Ships and Ground Parties are the only positions in the game that can move under their own power. Other positions such as politicals, operatives and platforms can be moved but only when embarked on ships or ground parties.

Ground Parties are restricted to movement around planetary bodies. This includes surface, air and shuttle movement. Shuttle movement can move you to/ from moons in orbit of the same planet - but there are a few quads in the game with more than one planetary system and shuttles can't interact across that gap between planetary systems.

Ships can also move through space, both interplanetary and inter-system.

Issuing a move order will automatically use the fastest route and perform the various individual manoeuvres such as taking off, leaving orbit and traversing space.
It is possible however to issue each manoeuvre individually if desired. This is sometimes necessary is a specific route is required.
Note though that where the route to the destination requires the use of Wormholes or Stargates (see below), the move order will fail. Orders need to be issued to move to the appropriate wormhole or stargate, enter the phenomena and then continue with orders to move to the intended destination.

Stellar Navigation
Within the galaxy are millions of stars. A star is a huge ball of burning gas. It is generally the case that a star has a number of celestial bodies orbiting around it. These celestial bodies could be planets like our own or swirling spheres of cold gas like Jupiter. There could be asteroids or in some circumstances even another star present. Together these are known as a star system, or more commonly just system.

A primary star always exists at the centre of the system. Around this, the system is broken down into 4 quadrants and 15 rings known as orbitals. This map is not a map representing true location, but closer to a map used in the real world by underground tube trains. It represents relative location not physical distance. In Phoenix, relative location is based on iso-gravitational regions. These are effectively relative travel times for ships moving from one location to another.

Each star system is separated from other systems by phenomenal distances - so huge that it takes light produced by one star many years to reach another. Under normal circumstances travelling from one star to another would be impossible. Scientists however discovered something called Inverse Spatial Resonance (ISR). This showed how one region of space could be uniquely connected to another through the dimensions known colloquially as subspace. The application of this at a macro level meant that with the correct navigational knowledge a space ship could create a sphere around itself and be effectively catapulted instantaneously from one region of space to another.

There are two uses for ISR fields. The first use is to move from orbit around one star to orbiting around another star. This is known as 'jumping' from one system to another. Drives designed specifically for this use as known as Jump Drives.

The second use of ISR fields is to move through space within a system. This interplanetary travel requires faster formation of ISR fields and many micro-jumps. The speed at which the field surrounding the ship forms is related to the relative volume of the ship compared to its integrity. As such ships that are relatively small compared to their mass such as those constructed out of heavy hulls are able to utilise smaller fields. This means that they can use drives that are able to create fields faster, thus allowing them to travel through interplanetary space much faster than ships that are built from xlight hulls.

It is therefore more sensible to create maps of systems based on the use of ISR fields rather than actual distances. This allows the star system to be neatly cut up into regions of relative iso-gravitation known as orbitals. As all worlds have a direct impact on iso-gravitational regions within a system, in some systems it may be the case that some worlds in a low orbital are icy while other worlds in the same system at a higher orbital are in fact warmer. These though are quite unusual and it is generally the case that increasing orbital means decreasing world temperature. As such most habitable worlds are generally within orbitals 2-5 around typical G class stars.

Only ships can move between star systems. They can however transport other positions within their cargo section.

Moving to a new star system (Jumping) requires a jump drive. As long as the destination system is less than 4 jump links away, a single jump can be used. If it is further than 4 jump links, multiple jumps (into intermediate systems) will be necessary. In order to jump successfully, a ship needs to be in at least the 10th Orbital Ring. If the ship is not, it will move out automatically before jumping.

Knowledge
In order to jump to a system the navigation knowledge of the system and intervening systems is required where a direct link between the systems does not exist. Remember the minimum ring number to jump from, almost always Ring 10. Any attempts to jump from within the minimum ring number will cause your ship to move to the appropriate ring before it performs a jump. So be aware if you are tight on TUs.

Example:
Asgard and Persia are known systems; they are two jump distance apart and not directly linked, though both are connected to Hyperborea. Unless Hyperborea is known, ships cannot traverse directly from Asgard to Persia. This is true even though jumping from Asgard to Persia does not move through the ship into Hyperborea during the jump.

The reason for this is that navigating checks all known direct links in order to determine routes, as no connection can be made through Hyperborea, it will never be able to plot a route between Asgard and Hyperborea.

This situation only normally arises when information is transferred between positions. Standard research invariably discovers systems sequentially.

