Mapping of multiple in-game planets

[isostone]

Hello! I'm currently working on a project for a character who is a amateur (but enthusiastic) cartographer. They exist in the world of Outer Wilds, a game with multiple simulated planets(none more than a few kilometers in diameter). The simulated planets each have their own gimmicks (i.e Brittle Hollow, a hollow planet with a black hole in the center. Its crust falls into the black hole during gameplay, and most of what you can explore is under the crust).
How might I go about mapping these places in a way that'd be accurate and believable in the sense that my character could have drawn them up while exploring? What sort of notes should I be taking?

Comments

[cnoocy]

A crucial chunk of your second sentence seems to have been elided.

[isostone]

Thank you for pointing it out!

[ariaflame]

Oof. I mean Brittle Hollow is hard to have accurate maps for, in that it was accurate when your character went through, but that doesn't mean those paths would still be there for future explorers or when they come back. And as for Dark Bramble I'm not sure how you would map that.

[isostone]

Well, all things considered, I think I'll be sticking to 'fully intact' Brittle Hollow. There's already something of a map of Dark Bramble floating about, though I'd definitely have to think up a creative way to incorporate it so that it looks believable. Do you have any ideas on how to map the other planets?

[traehgniw]

Maybe if they notice any pattern to chunks that fall off early/late they'd mark some down? And have a map of chunk boundaries?

(Still no idea how they'd map the inside though)

[isostone]

Yeah, that sounds like something they may keep track of!

[silveradept]

What is the purpose of the map? Knowing what's being cataloged might help with figuring out how the mapping actually works, because that well suggest what's going to get notated and what kinds of distance units get used and so forth.

[isostone]

The plan is to note down major landmarks (most of which are ruins of an alien species in game, but I plan on adding in a few geological ones as well).

[silveradept]

Okay, so what's the purpose of the map? Is it to show the distances between the landmarks? A pathway to get between them? Their relationship to a single orienteering point? Relative heights and depths? What's the map going to be used for? Once that gets established, it well suggest what pieces of data are important and need to be noted and which ones aren't.

[isostone]

The purpose of the map is for this character to document their findings(so notes on what was found in a place and points of interest there), and also how to travel between several different landmarks. Height and depth won't be noted except in certain circumstances in which its relevant.

[silveradept]

This feels like multiple maps, then, one for each planet visited, with notes on how they arrived and the distances between planets in addition to the local features and distances between them. The small maps then can possibly be stitched together after an exploration session into something bigger and more complete, and in bigger scale.

[isostone]

That definitely sounds much more manageable than what I was thinking of. Thank you for the suggestion!

[lyorn]

I do not know the setting, but mapping is a problem I often run into when world building, and though I think it's a very nice problem, it often defeats me.

If the result is not intended to look like a map, you can determine a fixed point and define directions, or define a coordinate system that can be two dimensional (planet surface) or three dimensional (accounting for elevation or depth). Finding a fixed point to leverage a planet can be an interesting task in itself. Once you have your framework, note the coordinates relative the the fixed point, or in the coordinate system.

For two dimensional (surface-only), distance and direction from the fixed point will ususally suffice to find some spot again. A coordinate system would give you something similar to GPS data.

Calculation of distances between points requires some spherical geometry, unless they are close enough to each other (for space rubble sized planets, that would be very close).

Actually drawing a two-dimensional planetary map that sets the points in the right locations has been a challenging task for cartographers since people realised that the Earth is round. It will be even more fun with less-round planets, I guess.

I've been looking for some online tool to help with three-dimensional mapping a while ago, but did not find a sufficiently easy to handle one for my purpose.

If you cannot define directions relative to the planet because it tumbles through space without an axis or a magnetic field, you can still define a coordinate system using landmarks. In the end it's all triangles anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the tip! I'll have to see how well this works for me on the more conventional planets.