So I was bored and decided to work on this last night. the concept behind this is that we tend to get bogged down in the big space battles as we're never sure exactly what is going on.

So to make maps easily I've put together a few icons. To make the map you'll need a few brain cells and a programme that can handle layers. All you have to do is colourise the icons you want to identify specific ships/squads and put them on the map in a new layer, then you can move them around as you want.

There are icons for damage (multiple flames indicate bad) and shields (100, 75, 50 and 25%) I havent yet thought how to display firing arcs.

Obviously a map is 2d, so we need to think about displaying relative altitude, in the example below I used text to show above and below in km.

These are the icons i've done, I suggest we get someone (read ron) to make some better ones. The icons ARE NOT TO SCALE as this just doesn't work, but obviously bigger icons = bigger ships. The simple star destroyer can be scaled for VSD or ISD as can the mon cal to represent different ships.
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~ppxrr/icons/

This is an example which shows the current situation between Hague and Jeg. The charelotte, flanked by marauders advances on the Despoilers starboard batteries. The despoilers fighters are coming down from above the Despoilers firing arc to flank one marauder. Whilst Jeg's fighters having been battered by the despoilers guns are reforming and attacking with the cruisers.

Meanwhile the Osk freighters are trying to loop under the despoiler and go for the transports, whilst the tranports carrying the illegal goods are trying to run for it, covered by the Instigator.

So any thoughts? I just think describing relative positions in space is actually quite difficult and this could keep us on the same page, the Navy may also want to look into it

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~ppxrr/Osk1.png

epic