The game is at a bit of a strange stage at this point. It was designed originally as a true sandbox, however starting v0.80, in order to bring it to a close, it is heavily story driven with a timeline. Implementing this is unfortunately a bit forced and cumbersome.
With the current code, when you are forced to Pheobe, your destination should be reset to the location that was active before the force. The only exception to this is following the overnight events, where I return you to Orion station. It really is a compromise with needing the player to be somewhere at a certain time and also maintaining realism in terms of moving through the various sectors. This however does crimp on the effectiveness of your trading.
Since starting on the game a couple years ago, the way I approach game design has changed, as I gain more knowledge and better work practices. Unfortunately, a number of the decisions made early were not particularly good, as a result of inexperience. Hence the later game is actually far more polished than the early game. I have considered completely redoing the early game, however I suspect it would take about 6 months and also be completely demoralising. As such, the plan is to finish off the last 2 episodes over the next 5 months or so and move on to the next game. This will give me a clean slate, allowing me to implement what has worked well and discard those ideas that were not successful.
I will start giving the community some clarity about what is coming with the next game early next year.
