I would keep it even simpler than that. Every time you explore it expands your map populates more etc. If you get a map from someone have a menu option for importing that map. If you want to give someone a map have some sort of ui for selecting systems / galaxies and then that creates a item in your inventory with a list of the included systems/galaxies. Thoughts?
That could also work, especially when first implemented. However, it would be lacking some pretty important components. Having different sets of comments and maps gives more freedom to players to take on different roles more easily and gives different roles to a different StarCharts. I'll list a few examples:
The Faction Mining StarChart:
This would be shared among faction members to coordinate mining systems, with comments added related to mining. Maybe all players don't want to share their entire personal map with other members and they also don't want to have to take the time to export individual sectors every time they go out mining. If they could simply switch the StarChart they are using, it'd be a lot simpler.
The Tracker:
These sorts of folks would build up a StarChart that lists player bases, has comments on strength of fleets, etc. They then sell this map (or parts of it) to other players who want that intel. This might be a rather large map, and the comments would need to be relevant. It would be hard to export this kind of map with appropriate comments if trackers can only export StarCharts from their single map. Other comments like mining comments and personal comments would either need to be included or no comments at all. This would either discourage players from wanting to be a tracker, since they may not want to share their personal comments, or it would devalue the intel available on the StarCharts since there would be no comments at all.
The Prospector:
This player visits empty systems and details them out. They have a different StarChart for each sector. They list planets, asteroid belts (including comments for what types of asteroids are available), useful stations, and comment the strength of the star in the system, giving warnings about how close players would want to travel to it. They then either share these StarCharts to faction members or sell them to people who are looking to acquire more valuable territory. The simpler system would still allow this, but it would suffer from the same devaluations that the Tracker would have.
