What Grav Drives Do on Your Ship in Starfield, Explained

Starfield is pretty generous, giving you a ship of your very own about five minutes into the game. It comes fully equipped and it’s not about to fall apart the moment an asteroid clips it. But, of all its fancy components, you might be wondering about the grav drive. Here’s what grav dives do on your ship in Starfield explained.

This is What You Need to Know about Grav Drives in Starfield

Grav drives are Starfield’s faster-than-light travel. A lot of sci-fi franchises have them. Star Wars has hyperspace, Mass Effect has the mass relays, and Event Horizon has Sam Neill sticking a pen in a piece of paper. So, with a grav drive on your ship you can ‘grav jump’ between star systems. Without a grav drive it’d take longer than any single person’s lifetime, as one of Starfield’s side-quests reveals.

How Do Grav Drives Work in Starfield?

The way a grav drive works is you select a destination from the system screen, choose set course, choose jump and you’ll be returned to the main view. Provided your grav drive is powered, you’ll see an orange box pop up with a countdown. When that countdown completes you’ll execute a grav jump and be taken to the new system.

You start with a standard grav drive but upgrading it will let you make longer jumps. Also, the bigger and heavier your ship, the shorter your grav jump distance. So if you’ve added some heavier components to your vessel, you may also need to upgrade your grav drive anyway.

How to Power up Grav Drives in Starfield

However, if that box doesn’t pop up or the game reminds you to power up your grav drive, you’ve got a problem. You’ll need to assign power to it for it to work and the more power you assign the quicker it’ll activate.

You do that by going to your cockpit power panel (at the left of the screen)  and adding at least one energy bar to the grav drive – GRV – section. You may need to divert power from weapons. Then, your grav drive will work.

Be warned, while you’re safe once you jump you’ll still take damage while the orange clock is ticking down. So if you’re in serious trouble in a system, and you’re fast on your fingers, quickly divert power from your weapons to your grav drive and get the hell out of there. And keep dodging while the countdown is going.

So, that’s what grav drives do on your ship in Starfield explained. For more on the game check out our guides to smuggling contraband, as well as a breakdown of everyone’s favorite adoring fan.