Map Sizing - Black Border

[LancelotXIII]

Heya folks - I'm running into conflicting guideline when it comes to making my maps.

• Thundaga and general search says to try to keep my maps in the 30ish x 30ish, which makes sense - smaller map are easier to design well and run better.
• Pokemon Essentials Doc says to pad my maps to prevent black bars - which also makes sense.

Combine the two and uh... well it doesn't look right.

Green is my "walkable" area and red is where I would need to block off the player so that they don't see black borders.

Only 31% of my map is "useable" space. Which doesn't sound right.

Is the solution here to just have the map connected to empty full padding maps ? I imagine it works but it also sounds kind of ... wasteful?

I can easily maintain continuity if my map connects to 4 others maps, but let's say it's my starting town and there's only 1 way out. Do I make 3 empty map that are connected to the other 3 unused cardinal directions?

Thanks for the help!