Time
The jump engine installed determines the time required to make a jump. This is shown on a manifest. Where multiple jump engines are installed, the fastest will always be used.

Some rare systems have a jump modifier. This will become obvious when attempting to jump.

Technology
Both jump and system movement depend on a technology known as Interspatial Resonance (ISR). Effectively the ship leaps from one location to another without passing through intervening space. This process is not perfectly accurate but makes travel that would take years or even centuries by conventional reaction drives possible.
More about the underlying technology of the game can be found in the General Library.

System Location and System Navigation Knowledge
System location knowledge is granted where a player has at some point gained control of a position within a restricted knowledge system. This is generally the case of the transfer of a position within the system to the player. Location knowledge allows the player to view the system on Nexus. Where the player only has location knowledge, the system will not be shown in its true location on Nexus. It will normally be shown at the bottom of the periphery map - possibly showing unconnected links to known systems.
Location knowledge alone does not allow a ship to jump to the system though ships within the system can jump out to systems for which they have navigation knowledge.
Where a system is not a public (common knowledge ) system, jumping into the system requires navigation knowledge.
Ways of obtaining navigation knowledge:

• Joining an affiliation that has navigation knowledge at affiliation level.
  
• Completing appropriate level of stellar cartography from a nearby system.
  
• Affiliation treaty with an affiliation that has knowledge.
  
• Direct transfer to your political from another political.

Moving directly in or out (across orbital rings) requires time equal to the rating of the ship's ISR drive (1 being the fastest, 4 the slowest).
Crossing quadrants requires this rating multiplied by the orbital number the ship is in. The ship will automatically take the route that costs the least TU's overall. If a different route is desired, two or more movement orders need to be used, to fix waypoints.

Where route involves a jump as well as system movement a predetermined route will be followed.
Learning how this works is important for plotting routes that account for hazards.

There is a normal requirement of 1 ISR drive per 10 hulls. A ship however can utilise less. This will place greater strain on the ISR drives and can lead to overload. If the drives overload, one will be destroyed and the remaining drives have to be reset. This is done automatically but takes time. After they have been reset another attempt will be made at creating a field.

Drive Requirement
The ISR drive rating effectively limits the size of the field and formation time. As such the faster drives (lower ratings) can only be utilised by certain hull types.

Hull Type	ISR Drives that can be used
Heavy	1,2,3,4
Normal	2,3,4
Light	3,4
Xtra Light	4

A ship with ISR 1 Drives will move 4 times faster through interplanetary space than one with ISR 4 Drives. It is normally the case that escort ships (those that accompany freighter convoys) constructed out of heavy hulls will still install ISR 3 Drives, in order to avoid leaving the light hulled freighters behind on long hauls.

Asteroid Fields
As ISR drives use a similar principle to jump drives, moving the ship a short distance through the system without entering the intervening space, they are not perfectly accurate.
A micro-jump may be out by a few thousand kilometres. This is fine for moving through the voids of interplanetary space where such discrepancies are negligible but can prove hazardous when attempting to move through asteroid fields.
The first rule therefore is to simply avoid them.
NB - for an asteroid field to be even charted on a system map it has to be considered a navigational hazard, i.e. fairly densely populated (unlike the one in the Solar System).
It is possible to determine means of safely crossing asteroid fields providing that there is not an accompanying nebula (see Asteroids)

As a ship cannot use ISR or jump drives while in orbit, it has to rely on more conventional means of propulsion. Reaction drives are therefore used in situations where ISR fields cannot be generated. This includes manoeuvring around planetary bodies, which can be broken down into landing, taking off, entering orbit and leaving orbit. They are also used in combat.

Each engine produces a standard amount of thrust. It is the total thrust against the total mass of the ship that determines its manoeuvrability. This in turn determines the maximum gravitational field that can be entered. A ship with a manoeuvre ability lower than the gravity of a world will be unable to land on the world, or if constructed on the world, unable to take-off un-aided.

The Navigation Report lists the TU's required for landing and taking off from worlds. Leaving orbit costs the same as entering orbit. The ship can only land on worlds if the Manoeuvre Speed is equal to or larger than the world gravity rating (but see Docking).

Combat Speed
As well as for manoeuvring within a gravitational field, thrust is used in combat. A ship with a higher combat speed has the upper hand in combat. It is capable of leaving combat when it so desires and is also capable of preventing a single slower vessel from leaving combat.

