Movement Systems

Vehicle movement falls into three basic categories – character scale, starship scale, and FTL.  A starship might be described as “fast” if it has an advanced FTL drive, yet still be relatively slow at starship-scale movement.  Movement systems are extremely popular modifications for couriers and military designers.

System Emplacement Points Availability Size Restriction Cost
Atmospheric Thruster 2 Common Colossal or smaller 4,000 credits base
Atmospheric Thruster, Advanced 5 Common Gargantuan or smaller 10,000 credits base
Combat Thruster 1 Restricted Colossal 4,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 1 3 Licensed Colossal (cruiser) or smaller 20,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 2 3 Licensed None 19,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 3 2 Licensed None 18,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 4 2 Licensed None 17,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 5 2 Licensed None 16,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 6 2 Licensed None 15,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 8 1 Licensed None 14,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 10 1 Licensed None 13,000 credits base
FTL Drive, Class 15 1 Licensed None 12,000 credits base
Flux Space Portal Generator 10 or 20 Licensed Colossal (frigate) or larger 5,000,000 credits or 10,000,000 credits
Maneuvering Jets +2 2 Common None 4,000 credits base
Maneuvering Jets +4 3 Common Colossal or smaller 10,000 credits base
Maneuvering jets +6 4 Licensed Gargantuan or smaller 20,000 credits base
Navicomputer, limited 0 Common None 1,000 credits
Navicomputer 1 Common None 4,000 credits
Navicomputer, advanced 2 Common None 40,000 credits
Speed Booster 2 Common Gargantuan or smaller 6,000 credits
SubLight Accelerator Motor 2 Military Gargantuan or smaller 50,000 credits base
Sublight Drive (speed 1 square) 2 Common None 2,000 credits base
Sublight Drive (speed 2 squares) 3 Common None 4,000 credits base
Sublight Drive (speed 3 squares) 4 Licensed Colossal (cruiser) or smaller 10,000 credits base
Sublight Drive (speed 4 squares) 5 Restricted Colossal (cruiser) or smaller 20,000 credits base
Sublight Drive (speed 5 squares) 6 Military Colossal or smaller 40,000 credits base
Sublight Drive (speed 6 squares) 7 Military Gargantuan or smaller 80,000 credits base
Sublight Drive (speed 7 squares) 8 Military Gargantuan or smaller 160,000 credits base
Sublight Drive (speed 8 squares) 9 Military Gargantuan or smaller 320,000 credits base

Atmospheric Thrusters
Atmospheric thrusters increase a vehicle’s speed when it is flying in the atmosphere of a planet.  Any vehicle able to operate in an atmosphere has some engine system designed for air flight, normally a form of jet propulsion.  Atmospheric thrusters are an augmentation of these basic systems, designed to make the vehicle more competitive with a dedicated aircraft.
Basic atmospheric thrusters increase a vehicle’s maximum velocity and fly speed by 10%, and an advanced atmospheric thruster increases these by 25% (rounding down to the nearest square of speed and 10 km/h).  Thus, a Lancer II Attack Craft with a basic atmospheric thruster has a maximum velocity of 1,320 km/h and a fly speed of 17 squares at character scale.
Atmospheric thrusters have no effect on starship-scale movement.
This is only available for atmospheric-capable ships.

Combat Thrusters
Often used by couriers that might see combat, Swift Assault Craft, and smugglers, combat thrusters are modifications to a space transport’s existing engines and maneuvering thrusters that allow the vehicle to engage in space combat as though it were a starfighter.  A vehicle with combat thrusters is treated as one size category smaller than its actual size category for the purpose of being targeted by ships larger than Colossal [Frigate] size (thus imposing the penalty for attacking targets smaller than Colossal size).  Additionally, the space transport is treated as a starfighter for the purpose of dogfighting (meaning that it can engage in and be engaged in dogfighting) and combat maneuvers.  This modification does not change the ship’s size modifier to Reflex Defense.
This is only available for space-capable ships of Colossal size.

FTL Drives
The FTL drive is the most important piece of technology in space travel.  Regardless of it’s manufacturer, FTL drives are rated by numeric class: The smaller the number, the faster the drive.
The best FTL drive created in mass numbers is a Class 1 drive.  However, it is possible to improve the Class 1 drive to a Class .5 using the Starship Designer feat.  Class .5 FTL drives require 8 hours of maintenance per month and a DC 20 Mechanics check to keep it running smoothly, otherwise it fails at a random and extremely inconvenient time.  Class .25 drives can also be created from a Class .5, but the secret of doing so is a closely-guarded secret by the people with the know-how.
In simple terms, the Class Number of a drive represents the amount of days that a vehicle with a drive of that class takes to travel one light year.  Thus, a vehicle with a Class 1 drive system can travel at a speed of 1 LY/Day, taking 4 days to make the Sol -> Centauri run.  A vehicle with a Class .25 drive can make the trip in 1 day.
Vehicles can have multiple instances of the same type of drive system (for example a Class 1 main drive, and a Class 14 backup drive), but you cannot usually have two different types of drive system, as the Higgs Drive and the Flux Space Drive have radically different power requirements.  It is possible to do so, but installing both on a vehicle means treating the second drive type as a non-standard modification.
This is only available for space-capable ships (no FTL groundcars for you!).
Fighters: Fighters are too small to mount most FTL drives on.  Advanced powers (Chrysoari, Hive, JolKoar) can do this, but it is still treated as a non-standard modification.
Swift Assault Craft: SAC treat FTL drives as non-standard modifications.

