Traveling between galaxies for the most part Star field is automated and you do it through the menu(s) using your gravity driving Unpleasant heavy jump between systems. However, sometimes there is an extra step.
Us Star field The Grav Drive guide explains how to engage your Grav Drive for a Grav jump, plus an explanation of what that annoying thing is.grav drive pending‘warning tools, and an overview of the limitations of gravity propulsion.
How to jump gravity
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Your first visit to a new star system means choosing the star from the menu, jumping to the star system, choosing a planet (or moon) to visit, then landing on that planet on a landing target. Once you’ve done all that, you can quickly get back to that landing target with a lot less work.
How to turn on your gravity drive
However, to perform a gravity jump, you must have enough power for your gravity drive. As you steer your ship, you will see your power distribution in the bottom left corner of your HUD. This is how you distribute the power of your weapons, shields and engines during combat (by using the D-pad). It is also where you allocate power to the gravity drive.
What “grav jump-pending” means
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If your gravity drive is completely disabled and no additional reactor power is available, you will get a warning on your screen that says “grav jump pending.” This just means that you have selected a destination in the Starmap menu, but the gravity drive is not receiving power. Once you release power and allocate at least one slot of juice to the gravity drive, the countdown will begin and you’ll jump off.
Mind you, the speed of that countdown is not measured in seconds. It’s basically a measure of how much power you’ve allocated. If you’ve only assigned one notch to the gravity drive, it taps down slowly. When maxed out, it counts down quickly: useful information if you’re trying to jump out of a firefight.
How far can you jump heavy?
There are a few limitations on how far your ship can jump. Usually you’ll see this as a warning on the Starmap that you can’t make the trip you’re planning.
However, it is never really clear how to solve the problems. The restrictions are all interrelated and include three things: the routethe grav drive jump rangeand your fuel.
Route
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon
If you hover over a distant star in the Starmap, you’ll notice that the route it charts for you isn’t a straight line; it bounces between stars in shorter (gravity) jumps that eventually end up at your target. But you can’t take a single trip that jumps through a galaxy you haven’t visited before and if you try, you will see one “Unexplored route” warning.
This is represented visually by certain stages of your journey turning red (parts you can jump are white). Pull that red part of the line back to where it’s no longer white, which is the first system you haven’t visited yet.
Grav drive jump range
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon
The next, slightly more intuitive limitation comes from your ship’s gravity drive. How far your ship can jump – it is jump range — is the maximum distance between two stars (legs on that long route) that your ship can travel. If you try to make a jump that exceeds your jump range, you will see a “Out of range” warning on the star chart.
Your ship’s gravity determines its maximum range, but your ship’s mass will reduce this. To increase your jumping range, you need to upgrade to a better jumping range gravity driving with the shipbuilder.
Fuel
The final limitation is fuel – and it’s much less clear how this works. The route you take to get between systems consists of smaller jumps through systems you’ve visited before (see above). The maximum distance each of these stages can travel is determined by the jump range of your gravity drive (above). The number of the stages that make up a given trip is limited by your fuel.
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon
Each leg consumes a portion of the fuel, so your maximum fuel limits the number of jumps a given journey can entail. If you try to plot a route that uses more fuel than your ship can carry, you will get a “Out of fuel range” warning.
You’ll need to upgrade your fuel tank(s) in the Ship Builder to make those really long journeys.