As combat speed is based on manoeuvrability and modified by the integrity multiplier for the type of hulls used in the ship construction, heavy hull ships often have greater combat speeds than lighter hull ships. Current integrity also applies as a direct modifier to combat speed:


Example:
Integrity: 100%
Code:

|-Space Combat Report------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                             
| Combat Efficiency: 100%               Your Target Silhouette: 2.92    
| Combat Speed: 4.33 g                  Hard Points: 50 / 199               
|                                                                  
| DEFENCE                                                                     
| Armour: 80                            Scints: 15.04                    
| Dodge: 4.33 g                         Manoeuvring Dodge: 6.53 g       
| Shields: None                                                           

|-Space Combat Report-------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                          
| Combat Efficiency: 100%               Your Target Silhouette: 2.92       
| Combat Speed: 0.87 g                  Hard Points: 50 / 199               
|                                                                           
| DEFENCE                                                                  
| Armour: 80                            Scints: 15.04                         
| Dodge: 0.87 g                         Manoeuvring Dodge: 1.73 g           
| Shields: None                                                           

Docking means landing in the starport of a starbase or outpost. While in a base the position is offered some protection in so much as boarders have to enter the starport prior to engaging the ship.

Orbital Docks
Normally a ship will land in a starport and take off under its own power. Should the starbase/outpost have orbital docks, these will be automatically used if they will prove to be beneficial. This may be because it is faster to do so or the manoeuvre rating of the ship is lower than the gravity of the world.

Maximum ship size (No. hulls) that can be orbitally docked is equal to quantity of orbital docks multiplied by 25. Therefore 4 orbital docks can move ships of up to 100 hulls. It normally requires 40TU's to use orbital docks to either land or take off. There is no limit to the number of positions that can use the orbital docks in a single week.

Dock at Hiport
Rather than landing in a starport, a ship can dock with a base's hiport. When docked at the hiport the ship does not benefit from the planetary shields of the base but can access base facilities for refitting, maintenance and recreation.
The quantity of complexes accessible while docked at hiport is limited to the quantity of orbital docks.

Embarking
Providing cargo space is at least equal to the embarkation size of another position (ship, ground party, debris or platform), it can be transported by the ship.
The position doing the transporting initiates the procedure through the embark order.
The embarked position can leave of its own accord through any movement order or can be disembarked.

As well as the standard move orders, there are two more special commands dealing with Stargates and Wormholes.
Startgates are unnatural structures left behind by an unknown race. The structures reside in subspace but can be accessed through the use an installed stargate key. When activated they will relocate the ship to another connected gate as per the instructions in the order.
Wormholes are similar to stargates in that they relocate a vessel to the other end of the wormhole in another system. Unlike a stargate they do not require a key. Most wormholes are unstable. This will result in integrity losses to the traversing vessel. In some very unstable wormholes this can cause integrity breakdown in weaker ships.

Hazards
Phenomena such as asteroid belts and nebulas pose a threat to ships travelling using ISR. This is because movement is not precise and each micro-jump can be off by a few kilometres - not normally a problem in the interplanetary space. Asteroid belts however can be problem if they are heavily populated with rocks and dust while nebulas will destabilise the fields and send shock waves through the ship.

Wormholes
Certain regions of space contain peculiar phenomena in which the normal physics of the universe is twisted. These are known as wormholes. They are effectively rifts in space where one part of the universe is connected to another. A ship can journey through one of these wormholes in order to vastly reduce what could have been many jumps. Wormholes can however pummel a ship reducing integrity. The likely level of integrity loss is related to the instability of the wormhole. An xtra light hulled ship passing though a very unstable wormhole may not come out in one piece and the resulting debris will be scattered around the opening at the intended destination.

As well as being unstable, wormholes may also be transitional. This means that they may connect to different locations at different times. Some are cyclic, in that they have predictable connections are different times of the year, others may well be random, possibly even connecting one part of the system to another.

Stargates
Stargates are artificial rifts in the subspace fabric of the universe. They cannot be seen, but show up on sensors as a localised distortion of space. The ones in existence are very ancient, the creators of which have long since left the Peripheries. It is understood that they anchor a point in space and use some advanced form of Inter Spatial Resonance to temporarily connect with another stargate. The use of the stargate requires a key to have been installed in the ship. This key activates the gate, causing it to resonate at the specific frequency of another gate that is attuned to the one being opened. The two gates then form a node long enough for an object in the well of the distortion to be transported through space to the location of the other stargate.

