For the most part, traveling between star systems in Starfield is automated and youāll do it through the menu(s) using your grav drive to grav jump between systems. Sometimes, though, thereās one extra step.
Our Starfield grav drive guide explains how to power up your grav drive for a grav jump, plus an explanation of what that pesky āgrav drive pendingā warning means, and a rundown of the grav driveās limitations.
How to grav jump
Your first visit to a new star system means picking the star from the menu, jumping to the star system, picking a planet (or moon) to visit, and then landing on that planet at a landing target. Once youāve done all that, you can fast travel to that landing target again with a lot less work.
How to power up your grav drive
Performing a grav jump, though, requires you to have power available for your grav drive. While piloting your ship, youāll see your power distribution in the lower left of your HUD. This is how youāll balance out power to your weapons, shields, and engines during combat (by using the D-pad). Itās also where youāll assign power to the grav drive.
What āgrav jump pendingā means
If your grav drive is completely powered down and thereās no extra power from the reactor available, youāll get a warning on your screen that says āgrav jump pending.ā This just means that youāve picked out a destination in the Starmap menu, but the grav drive doesnāt have power. As soon as you free up power and assign at least one slot of juice to the grav drive, the countdown will start and youāll jump away.
The speed of that countdown is not measured in seconds, mind you. Itās actually a measure of how much power you have assigned. If you only have one notch allocated to the grav drive, itāll tick down slowly. If you max it out, itāll count down quickly ā helpful information if youāre trying to grav jump out of a firefight.
How far can you grav jump?
There are a few limitations on how far your ship can grav jump. Mostly, youāll see this as warning on the Starmap saying you canāt take the trip your plotting.
Itās never really clear, though, how to resolve the issue(s). The limitations are all interconnected, and involve three things: the route, the grav drive jump range, and your fuel.
Route
If you hover over a distant star in the Starmap, youāll notice that the route it plots for you isnāt a straight line ā it bounces between stars in shorter (grav) jumps that eventually end up at your target. But you canāt make any trip that jumps through a star system you havenāt visited before and, if you try, youāll see an āUnexplored routeā warning.
This is represented visually by certain legs of your trip turning red (parts youāre able to jump are in white). Trace that red part of the line back to where it stops being white, and thatās the first system you havenāt visited yet.
Grav drive jump range
The next, slightly more intuitive limitation comes from your shipās grav drive. How far your ship can jump ā its jump range ā is the maximum distance between two stars (legs on that long route) your ship can handle. If you try to make a jump that exceeds your jump range, youāll see a āOut of rangeā warning on the Starmap.
Your shipās grav drive you have determines the maximum that its range can be, but the mass of your ship will reduce it. In order to increase your jump range, youāll have to upgrade to a better grav drive with the Ship Builder.
Fuel
The last limitation is fuel ā and itās much less clear how this works. The route you take to get between systems is made up of smaller jumps through systems youāve visited before (see above). The maximum distance covered by each of those legs is determined by your grav driveās jump range (above). The number of legs that make up any given trip is limited by your fuel.
Each leg eats up some of the fuel, so your maximum fuel limits the number of jumps any given trip can involve. If you try to plot a route that uses more fuel than your ship can carry, youāll get a āOut of fuel rangeā warning.
Youāll need to upgrade your fuel tank(s) in the Ship Builder to take those really long trips.