This is first draft of a large spaceport that I'm hoping to develop in considerable detail.

The circular and rectangular docking bays are "full service", the landing field is for smaller ships and quick stops. All ships are to scale. Most of the ship images are crude, and I need to clean them up, find better ones, and properly credit the artists. My thanks in advance to all the people who created these ships (some on these boards!), whichever images and artists make it into the final version will be noted.

Multicoloured rectangles (south, bottom) are containers/warehouses. Black roads filled with droids and speeder/haulers service these areas. The lighter walkways from the docking bays lead to security/registration.

The red dotted lines are an electrified security fence. Public access is restricted to the north side.

The outer ring of the main building is a mix of shopping mall and lots of cantinas, gambling, "conference rooms", etc where deals can be done, buyers and sellers can be found. In the centre is an underground arena (holds 10,000+) for music, 3D water opera, grav-ball and other sports. Above ground are sleeping pods and hotel rooms ranging from tiny at the bottom, to penthouse at the top. Office space is also available. The high level flat area is a superb upscale restaurant/venue with a glorious view.

The northern road leads to and from whatever is the nearest metropolis. (Parking lot is above that road.) I've placed this spaceport on Eriadu for my own campaign.

Talzana, the current owner of the spaceport, is a 7' tall near-human woman of indeterminate descent. She says little but runs a tight operation. She has an uncanny knack for showing up where there might be trouble...she is a Force user of considerable skill, especially in the Sense, Seek, and Misdirect trees, but keeps it tightly under wraps.

Anyway, any critique/suggestions would be great.

Looks good. One thing that stands out to me though, is that it is either too unplanned, or too planned. The docking bays appear to have been irregularly, indicating organic growth over time. If that's the case, then I would expect small blocks of storage areas near them, in addition to the well-planned blocks to the south.

If the spaceport was built from the ground up, then I would expect the docking bays to be placed more regularly and with easier access to the hub. The docking bay with the wayfarer in it doesn't appear to have access to the hub at all.

You're right, it was supposed to be organic, but I figured the storage facilities would have been easy to move as it expanded.

Doh! Totally missed the lack of access on the one port. Thanks.

I can't draw worth crap, and as of a couple weeks ago I'd never used a vector-based app, but eventually I hope to have something passable. I'm more looking forward to stocking the interiors with plots and NPCs.

That's quite an impressive tower, given it's as big as this . It's certainly more office space than a port of that size would require. Is it intended to be a multifunction building, or is it just macroscaled?

I'm more looking forward to stocking the interiors with plots and NPCs.

Would gladly work with you on that. The spaceport sounds solid, but the mall could use inner map, which I guess is in the great scheme of plans?

I'm more looking forward to stocking the interiors with plots and NPCs.

Would gladly work with you on that. The spaceport sounds solid, but the mall could use inner map, which I guess is in the great scheme of plans?

As Dooku might say...this is only the beginning! After I clean up the exterior, the interior is next. I originally had it much bigger (the size of ships threw me off) but then I realized I had a Mall of America situation going on. The ships themselves just dwarf everything...even the Millennium Falcon is quite large when you put it on a city block next to an office tower...never mind a GR-75 or Wayfarer. The original idea (which one of my players sketched out) was a tower with landing pads scattered around it at various heights, but something like that would only make sense on Coruscant. So the complex is much smaller than originally envisioned.

That's quite an impressive tower, given it's as big as this . It's certainly more office space than a port of that size would require. Is it intended to be a multifunction building, or is it just macroscaled?

Multifunction, as noted above. It could be home to any number of businesses unrelated to port activities, assuming it's placed near or within a major urban location.

A couple more questions: Does she offer/provide warehousing services as well, or it it just a dock? What's the primary exit transit for the cargo? (Hover Train, Landspeeder Truck, Airspeeder Truck, other ships?) Does she have to handle customs/inspections, or is that dealt with in space? Is there an imperial garrison/substaion? Is there a local PD/security station? How civilized a sector is this based in? How civilized is the planet, can someone just land out in the badlands nearby, or do they need to find a spaceport? Does she have all the land she needs, or is she limited by farms/urban sprawl around the spaceport?

