Last update I talked about how I would be revisiting ships and all things related to ships. I got distracted.

The Map

I had a moment when thinking about movement through the universe and how much I dislike the current implementation of static map building that I am using through Python. This doesn't give me flexible options for displaying the universe or sections of the universe. All those things need to be generated and the results are kinda ugly. 

The current implementation does not have a static way to generate a map. If I generate the map more than once, the entire layout will be drawn at random. This presents another issue. If I want to display certain information along with the map, such as system ownership, there's no way to preserve the layout of systems.

The Solution?

I was using Claude to talk through different ways to display dynamic maps and the ultimate way forward was to implement JavaScript in the client side using Three.js. After some toying with this method, it too suffers from the inability to make a static map and randomizes every refresh. It's infinitely prettier and gives many more options for showing additional data. 

The Solution

This is the part where everything starts to make sense and ties back to ships and universe creation. In order to make sure the universe is generated in a consistent and meaningful way, I will need to create X, Y, and Z coordinates for every system so that they all have a consistent and absolute position in the universe. I have already devised the way forward for this, now it's just a matter of implementing this into the universe creation scripts.

I'll post updates about the outcome when I am able. Until then.