Large Scale Form - TheGiraffe3/Endless-Sky-Creators-Handbook GitHub Wiki
When creating your map, LSF will be the measure of how well the overall product is constructed, both standalone and considering the existing gameplay areas. A golden example of LSF would be the Coalition in the base game, commonly believed to have been shaped like a whale by design.
The form of a whale can symbolise any number of things for the Coalition but it's up to the player what it means, if anything. Coalition space is easily memorable by the form that it takes and how it connects the regions, there are long divides between each species corner that directly supports Coalition lore and allows for the player to way-find around the area.
A large obstacle in creating a new game area is how players will reach it. Notably, it can be problematic to simply expand an existing area, as this will likely affect all established lore relevant to that region, requiring a great deal more work to fit in. So how can we connect areas without connecting them?
The most practiced way to connect areas is actually to just not do it, the separation of species is central to the lore and so this has become an easy way out for most contributors, but why? It's likely that it began as a quirk of the games lore, but this way of avoiding well-thought-out connections has lead to a state of the game where contributors yearn for a way to set themselves apart from the basic solution.
The Korath, an original faction.
As jump gaps are central to the lore, Jump Drives are central to the Korath, one of the very first factions to enter the game during the creators development. The Korath were fortunate enough to capitalise on embracing area separation as their factions unique draw, they can zip between areas and raid Human resources without fear of retaliation. Gameplay would soon become rife with new additions attempting to work the jump gaps into the interest of the species, gradually becoming less workable with the increasing reliance on this separation.
The Wanderers, a later addition.
Another way to avoid connecting game areas that became common practice are wormholes. This would first appear between Human and Hai space and appear again during the later story as a situational pathway between Wanderer and Automata space.
The northern-most area of the galaxy is already pretty reliant on using wormholes to connect separated spaces at just two, but this still complies with the lore on keeping species separated to prevent unconstrained expansion. It is specifically supported by Pug lore that wormholes can be artificially created, so it's not entirely outrageous to include 14 total wormholes into the base game.
Wormholes can mechanically be restricted to require an outfit to make a ship able to travel through them, this is used to restrict entry and travel for the Ember Wastes. Ember Waste wormholes typically display in a shade of red to mimic the theme of the area.
