I've been thinking about Warp Points... you could make events more frequent in the Settings file (say, 100%),
then make the Unstable Warp Point event common and create lots Unstable Warp Point events in the Events file (and I mean LOTS; there would have to be 3+ times as many of them as 'regular' events).
The effect would be to create a galaxy in which at least one warp point would be closing per turn. That's not enough to enable us to use the Hyperdrive as a warp point opener component, but as close as we can get.