I got a plan to rebalance the game a bit. Ok, one of the stars in the system goes nova and
fills the system with a planetary nebula
Destroys most of the objects in the system
This system would be picked at random from a hat and it goes bye-bye.
k, consider the system omicron gamma. Omicron gamma is the vital link in the primary artifact trade. Omicron gamma gone == having to smuggle artifacts from bretonia to liberty.
now consider alaska, without alaska the order would need to devise a new route to liberty, a much riskier one.
In a role play environment it can affect...
1. trade routes
2. how powerful a faction is
3. travel in general
4. ability to get certain equipment easily
So if new york went up in flames you would have to take the long way from colorado to california.
*ABOUT STARS GOING NOVA RANDOMLY: With all the issues in freelancer related to scale such as the distance issue and that the going faster than speed of light doesn't match the proportional distance change of an object means we dont care about physics.