Starfield – how to power up your ship’s gravity drive

Want to know how to power up your ship’s gravity drive in Starfield? Interstellar travel is a huge part of Bethesda’s space RPG, and no part of your ship works harder in that respect than the grav drive. Most grav jumps will go off without a hitch. But once in a while, you’ll hit a message that warns ‘Grav Jump Pending – Power Up Grave Drive.’ 

Starfield doesn’t do a great job of explaining what’s required when this happens. So we’ll walk you through how to power up the gravity drive in Starfield. If you’re in need of some more pointers around ship flight check out how to dock in Starfield. You should also check out how to change home ship in Starfield. It’s also essential to know how to target ships in Starfield to survive in combat.

How to power up grav drive in Starfield

To power up the gravity drive in Starfield, reallocate a unit of power to the grav drive portion of your ships systems. Here’s how to power up your ship’s grav drive in Starfield:

• When flying a ship, look to the bottom left of the HUD. You’ll see how power is distributed across your ship.
• The right-hand most column, marked as GRV, indicates how much power is being routed to the gravity drive. 
• To power up the grav drive on Xbox, move to the GRV column using the D-pad. Then increase the power allocation by pressing up on the D-pad.
• On PC, hold the Alt key and then cycle to GRV using A and D on your keyboard. Then press W to add power to the grav drive.
• To grav jump, you’ll only need to fill up one of the power slots on the grav drive.

Gravity drive (GRV) explained in Starfield

Adding more power to the gravity drive in Starfield reduces the time it takes to initiate a jump, handy if you need to leave quickly. One case would be to avoid a dogfight with the Crimson Fleet, for example. If you have no power available, move to any of the other cockpit systems (shields, lasers, engines, missiles, etc.). Remove a unit of power and then reallocate it to the grav drive.

Note that if you just need to travel to a mission target, just press the corresponding on-screen button. You won’t have to manually activate your grav drive for fast travel via the star map. You can travel to a star system via the galaxy view. Or you could zoom in to head to a specific planet or moon like Kreet or Jemison. This lets you skip the fluff and directly move between locations you’ve previously visited.

Your jump range will depend on the type of ship you’re on. The first ship provided by Constellation has fuel tanks and lasers that aren’t great. Don’t worry about fuel since it’s unlimited in Starfield. It just determines if you can power up your grav drive enough for large jumps. Switching to a better ship lets you explore a new system and visit locations like the city of Neon and beyond more easily. This mobility also lets you explore the cosmos to build outposts, discover flora, and find artifacts or anomalies.

✓ Tip

What does GRV do in Starfield?

GRV stands for your ship’s Grav Drive, which lets you travel to other systems in Starfield.

That covers how to power up the gravity drive in Starfield. The gravity drive system fix is a small step that lets you travel to locations like New Atlantis with the right inputs. For more help on your adventures through the Settled Systems, we’ve got a guide on how to change weapons in Starfield. Those looking for extra credits can check out how to pickpocket in Starfield. If you’re weighed down by loot, here’s how to increase carry weight in Starfield to carry more gear, weapons, and junk.

What is grav jumping Starfield?

Grav Jump is used to travel across planets and solar systems in Starfield.