  • Dirac Waverider (Users: JolKoar Empire)
    • Poorly understood even by the JolKoar, let alone by the Terran scientists who captured an intact one in March 2030, the Dirac Waverider is a highly advanced method of non-Flux Space FTL travel. Operating on most of the same principles as the Terran Alliance’s Higgs Drive, the Dirac Waverider could be seen as a version of the Higgs Drive advanced along numerous generations of technology. The analogy used by Admin.MInt.TechDir.ArcXen personnel is that the Higgs Drive is a dugout canoe, where the Dirac Waverider is a “highly advanced composite surfboard which convinces the universe to make waves like the ones at Mavericks, man” in the words of Dr Donnie Beck, lead ArcXen researcher on the Dirac Waverider and 2028 World Surfing Champion.  Both the Dirac Waverider and the Higgs Drive can be classified as Alcubierre-style spacetime warping propulsion methods, but the key difference lies in the creation and formation of the actual Alcubierre metric utilized.  Whereas the Higgs Drive has to carry or produce its own negative matter to induce the creation of the metric (see GSRD, NMST, and STRANGE in the Higgs Drive description), the Dirac Waverider instead utilizes manipulation of the Dirac Field (formerly known as the Dirac Sea and also known as the Negative Field) to solve the negative matter prerequisite for the formation of a proper metric.  The Dirac Waverider systems tune the localized Dirac Field into a waveform structure which stabilizes into a variation on the standard Alcubierre metric – the metric utilized by this system does not notably contract spacetime in front of the vessel, allowing for both safe use in non-empty areas and for forward-looking sensors to remain active while at speed.  The expanding spacetime behind the vessel pushes the vehicle along in stabilized area, isolating it from any potential relativistic problems.  How exactly the drive system accomplishes this disruption in the Dirac Field and manipulation of the metric is unknown to ArcXen researchers at this time.
  • Flux Space (Users: Calengil Dominion, Chrysoari Protectorate, Deep Ones Mining Union, Devout People of the Fost, Lissonian Treeholds, The Glorious Imperium, Proximan Suzerainty, Risanthan Spiritlands, The Unity, Warriors, Xylat’Ta’Acr Unified Cooperative)
    • “Flux Space is weird.”  That is the opening line to the TAAF’s primer on Flux Space given to all cadets as part of their basic training.  Even the Proximans, who introduced humanity to the technology when First Contact was made in the mid-2020s, are not quite sure how the technology works.  They admit to discovering it by accident during a foray into studying the structure of spacetime at very small scales.  Essentially, Flux Space is “not here, but there, yet still here at the same time.”  A more detailed explanation would go on to talk about entanglement, quantum foam, non-Euclidian geometries, Hilbert spaces, quantum field theory, nth-dimensional geometry, Kalzua-Klein theory, brane cosmology, and 20th century Terran science fiction.  Basically, Flux Space is “outside of our four-dimensional spacetime”…somehow.  A ship entering Flux Space just vanishes in regards to our universe, for all intents and purposes, and is transported to a place best described as a “rolling, shifting vacuum-like place with drifting ‘gravity’ currents and eddies.”  Flux Space, though ’empty,’ is filled with stable, mappable gradients in it’s structure, almost like constantly blowing winds on an ocean.  Following these currents and eddies allows for what is effectively superluminal travel in our universe.  As mapped so far, these currents and eddies appear to mesh most of the objects in our universe of sufficient mass together (though not directly), effectively creating a transportation network that connects stars to other stars.  These connections are by no means direct: for example, the Sol system is not connected to Proxima Centauri through any reasonably direct route, so travelling between the two via Flux Space requires going against the gradients and currents.  The size of the current and eddy leading to an object is proportional to the mass of that object – larger objects create larger eddies and currents, which allow for faster travel but are more difficult to divert out of.  Gradients flow in both directions, allowing for two-way travel, though the gradients are usually separated within flux space by about a half-day’s worth of travel against the gradient, so switching directions mid-journey is not feasible for most ships.  One oddity of Flux Space is the effect it has on psionics: psionics do not function in flux space without direct contact to a target.  Some cultures consider looking upon Flux Space to be taboo, and therefore do not have viewports active while travelling in Flux Space.  Still others consider looking upon Flux Space to be crucial to enlightenment, and spend long hours staring at the roiling, non-Euclidian patterns of energy and nothingness.
    • Entering Flux Space: Entering Flux Space requires either a Flux Space Gateway or a Flux Space Portal Generator.  Both methods utilize the same method – intense gravity fields create a microsingularity which is then forcibly evaporated, leaving a momentary brief segment of time where there is simply a ‘hole’ in space, which opens into Flux Space.  The vehicle then enters this hole.  Leaving Flux Space works the same, only in reverse – the microsingularity is projected into Flux Space, which tears open a hole back to normal space.  Flux Space Gateways are constructs that exist simultaneously both in Flux Space and normal space, while Flux Space Portal Generators utilize the same technology on a smaller scale to open a portal for the ship using them.
    • Travelling In Flux Space: While in Flux Space, vessels can require specialized drives to move against the gradients and currents, or at speeds greater than the gradients and currents will carry the ship.  A vessel without these drives can only travel at the speeds of the gradients and currents, which are subject to the GM (and usually functions as a Class 15 FTL drive and involves bizarre routing).  The specialized drives used to travel in Flux Space vary from species to species, but the ‘simplest’ of them is a quantum vacuum plasma thruster.  Traditionally, none of these drives function in ‘normal’ space, though some advanced species have created ones that can operate outside of flux space.  These drives are what the Class of a ship equipped for flux space actually represent.  By default, navigating against a standard gradient requires a Class 1 FTL drive – slower drives simply cannot push against the normal currents of flux space.  In a doldrum area where only a weak gradient is present, slower drives could allow for free navigation of flux space.  In areas of stronger gradients, such as in the Local Interstellar Cloud, all gradients typically flow towards the largest star in a region – Sirius A in the case of the LIC.  Usually these gradients will completely bypass stars 0.5 Solar Masses and smaller, leading to the relative isolation of systems like Proxima Centauri.  Small-scale gradients exist, usually in widely-separated multiple star systems, such as the mapped gradients existing between Alpha Centauri AB and Proxima Centauri.
