Thanks for the replies.
As a follow-up question, do areas like this that require higher/special tech to reach tend to have better rewards in terms of minerals or ruins once you finally can get there?
Nope. Steve tried to use as real physics as possible to generate systems, so distant companions are just distant. Interesting idea about the ruins, though.
Also, is one out of four systems with a distant companion normal, or just a reflection of my small sample size in this game?
I've never thought about it. 25% sounds high, though, even if you only count binary (or higher) systems.
John
Are you using the real stars option? A significant proportion of observed systems fall into the binary category. I can't remember the exact value and I can't look it up at present.
Edited to add: I've looked it up and as many as 65% of local star systems may be members of binary or multiple systems (1991 paper by Duquennoy and Mayor)
