I'm going to refer to the map on page 16 for my question about ship travel. Say there's a world to the left of E, just above the top of the map. This new world, world F, is 7 hexes away. Can I travel along the route from Caliban to E for 4 hexes and then BRANCH OFF that route just before reaching E, and travel 3 more hexes to F?

If you've already had an adventure at world E, then you measure whether or not world F is within 5 hexes of E. Otherwise you have to first have an adventure on world E or some other world that will get you within 5 hexes of F. [To get to a new world, you have to be within five hexes of from an explored world. Once you have an adventure on it, there's now a route leading to it.] It's like buiding a railroad in the Civ games and then having unlimited movement along it per turn.

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Remember that interstellar travel utilises a wormhole between points. The indication is that 5 hexes is the limit of the wormhole's range. However, the real question is whether you can create two wormhole connections in a row, without regard to 'refuelling' (or whatever the equivalent is). In this sense I think this is supposed to be like Traveller - with travel only possible between known star systems and "something" (like refuelling) needed in between.