Fold Drive

"The Fold Drive is a lightweight Wormhole Drive designed for quicker sector jumps through Deep Space and provides a short combat speed boost to escorting fleets."

General
The Fold Drive is a Spectre-developed wormhole drive that builds on the Miner Rebellion's Wormhole Drive DS-1, being able to equip on any ship and without incurring repair time. Each jump imbues the escorts with a ship speed bonus that lasts indefinitely until they enter another map or engage in battle. When engaged in battle, the bonus duration will start to count down in the form of a circular timer and eventually disappear.

Fleets with an active jump bonus have highlighted levels in the fleet selection bar.

Advantages
The Fold Drive takes up significantly less mass than the Wormhole Drive DS-1 and is thus less of a hindrance in combat.

It also has a much shorter warmup time for both intra- and inter-sector jumps, improving its potential for surprise attacks. Moreover, escorts gain a ship speed bonus after jumping which helps them catch enemy fleets at the beginning of combat.

Disadvantages
Compared to Wormhole Drive DS-1, the Fold Drive has a longer jump cooldown, making escape more difficult after performing an assault. It can also carry fewer escorts and jump across fewer sectors (except for the level III version), limiting its tactical capabilities.

The jump bonus is very short even compared to the other jump bonuses and is next to useless in straight-on combat.

Like the more recent jump drives, a fleet that uses this wormhole drive can only escort fleets that are at least level 70.