Propulsion equipment

Propulsion modules are a type of active module which increase your ship's speed (at the cost of capacitor energy). Higher speed allows you to dictate the range at which combat takes place (optimising the effectiveness of your ship's weapons and/or reducing the effectiveness of enemy ships' weapons).

Afterburners and microwarpdrives

Afterburners (AB) and Microwarpdrives (MWD) are the most commonly used propulsion modules. Afterburners increase the ship's maximum speed by around 150%, while Microwarpdrives increase it by around 500%. Compared with Afterburners, Microwarpdrives use more capacitor energy, reduce the ship's total capacitor capacity, are shut down by warp scramblers, and are generally harder to fit.

There are different sizes of propulsion modules based on basic ship hull size. Using an undersized afterburner on a larger ship will cause the speed boost to become much smaller.

General guideline for module sizes:

AB Size	MWD Size	Notes
1MN	5MN	Frigates and Destroyers (actual thrust is 1,500,000 N)
10MN	50MN	Cruisers, Battle Cruisers and Industrials (actual thrust is 15,000,000 N)
100MN	500MN	Battleships (actual thrust is 150,000,000 N)
10000MN	50000MN	Capital ships (actual thrust is 1,500,000,000 N)

The max velocity bonus listed in module info is only one factor in actual velocity increase. The maximum velocity of a ship using a propulsion module is

V_max = V_base × ( 1 + V_bonus × ( Thrust / mass ))

In practice that last thrust/mass term is almost equal to one when using properly sized propulsion module and the new maximum velocity is just base velocity multiplied by velocity bonus of propulsion module.

Certain ships require certain size afterburner to function properly or heavily favor certain types of modules with hull bonuses.

Oversized afterburners

It is possible to fit ships with oversized afterburners: 10MN on frigate/destroyer or 100MN on cruiser/battlecruiser. The high fitting requirement of larger afterburner usually makes this harder to do. In this case the full maximum velocity formula needs to be used.

Generally the resulting maximum velocity is close to normal sized microwarpdrive but the added bonus is that the oversized afterburner is not shut down by scramblers. The drawback is greatly increased ship mass which makes maneuvering harder.

Related skills

The following skills directly effect afterburners and/or microwarpdrives.

• Acceleration Control 5% Bonus to Afterburner and Microwarpdrive speed boost per skill level.
• Afterburner 5% reduction to Afterburner duration and 10% reduction in Afterburner capacitor use per skill level.
• Fuel Conservation 10% reduction in afterburner capacitor needs per skill level.
• High Speed Maneuvering 5% reduction in MicroWarpdrive capacitor usage per skill level.

Micro Jump Drives

The Micro Jump Drive (MJD) is a propulsion module that instead of making the ship move faster it jumps the ship forward 100km in the direction it is facing. Upon arrival, the ship maintains its direction and velocity. Warp scramblers can be used to disrupt the module.

Micro jump drives can be used only on T1 and T2 battleships, combat battlecruisers, command ships and deep space transports. Marauders gain specific bonus encouraging use of this module.

Micro jump drives can be used offensively to close on a target or defensively to jump out.

Micro Jump Drive operation

When the module is activated the module spools up for 12 seconds. During this time the ship can not change its direction. The signature radius of the ship is also increased by 150% during the spool up time.

The jump is interrupted if the jumping ship is warp scrambled when spool up time ends. Bubbles, warp disruptors and warp core stabilisers have no effect on micro jump drives. Active bastion module also prevents the ship from jumping. Deactivating the module during spool up time has no effect.

After spool up period the ship jumps 100 km to the direction it is facing. The ship retains its velocity and locked targets through the jump. Other ships will also retain locks on the ship that jumped.

After the jump has been completed or aborted by scrambler the MJD module enters 180 seconds long cooldown period that must pass before the module can be used again. Even if the jump fails the module will enter cooldown period.

Micro Jump Field Generator

Micro Jump Field Generators (MJFGs or booshes) are similar to Micro Jump Drives but they have several important differences.

• Only Command Destroyers can fit Micro Jump Field Generators.
• A Micro Jump Field Generator does not only move the ship itself but booshes most objects which are less than 6 km from the boosher. That includes up to twenty-five ships except Capital ships, (jump) freighters, and orcas. Drones, fighters, bombs, warp disrupt probes are jumped too.
• Warp scramblers prevent the boosher or its targets to be jumped. This can be used in a defensive manner by fleet members scramming each other.
• Ships which are invulverable can't be booshed away (undock timer, gate cloak, tether, the short invul time after you drop out of warp as examples).
• It can't be used in highsec. You gain a weapon timer for 60 seconds that means you cannot take a gate or dock during that. In lowsec your safeties need to be red as you can potentially gain a criminal timer. (Compare to ECM burst and smartbombs. No clue under which circumstances you would gain the timer.) For this reason logis should also set their safeties to red if a boosher is in a lowsec fleet.
• The spool time is a bit shorter being 9 s before skills and is reduced by the skills Micro Jump Drive Operation and Command Destroyers.

Micro Jump Field Generators open up many interesting tactics:

• You can split up hostile fleets respectively isolate targets.
• You can use it as an escape tool for fleets.
• With many command destroyers you can chain booshers and make slow sniper fleets move around the grid quickly, allowing them to "kite" enemies that would otherwise catch up with them.
• You can suddenly get on top of a target to tackle it. Remember that you can boosh a warp disrupt probe.

A long, long time ago...
Beat around the Boosh expansion Micro Jump Field Generator reworked to move a maximum of 25 capsuleer ships. All fighters, drones, probes and bombs will always be moved

Mobile Micro Jump Unit

Mobile Micro Jump Units may be deployed in space, with modest restrictions on proximity to stargates, stations, starbases or Upwell structures. It allows all nearby ships to jump themselves (same 1-second spool up) 100km away. The unit takes one minute to deploy, is not reusable and lasts for two days if not destroyed beforehand. For ships up to 1 million tonnes, it can provide a brief window of escape to jump 100km and then try to warp away if under attack.

Related skills

Micro Jump Drive Operation I is required to use any micro jump drives and reduces the spool up time duration by 5% per skill level.

Anchoring I is required to use the Mobile Micro Jump Unit.