- Sprite-atlas the orbs: render each (ink, sheen, darken) appearance once,
blit it per node, instead of allocating a radial gradient every frame.
- Split paint into a cached static layer + a live core scramble; the heavy
scene only re-renders on real change, so an idle map costs a scramble +
one drawImage rather than a full redraw.
- Pause the render loop while the window is hidden/blurred; resume on focus.
- Make the scramble's glyph count data-independent (constant cells to the
rim, clamped size) so it's the same field on any graph; size tracks zoom.
- Size nodes against the rested fit (fitScale), held stable through
playback's spore-zoom — so t≈0 no longer balloons orbs into bubbles.
- Wind the timeline constellation along a helix for depth.
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