I would like to see new wormholes connecting all 3 Capitol systems, Itan, SoL II and Dau.

It could be use as a additional CTC route.
It would give you more choices on what route to take for distant trade missions.
It would make it a little easier to join your friends when they happen to be on the
opposite side of the Universe.

Anyway, I know present Universe has developed to it present state with much thought and planning, but I believe people would be likely to explore the other
systems if took less time to get from point A to B.

Uh. No. I can see more wormholes. But the capitol systems should NOT be connected to anything outside their own territory. IE: Itan should only connect to Itani systems, Dau only to UIT systems and Sol II only to Serco systems,

[edit] oops. seems I fell for the dork's troll.

The only problem I can see with extra wh's is that short of a much larger game population, this will make the game quite empty.

or rather, with connections to the capitals, n00b griefing will run rampant and no one will play anymore as everyone will leave.

Maybe not to the capitols but more WHs connecting other systems to eachother.. its currently quite a long trip from a station with anything worth buying to a system where there is activity..

The Capitals was just a suggestion based on there proximity on the current Universe map.

I would just like to see some change to the donut shaped Universe we currently have.

You'll get a less linear/circular universe soon(tm), overdork. An exploration expansion where we the players can discover wormholes & explore new systems has been promised. We should hopefully be seeing at least the beginnings of it in a few months.

Perhaps in an effort to make the universe seem less "linear" the universe map could be generated in 3d, seeing as space is not on a plane why should the map? Give the map a control system of rotations on all axi and zoom features as well. I'm sure this is more work then most will agree is necessary for such a non-issue but I think at some point this would be cool to have, expecially if/when we can start to explore and discover new territory.

That is another often suggested addition john, I'll paraphrase the devs response as i'm at work and not supposed to be online right now :)

Basically the universe map is just a connectivity map, showing how the wormholes connect to each other. In reality the systems might be arranged significantly different, (EG deneb may be closer to Odia than any other system spatially, but its wormholes connect to other, more distant, systems.)

Honestly, I didn't understand what you just said and how it pertained to my comment. If, though it has been suggested that is fine. Was just trying to give other ideas. The good ones usually pop up again and again. In any case, the "connectivity map" leaves something to be desired.

heh sorry about that, what i mean is that the systems in the game aren't neccesarily located where they appear to be on the universe map. All that map is designed to do is show you what systems are connected to each other. because of that a 3-D map wouldnt have any real meaning.

Its a simplified 2D representation, not meant to show actual spatial locations. Making it 3-D might be cool, but is ultimately nothing more than eye candy and another thing that a new pilot has to learn how to use. In this case i think KIS (Keep It Simple) has a lot going for it.

Me want eye candy… stomps around like a three year old…

JK, I totally understand where your coming from.

Yeah, if we remember, these solar systems are not connected by anything except the presence of a linking wh. Putting them in 3D might look neat, but not really necessary

it was never stated to be a neccesity, just eye candy

In terms of how the game flows via WH's, there is a bit of a "track" that everyone is on, but that won't change, even with the implementation of new wormholes and exploration. There will always be choke points around the wh's.

Although… Has time allowed for enough advancement of tech that we may be able to travel to a star system via a wh, and then jump to a neiboring star system using some new engine that allows for lightspeed travel without the use of a wormhole (not including current binary stars)? Is this what the "exploration" expansion will be????

I like to interpret the universe map along the lines of Frederick Pohl's jump points (they're devices but more on that in a second). In Pohl's stories, a system one jump away didn't have any particular relationship to its neighbor -- and that included space /and/ time. You could be zipping out to totally different galaxies for all you know.

Now about Pohl's devices: they would actually address the "problem" being raised by the OP, and would be a fun differentiator from other spaceflight games. They are essentially giant cylinders floating in space, and you activate a jump by traversing points on the cylinder in a particular pattern. Most patterns don't work, but a single cylinder could potentially take you to a number of different systems, with potential for "secret" patterns, etc. It'd play out in-game by having jump patterns programmed into your ship's computer -- the Activate key could launch it just like what happens now. The difference is being able to change which pattern you use.

The physical design of it also moots the "gate ring" problem of limiting the size of ships that go through.

While I have not red any of Frederick's books, the idea is an interesting one, and does seem to solve some of the issues associated with jump technology. Would the devs implement something of that nature, does it fit with there idea of their universe?? I'd love to hear from them on that.

Ok, new day, new thought to maps in the game, and how our jump system works. While I will conceed that the universe map is merely a tool to show the connecting points of wormholes, the individual zones should not be flat. In ever solar system there are usually some sort of plane in which planets will rotate, and they generally are all on the same plane, give or take a few bodies. Here is my point. If you wanted to jump and avoid things in your way you have to do a zig zag in our current system maps, or ride the edges, while in reality all you would need to do would be to go up or down a little to avoid what is in front of you. At the moment we are only allowed to go forward, backward, left and right. We should also be able to go up and down. This will add some depth to the systems and make the game feel less linear/planer. Again, I understand that this adds nothing in the way of actual game play, but it does add some more realism, not that things need to be exactly true to reality, but more so then not being able to jump in an upward/downward direction. Even if the systems did not show any form of moment(rotation) like was discussed in a previous post.

now the up/down movement would add a little to the gameplay, if nothing else it would triple the number of sectors in game even if you only added a single set of sectors above/below the current ones. however it would also be significantly more complex to display/operate, and the new sectors would frankly be, well, boring. Since they dont lie on the plane of solar systems, they would just be empty space.

All in all i dont see any need for it at the moment however. Especially since you can now plot a multiple jump course to go around the asteroids. (so i infer, damn 5 more hours at work :( )