FTL travel

Version

Please help with verifying or updating older sections of this article. At least some were last verified for version 3.14.

This article is for the PC version of Stellaris only.

Exploration

Exploration

FTL travel

Unique systems

L-Cluster

Faster-than-light travel, often abbreviated to FTL, is the method by which ships traverse the vast emptiness of space between star systems. FTL drives are improved with advancing technology, eventually unlocking drives which can "jump", moving from one system to another in an instant.

A fleet initiates FTL travel when any ship in the fleet reaches the hyperlane jump point or bypass, regardless of the current position of other ships.

Hyperlanes

Star systems are connected to one another by hyperlanes, safe passages across interstellar space. A star system can either be part of a cluster – highly interconnected with neighboring systems – or a chokepoint – a system which must be traversed to access the systems on its other side. Hyperlane density, how interconnected star systems are, can be adjusted at game start, from 0.5× to 2.75× or Full. Higher density reduces the number of chokepoint systems and vice versa; at the extreme end, Full attempts to connect every star system with each neighboring system – unless that would cross another existing hyperlane – thereby eliminating nearly all chokepoints.

The hyperlane network through the galaxy is not initially visible and must be discovered. Ship, starbase, and planetary sensors detect and reveal hyperlanes during exploration, with the hyperlane detection range typically twice the regular sensor range. Hyperlanes connecting to unexplored systems are colored pale gray on the galaxy map. Hyperlanes between explored systems are colored light blue, unless the system is owned by an empire with closed borders, then the hyperlane is colored red.

Distances between systems in the galaxy are typically measured in terms of hyperlane connections. The main exceptions are Tactical Jumps and Quantum Catapults, which use a direct distance scale instead.

Hyperlane travel

All ships, unless manually designed otherwise, have an FTL drive, which allows them to travel along hyperlanes. Hyperlanes have entry points within the star systems at either end, indicated by a corresponding arrow on the system map. These entry points can only be used outside of the system's main gravity well, but are slightly short of the full sublight extent of the system.

Within a star system, ships move at sublight speed until they reach an entry point, where the ship or fleet will take several days to charge its hyper drive and enter the hyperlane. This takes 15 days by default, with more advanced FTL drives benefiting from reduced windup times. Ships will stop and face into the hyperlane during the windup, and will exit facing towards their target star, allowing them to be ambushed by ships stationed between the entry point and the true edge of the system.

Unlike all other forms of FTL, hyperlanes have a short travel time between systems, during which they do not have access to normal navigation options. Fleets taking the same hyperlane in opposite directions will bypass each other without incident, however fleets cannot change or reverse their transit once they enter the hyperlane apart from simply exiting and reentering. This can create a situation in which two fleets hostile to one another enter a lane at the same time, only to exit at either end without one ever encountering the other.

A fleet traveling through a hyperlane will create a small hyperspace distortion at its destination, which can be used to predict incoming fleets even if one was not previously aware of them. Mousing over the distortion will communicate the total amount of ships in the fleet. Multiple fleets traveling in the same direction along a hyperlane will layer their distortions over one another, visibly intensifying the effect but potentially obfuscating the total amount of incoming ships.

Tactical jump drives function identically to the maximum tier of hyperspace technology when using hyperlanes.

Note that empires with an

Eager Explorers

Eager Explorers
Privatized Exploration
Stargazers
Exploration protocols

civic do not start with the Hyperspace Travel technology, and thus do not start with hyperspace travel. Instead, these empires start with Subspace Drives and thus travel by tactical jump exclusively until researching and designing ships with hyperspace drives.

FTL Inhibitors

FTL Inhibitors are present in upgraded starbases and Fortress buildings once the FTL Inhibition technology is researched. Hostile fleets can only leave a system with an FTL inhibitor through the same hyperlane they entered from; fleets entered the system via jumping, catapulting or bypass cannot leave the system through any hyperlane at all.

By disabling and capturing the starbase, its FTL inhibitors take over. Fortress FTL inhibitors can be taken over by occupying the colony, or by causing at least 50% devastation to the colony to disable it. A system with multiple colonies, each with a Fortress and a Planetary Shield Generator, can thus be a very effective method of blocking hostile fleets from traversing a strategic chokepoint system.

