In Cybercore, space travel is not measured in days; it's measured in Creds. The fare covers fuel consumption, the O-Bill (oxygen and life-support), tariffs, and docking taxes. Time only matters to the extent it affects cost. The longer you're awake and breathing, the more it costs.
The galaxy runs on three propulsion technologies, each with different implications for time, cost, and your relationship with the calendar.
| Drive | Range | Time Dilation? | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sublight | In-system | No | Universal |
| FTL Drive | Interstellar | Yes; travellers age slower than the universe around them | Common |
| Time Dilation Drive | Interstellar | No; Grey tech synchronises traveller time with real time | Rare / Grey origin |
| Jump Gate | Instantaneous | No | Core galaxies only |
FTL drives are the workhorse of interstellar commerce. They bend space to achieve faster-than-light travel, but the distances between stars are immense; even at FTL speeds, long voyages take real time. The catch is relativistic: while the crew ages normally aboard the ship, the universe outside ages faster. A six-month voyage might drop you three hundred years into the future.
For most short interstellar hops this effect is negligible. For cross-galaxy expeditions, it's the difference between coming home to your family and coming home to your great-great-great-grandchildren; assuming the corp that sent you is still in business.
Most commercial and military vessels use Cryo to manage the crew during FTL transit. Passengers go under, the ship flies itself (or its skeleton crew handles it), and everyone wakes up at the destination. Cryo eliminates the O-Bill for sleeping passengers and drastically reduces the cost of long hauls.
Time Dilation Drives are Grey (Zeta) technology. They synchronise the passage of time aboard the vessel with real time outside it; no relativistic drift, no arriving centuries late. The Greys guard this technology closely, and vessels equipped with Time Dilation Drives are rare, expensive, and politically significant.
If your crew needs to make a long-haul voyage and actually come back to the same century, you need Grey tech or Grey cooperation. This is a significant plot lever for GMs.
Jump Gates are fixed infrastructure scattered throughout the Core galaxies. They provide instantaneous point-to-point travel between connected gates. The network is maintained, taxed, and occasionally contested by the powers that control them.
Jump Gates do not exist within a single star system; they connect systems to each other. Getting to the Jump Gate from your current orbital position still requires sublight travel.
Jump Gate access is not guaranteed. Gates can be blockaded, shut down for maintenance, destroyed in wartime, or simply too expensive for a crew running on fumes. Having a Jump Gate on your route doesn't mean you can afford the toll.
Space travel cost is built from a base fare plus modifiers. The GM sets the base fare for the journey based on the distance and drive type.
| Journey Type | Sublight | FTL Drive | Time Dilation Drive | Jump Gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intersolar (in-system) | Low–Mid | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Short Interstellar | N/A | Low | Mid | Mid |
| Long Interstellar | N/A | Mid | High | High (multi-hop) |
| Cross-Galaxy | N/A | High | Very High | Very High |
Cryo Modifier: Non-cryo passengers consume food, water, and oxygen for the entire voyage. This multiplies the O-Bill and can make short trips disproportionately expensive; you don't go into Cryo for a two-day hop to the outer belt, so you're paying for every breath.
Additional Fees:
GMs can layer these fees for flavour, as mission hooks (the crew can't afford the docking tax), or as leverage (a corp covers your travel costs; for a price).
Short intersolar hops within a single system can cost more than interstellar jumps. This seems counterintuitive, but the economics are simple:
A crew flying from one side of a busy system to the other might spend more on fuel and life-support than a Cryo-equipped freighter making a standard interstellar hop through a Jump Gate.
This is deliberate. It makes local system travel a meaningful cost for players and gives GMs a reason to put obstacles, encounters, and decisions between "here" and "the other side of the system." It also explains why not everyone just hops across the system for lunch; space is expensive.
Plotting efficient courses reduces travel cost. Characters trained in Astrography can:
A good navigator pays for themselves. A bad one gets you lost in the dark between stars.