The distance between two Gravity Wells is a decision, not a number.
Your ships travel between Gravity Wells using the Jump Drive. It's not a warp button. It's a process with three phases, and every phase leaves you exposed.
Charge, vanish, land
When you order a jump, your ships start charging the drive. Shields drop. Weapons go offline. For a stretch of seconds that feels much longer than it is, your fleet sits there, glowing, visible to anyone watching. You can cancel during the charge, but if you're charging because you need to leave, canceling means staying in whatever mess drove you to run in the first place.
Then the ships vanish. They cross the gap between Gravity Wells and reappear at the edge of the destination. But they don't arrive ready to fight. Stabilization takes time, shields stay down, weapons stay cold. If someone is waiting at the other end, those first moments after arrival are bad.
Running costs something
This is the scenario I designed the system around. You're losing a fight. Your Cruiser's shields are gone, the Destroyers have hull damage, and the enemy keeps pushing. You order the jump. The charge starts and now your ships are standing still, absorbing hits, counting seconds. Can the fleet survive long enough to complete the charge? Do you leave a damaged Frigate behind to buy time for the rest? Or do you cancel and commit to the fight?
Retreating in The Outer Line isn't free. The enemy can make it hurt.
On the offensive side, jumping into a defended Gravity Well is a calculated risk. If the defender has sensor coverage, they saw your fleet charging. They had time to position ships at the arrival zone, set up crossfires, get ready. Your fleet drops in with everything offline, and whatever the defender prepared is already aimed at you. The attacker chooses when and where, but the defender gets those precious seconds to prepare.
Splitting
Every jump commits your ships for the full duration, so dividing your forces carries real weight. Send everything to one Gravity Well and you arrive with full strength, but every other Gravity Well you control sits empty for the duration. Split your fleet and maybe what you send isn't enough to break through.
I've been testing this against the AI and it generates pressure that I find interesting, though the timing still needs work. Sometimes the charge feels too punishing for aggressive play. Other times it's too easy to bounce back and forth between Gravity Wells. I expect the numbers will shift a few more times before I'm satisfied.
What does seem to work is the information game. When you spot an enemy fleet charging up and you don't know which of your Gravity Wells they're heading toward, you have to commit to a guess with seconds to spare. That's the kind of decision I want the game built on.
[GIF: Enemy fleet charges up, vanishes, arrives at a Gravity Well where the player has a small defense force. Stabilization phase, then combat begins.]
The Shipyard jump
Every ship can jump. But when the Mobile Shipyard jumps, the stakes are different.
The charge-up takes much longer than regular ships. This is the ship your entire fleet depends on for production and every combat bonus your modules provide. While it charges, it can't build anything. It just sits there, broadcasting your intentions to anyone with sensor range. Moving the Shipyard is something you do because you have to, not because it's convenient.
I've lost test games to a badly timed Shipyard jump. I've won others by relocating to a Gravity Well the enemy wasn't watching. Always a gamble.
One more thing
The Jump Drive is a hardpoint. It can be targeted and destroyed, just like engines or shields. A ship with a crippled drive is stuck in whatever Gravity Well it's in. It fights fine, moves around locally, does everything a healthy ship does. It just can't leave. In certain fights, trapping the enemy matters more than killing them outright.