That's quite an impressive tower, given it's as big as this . It's certainly more office space than a port of that size would require. Is it intended to be a multifunction building, or is it just macroscaled?

I thought if it was Star Wars, it HAD to be macro-scaled.

A couple more questions: Does she offer/provide warehousing services as well, or it it just a dock? What's the primary exit transit for the cargo? (Hover Train, Landspeeder Truck, Airspeeder Truck, other ships?) Does she have to handle customs/inspections, or is that dealt with in space? Is there an imperial garrison/substaion? Is there a local PD/security station? How civilized a sector is this based in? How civilized is the planet, can someone just land out in the badlands nearby, or do they need to find a spaceport? Does she have all the land she needs, or is she limited by farms/urban sprawl around the spaceport?

Most of these fall into the "whatever works for you" category. Whatever location it's attached to would have to be quite large...I'm thinking Earthly Twin Cities, and that would be on the smallest side because a port like this would probably service an entire region of that size. But in a much larger city I think this would be just one of many such ports, and only famous because of its multi-use features and the fact that it's privately run, not government.

For my own game*:

Warehousing services are part of the complex. There would be off-map locations devoted to local incoming and out-going transport. Customs/inspections are handled on site, so there is an Imperial presence and appropriate offices which the Empire leases for a nominal fee. Traffic control is run by her own staff (with Imperial oversight and standards) and she is required to take overflow traffic from other ports if necessary.

Definitely local police and building security. Just my personal preference, but I don't like to give everything the Imperial stamp, so stormtroopers aren't present, except for maybe a few in the local customs office.

As I mentioned above, I put this port on Eriadu, which is supposedly the "Coruscant of the Outer Rim", and I have it nestled within the larger urban sprawl, so it's expanded about as far as it can go.

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* I guess I should mention I'm more of a "15 minute prep" GM, so beyond the broad concept, and now the map, I have little detailed so far. But the players had fun here and met a few memorable NPCs, and they'll probably return, so it seemed like a fun project to expand on.

I'm liking this and find myself thinking of a space port of my own design... what did you use for this?

I used a Mac program called iDraw. I can't really compare it to anything else, it's the first vector-based app I've dabbled with. One thing I like is that you can set "real world" dimensions and grids, so you can easily keep things scaled to "reality".

BTW it looks like iDraw can export a PSD...I have no idea how well it preserves the layers and vector objects, but if anybody wants a copy send me a PM and we can see how it works.

Just looked at iDraw.. it may be a purchase in the near future

Very nice! I especially like the futuristic design of the control centre.

If I may suggest something, you might want to include a security checkpoint/customs type of bottleneck area(s) that people have to pass through in order to get from the landing areas to the public areas of the starport and the rest of the planet beyond. It's a good place to stop players from lugging their heavy repeating blasters out into the city proper, and to keep them from dragging four truckloads of stolen goods back to their ship without anyone noticing,

I might make an attempt at a spaceport as well. Be good practice to give me an understanding of silhouettes of ships.

And try find visual ways of showing security, storage, how busy the starport is.

I think I will make a multi level spaceport of some kind.

Itd be cool to see if a bunch of ppl made spaceports all would have a different feel and fulfill different roleplayingssituations differently

Yes, it will have that, though it's not visible on that map. The map is both too big a scale (the customs/security area is where the light paths meet at the south of the building, and the entrance is under the overhang), and too small to show the full extent of the warehousing and the security fence that rings the entire port.

For the former, I'll have the detail maps show this...if/when I get to them

For the latter, I didn't want to make any assumptions about how somebody might want to plug it into their own metropolis. Otherwise I'd have to zoom out and draw a city. If you compare with real ports, something Rotterdam is 40km long. This wouldn't be that big, but the view only shows less than a square kilometre.

Very cool. If you want any assistance im happy to help. Im updating my office program soon, so I could try doing the layouts for the text portions if you like? (Assuming you need anyone to)

I'd like to offer my assistance as well. By that, I mean I could draw Talzana for you if you would like.

That could be pretty cool. The name popped into my head, and after I'd brainstormed a while I realized I was modelling her on Mother Talzin...like a "good twin" sister separated at birth

I've had to take a bit of a hiatus ... real life, etc. Hope to post more soon when there's enough volume to justify it.