To my knowledge, there are only three upgrades available for your Hyperdrive: Sigma, Tau, and Theta. Installing these upgrades in your ship provides two benefits: 1) You can warp to star systems that require specific warp drive upgrades, and 2) You can warp a greater number of linear light years distance in a single jump. I tested the behavior of these warp drive upgrades. Most results matched my intuition, but a couple surprised me.
I. The Four Star System Categories
As far as warp drives are concerned, there are four categories of star systems. In most cases, you need each individual warp drive upgrade installed to reach the associated category of star system. Here is how this works if you install the warp drives sequentially (i.e., install sigma, then add tau to sigma, then add theta to have all three installed):
- Default hyperdrive with no upgrades lets you warp to Yellow stars (Class F or G).
- Sigma upgrade lets you warp to Red stars (Class M or K).
- Tau upgrade lets you warp to Green stars (Class E).
- Theta upgrade lets you warp to White/Blue stars (Class O or B).
BUT, If you install a higher-tier upgrade without a lower-tier upgrade, the results can be unexpected.
I suspect this is bugged, to be honest. Here are a couple examples:
- Tau + Theta Upgrades only (no Sigma) lets you warp to Green and White/Blue stars, but not Red. This is how I'd expect it to work.
- Theta Upgrade only (no Sigma or Tau) does not let you warp to anything but Yellow stars! That's right, in my testing, I could not warp to White/Blue stars with only the Theta upgrade installed. This is not how I'd expect it to work. Based on comments from those in the latest experimental beta, this behavior may change with the next patch.
If possible, just install all the upgrades you have.
II. Warp Distance Upgrades
Installing warp drive upgrades lets you jump a greater linear light year distance in a single jump. These upgrades add in an intuitive manner, and linking the upgrades on your grid appears to add ~5% bonus to that upgrade per link (I have not tested this detail thoroughly enough to nail down how that bonus is applied). Here are the (approximate) maximum linear light year distances you can jump for each upgrade. I tested each of these combinations by installing that configuration and probing around on the galaxy map.
- Default Hyperdrive: 100 Light Years
- Default + Sigma: 300 Light Years
- Default + Tau: 500 Light Years
- Default + Theta: 900 Light Years
Combining Upgrades, but NOT connecting them on the grid gives straight-forward results:
- Default + Sigma + Tau: 700 Light Years
- Default + Sigma + Theta: 1100 Light Years
- Default + Tau + Theta: 1300 Light Years
- Default + Sigma + Tau + Theta: 1500 Light Years
Combining Upgrades and connecting them on the grid gives slight bonuses: (only tested select combinations)
- Default + Sigma + Tau (with only Sigma + Tau connected): ~735 Light Years
- Default + Sigma + Tau + Theta (with only Sigma + Tau + Theta connected, and Sigma unfortunately in the middle): ~1600 Light Years
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