Highway

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Travel Type	Fast Intra Sector (up to ~14km/s)
Ship Size	Small and Medium
Jumps	Non Applicable
Target	Highway Exit*
Bi-directional	No**

Encyclopedia Description

(X4) Highways were first created by JSDD before the shut down of the Jump Gates. Their purpose is to allow bearable travel times through and between Sectors.

(XR) Local Highways are unidirectional paths of accelerated traffic used to connect areas of interest, called Zones, within a Sector and reduce travel time. As they operate at lower speeds than the Superhighways, it is fairly safe to enter or leave the Local Highway at any time. Local Highways have opened up fast and convenient mass-traffic and trading lanes between and within Zones.

Overview

Highways provide a rapid means for small and medium ships to move around their sector (or in the case of the highway ring between sectors using a Jump Gate). Highways can be joined and left at any point along their length, not just at the entrances and exits. Highway speeds are almost always faster than utilising travel drive and are an effective means of shortening transit times in the gate network.

Ships leaving highways do so with residual momentum and can coast for a while which can make it easier to get up to travel drive. Highways feature a moving pattern that moves in the direction of travel, additionally entry gates are marked with green lighting and exits with orange lighting to make wayfinding easier.

Applications

Highways add to the value of operating small and medium mining and trading ships as the higher speeds of highways make them incredibly competitive with large miners and traders.

Removing Highways

Some players may not like the appearance or behaviour of highways and they can be removed in the creative custom gamestart (with separate toggles for the regular highways and the highway ring). Third party mods also may add or remove highways separately.

Notes

*The main highway ring is a closed loop and doesn't really have an exit gate as it instead feeds into a Jump Gate

**Highways often, but not always, occur in pairs to create a bidirectional system