    • Flux Space Features: There exist a range of features within Flux Space which are non-permanent, some of which are boons, and some of which are deadly hazards.
      • Breezes: Breezes are temporary increases in gradient flow, allow a vehicle to travel faster along that gradient.  Properly utilized, these can allow a ship to ‘surf’ the breeze, drastically increasing the distance the ship can travel in a day.  Surfing the breeze requires a DC 25 Pilot check per day in the breeze.  Success doubles the distance travelled by the vehicle.  Every 5 points that the DC is beat by increases the multiplier by 1 (x3 for 30, x4 for 35, and so on).  The chance of a breeze forming between two star systemsis 1% per day, and the breeze will last for 1d4 days before dissipating.
      • Doldrums: Doldrums are static features in flux space – areas of weakend to nonexistent gradient that allow for a vehicle to travel in whatever direction they choose.  Doldrums do not appear or disappear, they are best defined as map features.
      • Sinks: Sinks are sudden increases in localized gravitation gradient – a dangerous hazard that occurs on an unpredictable basis.  This hazard can form at any time, and can cripple or outright destroy a smaller vessel.  A sink forms and dissipates almost instantaneously, a vehicle’s pilot can make a DC 35 Pilot check to detect the sudden increase in gradient and avoid it.  Small sinks do 1d4x100 points of damage, medium sinks do 2d6x100 points of damage, and a large sink will do 4d6x100 points of damage.  This damage is hull-rending gravitational force – it is reduced by damage reduction but shields have no effect on it.  A sink does not have a set percentage of occurance, it only occurs when the GM says it occurs.  Rumors speak of terrifying weapons of long-lost civilizations that can create sinks at will.
      • Storms:  A storm is best defined as a ‘tangle’ in the gradients, where they loop around on themselves, knot themselves up, and twist around, creating hull-stressing gravitational forces before eventually returning to normal. Like sinks, storms only occur when the GM says they happen.  Unlike sinks, storms can be detected in advance.  Any ship in flux space can detect a storm within one day’s travel time of it with a DC 25 Use Computer check, and maps of all known storms are regularly published by authorities.  Storms cannot be easily avoided – they affect an entire gradient.  A ship caught in a storm will take 4d10x2 points of damage per day (reduced by damage reduction but not shields), and has a 50% chance of making no effective progress towards its destination.  Storms can be avoided, any ship that can travel off the gradient can avoid a storm with little difficulty.  A storm will never appear in a doldrum area. Once formed, a storm will last for 1d6 days before the gradient returns to normal.
      • “Stuff”: Not a technical term by any means.  When travelling off the gradient there is always a chance that you may stumble across something drifting through the endless void of flux space.  Cast-off waste from ships, escape pods, wrecked vessels, and a host of other things can be found in the rolling, shifting void of flux space.  For every ten cumulative days of travel off of the gradients, you have a 1% chance of discovering something.  To determine what is found, roll a d100 and consult the following list.
        • 01-05 – Interesting Junk: Unlike boring junk, this is junk which actualy has a possible value.  This could be historical value – a fragment of a ship known to have been lost decades or centuries ago.  It could be military value – a portion of an encryption system, a fragment of a weapons battery, a lost missile weapon.  The value could be of an informative nature – a fragment of a destroyed ship from an unknown power with the information needed to find and contact them.  Or the value could be monetary – cargo pods which aren’t empty, rare metals, and so on.  The junk could even be plot-relevant, a clue to something that is being searched for.  No matter what, the junk was worth stopping for and collecting.  However, it is almost impossible to distinguish interesting junk from boring junk or dangerous junk without actually bringing it on-board for examination.
        • 06-07 – Escape Pod: Ships lost or damaged in flux space may release escape pods, especially if they are crippled beyond all repair.  Occasionally, these are found by ships on the gradient, but more often they drift off the gradient and are lost forever. More advanced powers have stasis-capable escape pods which can keep their occupant alive through a stasis field or cryogenic system.  Still other species are capable of hibernation and could survive.  The call on this is up to the GM.  To determine who is in the escape pod, roll a d100 and consult below.
          • 01-60 – Known Advanced Power (Chrysoari, Fost, Lissonian): There is a 85% chance that this pod has a working stasis field.
          • 61-90 – Known Non-Advanced Power (All other Flux Space using powers):There is a 35% chance that this pod has a working cryo chamber.
          • 91-95 – Known Non-Flux Space Using Power (JolKoar, Speakers, Terran): To determine if the occupant is in stasis or cryo, roll again and reroll if you roll above a 90.
          • 96-100 – Unknown Race: 50% chance of survivor.
        • 08-10 – Lifeform: Surprising to most non-seasoned spacefarers and those who are not exotic biologists, there is actually sparsely-found life in flux space, though it was long ago removed from the gradients.
          • Plasma Squid: These strange, energy-based creatures are a collection of translucent, glowing bubbles, connected by streams of lightning, all forming a body and trailing ‘tentacles.’  The creature is made of energy fields of varying types and frequencies, and its place in whatever passes for an ecosystem in flux space is unknown. The smallest on record is 30 meters in diameter with tentacles a hundred meters long, the largest on record is unthinkably huge – larger than the Sirius Trade Station. Their presence is easily detectable by most electromagnetic scanners – they ‘scream’ in broadband emissions detectable from a safe distance away. Any ship that gets too close to one is likely to be destroyed utterly.  The plasma squid is drawn to the energy pulsing through a starship and it will tear ship apart to get at it. The explosions which are the likely result of the creature’s attack simply provide it with a massive surge of food and, sometimes, spur it to divide and thus reproduce itself. Some scientists feel that all plasma squid are descendants of a single creature, one which may well have been an artificial creation. Others believe in an as-yet-undiscovered ‘flux-space ecology’ and consider the plasma squid to simply be a top predator in that ecology. Little else is know of their lifecycle, so, either theory may well be correct. Plasma squid attacks by embracing a target ship in its tentacles. Energy pulses through them and into the ship, burning out circuits and melting hulls.  The creature then proceeds to tear this ship apart, with a special interest in the engines. Their attacks can be avoided with a DC 30 Pilot check, each round.  Failure on this check means that the ship takes 4d10+20 damage.  The plasma squid can be attacked, it is considered to have a Reflex defense of 10 and 300 hit points (for an average member of the species).  However, it is completely immune to physical damage, and takes half damage from all energy damage.
