Maneuver Drive

The Maneuver Drive is the general term for one of the three primary engineering systems used in starships and spaceships. The Maneuver drive moves ships through normal space, throughout systems, and on and off planets.

• They are also commonly called Relativistic Drives or "Impulse Drives" among other terms.
• The term "Maneuver Drive" is a generic term that refers to Impulse Drives and other STL Relativistic Drives in general, and should not be confused with the term "M-Drive" (= "Maneuver Drive"), which refers specifically to the common Maneuver Drive system known as the Thruster Plate that reacts against the curvature of spacetime (i.e. gravity) that is in use at standard TLs throughout Charted Space.
• The two other primary engineering systems are Jump Drive and Power Plant.
• It is a kind of Ship Equipment.

Library Data Referral Tree

Please see the following AAB Library Data articles for more information:
Starship:

• Speed of Travel
  • Astronomical Unit (AU)
  • FTL
  • Light Speed (c)
  • Light-week (lw)
  • Light-year (ly)
  • NAFAL (STL)
  • Parsec (pc)

• Spacecraft Drives (Interplanetary Drives or Impulse Drives)
  • G-Drive (Gravity Drive)
  • M-Drive (Maneuver Drive or Thruster Plate)
  • N-Drive (NAFAL Drive)
  • Reaction Rocket
    • HEPlaR Drive (High Efficiency Plasma Recombustion)
    • O-Drive (Orion Drive)
    • R-Drive (Rocket Drive)
  • T-Drive (Reactionless Thruster or Dean Drive)
  • Z-Drive (Lifter)

• Starship Drives (Interstellar Drives)
  • N-Drive (NAFAL Drive)
  • J-Drive (Jump Drive)
  • Alternative FTL Drives

Description (Specifications)

Because the M-Drive carries the word Maneuver in its title, various references to Maneuver Drives can be confusing: the word may refer to a specific type of drive (...the Maneuver Drive or M-Drive), or to a general class of drives that propel ships by changing their momentum (Impulse Drives). The meaning can usually be derived from context.

The specific technology used for the maneuver drive depends upon the Technology level of the worlds producing the ships.

Typical Drive Designations

• G-Drive (Gravitic)
• M-Drive ("Maneuver" or "Thruster Plate")
• N-Drive (NAFAL)
• Z-Drive (Lifter)

Alternative Drives

In addition to the widely-available gravity-based vector movement drives, other drives are available. These are used by cultures who never developed, or don't have access to, the grav based drive systems.

• Reaction Drive (using reaction-mass)
  • Chemical Rocket
  • Electric Rocket
    • Ion Drive
    • MPD Drive
    • VASIMR Drive
  • Nuclear Rocket
    • High Efficiency Plasma Recombustion (HEPLaR)
    • Fusion Drive (Fusion Torch)
    • Nuclear Thermal Rocket (NTR)
    • Orion Drive (Fission Orion and Fusion Orion)
  • Antimatter Rockets
    • Orion Drive (Hybrid Orion/ANPR and AM Orion)
    • Antimatter Thermal Rocket (ATR)
    • Antimatter Pion Drive
• Solar Sail
• T-Drive (Reactionless Thruster / Dean Drive)

NAFAL Drive Specifications

NAFAL Maneuver Drive Specifications (Starship Propulsion)

Category	Specifications	Remarks
Name	Generic Maneuver Drive	Thruster
Drive Type	Relativistic Drive NAFAL	Sublight Realspace drive.
Velocity	6 G	Few fighters can exceed sustained 6 G acceleration due to pilot limitations. Missiles and unmanned craft can exceed 6 G. Compensators can sometimes allow higher acceleration.
Duration	Limited by reaction mass or fuel tankage.	Smallcraft rarely carry more than a few hours of sustained reaction mass or fuel.
Hazards	Collision or drive failure	The vacuum is an unfriendly environment for most lifeforms and life support is always potentially failure ridden.
Physical Constraints	Biophysiological limitations	Lifeforms tend to be fragile even with inertial compensators.
Geometry	Euclidean	Conventional space-time
Levels	1 level	Conventional space-time or realspace
Entry	n/a	n/a
Exit	n/a	n/a
Fuel	Drive-Dependent	Typically conventional reaction mass or hydrogen fuel
Resource Requirements	Machinery, fuel, electricity, etc.	Fusion power plants are in widespread use. Other plant types also exist.
Inventor	Various	Various
Characteristics	Various	Starships typically make use of a number of disparate technologies and drives.

History & Background (Dossier)

The earliest spacecraft in most sophont societies tend to utilize rockets or rocket drives. As the technology base for a society grows so too does an array of ever more sophisticated drives.

By the TL:10-12 technological epoch, gravity control technology tends to become commonplace and Gravity Drives or G-Drives become widely available on worlds able to support the technology.

Technological Overview of Projected Propulsion Technology

Expected Drive Development Sequence: NAFAL to FTL

• Relativistic Drive (NAFAL) → Jump Drive → Hop Drive → Skip Drive → Leap Drive → Bound Drive → Vault Drive → Six Drive → Seven Drive → Eight Drive → Nine Drive

References

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This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

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• Marc Miller, Frank Chadwick, John Harshman. High Guard (Game Designers Workshop, 1980), 22,23.
• Herb Petro. Imperium Staple 07 (Herb Petro, 1986), TBD.
• Herb Petro. Imperium Staple 08 (Herb Petro, 1986), TBD.
• Marc Miller. Referee's Manual (Game Designers Workshop, 1987), 56.
• Rob Caswell, William W. Connors, Joe Fugate, Gary L. Thomas. Starship Operator's Manual (Digest Group Publications, 1988), 2.
• Loren Wiseman. "Sublight Drives." Challenge 72 (1994): .
• Frank Chadwick, Dave Nilsen. Fire, Fusion, & Steel (Game Designers Workshop, 1994), 72-73.
• Don Perrin. Starships (Imperium Games, 1996), 71.
• David Golden, Guy Garnett. Fire, Fusion & Steel (Imperium Games, 1997), 65.
• Marc Miller. T5 Core Rules (Far Future Enterprises, 2013), 323-327.
• Adrian Tymes, Sabrina Tymes, Gabriel G. A. B. Fonseca, Robert Eaglestone. Starship Operator's Manual (Mongoose Publishing, 2024), 77.