A Guide for Interplanetary and Interstellar Travelers

By now, some of you may have noticed the rapid travel times that spacecraft on the LITE grid have, and how, in some cases it seems that they appear to be traveling faster than the speed of light. This is part of how the grid is designed, mostly to facilitate OOC movement of ships.

Those of you who have seen the various Indiana Jones movies may remember the “red line on the world map” transatlantic travel segues. A good rule of thumb for roleplay is to imagine a trip between planets or between star systems to work the same way. Just like it didn't really take Indy two minutes to travel from the eastern United States to Istanbul, Turkey, it doesn't really only take you five minutes to travel from Luna to Thinora System.

Above all, remember that it should take you as long as it takes you to get there while roleplaying the journey. If you don't actually want to physically step inside a spaceship to take your trip, you can still use the jumproom command to OOCly move between worlds. Just remember that the IC component of your travel isn't instantaneous. If you tell Character Group A you're taking a trip to another star system, don't show up the next hour/day and say “Hey! I'm back!” to Character Group A, no matter which method you use to travel.

By the way, this is a good excuse to have more than one alternate character. - Hagalaz

Here are a few good rules of thumb for interplanetary travelers moving through realspace to get from point A to B.

• Allow for at least two to three days travel between planets such as Earth and Mars. Note that this involves a constant acceleration of one gravity, with fuel and reaction mass requirements that accompany such a burn. If your ship is traveling more slowly, adjust your travel time accordingly.
• Allow for around one to two day's travel time between a major planet and the closest jumpgate.
• For travelers in Sol System traveling between the inner system and outer system via hyperspace, the approximate travel time from Luna to Jupiter Station is approximately five days, of which around two to four hours is spent in hyperspace between Old Sol and New Sol Gates (New Sol Gate is physically located farther from Jupiter due to gravitational effects).

Here are a few good rules of thumb for travel through hyperspace.

• Travel between Sol's jumpgate and either Iridia or Thinora systems' jumpgates takes about a day, gate to gate. Iridia and Thinora Systems are approximately eight hours' travel from each other.
• Iridia System is the normal departure point for travel to Amazonia and Felios Systems, and it takes approximately twenty-four hours to travel to either system from Iridia. A ship traveling between Sol and Felios would take around two days, gate to gate, with a brief stop in Iridia System.