Ships would need to have a connection with smerth that could be blocked by planets. You would need to have satilies to move the signal around the planets. There could be different levels of difficulty which would of let a signal pass through different levels of planet. The signal would also get weaker over distance (this could also be adjusted), so you would need higher levels of dishes or satilites every few planets. This would require infrastructure for long distance flights which would mean the players would not be able to jump straight to interplanetary landings, and make it a build up that would give newer players experience and this would be a warm up to more experienced players getting the hang of the game.