Hazardous Areas

Description

Areas throughout the Sirius that are hard or dangerous to travel. They vary from industrial waste clouds to radiation belts caused by a dying star. Many of these areas contain jump holes or wrecks of unfortunate ships.

Clouds

These types of clouds can be caused by human actions, like industrial waste floating and gathering around gravitational points in space, or natural phenomenom. While they are not dangerous in themselves they hamper sensor equipment and making their range detection lowered dramatically. This is useful for those trying to lose a pursuer or staging a sneak attack. Also cargo scanning range is reduced significantly. A typical example of smog cloud caused by industrial activity is Giftnebel in Dresden.

Asteroid Field

A dense field of rocks in space. While not deadly thanks to shields most ships carry, they can make navigating through one slow or even impossible for the biggest and most cumbersome ships. A beautiful and dense asteroid field can be found in Magellan system, which is rumored to hide a legendary Mactan base of the Lane Hackers

Radioactive Clouds and Radiation Belts

Radioactive radiation is especially dangerous to ships since it eats the hull and components. This makes ship repair costs very high in some systems no to mention the risk it poses to unwary and foolish pilots who have not taken enough Nanobots with them to survive the trip. Radio active clouds are usually found inside visibility restricting clouds, but not necessarily every cloud is radioactive. The other type of radiation sources in Sirius are dying stars. A prime example of a dying star is in Omega-11 system. In this type of radiation field a damage to hull is directly proportional to the distance of a star, so travelers are advised to steer clear of such radioactive stars.

Volatile Gas Clouds

Contain flammable gas. Traveling through one is harmless until you get ambushed by your enemies and a wild firefight ensues. Energy bursts out of your weapons ignite concentrated gas pockets creating explosions that can prove to be fatal. One scenic and potentially deadly gas cloud is located at Sigma-13 system

Mine Fields

Denying a use of a route or access to an area in space is as old as warfare. During the many wars in Sirius some areas are mined. Also many outlawed factions want to keep the nosy people out of their strategically important areas. It is whispered in bars of Manhattan that an Outcasts' Cali Base, one of biggest arteries of Cardamine trafficking to the colonies, in Tau-23 is behind a mine field. Regardless of the accuracy of such a rumor the fact remains: Cruising through mine field has been the last thing many people ever did.