Hyper Relays

Real scale of a Hyper Relay

Hyper Relays can be constructed once the Hyper Relays technology is researched and allow ships to jump to Hyper Relays in adjacent systems instead of using the existing hyperlane connections, thereby avoiding having to traverse systems at sublight speeds. They are constructed directly in a single stage, taking one year and costing 25 influence, 500 alloys, and 100 rare crystals. Hyper Relay links are shown on the galaxy map as a thicker hyperlane. Potential (inactive) links are shown as yellow connections on the galaxy map. A link may be inactive because of closed borders, war, or if the Hyper Relay is ruined. Dismantling a Hyper Relay costs 500 Energy and takes 1 year; empires with the

Scavengers

Scavengers
Refurbishment Division

civic gain 50 alloys, and 10 rare crystals.

Hyper Relays can grant additional effects based on edicts and subject specializations. Hyper Relay edicts require the empire's capital system to be part of the network, while the benefits granted by subject specializations require a connection between the overlord's capital and the subject's capital. Subjects do not benefit from their overlord's network effects.

Hyper Relays can be built from the galaxy view, which places them semi-randomly within the system. In systems with wormholes or existing gateways, it is recommended to instead go into the system view to manually place the Hyper Relay near to the wormhole or gateway to better facilitate travel, as Hyper Relays do not connect through wormholes or gateways.

Direct FTL travel

While hyperlane travel is the primary method of traversing the galaxy, there are a few ways to travel between two points more directly. They can be used to travel faster as well as bypass impassable systems, such as those with hostile space creatures, a closed empire's borders, or the galactic core.

• Experimental Subspace Navigation requires the Speculative Hyperlane Breaching technology and a Scientist assigned to a science ship. The ship goes MIA and eventually arrives at its destination.
• Tactical Jumps require all ships to be equipped with a Jump Drive, Psi Jump Drive or Subspace Drive and allows the fleet to travel to any system within the range indicated by a yellow dashed circle. After jumping, the fleet spends 200 days recharging, during which time it suffers a −50% penalty to Sublight Speed and Weapons Damage.
• Catapulting requires the Quantum Catapult technology and megastructure. It has the greatest distance of all direct travel methods and gives the fleet +33% Fire Rate for 4 months. However, there is a chance the fleet arrives in a nearby system rather than the targeted destination, indicated by a circle around the target. If a fleet arrives in a system with closed borders, it immediately goes MIA.
• Astral Jump requires the Folding Hyperspace astral action and 500 Astral Threads and allows the fleet to instantly travel to any owned system. It has a cooldown of 900 days.

Roiling subspace tides

The L-Cluster, galactic core as well as the system housing the Corrupted Avatar guardian cannot be entered via these methods and attempting to do so shows a notification about roiling subspace tides allowing only conventional travel. Direct FTL travel can be used to leave these systems however. Furthermore, the roiling subspace tide around the Corrupted Avatar system recedes once the system has been entered at least once via its wormhole.

MIA

MIA, or missing-in-action, refers to any ship or fleet that has been temporarily removed from the galaxy. MIA fleets return to an owned starbase after some time, depending on the hyperlane distance from the system they left and the system they return to. This time can be reduced by various modifiers.

Fleets that are "stuck" can be ordered to go MIA. Additionally, fleets that are defeated in battle and fleets in systems with closed borders (due to decloaking, access change, or first contact made) go MIA. Certain events can also make fleets go MIA.

Fleet reinforcements may go MIA to reach their fleet, depending on how far the fleet is from the shipyard.

Bypasses

Humanoid Empire using a wormhole

Bypasses are another alternative to hyperlane travel. There are two basic types of bypasses in Stellaris: wormholes and gateways. Both offer instantaneous travel but require research to be usable. The number of wormholes and gateways can be adjusted individually in the settings before the start of a game session. Ships and trade automatically use bypasses – if the route is shorter. Fleet paths through a bypass are shown on the galaxy view by a blue travel line. Inactive bypasses are shown with a red icon in the system and galaxy view, while active bypasses have a white icon. Active bypasses act identically to hyperlanes for most purposes, except that sectors never extend through them.

Wormholes

Wormholes are natural formations that come in pairs, with each pair linking two systems across the galaxy regardless of distance. Wormholes can be explored by selecting any ship and right clicking on an unexplored (red and black) wormhole in system view. If the selected ship is a manned science ship, this can instead be done from galaxy view on any system with a wormhole. Furthermore, the system on the other side may not be automatically visible and likely requires a manned science ship anyways. Exploring a wormhole requires the Wormhole Stabilization technology. This only activates that wormhole pair for that empire; other empires must explore the wormhole pair themselves before being able to use it. Clicking on a wormhole shifts the camera to the connecting system.