        • 11-15 – Abandoned Ship, Known Advanced Power: A ship belonging to one of the advanced powers has been abandoned here.  This is most likely a badly damaged vessel, one where the crew fled prior to its expected destruction.  The ship could be on the verge of exploding or it could be a dead hulk.  Alerting the owners to its location would probably be the best course of action, unless the ship belongs to a power currently at war with the power that discovered it, in which case the ship will probably be claimed as a prize of war.  Note – this does not have a be a ship from a power that uses flux space as a primary means of FTL travel.
        • 16-20 – Abandoned Ship, Known Non-Advanced Power: As above, but the ship belongs to one of the less-advanced powers.
        • 21-22 – Abandoned Ship, Unknown Power: The power that built this vessel is a mystery, but their technology is on the level of the advanced or non-advanced powers (GM’s discretion), as opposed to the rare relics of lost civilizations found floating around off the gradient. The ship will contain clues to the powers’ location and biology (or biologies for multi-species powers), and as such, is an incredible treasure, as whoever finds it will be able to make a well-informed First Contact after a suitable study.  Of course, a ship built by an unknown power may well contain a variety of dangers; exploring it can be risky, due either to different environmental tolerances or due to traps left behind by the original owners.
        • 23 – Mysterious Relic: This is about as dangerous – and as potentially rewarding – as a random find can get. The ship has stumbled on something left behind, abandoned or lost by one of the civilizations lost to time, or perhaps by one of the transcendent races which are still around, a hitherto unknown power which exceeds even the advanced powers, or – more chillingly – it might have been left there by the cosmic boogeymen of late – Nightlords.  The relic could be anything – a weapon, a scientific experiment, a collection of music – but it will be strange, incomprehensible and, even if benign in original design, very dangerous to those who find it and do not take every possible precaution.  Even the hypothetical music collection could be lethal; perhaps the music of the a hitherto unknown power causes insanity or the vibrations turn human cells to mush. The introduction of such a relic can easily spawn several scenarios or, if it is sufficiently dangerous, end a campaign…and leave another pile of junk drifting through hyperspace. Indeed, if the relic is found adrift in a cloud of  fragments identified as being from a recently constructed ship, this ought to be considered an important clue…
        • 24 – Active Base: Several powers maintain active, mobile bases inside flux space, for a variety of purposes.  Secret research, benign scientific studies, military rallying points, or possibly even more sinister purposes.  Traditionally, these bases are very difficult to find as they operate with no beacons on.  However, you’ve just happened to stumble across one of them.  It could be staffed by bored scientists looking for a temporary diversion from their job monitoring gradient flow…or it could be staffed by bloodthirsty, trigger-happy soldiers who are bored and itching for a fight.  Or it could be considered restricted territory and you’ll be fired upon after a warning (if you get a warning at all).
        • 25-30 – Dangerous Junk: Possibly one of the more dangerous things that could be found off the gradient (barring hostile forces), dangerous junk is generally indistinguishable from boring or interesting junk but is a whole lot more risky to have on-board.  Missiles with arming mechanisms based on warmth or atmosphere, cargo pods containing virulent pathogens or fast-breeding species, data stores with invasive code, and so on.  Sometimes the junk is a trap, laced with a tracking beacon to lead pirates or raiders to the ship’s current location or destination.  However, it is almost impossible to distinguish interesting junk from boring junk or dangerous junk without actually bringing it on-board for examination.
        • 31-100 – Boring Junk: The vast majority of ‘stuff’ found off the gradients is this.  Bits of worked metal of no value, empty cargo pods, fragments of old hardware, literal biological waste, and so on.  Flux space is a dumping ground for trash for some people, and its no surprise that lots of it turns up off the gradients. This has no monetary, historical, or military value at all.  However, it is almost impossible to distinguish interesting junk from boring junk or dangerous junk without actually bringing it on-board for examination.
    • Flux Space Portal Generators: A smaller version of the technology used in Flux Space Gateways, Portal Generators can be added to a ship to give it the ability to enter and leave Flux Space without the aid of a Gateway.  Portal Generators can traditionally be added onto ships of Colossal (frigate) size and up, though some advanced species may have smaller versions which can go on smaller vehicles.  Flux Space Portal Generators are considered non-standard modifications for Terran starships, thus costing 20 emplacement points and 10,000,000 credits. When adding these to a vehicle constructed at a shipyard that normally builds Flux Space-capable vehicles, this instead costs 10 emplacement points and 5,000,000 credits.  The Chrysoari have a Flux Space Portal Generator that only takes up 5 emplacement points and can be added to any size vehicle, however they refuse to sell or license this technology to anyone outside the Protectorate – black market cost is estimated at 20,000,000 Chrysoari Protectorate Credits.
