Travel

This article is about The Traveling Mechanic. For Visitable Locations in Gemini Station, see Locations.

This article contains upcoming information related to the new coordinate system.

As of the 5.0 update (upcoming) traveling throughout the system (and beyond!) has been reworked to allow for open exploration and custom flight paths.

Coordinate System

Every location in the system is x/y coordinates relative to the sun (Sol). The standard +/- usage of X/Y coordinates apply to Gem's coordinate system. The size of the universe is limited to how large of a number the core database can store. As a result, our universe map ranges from -4,294,967,295 to 4,294,967,295 on the X/Y planes...space is big.

Quadrants & Sectors

Due to the massive nature of the map, and the self-centered nature of humans, the galaxy is split up into 4 quadrants, with Sol in the center. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta.

Quadrants

Quadrant	X	Y
Alpha	-X	Y
Beta	X	Y
Gamma	-X	-Y
Delta	X	-Y

A fifth sudo-quadrant exists in the center of the intersecting quadrants between -100,000 (X/Y) and 100,000 (X/Y). This sudo-quadrant is called the Central System, but is most commonly referred to in lore as "the system".

Location Types

With this new system comes a change to how locations are handled. There are common locations, undiscovered locations, and hidden locations.

Common Locations

These destinations are always available to you.

Common locations are planets, space stations, asteroids, or ships, that are known by your ship's navigational computer without the pilot needing to scan a location. These locations are always accessible via your common location dropdown menu on your ship.

Examples:

These are examples of common locations:

• Gemini Station
• Earth
• Moon*
• Mars
• Ceres Outpost
• Venus
• Jupiter
• Mercury*
• Eris
• Sedna

Common Location Coordinates

Location	X	Y
Gemini Station	3,584	3,847
Earth	2,984	3,850
Mars	4,109	3,802
Jupiter	3,108	5,744
Mercury	1,000	1,000
Eris	5,489	7,348
Venus	2,299	2,748
Earth's Moon	2,584	3,650
Sedna	116114	31,115
Ceres Mining Outpost	4,595	3,851

* While these locations might be common, additional restrictions exist for reaching them. Pilots can only land on the Moon during a full moon event on Earth and visiting Mercury requires 2,000 HR rating.

Undiscovered Locations

A potential location that may or not exist. Once you scan the location, you'll know for sure.

Locations that can be visited but are unknown to the pilot/ship are called 'Undiscovered Locations'. These locations can be visited, but are currently outside of the ship's sensor range. Once your ship is in sensor range, a sensor sweep will ping the location, allowing the ship to scan the location. Once a scan of a location has been completed, it will be added to your ship's searchable navigational database.

Hidden Locations

Locations that exist, but are unable to be seen by your ship are hidden. This is different than a location that is under a stealth field.

The most common reason for a hidden location is due to story progression. Certain locations and elements of the game are revealed as the main story progresses.

Traveling

Traveling from one location to another requires your ship to move (obviously). Each ship now has a base speed. Your ship will move a distance of your base speed / minute. Your base speed can be modified using engine efficiency (EE) mods, crew, guild upgrades, etc.

When you depart a location, your ship's speed will be as followed: $BASE+(BASE*EE)$

To put it another way, your ship's speed will be whatever its base speed is, plus the % total of your EE mods, crew, guild bonuses, etc. Each ship class has a different base speed.

Base Speeds

Ship	Base Speed
Fighter (Light)	50
Fighter (Standard)	53
Fighter (Assault)	57
Fighter (Tempest)	60
Scout (Recon)	60
Scout (Support)	65
Scout (Overwatch)	70
Scout (Harbinger)	75
Freighter (All)	50
JayCo Tanker	20
Sentinel	50
Dreadnought	50
Crusader	60
Wasp	150

Draining & Boosting

• Draining another ship will increase your current speed by 5 M/M and will propel your ship 10 M. This bonus 'jump' will reward active players vs passive ones.
• If another ship boost your ship, your speed will increase by 5 M / M and will propel your ship 10 M.
• Note: This will not permanently change your base speed, it will only increase your current speed. Once you reach your destination, your speed will drop to 0, (since you're no longer moving) and will reset to your default base speed when you travel again.
• There is no limit to how fast your ship can go. Have fun.

History

Prior to 5.0

In versions prior to 4.0, there was an engine efficiency cap of 75%. This meant that you could have the best crew, EE mods, and guild upgrades, and even if you had more than 75% EE, it didn't matter. With this new system, the EE cap is removed so while your initial ETA may appear longer, you can drain/hack your ship's engines to reach any speed you'd like. This will be especially useful when visiting distant Sedna.

Additionally, the PVP hacking has been reworked as well, instead of adding/removing time to your travel, it increases your total current speed per hack level (10%, 25%, 50%, 80%, 100%), allowing for outrageous speeds to be obtainable (Make friends with those scouts)

Prior to 4.0

In game versions prior to 4.0, all locations were based on time to/from Gemini Station. Engine Efficiency (EE) mods would increase or decrease your total travel time. For example, traveling from Gem to Earth took 5 minutes. If your ship had an EE of 50%, your Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) would be 2.5 minutes––your EE mods removing 50% of the total time to get from Gem to Earth.

Issues

The main issue with this model was that the actual amount of time added/removed to your ETA changed based on what location you were traveling to. The 2.5 minutes removed from your trip to Earth became 15 minutes if you were traveling from Gem to Jupiter. This lead to two problems:

1. A massive inconsistency with the potency of EE mods.
2. Locations that were mean't to feel like far, distant locations, felt very close with a high EE
3. Sudo instant-travel was possible between Earth/Gem and Mars/Gem with a high EE and 1-2 ship drains.