Newcastle glitch

[Igiss]

Big Systems. Without trade lanes, this is not a good idea at all, and trade lanes are not present anywhere except for House territories and paths between them.

It's not only about speed mode. Travelling 50K in empty space is NOT called exploration. It is called getting to some place you can explore. Hopefully a rewarding place. However, make distance 20K and there won't be much difference, except for the player will waste less time and will not get annoyed by long travels back and forth. Exception is if the 50K distance is interesting enough with places, encounters and objects that you can explore, but that's not easy to achieve... try to fly between Detroit Munitions and Pittsburg w/o using trade lanes, and you'll understand what I mean.

Systems with Z axis (up/down)? That's a good idea in general, but shouldn't be overused. Most objects in star systems are concentrated on one plane (Ecliptic). FL map is also 2D and we cannot change this. It means that making 3D systems will require alot of sence of balance. For example, objects that are high up or way below the plane should not overlap. Each of them should have a separate location on 2D map. If you played Masters of Orion III, you might remember how galaxy map looks in this game - the galaxy is 3D, and stars are widely spread along Z axis, but if you look from the top all stars and paths between them are obvious. None of them overlap. Should be like this when including 3D system into Freelancer.