I have been working on a Dark game with a random star layout and can now offer you my first live game
I have no idea what the exact layout of the home stars is in this game, so am just as in the dark as the other players.
8 Player
Premium Only
Dark
Turn Based
$1000 Star cash
I think players need to see an overview of what a custom map looks like before they join. They also need to see the starting points of different maps. This star layout can be rotated or mirrored when the game starts to prevent players from knowing where they are in the galaxy. We need more information than just the player has a custom map to join a game.
Jason, the idea behind this is that in a circular and hex map the players home worlds are a predictable distance apart and once you have found one other players home world you can make a good guess where the others are.
With this random map I generated the home world locations randomly, checking the distances to try to give an even spread trying to avoid having any players off in a corner on their own.
Otherwise the placement is unpredictable, making the dark galaxy more interesting, IMHO.