The presence of an intense gravitational field is required, prohibiting travel beyond the boundaries of a star system. Most small, space-faring vessels are equipped with motivators capable of these short jumps. A vortex opens, creating an aperture from an infinitesimally small point in the cosmos, enabling the vessel to cross the subspace threshold.įirst, an intrasystem jump can occur between two points in a star system. A vessel can travel through this tunnel in a matter of minutes, making a journey that might otherwise take decades or even centuries at light speed.Ī jump drive causes a ship to vibrate in multiple dimensions until its modulations are in perfect synchronization with the subspace continuum. In simple terms, subspace is an n-dimensional tunnel between one point in the universe and another. The FreeSpace Reference Bible describes intrasystem jumps as being near instantaneous. Common sense and gameplay seem to imply otherwise, but this possibility has never been explicitly ruled out. Therefore, one could technically say that there are many jump nodes that lead to empty space while only the ones that lead to actual systems are used by the GTVA.

Note that the FreeSpace 2 techroom description prohibits craft from making intrasystem jumps without the prescence of an intense gravitational field, but does not say that intersystem jump nodes only form in the presence of gravity. Common belief among fans is that normal-space distances do not affect subspace journeys. Like most other questions about canon, this one has contradictory answers. In the last two FS1 missions, the player is given about 10 minutes to reach the Sol jump node after the Lucifer has jumped, and another 10 minutes to destroy the Lucifer in subspace it can be estimated that the Lucifer takes 20-30 minutes to reach Earth from Delta Serpentis, or roughly one lightyear per minute. In FreeSpace 1 (the fail debrief for The Great Hunt), it is noted that the Lucifer will take 48 hours to reach Earth from Delta Serpentis. Intersystem jumps (through subspace) represent a very quick method of travel journeys that would take years-or even centuries-at light speed are only a matter of hours or days when travelling via subspace, although it's not clear exactly how long they take.

Freespace 2 map