  • Higgs Drive (Users: Terran Alliance, Teuthidoid Peoples)
    • The Higgs Drive is the method of FTL transit developed by the Terran Alliance and used by both them and the Teuthidoid Peoples (who obtained it through a technology trade deal in return for advanced aquaculture techniques).  Higgs Drives require a very high amount of energy to operate, with the most common power source being an array of casimir batteries charged by fusion reactors.  They can be operated for about 8 hours before needing to cool off, degauss, and undergo routine, primarily automated maintenance for 16 hours.  The Class number of a Higgs Drive is equal to how many 8-hour periods are needed to travel 1 light year.  Therefore, a Class 1 Higgs Drive can travel 1 light year in 8 hours, before needing to cool for 16 hours.  On most vessels, this limits how far a ship can travel in one day.  Vessels with multiple Higgs Drives can use them consecutively, allowing one drive to cool, degauss, and undergo maintenance while another propels the ship.  The Higgs Drive is an Alcubierre-style spacetime warping drive, which, when combined with a Higgs inertial manipulation field, allows for the creation of an altered area of spacetime sufficient to surround the ship.  Spacetime in front of the ship is contracted, and spacetime behind the ship is expanded.  The use of a Higgs field decreases the perceived mass required to transport with this drive which in turn keeps energy requirements reasonable, and the fact that the ship is never moving at superluminal velocities (since it is essentially stationary) means that general and special relativity do not come into play.  Contact with the warped areas of space is extremely hazardous and will usually lead to matter being torn apart at the subatomic level.  This protects the vehicle from any unexpected hazardous debris, but it also means that the Higgs Drive cannot be used in a heavily-trafficked area, such as a stellar system.  The Standard Operating Procedure for a Higgs Drive is to travel to the edge of a stellar system (or the edge of the heavily trafficked/debris-filled area, the edge of the Kuiper belt in Sol’s case) – or to leave the trafficked areas and set a course up and out of the trafficked areas (plotting a course up or down from the ecliptic in Sol’s case) – before activating the Higgs Drive.  In the second case, there are clear, well-surveyed lanes that have been created in and out of the system perpendicular to the ecliptic, allowing for travel without reduced possibility of destroying resource deposits.  Access to these lanes is heavily restricted, and is primarily only open to military vehicles.
    • Components: The Higgs Drive is a complicated piece of machinery, the basic primer for operation of it numbers over a thousand standard datapad pages, but there are three primary components – the GSRD, the NMST, and the STRANGE.
      • Gravitation State Reversal Device (GSRD): When the Higgs Drive was originally developed the negative matter required to actually create the spacetime distortions that make FTL transit possible was only obtainable by using large and complicated exotic matter traps to capture rare, free-moving exotic dark matter, or through the use of particle accelerators capable of energy levels above 10 teraelectronvolts in a slow process – at the time, only the Superconducting Super Collider in the Southern States of America and the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider were available to the Janus team for fuel creation.  The SSC had been shut down by the Southern States of America in an effort to balance their budget, and the Janus team bought the facility outright, while CERN leased them access to the HL-LHC while CERN was building the Future Circular Collider on Mars.  These slow production methods of negative matter fuel were untenable, and a major hurdle to opening the stars to exploration – just the estimated 1 milligram of negative matter needed to travel to Alpha Centauri would cost around 30,000,000,000,000 (30 Trillion) credits.  However, the solution to this problem was discovered by accident one day in July 2021.  While working on a production run of fuel for another Janus test, there was a moderate earthquake in Oklahoma (later determined to be caused by hydraulic fracturing for hydrocarbon extraction) while the beam was in operation.  Running at peak capacity when the earthquake happened, the SSC was powered to 20 TeV – the nanometers of disruption in the waveguides sent the proton stream hurtling out of alignment.  A freak occurence in quantum mechanics happened, with at least one proton from the stream passing through the waveguides unimpeded and before entering into one of the superconductors chilled down to around -200C.  This one in a quadrillion quantum occurence, combined with the fact that the SSC utilized outright archaic superconductor technology (as opposed to the newer ‘warm’ superconductors used by the HL-LHC), lead to something happening that just should not happen – the production of a stable strangelet.  The boogeyman of particle physics was real, and it was currently sealed inside a strong magnetic field which was keeping it isolated.  The only reason that the strangelet was even discovered was the fact that it was growing, steadily converting more of the electromagnet into strange matter.  But there was something…off…about this strangelet – it was almost like it was a negative strangelet.  The electromagnet had been removed and replaced and shipped off to a Janus research lab for study, and after studies and downright risky experiments with the resulting strangelets it was confirmed that this was indeed a strangelet which qualified as negative matter, however these strangelets decayed rapidly when exposed to specific electromagnetic frequencies.  Suddenly two major problems with the Higgs Drive were solved – the lack of a controllable shutdown method prior to fuel exhaustion, and the fuel source problem.  The Janus team suddenly found themselves with a very valuable funding source – the only source of this new production method of negative matter was the glob of strangelets they had in isolation, and it is suspected that more than a few of the attacks against Project Janus during late 2021 and early 2022 were actually black ops teams attempting to steal the strangelet supply.  The GSRD itself is quite simple – at its core, it contains a ‘seed’ strangelet created from a ‘seed’ of the original glob of SSC strangelets (though some older drives may have an actual ‘seed’ from that glob).  Matter is fed into the GSRD (typically unrecyclable waste matter or interstellar hydrogen), and inertially forced into momentary contact with the seed.  Strange matter converts ordinary matter into strange matter when placed into contact with it almost instantaneously, so this process is very quick.  The resulting new glob of strangelets is then inertially channeled into the Negative Matter Storage Tank through a Rigarium-lined guidepath.  GSRD operation is only undertaken when fuel supplies are low.
      • Negative Matter Storage Tank (NMST): Quite possibly the least-understood component of the Higgs Drive is the Negative Matter Storage Tank. Even before the glut of negative matter resulting from the July 2021 Strangelet Incident beacme a problem, there was always the issue of storing something that is by its very nature liable to destroy what it is stored in.  Antimatter storage was easy, just confine it in a Penning trap and be done with it.  But while negative matter could be confined by a Penning trap, it incurred such a stress on the trap that the lifetime of the device was measured in days.  Enter Rigarium, a weird substance compound created by alloying several rare elements – though it is known to occur in sparesly-located natural deposits.  When supplied with appropriate reagents, Rigarium forms a sort of ‘wall’ existing in four spatial dimensions, isolating the contents from the rest of Minkowksi spacetime and rendering them, effectively, nonexistent (if completely surroudned). The NMST is the most dangerous component of the Higgs Drive, since even a momentarily uncontrolled failure of the tank’s catalyst systems could result in a catastropic release of the negative matter fuel (see ‘The Phoenix Anomaly’ below).  The actual mechanism by which Rigarium operates is still poorly understood, but operation and maintenance procedures for the NMST itself are well-documented and strictly regulated.
