Definitely some cool ideas there but how do you deal with the long term effect of the map becoming too big?
The bigger the map the more the defs would need to stretch their resources to adding cool stuff.
Also, at some point, the inner hexes will be essential all complete cleared and new players will have to wander for a while as soon as they level up a bit.
Unlocking a new hex would be fun at the beginning but how fun will it be after 100+ have been unlocked and any more just will inevitably just feel same-y because even the best defs will eventually run out of ideas
Children of Time is amazing. Tchaikovsky writes incredibly alien species despite the fact that non of the creatures in that book are even aliens.
Project Hail Mary is probably my favorite Sci Fi book period. Apparently they are making a movie adaptation with Ryan Gosling. After The Martian I am thoroughly hyped for that
The Closest-Continuer schema is a theory of identity according to which identity through time is a function of appropriate weighted dimensions. A at time 1 and B at time 2 are the same just in case B is the closest continuer of A, according to a metric determined by continuity of the appropriate weighted dimensions.
Proceeds to spend 3 hours bug fixing until you realize that you spelled list as lsit