I often use maps as the basis of story writing, and this is one of the biggest reasons I do anything related to them. By starting with a map I can flesh out geographic settings, that leads to geo-political, and societies in general. Personally I spend far more time setting up a foundation to build a story on, than I spend on the story itself. (Grew up helping build houses, has odd effects on people I guess.)


I've been trying to think of better ways to model and track details such as motions of moons and planets that could be seen, as well as key stars in the night sky. As a computer science student in university, I enjoy making digital models, and having the physics of my world grounded in real world math and physics so that I can actually use real world math and physics for the characters. That is to say, I don't simply want to throw out four or five moons, and say they rise and set at these times, with these motions.

I've taken a few classes in astrophysics, but not enough to generate a stable model that lasts over a long period of time. (A few centuries always sees something like an inner planet flung out of the system. often the one I want my novel set in)

Has anyone else tried designing a system that has an earth sized planet, but multiple smaller moons? Any suggestions on how best to do it, and ways to compute current state of everything if given time as an input?