Sunbane

The Sunbane data is a collection of UWP data files covering 35 sectors of Charted Space.

• The data for these sectors was originally generated by Joe Fugate and marked as copyright by both Digest Group Publications and Game Designers' Workshop.
• It is also known as the GENII or GEnie data.
• It is sometimes called the GEnie Library.

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The data has gone through three primary iterations over several time periods:

1. Legacy Astrographic Data
2. Sunbane
3. T5 Second Survey

Description (Specifications)

All of the sector data published in Travellers' Digest and The Megatraveller Journal appear to use this data.

• The Sunbane data appears to be an inexact recreation of the Atlas of the Imperium data used to undergird many Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller products
• The Hinterworlds Sector article in Challenge 39 used the Sunbane data as its starting point.
• The data for the Gateway Domain sectors was used as the starting point for Gateway to Destiny.
• HIWG members have updated and added to many of these sectors as well.

History of Sector Design for the OTU

Astrographic Data has grown and changed many times over the history of Traveller:

History of Sector Design for the OTU

#	Year/s	Design System	Remarks
1.	1977 to 1978	Legacy Astrographic Data (No official maps)	Traveller started life as an RPG game without a setting or designated star charts. There was, as of that time, no star charts, maps, or Charted Space.
2.	1979 to 1983	Legacy Astrographic Data (Pre-Sector)	The first Traveller star charts were designed as simple dot maps. Many early legacy publishers created a variety of settings, maps, and materials, some of which has never been officially placed within the OTU.
3.	1984 to 1994	Sunbane (AOTI / MT / Dot Map)	As computer programs grew more sophisticated, better data was created including the well-known Sunbane data set. In 1984, the Atlas of the Imperium was published, which still sought to preserve the legacy data. It developed into Sunbane. In 1989, The data was uploaded to Genii. In 1994, the files were hosted on the Sunbane FTP server.
4.	1992 to 2004	Sunbane (Galactic Datasets)	Sunbane was eventually included as a date set for the early Galactic design software, which could create entire sectors in Galactic File Format. Random generators began to be created in this period. The software is very clunky and dated by today’s standards. For the most part, the legacy data was not overwritten much in this period.
5.	1998 to Present	T5 Second Survey (Heaven & Earth)	H&E largely superseded Galactic although many still use that venerable software. Many homegrown programs and web sites also exist to create star systems, sectors, and even galaxies. Many publishers overwrote the legacy data in this period, particularly T20 and MGT products.
6.	2007 to Present	T5 Second Survey (T5SS Updated Datasets)	T5SS was created as an update to the previous data sets including the most common one, the Sunbane set. Several companies including T20 and MGT have slowly been upgrading parts of Charted Space. FFE oversees the entire process. T5SS has updated the UWP's of thousands of worlds to be more consistent with current astrophysics knowledge. For instance, full atmospheres cannot be held by very small worlds as they do not possess sufficient gravity. So, many worlds had their size increased along these lines. Many 3's became 5's or larger. A T5SS manual is part of an effort to somewhat standardize the chaotic system. FFE has re-canon-ized some of the legacy data in this current, ongoing period.

History & Background (Dossier)

Joe Fugate uploaded the sector files to the GEnie online service in 1989. This data is know also as the GEnie data (or GENII) for that reason. In 1994 these files were hosted on the Sunbane FTP server (ftp://sunbane.engrg.uwo.ca/, which is no longer available) by the then TML host Dan Corrin. The original files are now collected in the HIWG archives.

• The data was used as the basis for the dot maps in Solomani & Aslan and Vilani & Vargr. However the data was never officially published and is not canon.
• In addition, analysis of the data has shown several problems. The number generator and generation algorithm were bad, producing a "needle stuck in a groove" effect. For example, in Delphi, 42 of the 346 (12%) worlds have UWP codes of "x10043x-x". Massilia has 13 worlds with TL-16.
• Despite these problems, the Sunbane data continues to be used widely by Traveller fans for their projects. The Sunbane data is distributed with Galactic and Heaven & Earth, two of the most popular Traveller mapping programs. It forms the basis for numerous online maps. Many of the files at the Zhodani Base web site use the data.

References & Contributors (Sources)

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science