General thoughts . Hope these are helpful . Time , resources , qualityscope . Let ' s assume qualityscope represents the health andor viability of the colonists . You can get there faster but it either takes a lot of resources or it has a negative quality hit people are harmed or otherwise made nonviable . . You can get there cheaply but it ' ll take forever or , again , harm the colonists . If you preserve the quality then you ' ll have to make it take a long time or be very expensive in terms of resources where tech is a resource because you have to use resources to build it . Standard project management golden triangle . Ideas Space lanes or star gates . You can travel to some worlds but not others because the local stars don ' t emit enough Lubrions hand wavy science magic to make a connection . To get to those worlds you have to improve your tech . So the Lubrions in the remote world are too weak until tech can take advantage of them . Maybe there are some experimental collectors that will allow for the travel but it ' s incredibly dangerous and you may end up lost in space . As others noted , fuel costs are enormous . Or maybe non existent . That means you need updated tech to go farther on less . Another resources challengeResonance frequencies . At . 5 LY things are just ducky . At 1 LY the ship starts to resonate so you have to turn everything off or the fields will collapse and the ship will literally shake itself apart . So you now have to wait for your systems to recalibrate and reset this could take a long time for the space around you to reset . It ' s like throwing a rock in a pond . You have to wait till the waves stop , then you jump again . ResourcesTime . Even if you go into cryosleep it still takes 100 ' s of years . You may be the same age but the rest of time has left you behind . Space folding . It causes premature aging that ' s on a logarithmic scale it gets bigger the farther you go 1 , 2 , 4 , 8 , 16 , 32 , etc . . 1 LY makes you a week older even though only 1 day has passed . 2 LY makes you 2 weeks older vs . 2 days . 3 LY 4 weeks vs 4 days . Or whatever the scale is you need . It takes a toll on your health due to Lubrion exposure . Too much time traveling at greater than light speed makes you sick , rots your bones , melts your eyes , whatever . No you can ' t shield yourself against them . Personally , I ' d tie it to tech . That way as a GM you can open or not open advancements when it ' s time in your game for the civilization to grow . 1 st Wanderers got as far as the D ' nar system . 2 nd wanderers could go to Phlux , 3 rd can make it to Einos but not to Bellagos no one knows why even though it ' s closer . 4 th can make it to Bellagos but once there they encounter an incredibly hostile race and are killed immediately . 5 th wanderers are also called the Warrior Wanderers . They capture Bellagos and can now travel to Minimar and Fandoon . You can only get to Minimar and Fandoon if you pass through Bellagos . Each age of wanderers is tied to a specific tech . Start at 1 then move to the others as you need to grow . I ' ll be interested to hear what you decide on ! Good luck !