Ok I was taking a look at some of the entries on Sarna and the Inner Sphere Atlas, and I noticed that not all of the systems are fully developed. I'm guessing that is because some degree of creative license is left up to each individual gaming group.
pretty much. there are so many stars and worlds in the setting that trying to flesh out every single one would be a huge undertaking. so generally the writers try to research what has been mentioned before, for consistency, and fill in details as they go when they are using worlds with no or little info. Sites like sarna.net are a big help there.
as a player or gamemaster, i would suggest the same approach. look up the name fro mthe map you are using. if there is info already, use that, if not, make up whatever fits your needs.
though it is also worth noting that the maps only show the major inhabited worlds and. there are a lot of stars with no worlds between them, or stars with worlds with populations too small or too unimportant to matter. so you don't actually have to travel through the named worlds on the map. (it is just how people in the setting prefer to travel, because if you use the stars that aren't inhabited, and something goes wrong with your ship, you could be stranded there. sticking to the major worlds (the ones shown on the game's maps) means that if, for example, your jumpship blows a seal on its jump core coolant system, and isn't able to jump any more, you can contact the world and ask comstar to send a message requesting help/spareparts be sent. and if your drive fails entirely, you aren't stranded in an uninhabited or barren system to die.)
Regarding Transit Times / Jump Point Distance or as IS Atlas calls it Time to Jump Point, is this the travel time to reach the planet? Does this time apply equally to all sizes of a craft? What I'm asking is, for example Tharkad has a Time to Jump Point distance of 7.01 days, is this travel time the same for dropships, small craft, and warships / jumpships? I'm going to assume it is an average travel time, and that ship speed will vary.
Thanks again.
yes it will be the same for smallcraft, dropships, and warships. when transiting over large distances, ships usually travel at an acceleration of 1g (1 gravity, aka per second^2), as a result the travel times will be identical. ships can accelerate faster (anywhere between 1 and 2g's typically) if their drives are powerful enough, which can reduce that time by a fair amount, but going more than 1g means the crew and passengers are put under a lot of stress (imagine spending days inside one of those amusement park spinning rides, like a gravitron.. and trying live and work under such 'pull'.)
jumpships are the exception here, because their drives are so much weaker.. about 1/10th of a g, which means that instead of a week, to go from terra to the jump point, it would take a couple months. as a result jumpships rarely leave the jump points, instead just waiting at the points and letting their dropships and smallcraft make the trips back and forth.