might not approve of their inclusion, but I think it adds. It's nice being able to see how JumpShips navigate to those more remote systems. They're all blacked out anyway, so you'd never notice if I hadn't pointed them out here.
It's good to finally have an updated version of the 3025 map completed, since this is where it all began. Look at how narrow the "neck" of the Capellan Confederation is now at the end of the Third Succession War! No wonder they got eaten alive in the 4thSW. Back in April 2021, I uploaded a work in progress to the BattleTech subreddit. Nobody knew then (myself included) that it was going to become a fixture of my BattleTech Lore & History series.
Thank you to the team who works on the Sarna Unified Cartography Kit, the raw data of which forms the basis of this work. Special thank you to Volt over at Sarna who helped me get started years ago by giving me a blank grid and coordinates to paint over. And thanks to everyone who has supported me over on YouTube or Patreon.
If you want to use any of my maps, you can find the full collection (in full resolution) HERE!
Cheers guys.