Regarding systems connectivity, I think that a hybrid of the two ideals makes sense. It seems to me that the house systems within the core (the "circle" that connects the major houses) would have a higher degree of inter-connectivity than the outlying systems. Those being the oldest and more organized systems. It likewise makes sense that the systems outside that area would be less well integrated, having at least initially been reached via exploratory excursions for usable resources. Those which held such materials would likely have been left with dead-end connections so long as there was a route to move those resources into the core systems. Also, the houses would have made some attempts to both streamline (expand connections) and secure (restrict) those pathways according to their internals needs.
Also, although FL displays Sirius as being flat as a pancake, (unrealistic) in truth the systems being beside one another on the map doesn't particularly that they're close to one another, so hyper-connectivity would usually be a difficult and expensive initiative which would only be used as necessary.
In short, the location of resources and pathways to move and trade them would, at least initially, be the basis for systems connectivity.
![[Image: 5F4pGgO.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/5F4pGgO.jpg)
