  We present a systematic survey of the capabilities of type Ia supernova
explosion models starting from a number of flame seeds distributed around the
center of the white dwarf star. To this end we greatly improved the resolution
of the numerical simulations in the initial stages. This novel numerical
approach facilitates a detailed study of multi-spot ignition scenarios with up
to hundreds of ignition sparks. Two-dimensional simulations are shown to be
inappropriate to study the effects of initial flame configurations. Based on a
set of three-dimensional models, we conclude that multi-spot ignition scenarios
may improve type Ia supernova models towards better agreement with
observations. The achievable effect reaches a maximum at a limited number of
flame ignition kernels as shown by the numerical models and corroborated by a
simple dimensional analysis.
