I am doing a simple 4X strategy game in space where each node is a point-of-interest (a planet, an asteroid and etc.).
To randomly generate a map, I would follow the steps below
Decide how many type of each nodes the map will have (perhaps, say, 5 Earth-like planets, 10 barren planets etc.)
Place each type of node on the map.
For step 2 I would like to have an even spread of each node type. So for example, I would start by placing all the earth-like planets. If I simply do a rand(map.width, map.height) to determine the position, I may end up all the earth-like planets clustering together, which will give advantage to the player who starts in that area.
Are there any methods, such as using different graph functions or noise function, which could generate a sequence of (x,y) coordinates which are spread out from each other. Likewise, are there any ways to generates coordinates which are close to each other?