Speed tubes would be cool. Slip into one, get shot out really fast for a temporary boost in speed. May be useful in tunneled areas such as stations and asteroids. Wheee!!

I was thinking more along the lines of a highway. For example, imagine that there was another station in 9 situated at the terminal end of the roid belt. Too far for a reasonable travel, but with a highway, zoom. You get there a lot faster. Or there could be a station on both ends of the roid belt. In which case you have a large looping highway with an exit/entry at each station.

Ooo... Even better... People could buy a special ship to build one, and then charge people tolls for using it!

That could get messy if everyone decided to build their own highway. Still, I like the idea of speedways between distant points in space.

Cool sounds sorta like the "space bridge"

tempest, that would be no problem if you'd limit the availabilty of the special ship rigorously. i mean, this is supposed to become an MMORPG. have it be a "profession" that you have to work ages on to get the ship, so that the less-persistent players (those who play the barbarian in diablo2x) won't be a nuisance.

furthermore, have it be controlled by the devs. like, you show them plans of your ...plans and they confirm or deny the project.

Hmm speed tubes... sounds fun, untill someone sends some unguided missiles down the other end and u slam into em at like 1000m/s, that would be funny as hell! But on a more serious side, it might be a good idea for large places, if they expanded sector 9 or something to be HUGE and have like 5 diff stations, making it a nice killing ground and a great place for traders to farm, using the tubes to get back and forth, but the only thing it, it should cost energy or credits or something, so it would be fair...

~Tin Man~

We could have highways within very long sectors. A set of 4 or 5 tubes that go between 2 ends of a sector with a series of tubes that automatically boost you at 1000m/s through the tube once you enter. It could either spit you out the other end or have a series of exits along the track, and when you press the activate key you will automatically be ejected out the next exit. What do you guys think? It even brings up tactics in battle. Whichever team controls the highway will have a significant advantage in battle since reinforcements will have to take the long way to get to their station.