Hi,

I don't usually post on any forum, but I'd like to throw in my two cents regarding the map terrain and how I think it could be improved to make the map feel less empty.

As far as I'm aware, dust clouds and nebula (not sure why there are two different things in game for the same thing) only affect ships that travel within them. If they were to block sensor line of sight regardless of the ships being in them or not, they would offer a greater impact to the shape of the map and make positioning a bit more meaningful, which I believe would be a big improvement in helping alleviate the rather bland and empty maps that are currently on offer.

Perhaps sensors are able to penetrate a certain number of hexes into the clouds, depending on the type of cloud or sensor being used (think cloud density / composition, and different remote sensing techniques used by different sensors). This would allow for different nebulae to be introduced to offer some variety, and different sensors which could be researched and included on different types of ships in response to the terrain you are presented with.

Finally, I believe that the current nebulae being spawned should significantly increase in size, both to better mirror reality and to allow different gameplay elements to unfold - such as extended wars to take place entirely within nebulae, fighting for control of the region and allowing you to position remote sensing stations on the far side to improve your strategic awareness etc etc.

So this is my simple(?) suggestion, to address my only criticism of the game so far - a very bland, empty and boring map with no real shape.

Thanks for reading.