      • Strangelet Trunk Routes And Negation Emitters (STRANGE): STRANGE is the term for both the series of inertially-controlled, magnetically-confined guidepaths which run from the NMST to emission ports on the surface of the vehicle, as well as the electromagnetic emitters embedded in the hull of the vehicle which allow for a controlled shutdown of the Higgs Drive. The magnetic confinment of these guidepaths is not to control the strangelets, it is to prevent any virtual particles from interacting with the strangelet – strangelet movement and isolation is controlled via the inertial fields in these guidepaths.  The guidepaths are lined with Rigarium, preventing any interaction between the strangelets and the ship.
    • Wirehead Dependency: In order to perform at peak efficiency, constant monitoring of all Higgs Drives systems is required, along with continuous tweaks to the shape, structure, and strength of the spacetime waveforms in order to stay on course.  Experiments in automating Higgs Drive control have ended poorly, usually with ships going off on an unexpected vector and being lost forever.  Soft AI proved unable to reliably work as controllers for the systems, which led to the development of the Wirehead System.
    • Dangers: The major downside to the Higgs Drive is the inherent danger to all matter near the ship when activating the drive and while it is in flight.  In frequently-travelled spacelanes, there are numerous FTL vectors which can be assigned to a vessel, each one providing enough clearance from the other vectors to allow for save travel.  Diverting from these vectors without permission (a difficult thing to obtain due to the fact that communications aside from psionics don’t work at FTL speeds) is a serious offense (if you are somehow caught).  The actual size of the area of space that is affected by the drive while it is in operation is extremely small, roughly only several centimeters wide.  That small area of space is expanded out into the altered area of spacetime the ship resides, in.  This means that collisions with a ship moving via a Higgs Drive is statistically improbably, but still possible, and since the amount of energy released should two ships travelling with Higgs Drives collide would be enough to destroy anything near them and possibly cause a spacetime disruption, regulations are heavily enforced.
    • The Phoenix Anomaly: Another danger of the Higgs Drive is the mystery of the Phoenix Anomaly.  First codified with the engine trouble that kept the titular ship from launching on time, the Phoenix Anomaly has since been blamed for the loss of several vehicles prior to the definition of the anomaly, namely the T.A.S.S. John W Young, who’s AI survived the disaster and was rediscovered in 2030, whereupon it turned over sensor records of the end result of the anomaly, proving several theories and disproving several others. In short, the Phoenix Anomaly is an unexpected destabilization of the negative matter storage tank (NMST) which leads to the tank going critical and failing. The resulting eruption of negative matter results in a space-time anomaly similar in nature to a short-lived wormhole, tearing open space and creating a tunnel to…just about anywhere (in theory).  In the only documented incident (the John W Young), the fact that the tank was ejected in time led to the relocation of the vessel’s wreck and surviving crew approximately 17 light years in the blink of an eye, though scientists theorize this distance is by no means a maximum or a minimum limit.  If the tank is not ejected in time, theoretically the resulting eruption of negative matter would cause the complete destruction of the ship, or at the very least its engineering section.  What actually causes the destabilization of the tank is unknown, and given the nature of the NMST it might never be known.  Current theory states that Rigarium simply has a limited lifespan, but there seems to be no pattern to the failure rate of the NMST.
    • Wake Jumping: Wake jumping was developed by the TAAF as an enhanced use of large-scale Higgs drives, and allows for all Higgs-Drive equipped vessels to travel at the Class of the drive equal to the largest-sized vessel among their grouping, provided that they are within 4 squares of the vessel.  It is usually used to transport frigates (which often have Class 3 drives) with battle fleets built around a command ship or battlecruiser (which have Class 2 drives).  Standard communication is possible between vessels in this 4-square radius area. However, ships engaging in Wake Jumping use several vectors in a given spacelane, so traffic control tends to not like it when this is done inside a frequently-traveled spacelane.
  • Quark Drive (Users: Nissala Minor States Alliance)
    • Listed only for completion and lore’s sake, the Minor States Alliance of the Nissala on Shirase 1 developed a unique brand of FTL travel which appears to break several laws of physics – mainly those concerning relativity.  Powered by the several large supercolliders, the vehicle uses the emissions of high-energy particle collisions which create quark-gluon plasma to accelerate the vehicle to relativistic, and then superluminal velocities.  However, this acceleration is ‘slow’ by FTL standards, taking approximately 29 Earth days to even reach 1c.  Another problem arises once the vehicle goes superluminal – as a consequence of time dilation, the ship’s own reference frame begins to speed up when compared to the outside world, thus making time on the ship travel far slower.  For example, the trip from Nissala to Alpha Centauri undertaken by the Minor States Alliance took about 500 years according to the ship’s internal reference frame.  Therefore, use of the Quark Drive is not recommended unless a form of long-duration stasis is available.
  • <SPEAKERS FTL SYSTEM GOES HERE>

Maneuvering Jets
It is possible to increase a vehicle’s ability to pitch, jink, and roll by adding additional small maneuvering thrusters that automatically fire during extreme maneuvers.  Although all starships include some maneuvering thrusters, special maneuvering jets give more power to perform maneuvers behind a vehicle’s normal capacity.
Maneuvering jets give a vehicle +2, +4, or +6 equipment bonus to its Dexterity score.

