Editing Openai/691a2d9f-c044-8012-bccf-942bfce6334d (section)

==== It helps when: ====
# Near the star (Solar System) - Climbing out of a gravity well is expensive. - Having depots in the inner/outer system can: - let you launch lighter, - refuel after escape from low orbit, - pick up extra shielding and mass where it’s cheaper to deliver. - Here, even a messy route (Earth → Lagrange depot → outer depot → “edge”) can be vastly better than “one giant direct burn with everything on board”.
# Caches are almost on your natural route - If a depot is only a small course correction away, and its mass lets you: - top up reaction mass, - restore radiation shielding, - replace spares… - then a small zig or zag is absolutely worth it.
# You care about redundancy / failure modes - Even if it’s delta-v neutral, a cache gives you: - abort options, - rescue staging, - fallback plans. - For a generational ship, that risk reduction can outweigh some extra trip time/path inefficiency.

In those regimes, yes:
A slightly crooked route with smart caches is much better than a mathematically pure straight line with zero help.