Make travel more interesting

Hello. With some of the recent previews, we've seen a hint of fast-travel system between regions, which I think is not a good idea. Teleportation (including jump drives) makes game worlds feel really small and basically reduces them to a few desirable hot-spots with everything inbetween being almost meaningless after the first visit. Therefore I would like to push a better way.

Jump gates

Jump gates have also been hinted by Keen at the begining when the Almagest lore was first established alongside with the fact that jump drives should be a late-game technology. I think jump gates are a great way to travel between regions not only because they are interactive and in general more interesting than just pressing a button on your jump drive module, but also because we get to fly to, from and in between them. This time spent flying makes traveling between regions feel more meaningful and in turn gives a meaning to local things even if they aren't the best option in the game.

Obviously the gates should only have a single connection and if there are multiple ways out of a region, they should be spaced out so that you (for example) land at one gate, then fly to the next one and take it to the next region on your journey.

Another benefit is that the ships themselves don't need anything special to reasonably fly around if needed. Jump drives are no longer the key to mobility in the game.

Distinct regions

Now that there is a reason to fly around, it's time to decide how to make the environment intereting. I think the best way is by ensuring that each region has a distinct look to it even when traveling through it. This could be a planet, a distinct skybox or (for regions that don't have a planet) a landmark that's either visible from anywhere in the region or that is close to it's gates so that you meet it every time. The gates themselves could also vary between regions depending on the lore. There are just so many options for this part.

Only thing that I would keep consistent in this is gate sizes. I think all jump gates should be just as big so that you don't have to worry about not fitting through in the middle of a journey. Otherwise it's all open to being varied and interesting.

Jump drives

I know this whole point is about how to avoid having them but that doesn't mean they should be completely gone. Instead, they should be situational. You should use them when there is no other option. For example if the ship is too big to fit through gates or if you are for some reason trying to avoid them. This advantage should have a high cost with every jump and obviously require you to have the jump drive itself as a piece of end-game equipment.

Thanks for reading this and if you have any more ideas for meaningful (and not necessarily anoying) travel, feel free to expand on this.