One wormhole always leads to the Sealed System, a trinary system with no hyperlane connection containing a Gaia world that is guarded by a Corrupted Psionic Avatar. This wormhole is present in the galaxy even if wormholes have been disabled.

Shroud Tunnel

A Shroud Tunnel is a special wormhole created by building a Shroud Beacon, which can only be constructed once per empire by empires that reached an agreement with the Shroud-Touched Coven enclave or have the Teachers of the Shroud origin. It costs 500 alloys, 25 rare crystals to build and has an upkeep of 3 energy; it cannot be built in systems that already have a wormhole.

Shroud Tunnels work similarly to L-Gates, as each Shroud Tunnel connects to the Shroud-Touched Coven system with the Shroud Tunnel nexus, which then connects to all other Shroud Tunnels. If the Shroud Beacon is dismantled, fleets are no longer able to use the tunnel in that system until it is rebuilt. Empires that have purchased and built a Shroud Beacon or have researched Psionic Theory can use any Shroud Tunnel, as long as they have access to the destination.

Each time a fleet travels through the Shroud Tunnel, the following may happen:

• 74% chance nothing happens.
• 10% chance a leader changes appearance and gains 200 experience. Xenophobe and Gestalt Consciousness empires have the option to dismiss the leader for a small amount of Society Research.
• 10% chance a leader gains the Shroud-Touched trait.
• 5% chance the fleet is randomly enhanced.
• 1% chance a Corrupted Avatar guardian attacks the Shroud Beacon system.

Wormhole generation events

The Alien Machine event can be triggered by investigating an anomaly with the same name that can appear on asteroids. One of the two event options creates a new wormhole pair, with one end in a system 2-8 hyperlanes away and the other in a system 15-50 hyperlanes away. In addition, if Earth is destroyed with a World Cracker, there is a 50% chance of creating a wormhole in the system leading to another newly created wormhole.

Dimensional lock

Owned bypasses can be locked so that empires at war with, with closed borders or without completed First Contact cannot use the said bypass. Only bypasses that lead to a single destination can be locked so the L-Gate in Terminal Egress and the Shroud Tunnel in the Shroud-Touched Coven system cannot be locked. There are two ways to lock a bypass:

• The Dimensional Lock astral action allows locking one owned bypass for 10 years. The process requires a science ship and takes 6 months to complete.
• The Daedalus Seal relic can lock all owned bypasses for 5 years.

The Daedalus Seal also increases the length of the Dimensional Lock astral action by +25%, to 12.5 years.

Gateways

Real scale of a Gateway

While exploring the galaxy, empires may find abandoned gateways that were once part of a massive, galaxy-spanning network. The number of abandoned gateways can be scaled or disabled by galaxy settings. Note that even if gateways are disabled, at least one gateway will exist in the galaxy if any empire has the Galactic Doorstep or Imperial Fiefdom origin.

Once an abandoned gateway is discovered, the Gateway Activation technology can be drawn; this technology allows abandoned gateways to be repaired. Repairing an abandoned gateway takes 2 years and costs 6000 energy and 2500 alloys. When a gateway is activated for the first time in the galaxy, another random gateway is also activated along with it.

Once the Gateway Activation technology is researched, the Gateway Construction technology can appear, which allows new gateways to be constructed. Gateway construction first requires a construction ship to build a gateway site, which must be located outside of the system's gravity well. The gateway site takes 3 years to complete and costs 75 influence and 2500 alloys; this occupies the construction ship throughout the process. Once the site is complete, upgrading to a fully functional Gateway takes another 5 years and costs 6000 energy and 2500 alloys, but this does not require a construction ship.

Gateways allow travel to any other gateway instantly, so long as the borders are open and the destination is not controlled by an enemy empire. As a bypass, Gateways generally act like a hyperlane connection between systems, such that claims and trade can be extended through them, however sectors do not extend through gateways. Dismantling a gateway costs 2500 Energy and takes 1 year.

Repairing any gateway has a 20% chance to discover the legendary paragon, Skrand Sharpbeak; this chance increases to 50% on subsequent repairs or if the planet Skravird has been discovered. If the empire has the Galactic Doorstep origin, the chance is 33% for the first gateway and 67% for subsequent gateways or if Skravird has been discovered.

L-Gates

L-gates are a special type of gateway, with a separate network from regular gateways. Instead of jumping from any to any, L-Gates all jump to the Terminal Egress system in the L-Cluster, then from there to any other L-Gate, so long as that system's borders are open or the fleet's owner is at war with the system's owner. L-Gates are opened through a special project, and new L-Gates cannot be constructed.

References

Game concepts