Hello, I play a MMO browser-based game known as Star Wars Combine. Recently I discovered the military map sketch program known as MilSketch, this program allows you to quickly and easily overlay accurate unit symbols over a background image that can be anything you want, from an actual real-world map, self-drawn map or just a plain picture. I wish to use this program to help with the planning and co-ordination of units within the group I am associated with in Star Wars Combine (SWC).

Now, I initially thought I could just use SWC's galaxy, planetary and surface maps as background images in MilSketch and draw over the top of them, however when I tried it I found the images were too low-res to be applicable in the program. To this end I need to create individual higher-res versions of these maps for use in MilSketch. Thankfully all maps etc in SWC are based on a simple square-gride system using co-ordinates to identify specific locations be it the location of a star system on the galaxy map or a ground location loacted within a city on a planet. This means that as long as the 'grid' system is used my maps don't have to be exactly identical to the SWC ones as long as they are representative of the information at specific co-ordinates.

Having had a look at a few map-drawing programs I've been left feeling a bit overwhelmed as they are predominately set up to draw highly detailed maps rather than simple square-grid based representation of maps. My question therefore is what should I use to draw the maps I require? Please bear in mind that I require an easy way to label and use co-ordinates and a way to save the map as an image (most common formats supported) for use later in MilSketch.

Please find below a collection of images of 'maps' from the SWC universe to give you an idea of what I'm after. It's essentially the same as these but at a higher scale/resolution to be of more practical use in MilSketch:


This map demonstrates a planetary grid, each square is actually a 20x20square grid demonstrating either a ground location or a city.


This image demonstrates the grid on a star system-sized level in the game, again this resolution isn't large enough to be used in MilSketch.


Finally this image pulled from the Nav Computer on the game website demonstrates the grid on a galactic level. I am aware of possible limitations within map drawing programs but specific sectors (the areas with borders) can be zoomed in at and their star systems laid out in a grid. This would be more usable than a full galactic-level map within MilSketch.

Please feel free to leave comments on how I can copy the above maps into a larger scale for use in MilSketch.

Regards,

Josef DeLaurel