Photo of ship in hyperspace in Starfield

How to Power Up the Grav Drive in Starfield

Zoomin' around at the speed of light!

Starfield takes place across vast quantities of space, meaning you need a way of transporting yourself from planet to planet. Your ship can travel between planets within the same star system, but when it comes to going from system to system, your Grav Drive is key. Here’s how to power up the Grav Drive in Starfield.

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How to Use the Grav Drive in Starfield

A screenshot of the Starfield Grav Drive
Screenshot by Prima Games

When you go to jump from system to system, chances are you’ll get a message that pops up asking you to power up the Grav Drive in your ship. To do this, you’ll want to allocate power to the Grav Drive using the menu in the bottom left.

  • On PC, this will require you to hold the Alt key, then use WASD to take power from one part of your ship and put it into your Grav Drive.
  • On console, the DPad will let you do the same thing.

If the message is already on your screen, then the Grav Drive should immediately activate upon adding power to it.

How Far Can You Grav Jump?

Grav jumps depend on how far a system is in light years (LY) and how much fuel you have in your tank. Light years is the length that you can make grav jump based on how much fuel you have in your tank. A grav jump with more light years will take you from Point A to Point B without any stops, given you have enough fuel.

The most you can travel when grav jumping is 30 light years. So the more fuel you have, the more light years you can travel granting you a bigger grav jump.

How Does the Grav Drive Work in Starfield?

A screenshot of a spaceship grav jumping in Starfield.
Screenshot by Prima Games.

If you’ve activated the Grav Drive at least once, then you’ll likely be wondering why you’d put more than one point into it. That’s because the amount of points you put into the Grav Drive affects the countdown timer once it’s activated. The more points you have into it, the faster that timer is and the faster you’ll jump.

This is useless in normal gameplay but can be helpful if you’re trying to evade an array of Crimson Fleet ships currently blasting away at yours. That and if you’re really impatient, maybe those extra few seconds matter to you. We won’t judge.

There is a skill you can use called Astrodynamics that can aid in grav jump range.

  • Tier 1: Increases range by 15%.
  • Tier 3: Increases range by 30%.

If you are not into putting points in Astrodynamics, try adding Sarah Morgan to your team. She comes with this very useful skill.

If you’re looking into more about the game as you take your first steps into its world, check out our guide on how to pick locks in Starfield.


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About the Author

Shawn Robinson

Shawn is a freelance gaming journalist who's been with Prima Games for a year and a half, writing mainly about FPS games and RPGs. He even brings several years of experience at other sites like The Nerd Stash to the table. While he doesn't bring a fancy degree to the table, he brings immense attention to detail with his guides, reviews, and news, leveraging his decade and a half of gaming knowledge. If he isn't writing about games, he's likely getting zero kills in his favorite FPS or yelling at the game when it was 100% his fault that he died.