Getting around Entropia Universe happens at two scales: moving around a planet, and moving between planets. They work completely differently and only one of them is risky.
On a planet
Teleporters are fixed points scattered across each planet. Visiting one unlocks it, after which you can travel instantly to any teleporter you have already unlocked.
This makes early exploration genuinely valuable: an afternoon spent running between teleporters buys you fast travel for the rest of your time on that planet. Most players do a teleporter run early and are glad of it afterwards.
Vehicles cover the ground between teleporters. They decay as they are used and take damage from terrain and hostile creatures, so they are a running cost, but for activities that involve a lot of ground, particularly mining, they pay for themselves.
Mind Force teleport chips offer another movement option. See Mind Force.
Between planets
Interplanetary travel goes through space, and there are two ways to do it:
- Passenger services, where you buy a seat on someone else's ship. This is what most players use.
- Your own spacecraft, which is a significant purchase and a activity in its own right.
Ships are player-owned, so interplanetary transport is a service one player sells to another. Departure times, routes and prices are set by the operators.
Space is dangerous
This is the important part and the reason space gets its own section.
Large parts of space are lootable PvP. If your ship is destroyed there, the goods you are carrying can be taken by whoever destroyed you. This is not a respawn inconvenience, it is a real loss of real value.
Piracy is a legitimate playstyle in Entropia Universe and there are players who do it seriously. They are not breaking any rules, and they are not going to make an exception for you.
What follows from that:
- Do not carry anything you cannot afford to lose through space. Ever.
- Move value in a form that does not travel, where possible. PED in your account is not on the ship with you.
- Check the current state of the route. Some periods are busier with piracy than others, and other players know which.
- Use established transport operators, who have a reputation to protect and generally know how to complete a run.
See PvP for how lootable areas work more generally.
Practical travel advice
Plan the trip, not just the destination. Moving planets with a full inventory of valuable materials is the classic expensive mistake. Sell first, travel light, buy again on arrival if you need to.
Consider whether you need to travel at all. The auction reaches across the universe for many purposes, and a lot of what people fly for could have been bought where they already were.
Once you are there, do the teleporter run. Same logic as the first planet: the afternoon spent unlocking travel points pays for itself many times over.
Space as an activity
Space is not only a transit corridor. There is mining in space, hunting in space, and the whole transport and piracy economy built on top of it.
It is a specialist area with its own equipment and its own risks, and it is not where a new player should be spending money. But it exists, it is active, and it is one of the more distinctive parts of the game once you have the basics behind you.