Hehe, world maps are neat, sorta "optional" features in games like this. Once a world is big enough, though, they can certainly help with strategic planning and understanding where everything is in relation to everything else. Some people will just build the map mentally, but here it's done for you in style
(I wrote about the creation process
here.)
Ha, I even got a bit impatient waiting for the route animation to finish.
When it's short it's no big deal but if you have a loooooong route and are getting closer to the surface, the total time can really add up... I was considering making it animate even faster overall (the speed was more aimed at short/medium-length routes), or maybe make the speed dynamic--faster if you have a longer route? That actually might be kinda complicated and time-consuming to implement, since it would have to modify a bunch of particles on the fly. I'll investigate later.