[Mobius]

Pretty much what the title says. I've thinking about this for a while and decided to do some search on the topic. Do you guys think there's a specific reason behind this? Perhaps a campaign set in Dubhe is not as "interesting" as one set in a core GTVA system? Does the lack of key canon events taking place in these systems make them less relatable to concepts meant to be relevant for the FreeSpace continuity?

Specifically, the systems I'm referring to are Dubhe, Alphard, Barnard's Star, and Wolf 359. According to the FreeSpace node map, Dubhe leads to an uncharted system that has never been investigated in a fanmade campaign, as far as I can tell. I'm not saying there are no fanmade campaigns and single missions taking place over there of course, but these systems do seem underrepresented. You can tell they're quite underrepresented also via a Google search, as the number of times they've been mentioned on HLP topics and discussions is extremely low compared to other systems.

[Novachen]

If i remember correctly, the systems behind Luyten did not exist in any FS1 documents. Laramis was the most remote system with some relevance. I myself only remember the Luyten Civil War campaign and a fan fiction that took place in Barnard Star.

So, yes i think the lack of any canonical events make the systems not very exciting in the first place. There is an unknown system behind Altair, which is much more interesting because the Ancients were found there and it was the home system of the Hammer of Light.
Potential shivan entry points are the most interesting systems in the FS lore 

[Kie99]

Why would you set a campaign there? 

If you want to do something set during FS1 or before it it's probably going to be in the vicinity of Sol and Vasuda.

If you want to do something set in FS2 you have to do it in a system where the action is. 

If you want to go back to Sol you have to do Delta Serpentis. 

If you want to do a new Shivan incursion, Ross 128 is the obvious one, or one of the systems adjoining Capella.  You could do them coming from somewhere else completely, but if they're systems out in the boonies there's an obvious contingency -  load a destroyer up with Meson Bombs and cut them off.

Even if you want to do something with the Ancients, you're looking at Altair.

That's not to say you couldn't do a good story there, there's just not much pull over the core systems.

Maybe you could do a wild west type story, the uncivilised frontier.  I don't remember where Sync and Homesick were set at the outset, but it could have been those systems.  I think Transcend starts out there and then you traverse half a dozen systems.

Derelict's at the other end of the map, but it's got a similar feel of being in the backwaters.

There was one I played forever ago where you were at the other end of the map and they were sealing off jump nodes to uncharted space just in case as part of a post-Capella clean up.  Shivans did end up making an appearance.  I can't for the life of me remember the name of it, though.

[0rph3u5]

I always felt there was much more story potential in the systems where there is contact and exchange between Terrans and Vasudans, even if the resulting story eventually focuesses more on one of the species. Especially, if start to unravel the monolith that canon made out of the Vasudans, there is so much to mined there, e.g. how do Vasudans whose elder generations were not citizens of the PVE live in the GTVA?

Aside from that going to frontier systems always involves the problematic tropes around the "frontier" concept, which conflicts with FS's general reliance on the "Dark Forest" idea. tl;dr The enthusiastic "those white spaces on my map are lands of opportunity for me" doesn't really work when the universe conception is "those who go out, go out to die".

And besides, the idea of frontier settlement might not made sense in the FS2 era IMO - the canon makes a lot of wood out of the collapse of the GTA and economic struggles of the Terran populations, so I find in more logical that the Terran settlement across of explored space contracted to only a few systems.

[Goober5000]

One of the intriguing throwaway lines in FS1 is:

As you already know, the Shivans have begun a massive offensive.  They have completely cut us off from all of the outer colonies, and have our forces confined to nine systems that form the heart of Terran space.

There are barely more than nine Terran-controlled systems before the Shivan invasion, even assuming the most generous interpretation of Terran reach.  This implies a much larger scope to the FS1 story than what the official node map illustrates.

I'd love to read some of the game design documents that were made in the course of FS1's development.

[SF-Junky]

Actually, Storm Front Episode III takes place in exactly those star systems.

I'll just have to finish it someday.