The Aresian Cluster

[elemental_elf]

Thank you both for posting, I really appreciate it!

The shape of the commerce lanes doesn't fit this kind of map IMO. They seem to be curving and meandering as if they were roads built over natural terrain, which they of course are not. I think they'd be much better represented as straight lines, or even elliptical curves. It's not like the 2D map is capable of accurately displaying the courses of spacecraft anyway.

I'd prefer using long dashes over dots myself, but that's just a matter of taste.

Yeah I dislike the meandering as well, looking back on it. I'm not sure a single dashed line would look good either. I think the FTL Commerce Lanes clutter the map a bit too much but, maybe that's just me? Having said that, straight lines would be far more preferable to the meandering lines.

I love the placeholder names, it gives the map a wonderful humor to it.

I'm having a difficult time following many of the vertical height lines, it may help to have a second image with a lighter background and a higher contrast grid.

Are Pontypool and Yorkshire black holes?

I agree, the place holder names have quite the charm to them (I may just keep them)

I've updated the map, this time with a lighter (more black-brown background) and increased the intensity of the red lines. Hopefully that helps (I can go further if need be, the map has to be easy to see after all).

Yes Pontypool and Yorkshire are supposed to be Black holes. I wasn't sure how to make a good image for them (you can't well see a black hole against a black background). I added a star to each black hole, to give the impression that its actually a, for a lack of a better term, big hole.