Stellar Density

Core Crowding, Rim Scarcity & Route Choke Points

Cartographic Overlay

Signal Summary

Stellar density changes the practical shape of travel. In dense space, a route planner has many nearby candidates. In sparse space, it may have only one viable bridge - or none.

This matters for ED:CS because route finding is not just shortest-path math; it depends on the local neighbourhood each jump can reach.

DensityRoutingJump Range

Key Concepts

Core density - Extremely high local candidate count, short legs, and many alternate paths.

Bubble density - Comfortable navigation with infrastructure, stations, and well-known routes.

Rim density - Sparse stars make jump range, fuel stars, and manual plotting important.

Vertical sparsity - High above or below the galactic plane, routes can become fragile quickly.

Field Notes

A route algorithm can become slower in very dense regions because every node has many neighbours.

Sparse regions are the opposite: fewer candidates, but failure is more likely if jump range is low.

Density-aware UI can warn commanders before they leave a safe routing envelope.

Reference

Signal	Value	Use
Dense region	Many neighbours	Easy routing, larger candidate sets.
Sparse region	Few neighbours	Hard routing, higher chance of gaps.
Critical input	Jump range	Determines reachable neighbourhood radius.