The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)

[7o62x39]

Would be very interested in a "realism" based Sol Centered galaxy for IV Gold.

He are some thoughts:

There's lots of water ice planetoids / comets in systems. In our system, beyond Pluto and in several other gravitationally stable points.

Mining low G comets and asteroids is a hell of a lot easier than high G planets (ie gravity wells).

Moon-Europa-Titan like natural sats are valuable. Earth is priceless. That is, if the Moon is "worth" $10, the Earth is worth $10^14th or something. Or put it another way, between the two, the ratio of all goods produced on Earth will always be significantly greater than the value of goods produced on the Moon. I doubt Lunar GDP will ever be 0.1% of Earth's.

Most planets tumble (their rotational axis moves radically over time) unless they are stablized in some fashion. Higher order evolution is more probable with stability. The Earth-Moon system is stablized, but is probably quite rare.

I personally am in the Fermi (where are they?) camp believing there are very very few intelligent species AND/OR very many practical barriers to interstellar travel/colonization. (Sorry, no worm holes!)

So I like the idea of scenarios which have single point of origin species radiating/conflicting outward. Inter-species contact would always mean "conquest" (in some sense) by the technologically superior, unless there is some sort of High number of species gallactic civilization where tech gets spread around.

I don't like colonization on high/low G planets (relative to your homeword) without very costly gravity tech, which still limits the economic value of these planets. Likewise I don't care for high value/ population colonization on planets without breathable atmospheres. Therefore, atmospheric/biospheric engineering tech and expense is critical to realism.

I'm ok with faster than C communication through some kind of quantum effects tech, but not the movement of living beings.

Most sci-fi is way too Malthusian. "Resources" are way too important to Communist Central Planning Technocrats and SciFi writers. The tech to manipulate Earth based mass and generate energy is far more probable/economically realistic than the tech to mine the universe. Once you get to anti-matter annihilation energy tech, the only thing you need in large quantities in deep space is any kind of mass to excellerate out the back of your ship.

The goal of any realistic inter-stellar space travel is:

#1 find/colonize Earth like planets
#2 find others
#3 conduct xeno-archeology (if past dead civilization are found).
#4 build infastructure to extend your reach further out.
#5 find planets that can be engineered into Earth like planets

I hate sci-fi weapons. The idea of firing no/low yield cannon ball like objects drives me nuts. A 1950's tactical nuke projectile does more damage than a Star Trek ship-ship weapon. If I literally hit you with any object, other than you running at high V into my "sand" mine field, you're dead.

But that's my 2 cents. Good luck on your project!