For those who have inadvertenty died by flying into a sun. Do you actually have to *hit* the sun to die, or is there an area of heat around it? This is ingame....

Not going to sunshot myself, cause that'd be very stupid but because I want to know how much of a safety margin to give myself when travelling near a star.

You have to actually travel into the square where the sun is located. When calculating your route in a system, the Combine will automatically avoid any stars in your path.

You have to physically touch the sun. That is, you have to be in the same square at it. Being close to it is not dangerous, I myself have flown directly adjacent to the sun!

remind me to put you in a cheaper ship.

*chuckles at Han*

Its fine, more a reference question than anything. I actually tend to avoid stars anyway (bad experiences in other games).

“2.2/ Sun & Black Holes Damage

When a pilot plots his course to its destination, the ship computer will automatically avoid any suns in the way. However, a pilot can decide to override the computer decision and set the destination right into the sun or right into a Black Hole. If a ship arrives on a sun or Black Hole, its fate will depend upon its class. Wrecks, satellites, fighters, and freighters on a sun are destroyed, along with whatever they contain. Any ship arriving on a Black Hole will be destroyed.

Capital ships sustain hull damage (30% to 50%), ionic damage (15% to 35%), and shield loss (25% to 60%) and are moved one square to the left, away from the sun (if the sun is at X-coordinates 0, then the ship is moved 1 square to the right). The pilot is killed if he is in control of the ship (piloted mode), else he falls unconscious. All onboard NPCs are killed. All other passengers suffer great injuries and fall unconscious.

Various events are logged and available to the ship cockpit (damage), all passengers in the ship (status of who died) and owner (to learn why he lost a ship).

Note

When plotting your sublight course, your ship computer will automatically avoid suns. However it is up to the pilot to double-check that the course also avoids Black Holes as there are no automatic checks.  ”

Curious that the navicomputer fails to avoid black holes...

You can't detect black holes other than by the massive gravity well they create, so the navicomputer isn't going to do your guesswork for you.