Each key is specific to a stargate within a designated system. So using a key to pass through a stargate will not allow the ship to come back the other way.

Stargates do not connect to all other stargates, they only connect to specific ones. Some may form a ring, while others may be connected to a single part of the ring. Some may be closed. If a stargate is closed it cannot be used even if the key is installed within a ship. Ships entering other stargates cannot exit through a closed stargate even if they would normally be connected. Failed stargate entries will leave the ship in the location of the stargate it attempted to enter.

Using a stargate can also cause integrity losses, although these are much less severe than using wormholes.

Asteroid Belts (Also see inter-planetary movement above)
Certain regions of space can contain tiny rocks and ice pieces left over from the formation of planetary bodies during the planetary accretion phase of a star system's evolution. These tend to be cold inert rocks that are very difficult to scan. Many are uncharted or follow chaotic orbital paths (see asteroids for ways to navigate them). As such a ship moving though an asteroid belt has a chance of colliding with rocks. The chance is dependent on the field density (some are worse than others) though the experience of the captain and the dodge of the ship (based on thrust and combat engines) aids in avoiding damage. Should a collision occur however, damage is inflicted to the hulls though can spill over into the interior of the ship. This can be very dangerous for an xtra light hulled ship of small size (see section of ship construction for damage capabilities of hull types).

Nebula
Along with rocks there are regions of space that contain nebulae. The term nebula covers many types of clouds. These could be a band of gas left by a comet, outgassing emissions from a proto-planet with a low gravity, cold molecular clouds on the edge of a star system with a dim dwarf star, or even a planetary nebula formed by a super nova. Stellar flare residue and emissions from red giants are also responsible for the formation of nebulae. These gaseous particles are too small to physically damage the hulls of the ship - their effects are more insidious. They can freeze to the hull and then often burn off or become ignited around the ship. The general effect is to therefore to reduce the integrity of the ship.

(this is technical information and should only be read for interest. Knowing this is certainly not needed to play the game)

Many stars are surrounded by an exotic subspace field. This extends out from the star in the plane of the ecliptic and encompasses the vast majority of the planets. Technology has been able to tap into this field and use it in order to move faster than the speed of light across the system. This allows journeys that would take weeks or even months through traditional reaction drives to be completed in a matter of hours and days. These drives use the theory of Inverse Spatial Resonance (ISR).

Movement consists of projecting a field around the vessel and then adjusting the potential and resonance so that it matches that of a region of similar spatial resonance. Complicated subspace mechanics are used which eliminate the distance factor - i.e. distance becomes zero and the ship effectively jumps through space. Using a series of these micro jumps allows a ship to move through a system along regions of iso-linear fields.

Moving within an iso-linear field is not much use in itself, a ship also needs to move across these fields into regions of differing potential (closer and further away from a star). This can also be achieved through the use of the ISR drive.

Maps
As ships do not move through conventional space, producing maps based on conventional space is a bit pointless. Maps are therefore drawn as a series of concentric circles with each circle representing a different region of potential. Even systems that do not have a star still have variance within the field and can therefore be shown in the same manner. These maps, like real-world maps of underground metro systems are not based on Cartesian co-ordinates or distance, simply relative location. Therefore a system map for a dwarf star will be divided in the same manner as one for a giant star and even a binary system.



The numbers represent the regions of iso-linear fields. These are more commonly termed orbitals. They are also split into four quadrants. Together these give the series of 60 specific orbital quadrants; 15 orbital distances in each quadrant. In the above diagram it can be seen that some of orbitals such as 1, 2 and 3 are actually separated and at some points further away from the stars than orbitals 7, 8 and 9. This explains why some stars have planets in low orbital quadrants that are actually at a lower temperature than ones in a higher orbital quadrant, e.g. a system could have a desert world in Orbital Quadrant (OQ) Beta 7 but an ice world in OQ Alpha 2.

The Skye system is a binary system. The map for it however does not appear to be any different from the rest. This makes navigation around a system very easy, it has however led to some strange planets.

Travel Between Stars
Moving from one star system to another uses exactly the same mechanics, just on a much bigger scale. The ship used formulas unique to each star in order to create an ISR field around the ship that eliminates the distance factor. This pushes the ship through subspace and the ship appears in the destination system in the resonating location. As the resonance has to overcome the background noise of the current system, the jump to a new star system is normally only possible in the outer edges of a system. The standard orbital quadrant is ring 10.