Navicomputer
A navicomputer is an astrogation calculator designed to make all the calculations necessary to travel at FTL speeds.  Most starships have navicomputers, but those that lack FTL drives, and the rare SACs that have added FTL drives to them usually do not. Though extremely expensive, advanced navicomputers exist.  These grant a +10 bonus on Use Computer checks made for astrogation, rather than at typical navicomputer’s +5.  Additionally, a character aboard a ship that has a navicomputer need not be trained in the Use Computer skill to make use of the astrogate aspect of the skill.
This is only available for space-capable vehicles.
SACs: Most SACs do not have room for an FTL drive, let alone a full navicomputer.  Typically when they have an FTL drive added, the either rely on wake jumping, or have a limited navicomputer that can only store two FTL Runs worth of information.

Speed Booster
Speed boosters allow pilots to divert all power from certain systems directly into the engines and booster jets to temporarily increase the vehicle’s speed. The pilot, co-pilot or system operator can, as a swift action, re-route power from all weapons to the engines, allowing the maximum velocity and squares per round movement to increase by 50% (round up) on a successful Pilot check made to increase vehicle speed. The pilot also gains a +5 equipment bonus to this check. If no weapons are installed on the vehicle, its shields are reduced to 0 SR (if any), it loses half its remaining consumables in the boost, and the pilot suffers a -5 penalty to all Pilot checks during the boost. The vehicle will retain the speed increase until the speed booster is shut down with another swift action, or after a number of rounds equal to the vehicle’s Strength modifier. Should the speed booster disengage automatically in this fashion, the vehicle moves one step down the condition track. If the speed booster is disengaged automatically, the pilot, co-pilot, or system operator must still spend a swift action to restore power to the systems before they can be used.

SubLight Accelerator Motor (SLAM)
A SubLight Accelerator Motor (SLAM) is an overdrive system designed to draw power from systems not in use to give a starship a brief burst of additional speed.  A starship’s SLAM system provides a +5 bonus on Pilot checks to increase a vehicle’s speed.  This bonus increases to +10 if the pilot is using all-out movement.
This is only available for space-capable ships.

Sublight Drive
A sublight drive is what makes a ship move through space or atmosphere.  Though a SLAM can enhance a ship’s space speed, sometimes a new sublight drive is required to reach such speeds with minimal effort from the pilot. Replacing a ship’s sublight drive can be expensive, though, and many ships cannot reach high speeds due to the bulk of their sublight drives.

  • Air-Breathing Engine, Aerial [Max Speed Available: 8 squares, Emplacement Points Used: -3 (minimum 1), Availability: Common, Cost: Quarter all costs, Consumables: Reduce to 1/2 standard]
    • This represents any engine that can only operate in an atmosphere – turboprops, turbofans, ramjets, scramjets, reciprocating piston engines, internal combustion engines, electric motors that rely on air for cooling, and so on. They can be installed in addition to a space-capable sublight drive to provide improved speed inside an atmosphere. Checks made to build, repair, and install air-breathing engines receive a +15 bonus.
  • Air-Breathing Engine, Hovercraft [Max Speed Available: 2 squares, Emplacement Points Used: -2 (minimum 1), Availability: Common, Cost: 1/4th cost, Consumables: double standard]
    • Utilizing a flexible skirt to contain a cushion of air that the vehicle hovers above, hovercraft are capable of crossing both land and water, however they are finicky and difficult to control. A vehicle being propelled via a hovercraft system is considered to be a Hovering Vehicle for the purposes of Pilot checks. However, any penalty for being unspecialized in Hovering Vehicles is doubled – hovercraft are finicky and difficult to control at times. Checks made to build, repair, and install hovercraft propulsion receive a +10 bonus, however all replacement parts for hovercraft engines are considered to have Rare availability representing the difficulty in maintaining the hovercraft skirt. Hovercraft are loud and suffer a -10 penalty to all Stealth checks. Additionally, anyone onboard one or near one suffers a -10 penalty to all hearing-based perception checks, hearing protection and electronic communication are normally used to communicate aboard one.
  • Air-Breathing Engine, Inertial Manipulation [Max Speed Available: 5 squares, Emplacement Points Used: -1 (minimum 1), Availability: Common] (USERS: JolKoar Empire, Terran Alliance, United Lissonian Treeholds)
    • Through the use of inertial manipulation and high-efficiency thrusters, even the most unaerodynamic vehicle can be made to fly through the air. However, inertial levitation is limited to a flight ceiling of around 5,000 meters. A vehicle propelled via Inertial Manipulation Levitation is considered to be a Hovering Vehicle for the purposes of Pilot checks.
  • Air-Breathing Engine, Wheeled [Max Speed Available: 5 squares, Emplacement Points Used: -3 (minimum 1), Availability: Common, Cost: 1/8th cost, Consumables: triple standard]
    • This represents any engine that can only operate in an atmosphere and only on the ground – typically an internal combustion engine or air-cooled electric motor. Checks made to build, repair, and install air-breathing wheeled engines receive a +20 bonus.
  • Biological Engine (USERS: Teuthidoid Peoples) [Availability: Rare, Special: Must be part of the ship’s original construction – cannot be added post-manufacture]
    • While not technically a distinct drive technology itself, biological engines are worth mentioning due to their inherent flexibility. A Teuthidoid Biological Engine functions as an Air-Breathing Engine, an Ion Engine, and a Solar Sail, all while technically being a single engine component. However, it takes several rounds to reconfigure between these modes, and each mode is still subject to the normal speed restrictions of that type of propulsion system. Biological Engines are an innate feature of a ship, and can only be found on Teuthidoid-built vessels as they are an innate feature of those vessels.
  • Chemical Rocket [Max Speed Available: 4 Squares, Emplacement Points Used: +2, Availability: Common, Cost: Halve all costs, Consumables: Reduce to 1/4 standard]
    • Though they are easily the simplest sublight drive technology, chemical rockets are rarely used due to their inefficient fuel-to-Δv ratio. Checks made to build, repair, and install chemical rockets receive a +10 bonus.
