Probably not. "Near" and "Vast" don't refer to physical distance, but to how many drift beacons are there.
I don't think that would prevent a map, just need some kind of shading or color coding to indicate the two regions. On the other hand, I think a detailed map can wait until a future supplement that details the other star nations out there. Especially the Swarm, to show not only where it's coming from, but who else is dealing with it (think of Star Trek, and how the Romulans being core-ward of the Federation meant they were dealing with the Borg first).
The "two regions" would be a bunch of little one-star spots all over the galaxy for Near Space and everything else for the Vast. It wouldn't be a very pretty map.
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A map of the Drift might be more useful, given Absalom Station is essentially at the centre and the interstellar regions are defined with respect to that.
Although I believe we are in need of maps, I do think this kind of thing would be premature. I'd prefer some worldmaps, star-system maps and maps of Planet-ring-moon systems first.
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Realistically, no one with Drift travel would care about actual material plane distances, and consequently a galaxy map. Effectively, you are the same distance from the Pact Worlds, Near Space, and the Vast no matter where you go. Empires would have random colonies everywhere and it wouldn't look remotely like a modern political map.
A map of the Drift might be more useful, given Absalom Station is essentially at the centre and the interstellar regions are defined with respect to that.
Although I believe we are in need of maps, I do think this kind of thing would be premature. I'd prefer some worldmaps, star-system maps and maps of Planet-ring-moon systems first.
Point of fact, Absalom Station isn't the city at the center of the drift. That's a different city altogether.
I meant navigationally (or conceptually).
A map with the pact worlds at the centre, Near worlds in the next ring and then the vast on the outer edge would make sense, conceptually. The geography isn't very important but a conceptual map of "rings" would be useful, imo. (More useful than a galactic map which would either be messy or would render the geometry of the Drift somewhat less-strange).
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I think they could, should, and will make such a galaxy map eventually, maybe a couple of years down the line. It'll look awesome.
The "two regions" would be a bunch of little one-star spots all over the galaxy for Near Space and everything else for the Vast. It wouldn't be a very pretty map.
You're assuming that they'll be drawing it to be scientifically/astronomically accurate. Paizo doesn't seem to be all that good at that - look at all "maps" of the Golarion/Pact Worlds system. None of them have Triaxus drawn with anything close to its proper orbit. The line of its orbit should cut across inner planet orbit lines, from Castrovel on out. Instead, they drew a stylized chart with near-perfect circles for orbits - completely inaccurate and insufficient for any practical use, but ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. And that is what I think they'll do. A stylized known galaxy chart that makes perfect sense from a Starfinder gaming perspective, and absolutely no sense from a Traveller or astronomical perspective, but so beautiful that the most simulationist player will be happy to put it on their wall.
Yep. That's what I want.
Near Space doesn't end up being a ring, though. A star on the other side of the galaxy takes exactly the same amount of time to travel to as the closest star to the one you're at now. That ends up meaning that Near Space is decided by how interesting a planet is, and people dropping Drift Beacons there, instead of where its located.
Near Space ends up looking like polka-dots across the galaxy, not big pretty blobs like most star maps.
Near Space would end up looking more like http://i.imgur.com/NYzQaC6.png
While they could, and likely will, stylize it to make star empires into the big blobs of stars on every other kind of galaxy map, because of the way Drift travel actually works it wouldn't really end up looking like that.
With the Drift travel time information that we currently have, a map of the galaxy would be meaningless, as the distance from where you are to your destination does not matter unless you are traveling within a single solar system.
A map could matter if distance affects the ability to navigate to solar systems that no one has any records of traveling to before -- and that might explain why nobody is known to have traveled outside of the galaxy via Drift travel. After all, if you are observing a star that is several thousand light-years away, the calculations would involve extrapolating its position to where it is "now" (a meaningless concept in real world relativistic physics, but probably quite meaningful in Starfinder's techno-fantasy) and (even more importantly) confirming that it didn't blow up into a supernova at some point. If the distance at which these calculations can be done is only a few light years, then maps of known vs. unknown regions of space might actually be meaningful.
Near Space doesn't end up being a ring, though. A star on the other side of the galaxy takes exactly the same amount of time to travel to as the closest star to the one you're at now. That ends up meaning that Near Space is decided by how interesting a planet is, and people dropping Drift Beacons there, instead of where its located.
Near Space ends up looking like polka-dots across the galaxy, not big pretty blobs like most star maps.
Near Space would end up looking more like http://i.imgur.com/NYzQaC6.png
While they could, and likely will, stylize it to make star empires into the big blobs of stars on every other kind of galaxy map, because of the way Drift travel actually works it wouldn't really end up looking like that.
Not a map of the galaxy. A map representing the Alien geometry of the drift could be represented as a set of concentric rings with the starstone at the centre.
It doesn't need to mean anything geographically. It needs to be pretty and be useful at the table to help players conceptualise what places exist, where they are and where they might go next.
Think of it like this:
A piece of paper is your material plane (our universe) map of the galaxy. You crunch up the paper into a complex wrinkled and folded ball.
Then imagine something maybe the size of a marble co-existing in the middle of the crunched up ball of paper (phased into it). Every portion of that paper within the radius of the marble is colored with ink.
Now the marble goes away and you flatten the paper back out. It would look like a bunch of random blotches all over the galaxy map with no decipherable pattern.
This is near space, in the sense that it is near when you consider the Drift dimension (the radius of the marble).