Map connectedness

[nakorkren (OP)]

In past games I've been annoyed/board at how linear the map ends up being, with very few loops. This results in boring "terrain" from a strategy perspective, where you and the enemy can only attack each other on a single avenue. I'd tried tweaking the map settings but hadn't had a ton of luck. I used SM to rapidly explore about 50 systems and still wasn't getting many if any loops.

In my 2.5.1. game I tried tweaking the map settings some more, and I've ended up with a very interconnected map. In hindsight I think it may be because I didn't use SM to explore, and as a result the NPCs are ALSO generating known space simultaneously, and maybe that helps? In any case, here's where I'm at so far. As you can see, many, many loops. The downside is it makes it very difficult to display in 2D or think through navigating it. Sadly that's a limitation of the human brain, or my brain at least This one makes my brain hurt a little.

I do wonder if there's a way to have the game generate maps with more loops than normal but limited line crossings.

[Steve Walmsley]

This is my current map and it has many more loops. You just need to organise it. Scroll right to see all of it.

[ty55101]

What settings are you using and you are not using known stars, right?

The big question is if you are wanting smaller or larger loops and other connections that can take you across the map. For instance, if you set the local gen chance to 80% and local spread to 10 then normally small loops of three to five systems will be common with one in five jump points taking you across the galaxy. If you change the spread to 50 then much larger loops of about ten systems will be more of a thing and your web will become more interconnected.

[nakorkren (OP)]

What settings are you using and you are not using known stars, right?

The big question is if you are wanting smaller or larger loops and other connections that can take you across the map. For instance, if you set the local gen chance to 80% and local spread to 10 then normally small loops of three to five systems will be common with one in five jump points taking you across the galaxy. If you change the spread to 50 then much larger loops of about ten systems will be more of a thing and your web will become more interconnected.

I assume that question was for Steve, but if not, my settings are shown in the screenshot on the far right edge if you're interested.

[ty55101]

I assume that question was for Steve, but if not, my settings are shown in the screenshot on the far right edge if you're interested.

It was for you. Sorry, I missed that being in there.

You should definitely raise your local system generation if you are wanting more loops as currently half of your jump points go outside any type of clusters or potential loops.

[Alsadius]

If you want to toy around with what kind of settings you want for local system generation, I made a spreadsheet to randomly generate random-stars universes based on your settings. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1718iGtQ_5xdE_60BLgOgKLv7eqdvNpBEO2BIe5Y6HyU/edit?gid=0#gid=0 - edit the highlighted cells in column B, and it'll generate ten sample runs, and show you how loopy the results are, on average.

For reference, using the default settings (50% local chance, 15 local spread, 1000 total systems), you can expect (very roughly) 2 loops in your first 50 explorations, 6 loops in your first 100 explorations, and 21 loops in your first 200 explorations. Raise it to 90% local, and the numbers are more like 6, 16, and 40 loops instead.