Jump Drive, like Warp Drive, is a form of faster-than-light (FTL) travel that allows spaceships to travel between the stars. Jump Drive connects two points in space, however far apart they might be, and allows the vessel to "jump" from one location to another. Unlike Warp Drive, this "jump" is instantaneous, or nearly so, reducing travel time between two distant star systems to a few seconds. In its simplest form, Jump Drive is nothing more than a "fold" in space, making it much like a more powerful Warp Drive. For travel of more than a light-year, however, a wormhole between the two locations is needed. The massive machines that harness and control these wormholes are called "Jump Gates".

No one is really sure who first developed Jump Drive. The Ximni introduced us to the technology, but they do not appear to have invented it. The Skaraans are also known to make use of Jump Drives, and it appears to predate them as well. Most of the races don't make use of Jump or Warp Drives of their own, but instead travel along pre-established paths connected by Jump Gates. Or so it is assumed, none of these alien Jump Gates have yet been seen or encountered.

Jump Drives have much the same disadvantages as Warp Drives. They require massive amounts of power, more than is used to "warp" space, and for combat use they must expend it all in one "burst". For this reason, combat use of Jump Drive is limited to about half the length of a sector, as it would drain the ship's energy to jump any further. If a Jump driven vessel attempts a jump with less than the amount of energy needed, it will jump a distance determined by the energy remaining. If there is no energy available, the Jump will "fizzle", wasting the jump.

Long range jumps are extremely dangerous without precise calculations mapping the intervening space between the jump points, and any variation in the gravitational field at the destination may result in a jump to an unexpected location -- like the middle of a star. Jumps into the neighborhood of a Jump Gate are also risky, as the vessel may be drawn into the gravitational well and destroyed. This is another reason why combat use of Jump Drive is limited to around 50k, and a ship making a longer jump will try to emerge far from the edge of a star system. It is far safer to make a series of small jumps into a system than to risk trying to jump directly to the destination, and winding up inside a planet.

Although TSN warships are not built with Jump Drives, their design is modular enough that their Warp Drive can be removed, and Jump Drive installed in its place. In the Engineering display, the Jump power indicator will replace the Warp power indicator. The Helm station will also be refitted with a Jump Drive control. Jump Drive can be selected from the Ship Customization Screen, on a ship by ship basis if necessary. Either the Captain or the Helm officer can access this screen, as described on the linked page.

Larger TSN ships, such as the Battleship, Carrier, and Dreadnought, must take more time and spend more energy to build up to a Jump. Despite this greater time and energy cost, Jump Drives can still be more efficient when used with the Carrier and Dreadnought, because of their lower Warp speed. The Battleship is more suited for Warp Drive, and Missile Cruisers are uniquely suited for Jump Drive, because of their long range and supply of torpedoes that can be converted into energy. 

Ximni and the Combat Jump

Although the Ximni do not claim to have invented Jump Drive, they have mastered the technology, and are able to jump across far greater distances than TSN Jump Engines. Their ships are all built around the distinctive ring-shaped Jump Coils that are at their heart of their technology. These coils create a gravitational bottle, diverting jump energy into a circular path around the ring, and creating a "flywheel effect" that can store this energy indefinitely. As long as energy continues to be fed into the coils, the fold in space will continue to grow until it is intense enough to form a wormhole. This wormhole is similar to a miniature Jump Gate, and requires a similar magnitude of energy.

Ximni ships jumping a long distance will typically build up energy for the jump over time, replenishing their energy while "spinning up" the engines, until finally the ship jumps by a distance of a light year or so. In other words, they spend the energy BEFORE the jump, instead of during it as TSN and Skaraan ships do. The Ximni will then repeat this process until they reach their destination. While the individual jumps are instant, the time taken to "spin up" and recharge after the jump means the journey can take several months or even years. Ximni also carry additional fuel pods, so they can collect more energy from local stars or anomalies while waiting to recharge. 

One side effect of the Ximni technology is that they can maintain enough energy in their Jump Drives for an instantaneous jump. Known as a Combat Jump, all Ximni ships are capable of the maneuver, and their drive systems are programmed to take advantage of it. A Combat Jump will perform a small hop in the direction the ship is facing, or a jump directly away from the direction of facing. A Ximni ship can also perform a normal jump, but because part of the energy for the jump is already built up and stored in the Jump Coils, they do not need to wait as long before initiating the jump. There is still a blackout period after the Jump, as the gravitational forces disrupt the ship's electrical systems, and not even the Ximni have discovered how to solve that problem.

Since the energy is already built up and stored in the Jump Coils, Combat Jump costs no additional energy. On Ximni ships, the Helm station includes a Combat Jump control, along with the normal Jump controls. When selecting a Ximni ship at the Ship Customization Screen, Helm should take extra care to select Jump Drive, as it will not be selected automatically.

Pirates can also use Combat Jump, as they have stolen the technology from the Ximni. Unfortunately, their engines are not equipped to make full use of the Jump Coils, and so they are not as efficient as Ximni Jump Drives, taking more time and energy for a normal jump. In some cases, Pirate Jump Drives are even less efficient than TSN Jump Drives, but the Pirates are willing to accept this cost for the advantage of Combat Jump.   

Jump Gates

Jump Gates are rarely seen in standard invasion scenarios, as these combats are typically fought far from Jump Gates, which can be damaged by stray torpedoes or beam blasts. Not only are these massive structures expensive, but their destruction would likely result in a devastating blast that would destroy anything in the sector. Thus, TSN Jump Gates are assembled far from any inhabited planets, on the outer reaches of the solar system. You may encounter one of the TSN gates in a specialized mission. (Like the TSN Sandbox)

After entering into an alliance with the Ximni, the TSN rushed to put their own version of the Jump Gate into production. Jump Gates are structures that act as a stationary Jump Drive, propelling a ship to another point in space. Jump Gates are constructed around viable wormholes or pseudo-wormholes, which already provide a link via spatial distortion to the destination. This means TSN Jump Gates must be built in pairs, and each TSN Jump Gate is linked to one and only one other gate. In the optimal case, a Jump Gate will link two star systems directly. More commonly, a chain of several Jump Gates will link two star systems, with layovers in intervening star systems with no habitable planets, or near gravitational anomalies like Black Holes.

It is not known if other races have this limitation, or if they use different technology entirely. The TSN has still been surprised on occasion when an enemy fleet was seen on approach from an apparently empty sector. The Kraliens may have the ability to make one-way jumps, or could have used a Jump Gate that is unknown to us. It is suspected that the ancient race that the Kraliens worship could have developed Jump Gate technology, and left functioning gates scattered around the galaxy. The Kraliens may have some sort of map to these gates.

A Fleet of TSN ships entering a Jump Gate

(Jump Gates are not part of the game itself, but were developed by the creators of the TSN Sandbox as a way to explain how the enemy races can travel at interstellar speeds when they do not appear to have FTL technology. All we really know is that the enemies cannot use FTL in combat. Whether they Jump into a sector through gates or Jump Drive, or approach a sector at Warp but have to stop for some reason, that behavior would be consistent with what is seen in the game)