Quick tips
- Fly out to the rim of the system before you jump. At MARK 100 a jump never fails.
- The second number in your location ("… MARK 74") is your chance of a good jump, in percent.
- A failed jump leaves you where you were and burns the whole warp charge.
- Jump from the rim and you keep your compass heading: you come out on the same side of the next system.
- Without a ground scanner the SunDog can only land at a planet's starport city. With one, she can set down at any city.
Reading your position
Inside a system the game places you by an angle around the star and a distance from it. "Current location: 112 MARK 74" means angle 112, distance 74, where MARK 100 is the rim and the star itself would be 14.
That distance is the whole secret of warp. The further you are from the star, the less its gravity field gets in the way, and the MARK number is your exact percentage chance that a jump goes through. Planets only seem to matter because a jump made straight after leaving one starts at that planet's orbit.
Jump odds from each planet's orbit
| System | Planet | Jump from its orbit |
|---|---|---|
| Enlie | Enliah | |
| Lafser | Tcana | |
| Woremed | W'orrad | |
| New Shoot | Hell | |
| Shoot | Shoot | |
| Ferr | Ferr | |
| Glory | Glory I | |
| Jadul | Krakorum | |
| Jondd | Jondd | |
| Sosai | Vahevela | |
| KalManDaa | Kala | |
| Ferr | Ferrwerk | |
| Glory | Glory II | |
| New Shoot | New Shoot | |
| Jondd | Heavy | |
| Hepa | Hepah | |
| Ferr | Snowball | |
| Glory | Glory III |
Orbits are fixed on the disk. You can't jump while you're at a planet at all, so these are the odds just after pulling away from one.
When a jump fails
"Instability due to gravity field." You stay put, and the warp charge drops to zero, so the fuel that went into it is gone. Fly further out and charge again.
Where you come out
Always on the rim of the new system (MARK 100), on one of 16 compass sectors. From the rim you keep your sector. From deeper in, you're scattered: a deep jump can drop you anywhere on the rim.
Before you can jump
The target must be within your maximum jump: 8 units on a new ship, or 9 after the depot's engineering upgrade (see Your Ship). You need fuel, and the warp drive must have at least one working row. You'll get a "WARNING: Fuel low" if the charge you need is more than your charge plus twice your fuel, but it still lets you try.
How it works
A jump succeeds if a random 0–99 is less than (radius + 7) × 2, where radius is your distance from the star, 0–43. The game shows it as MARK = 14 + 2 × radius. At a planet the chance is 0.
The charge needed is 3 × distance² + 10, where distance is between the two systems. After a jump from radius below 43, the arrival sector is scattered by up to ±((43 − radius) ÷ 4 + 1) of the 16 sectors.
Lift-off can also be refused: "Lift clearance denied due to pirate activity" or "due to unpaid debts". open When each applies isn't traced yet.