Tiles don't really get the job done because it would look to repetitive, and doesn't give much control over the actual style of the "background".
In this example, the sprite overlay would follow the player giving the illusion of an "infinite distance perspective".
Sadly, the sprite doesn't draw under tiles as hoped
Mod it is intended for: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/spaceblock
You can see how having a juicy background would add a lot of flavor to the game and make it feel less empty.
I have seen another thread about this here: viewtopic.php?f=47&t=77408
And the method posted, although looks good, has a few issues.
It's missing the "infinite distance perspective" thing where the background is tied to the camera rather than the tile.
And it doesn't mix well with images that aren't designed to be repeatable.
In liu of the behavior i'm looking for, i have gone with the alternative as best i can.
It looks a little weird because no tile transitions between the space tiles (which i won't be doing, way too hard. as for regular tiles to space i can just use out-of-map transitions), but it is way better than just pure black'ness.
