The Space Gate and the Vector Drive: jump across the dark.

The Vector Drive

A starship with a Vector Drive jumps up to 15 light years at a time. The Longreach, the Vigilant Frigate and the Humanity's Reach carrier all carry one, and a Skylark shuttle does not. Each jump costs fuel. The fuel for a jump is about 600 units, plus 40 for each light year, plus 80 for each unit of gravity at the world you land on. A jump is refused in a fight.

The Space Gate

Every universe has a Space Gate: a violet ring of light on a far orbit, about seven times the distance from its star that home is from its sun. It is a little under five minutes from home by Slipstream. The Gate is never landable. You fly to it, and it opens the map of universes.

The Gate sees a window of the universes round it. That window has a disc of about one cluster's worth of universes, which is enough to show you the neighbourhood. Further out, you are lost, and you find your way back by hopping toward home or following the gate's signals.

Going through

Pick a universe on the map and go through the ring. Each hop has a cost:

• Fuel: a hop burns at least 300 units and at most 3,000, which is a full load for an ordinary starship. A far, hard hop costs more the further it goes.
• Jump sickness: a hop leaves you a little worse for wear. The levels run from Smooth as Butter to Reassembled Slightly Wrong. Health lost is at least a tenth, so a Gate never kills you outright.

Level	Name	Health lost (share of full)
0	Smooth as Butter	None
1	Slightly Wobbly	5 per cent
2	Queasy	12 per cent
3	Seeing Sideways	22 per cent
4	Rattled to the Bones	35 per cent
5	Reassembled Slightly Wrong	50 per cent

Food and water are lost in the same way, and the view wobbles for a few seconds afterwards.

Going home is always cheap, whatever the universe you leave. The way back costs little fuel and never worse than a wobble.

Going further than your tanks

If your tanks cannot hold the fuel for one hop, the game shows you the cheapest way round. It goes through a gentler universe in the middle, where you can refuel, and it gives you the total fuel for both hops. Some far universes are too hard for any ship with ordinary tanks. Those need a bigger ship.

Tips

• Fill your tanks before you go through. A Navigator Chart Table makes Gate hops cheaper.
• Go through when you are not fighting. Fights stop the Vector Drive.
• Check the toll on the card before you commit. It gives the fuel and the sickness you will get.

To learn about the universes themselves, read The multiverse and its universes. For ship upgrades that make jumps cheaper, read The Shipwright and parts.

← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.