So, I've been experimenting with contour patterns, particularly for reefs, but I've run into a few challenges I haven't been able to overcome, and I was hoping someone might have some tips, suggestions or work arounds.

First, Zooming and Scaling

So, here I'm using a ridge line style, and it's repeating too close together, or maybe it's just vector scaling... Either way, I'd like the lines to be distinct at any zoom level (so spacing on the line would scale with zoom I guess)? Any way to do this?

Similarly, same line style, different contour line, zoomed out, the hash marks cluster together. I feel like the repeat pattern is at least partly to blame here. If I put it on a fixed size, you still see...

And this, obviously zoomed in.

Second, is a perhaps related question about line styles in general, where I'd really like to be able to do a dotted line, rather than perpendicular hashes or dashes. I've looked through the line styles many times but have not seen one (which sort of amazes me)? Can one make line styles on one's own?

I also had a question about some related contour styles, but I can't seem to get the pictures to insert, so maybe I'm over some limit. I'll ask about them another time :).