spiral maps should always have a black hole at center

yep, i think so to. Preferably the super black hole that you can use in the editor. would also be nice to have a few extra larger sizes depending on map size. So like a super massive black hole that takes up tones of space on an immense map.

Edit: i have always wondered why they chose pink as the color of the black holes.. i  mean it looks good an all but is kinda strange imho.

I like the idea, another plus of it is that it would help balance out the advantage of starting in the center by blocking one direction of expansion for those races.  Assuming it's big enough anyway.

i didn't realize the map editor was dlc.  i guess it's not something most people are going to use, and there is a good deal of development effort involved with creating it, but still, it seems like a bit of nickel and diming to charge for that.  plus reading the reviews on steam, the characterization there of "mixed" seems generous.

what i'd really like is a galactic map that was actually more...  galaxy like.  black hole in the center, dense concentration of stars towards the center with harsh planets, more habitable worlds in the spiral arms.

has anyone used the editor extensively?  is it possible to script that sort of thing through the editor?  does it expose the algorithm to create the spiral for tweaking at all?

The supermassive black hole available in the editor is 19 tiles in diameter (271 tiles are covered). Adding just one of these to a map removes roughly 10% of a Tiny map, 5.5% of a Small map, or 2.5% of a Medium map from play, constraining empires to be within a 21- (Tiny), 31- (Small), 51- (Medium), or 66-tile (Large) wide band around the edge of the map. The width of the band on a Large map is only 5 tiles greater than the diameter of a Tiny map and 10 tiles less than the diameter of a Tiny map on a Medium map, while the width of the band on the Small map is just one tile greater than the radius of a tiny map. That suggests to me that the supermassive black hole we have is more than large enough on those map sizes to do what you're asking. I find the assertion that this is a positive thing questionable, however; the differing quality of starting positions is part of the game, and the smaller map sizes are the ones that least need a reduction in potential expansion directions to counterbalance the advantage of starting in the middle anyways. The larger map sizes are increasingly unaffected by the addition of a supermassive black hole in the center, and moreover to achieve the effect you seem to desire would necessitate throwing away a significant fraction of the map especially on the larger map sizes, unless you want to remove dead center from the somewhat advantaged region and instead have an advantaged ring.

As far as I am aware, the editor only allows the creation of mostly-fixed maps (the campaign maps, for example).

Not to my knowledge, unless you count "manually adding and removing stars, planets, etc from the map" as "tweaking" the algorithm.

Maybe just an option in the menu then?

Tho i guess a work around is to pre-spawn a map in the editor then just add your own black hole lol

+1

I also wish I could specify how many arms the game would do in a Spiral galaxy (i.e. "Spiral-2", "Spiral-3", "Spiral-4", "Spiral-5").  On smaller maps, less arms looks better.

Absolutely ! Supper Massive Black whole event better! Maybe a unique resource as well ? found only at galaxy center ? Would be very cool!