Not anymore.
This mod turns the skip drive into a slow, but capable method of reaching nearby stars. It also adds an upgraded version of the skip drive, and adjusts the warp bubble research to make it much less of a freebie.
On the largest sector size, the base skip drive will get you to 1-3 of the closest stars. The Advanced drive extends this out quite a bit and also makes the trip significantly faster (still on the scale of a year or two).
^ Advanced skip drive range
At minimum, it takes 8 completed techs to get warp generators. So you can rush them if you want, but that's still quite a bit of time to not focus on any other important items.
Original Skip Drive (Early Warp Field Experiments Tech)
- Jump range increased to 38M (from 2.5M)
- Energy usage of 15(was 30)
- 75M range
- Energy usage of 10
- Speed of 25K (2.5x faster than original)
- Requires Storage Systems tech (T2 fuel cells) and Early Warp Field Experiments
- Research time doubled
- Now requires Fusion Ignition, Advanced Nuclear Fission, Proton Ionization, Research Labs, and Warp Field Development
* I play on the largest sectors possible, and typically on the slowest research settings. Playing on smaller sectors may put more stars within reach of both of these drives (which isn't necessarily a balance issue as far as I can tell because it still takes a while to reach them). I haven't tested this on smaller sectors, so any screenshots or feedback for that is appreciated.
Playing with faster research may mean this mod doesn't do much for you.
** Fuel management can be a bit tricky. Pre-planning tankers or well-placed mining stations can save your ships long trips through the void. Automatic retrofitting, admittedly, is a bit of a hassle when all of your state ships start a years-long trip home for basic armor plating. These two are the points I'd most like to address in the future.
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NOTE
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When selecting a ship, the yellow ring is its current fuel range. The orange ring is its jump range. For the AI to move a ship, it has to be able to hop between stars that are less than the jump range apart from each other. You can, however, manually move a ship through any space or directly to an unexplored star by zooming into the system level of the point you want to move it to.