FTL Drives

Ship FTL Drives are non-buildable ship components used in Interstellar space travel. They determine how fast an empire's ships can travel between stars. This determines how swiftly the empire's ships can expand, exploit and react to the strategic situation.

This component does not need to be designed or built, only researched. Once a higher level has been researched, all friendly ships immediately benefit from the increased speed.

This should not be confused with Ship Sublight Engines, a buildable component used in tactical combat, nor with Ship Power Cores, a non-buildable component which determine maximum interstellar range.

Empire's ships start with a basic FTL drive, and additional more-advanced drives can be researched on the Energy tech tree. The tech level and speed in LY/turn for each FTL drive type is listed in the table below.