The map is not a flat grid. It's a network of islands in the dark.
Every match in The Outer Line takes place across a cluster of Gravity Wells, circular zones around planets, dwarf stars, and dense asteroid fields. Inside a Gravity Well you build, fight, and maneuver. Between them is Deep Space: empty, uncrossable void that you jump across using the Jump Drive. The Gravity Wells are where the game happens. Deep Space is the distance between the things that matter.
What's inside
Inside each one you'll find a celestial body at the center, asteroids scattered through the zone, and open space for fleet movements and construction. The size and richness vary by type.
An Industrial Gravity Well is the prize everyone fights over. Large, dense with asteroids, packed with potential Supply Node positions. Holding one gives you real economic power, but the size also means more ground to defend and more angles to watch. On the other end of the spectrum, an Outpost is small and resource-poor. Not much to build on. But an Outpost sitting between two rich Gravity Wells controls the only Jump route through that part of the map, and suddenly the most valuable position you have isn't valuable for what's inside it, but for where it sits.
Mining Colonies offer solid asteroid density and reliable income. Frontier Gravity Wells are the most common type, nothing remarkable individually, but they fill out the graph and keep the distances honest between the high-value targets. Asteroid Fields are the wildcards: no planet at the center, no natural anchor for defenses. Just rocks, resources, and exposure on all sides. Rich if you can hold them. Costly if you can't.
The graph
Gravity Wells aren't all connected to each other. The Jump Drive has limited range, so each Gravity Well links to a few neighbors, and those connections form a graph. Some Gravity Wells sit at intersections where multiple routes converge. Others are dead ends, reachable from only one direction.
This topology is where the strategy lives. A Gravity Well at a crossroads, with connections leading in several directions, controls traffic through the region. Whoever holds it decides who passes. A dead-end Gravity Well is the opposite: easy to defend, hard to project power from. You can fortify it and nobody will come knocking, but you're not threatening anything either.
I spent a lot of time hand-placing the connections for each sector. Procedural generation gave interesting layouts but inconsistent strategy. Authored connections let me build chokepoints, flanking routes, and dead ends with intention, then balance the types around them.
Sectors and scale
The full map of the Outer Line is divided into fifteen sectors, each a region with a different number of Gravity Wells. The smallest sectors have a handful and play out in under an hour. The largest have over a dozen and can run two to three hours. When you start a match, you pick a sector. That choice sets the scale.
Smaller sectors are tighter and more aggressive. You find the enemy fast, every Jump is a short commitment, and games end decisively. Larger sectors reward patience. There's room to expand quietly across multiple Gravity Wells, build a real economy, and pick the moment for the decisive push. I like both scales, though I'm not confident yet which one will feel best for most players.
Fog and the unknown
Gravity Wells you haven't visited are unknown. You can see them on the map, but you don't know what's there, who controls them, or whether they're worth taking. The opening minutes of any match are about sending scouts to map the cluster, figure out where the enemy is, and decide which direction to expand.
When an enemy scout enters your Gravity Well, you know the opponent has learned your position. The information game starts before the first shot. On larger maps with many unexplored Gravity Wells, the fog creates real uncertainty about what's happening on the far side of the cluster. That uncertainty is deliberate.
Holding ground
Every structure you build in a Gravity Well stays. If you cleared an enemy's Supply Nodes two fights ago, they're still destroyed. If you built a Military Station to anchor your defense, it's standing when the enemy returns. The map accumulates your decisions over the course of a match.
This gives territory real weight. Taking a Gravity Well is an investment in Supply Nodes, maybe a major structure, a garrison. Losing one means losing everything you put into it, and rebuilding takes time the enemy won't give you for free.
I'm still working out which sector sizes make for the best matches. The medium sectors feel like the sweet spot right now, large enough for real strategic choices, compact enough that every single Gravity Well matters. I'll know more once players get their hands on it.