A route across the galaxy that detours through neutron stars — the one thing the in-game galaxy map will not plot for you.

1 The galaxy map plots this too. Badly, and not very far.

GALAXY MAP a straight line, in short hops THIS ONE detours through neutron stars, and reaches A supercharged drive jumps about four times as far, so the longer way round is the shorter way there.

2 Efficiency is backwards from how it sounds.

LOWER — say 25 wanders further off the line finds more neutron stars finishes in FEWER jumps HIGHER — say 95 holds the direct line passes neutron stars by takes MORE jumps 60 out of the box. It is not a quality dial — it is how much detour you will tolerate.

3 It is a job, not a question. And the answer is the next few stops.

SUBMITTED and queued, not asked UP TO 90s Sol to Colonia took 3 131 STOPS 168 jumps Spoken, you get the totals and the next handful — which is how a route is flown anyway. The whole thing is kept. The Routing tab draws every waypoint, however it was plotted.

The details

The card called Neutron Plotter on the Routing tab’s Plan page, and the plot_route tool behind it. It was called Jump route until 2026-08-23, which described what the galaxy map already does and said nothing about the one thing this does that the map cannot.

What you fill in

Box What it means Left blank
Destination Where you are going Required — nothing is plotted without it
From Where to start Where you are now, from the journal
Jump range (ly) Your laden jump range This ship’s, from the journal
Efficiency How far off the direct line you will go 60

Your ship fills in its own numbers. Nobody says “plot me a route to Colonia from Sol at 52.31 light years a jump”, so jump range and origin come from the journal unless you overrule them. Typing a range is for planning a trip in a ship you are not sitting in.

Efficiency, again, because it reads backwards

A lower number produces a shorter route. Efficiency is how strictly the plotter holds to the straight line between you and your destination; loosening it lets the route wander to pick up more neutron stars, and each supercharge is worth about four jumps. So:

  • 25 — a wandering route with many supercharges, and the fewest jumps.
  • 60 — the default, and a sensible one.
  • 95 — near enough the straight line, few supercharges, most jumps.

There is no setting that means “best”. There is only how much detour you are willing to fly.

Supercharging costs you something

Each neutron waypoint means dropping into the jet cone, which takes a slice of your hull integrity if you linger and leaves your drive needing repair sooner. Directive 47 does not model that, and a route with ninety supercharges in it is ninety opportunities to get it wrong. Carry an AFMU.

What comes back

A Sol-to-Colonia plot is 131 waypoints and 168 jumps. Spoken, you get the totals and the next handful of stops; the neutron flag rides on the waypoint rather than in a preamble, because it is the only part that changes what you do on arrival.

Sol to Colonia: 22,000 light years, 168 jumps across 131 waypoints.

The first 5:
  PSR J1752-2806 — 10 jumps; neutron, supercharge here; 21,629 ly left
  Nova Aquila No 3 — 6 jumps; neutron, supercharge here; 21,350 ly left
  ...

126 more after that. Ask again from further along and I will plot the rest.

The cap is on the speaking, not on the plan. The whole route is kept, and the Routing tab draws every waypoint of it — including one plotted by voice, because both paths write and read one plan rather than each keeping their own.

It is a job, and it can be refused

A plot is submitted and queued rather than asked and answered. The budget is ninety seconds, against fifteen for an ordinary lookup, because a Commander asking for a route across the galaxy has knowingly asked for arithmetic. Past that the answer says so, and says what to change: a shorter route, or a higher efficiency.

The tool schema and the service it calls are on Route planning — one page for all three planners, because that part really is shared.