True, but an increased number of pins is slower on the plotter and making the scaffolding is also harder. Plus it is easier to rewrap the loom better than to ma

True, but an increased number of pins is slower on the plotter and making the scaffolding is also harder. Plus it is easier to rewrap the loom better than to make a finer loom. I suspect that a forward-look of 2 or 3 will give a noticeably better result, particularly if you combine it with the length-normalised score like was suggested by another commenter. Using a Dykstra algorithm and taking the first path that reaches length N should also keep the branching reasonable. If you haven't seen it, there was something similar (algorithmically) for the FaceBull problem, which should still be kicking around online somewhere.