Warp Ladder

The warp speed travel trial went smoothly without the slightest mishap. Next, humanity built several small warp test ships and sent them to test warp speed travel near the few remaining gaseous planets, then near the star.

The results were exactly as expected. In regions relatively close to planets and stars, warp speed travel was prone to deviation. In particular, near the star itself, one unmanned test ship plunged straight into the star.

After repeated tests, humanity could more or less confirm that for a star like the Sun, the range in which its gravity affected warp speed travel was around 0.8 to 1 Astronomical Unit. The reason it was not a fixed value was that the so-called effect also depended on the stability of humanity's own equipment—in other words, on the level of its warp speed travel technology.

The more thoroughly warp speed travel technology was understood and the more advanced the Warp Engine became, the less it was affected by stellar gravity. Once this branch of navigation technology reached a sufficiently advanced level, it could even completely ignore the effects of stellar gravity.

Just as the Awakeners and Harvesters had once activated warp speed travel directly within the Stellar Chromosphere.

Planets had a smaller range of influence because their gravity was not as strong. Tests showed that as long as human test ships did not enter the orbital range of a gaseous planet, they were basically unaffected. For planets like Earth, human vessels only needed to worry about warp issues if they entered orbit to dock or transported cargo and personnel between the surface and orbit.

In other words, once all ships had been upgraded, humanity's Great Fleet could directly enter a Star System. They only needed to take care not to charge straight into a star's vicinity.