@nyrath
When we played Scarp/8Worlds Variant Traveller with 3D starmaps, we could read the first diagonal off the graph paper with an draughtsman's 🔺️📏 scale, and the old EE rect↔️polar trick could add the +-Z to the in-plane radius to get the true* hypoteneuse quicker than entering the numbers into a calculator, as quick as lining the ruler 📏 on a nomogram. Which i may have had, could've made, but finding my sliderules was quicker.
*[ true Jump hypoteneuse *provided* the map was correct that a star system was actually where it was last reported ... which in a post-Imperium return-to-space lower TL campaign wasn't a guarantee!]
@FredKiesche @nyrath
"sounds like work" was my opinion of the dirigible campaign which required players to plan & track ballast use instead of a skill roll. (Overlapping cast of players, GMs.)
"Wing it" was probably what GM who drew the map probably expected, he had! (The other GM likely had calculated what he plotted.) But for me, i enjoyed a chance to use my esoteric tool and knowledge. And it was quick.
(Since Jump range was fairly crisp, @nyrath 's suggestion of a nomogram or even a simple chart would have been quite sufficient; what is the max +-Z [1..29] in-range for r [1..29]. The draughtsman's scale 🔺️📏 direct reading the in-plane r greatly facilitated matters either method; Book Traveler suggested leaving it at that, ignoring Z, and inking-in the known feasible Jumps. )
@FredKiesche @nyrath
Having a central star with jumps in-plane but also up & down, none of which are mutually in-range, makes for a critical nexus. The 'truck stop' planet. Connects the known space sector map with the north and south exploratory maps.
In an exploratory sector (South, Rimward, *and*Trailing, iirc, so far from the beaten-path, an unrecovered sector), we had centuries-old (pre-collapse) Imperial Scout Service notes on the 3 possible intermediate-jump systems; Scout was apparently not impressed, their notes were one word only each:
Water.
Sand.
Ice.
For refueling purposes, we picked Water, as we didn't fancy chopping or melting ice; may have missed discovering the Spice planet? ;-)