  • Fusion Torch (USERS: Calengil Dominion, Risanthan Spiritlands) [Max Speed Available: 6 Squares, Emplacement Points Used: +1, Availability: Common, Cost: Reduce by 25%]
    • The simplest out of the commonly used sublight drives beyond basic chemical rockets, the fusion torch is essentially a fusion reactor that has a magnetically-controlled output port for the plasma created by the engine. Constant acceleration is not used with the engine, instead the engine fires to get the vehicle up to speed or for critical maneuvers, otherwise the fuel consumption of the engine is prohibitive for long-duration. Fusion Torches should not be used in the atmosphere – it’s exhaust stream is radioactive. Installing separate Air-Breathing Engines or Atmospheric Thrusters allows safe atmospheric operation. While fusion torches are bulky, they are extremely easy to repair and any mechanic worth their name can tear down a fusion engine and rebuild it. Checks made to build, repair, and install fusion torches receive a +5 bonus.
  • Gravitic Drives (USERS: Chrysoari Protectorate, JolKoar Empire) [Max Speed Available: 8 Squares, Emplacement Points Used: -1 (minimum 1), Size Restriction: Increase by 1 size, Availabilty: Rare, Cost: Double Cost]
    • These drives utilize controlled gravity fields to pull the vehicle along rather than propel it. Ships equipped with gravitic drives always have artificial gravity, regardless of the size. Gravitic drives represent the pinnacle of reasonably common sublight engine technology, however the knowledge of how to build and repair them is not widely known. Checks made to build, repair, and install gravitic drives take a -20 penalty unless the person making the check is either from one of the powers who uses this technology, or has spent extensive time studying the science and technology behind them.  Gravitiy drives also count as a Flux Space FTL Drive – Speed 7 and 8 count as a Class 0.5, Speed 6 and 5 count as a Class 1, Speed 4 and lower count as a Class 2.  However, they to not count as Flux Space Portal Generators.
  • Ion Engine (USERS: Lissonian Treeholds, Proximan Suzerainty) [Max Speed Available: 5 Squares, Availability: Common, Consumables: Quadruple Standard]
    • The ion engine generates power to break down molecules of a fuel material to create ions, and then expels them by means of a magnetic impeller. It doesn’t provide as effective a mass-thrust ratio as the fusion torch, but it’s more fuel efficient, and its exhaust is not nearly as dangerous. Ion engines don’t function in any kind of atmosphere, so most ships with this kind of drive also come equipped with Air-Breathing Engines. Ion engines are highly reliable, since they contain barely any moving parts (if any at all).
  • Solar Sail (USERS: Lissonian Treeholds) [Max Speed Available: 8 Squares, Emplacement Points Used: -3 (minimum 0), Cost: Always in Lissonian Exchange Units, Consumables: Octuple Standard]
    • Solar sails (also called light sails or photon sails) are a form of spacecraft propulsion which uses large mirrors, driven by radiation pressure exerted by sunlight. A useful analogy may be a sailing boat; the light exerting a force on the mirrors is akin to a sail being blown by the wind. High-energy laser beams can be used as an alternative light source to exert much greater force than would be possible using sunlight, a concept known as beam sailing, however this can only be done in areas where the beams have been set up – therefore it is commonly used to give ships with this propulsion system an initial boost in the right direction. Solar sail craft begin movement from rest with a speed of 1 square (unless already moving faster due to an alternative propulsion system), the vehicle’s speed increases by 1 square every 10 rounds until it reaches the maximum speed for its solar sail drive. When beam sailing, the laser beams push the vehicle at a 4 square speed, allowing it to start movement at that velocity. The sails are extremely fragile, and are therefore only deployed when it is absolutely safe to do so. Deploying or stowing the sails takes 1 minute, while replacing damaged sails takes 12 hours. In combat, any weapon hit against the ship destroys any deployed sails – however, if the sails are destroyed while the vehicle is in motion, the vehicle will continue to move at its current speed and heading until acted upon by an outside force (such as another propulsion system). The solar sail propulsion system comes with three spare sails – additional sails can be stored as cargo, with nine sails being stored taking up 1 emplacement point worth of cargo (5 tons for Colossal, 50 tons for Colossal (frigate), and so on). The speed of a vehicle using solar sails cannot be increased via the SLAM or Speed Booster components, or the Increase Vehicle Speed function of the Pilot skill. Solar sails are completely useless in an atmosphere, and are destroyed if deployed when entering an atmosphere.
  • Stover Drives (Stover-Kwan-Konstantinov Higgs Field-Assisted Fusion-Torch Particle Impulse Engine) (USERS: Terran Alliance) [Max Speed Available: 7 Squares]
    • For Terran spacecraft, the sublight drive usually represents a “Stover Drive.”  While the original incarnation of the Stover Drive was a simple Fusion Torch, the current technology behind the drive system these days is technically known as the “Stover-Kwan-Konstantinov Higgs Field-Assisted Fusion Torch Particle Impulse Engine” or the “SKK Higgs-Assisted Fusion Torch.”  The fusion torch that comprised the original Stover Drive is now used to produce particles that are magnetically accelerated at relativistic velocities out of the propulsion ports.  A low-power Higgs Nullification Field is used to lower the inertia of the vehicle that the propulsion system is part of, which increases the acceleration of the vehicle until it has reached the desired velocity, at which point the Higgs Field is powered down gradually to allow for normal operation inside the vessel.  The vessel then coasts until thrust is needed again.  This drive system has a peak performance of roughly 1 AU/hour, which keeps time dilation to an ‘acceptable’ 99% of normal. The Stover Drive can safely be operated inside the atmosphere due to the Higgs Field, since the fusion reactor that powers it is aneutronic, meaning it emits minimal energy in the form of ionizing neutron radiation.  Common manufacturers of this drive system include Volokh-Wang Space Systems, however most shipbuilders have in-house manufacturing arms for production.

Epic Space Adventures Abound!