The difference between Speed and Range

If I'm understanding you correctly, range is how far you can see.

Range lets your ship travel farther away from your planets/starbases. There is a distance limit (at which point the game will tell you that travelling further away is not possible), and the better support you have, the more you can explore away from your own planets/starbases.

Range is how far your ship can go from your planets... if you notice when you have a ship selected, there's a grayish area that shows up on the map... the size of this area is defined by your range and limits how far your ships can go

Yep:
Speed is how many squares you can move per turn
Sensors is how far you can see
Range is the maximum distance away from one of your planets or starbases your ships can go. If you try to send a ship with no life support to the far side of the map, it won't let you (unless you're playing on tiny or something).

Yeah, what they said Obviously I was thinking of sensor range...

AFAIK, when making your ship, take the range value (usually .2) and add it to 1. That should be the number of sectors(grids, or the larger grids if you have the grid feature on), beyond ones that contain your colinized planets, that your ship can travel before running out of "range"... Like they said, increase this value with life support modules. Not neccesary on small maps.

Not sure if the range value refers to the range from any of your colinized worlds, or just the one that it was manufactured at, as I usually play on small sized maps. But I believe it's the former, although, for some modifiers, the ships do keep track of where they were made...

EDIT: I'm pretty sure starbases can also be used as a "base" to increase the range of your ship.

Not sure if the range value refers to the range from any of your colinized worlds, or just the one that it was manufactured at, as I usually play on small sized maps. But I believe it's the former, although, for some modifiers, the ships do keep track of where they were made...

Range refers to the distance the ship can travel from any of your worlds or starbases.

Also the base range is different depending on the size of the map.

Exactly. I had to build an invasion fleet with 6.5 range to get to the target, but now I've several planets "over there" and I have been able to knock the range down to 2.5. My personal style is to still keep the engines on because I like the flexibility having that extra speed gives when responding to threats,etc.

Exactly. I had to build an invasion fleet with 6.5 range to get to the target, but now I've several planets "over there" and I have been able to knock the range down to 2.5. My personal style is to still keep the engines on because I like the flexibility having that extra speed gives when responding to threats,etc.

But the engine has nothing to do with the distance does it? I thought it was just the support module type?

But the engine has nothing to do with the distance does it? I thought it was just the support module type?

Correct. Engines add movement points and life support modules add distance. A ship with enough engine power could theoretically have 100 moves but without additional life support it can only travel .9 sectors beyond your space.

But the engine has nothing to do with the distance does it? I thought it was just the support module type?

sorry, I didn't specify. I take some of the support modules off, which reduces range (but I don't need the range anymore anyway). I leave the engines on for speed so I can maintain initiative when being invaded...or even when a more important target shows up and I need to catch up to it fast. Or, in this senario, I'll leave the engines on to reinforce because a 12 movement ship will still take about 15 turns to reach the invasion point.

Edit: I'm stuck in a corner on a gigantic map and my only non-suicidal chance to expand is to attack in the far corner. I made ships with 5 support modules for the 6.5 range and enough engines for a 9 speed. Even with the 6.5 range, I sent a constructor ahead to make a starbase which provided enough extra range to attack. Now that I've progressed from a "foothold" and am invading into their central area, I don't need ships with a 6.5 range. I've removed the support modules and reduced range to 2.5, which is more than enough to planet hop my way through their civilization.

Well, guys, thanks for your answers. My question arised because my first games were the campaign mission being naturally tiny and thus making the range problem inexistent. Now that the maps are getting bigger I encountered and figured out the range problem pretty much myself.