Kintsugi in Space: Infodump

Another type of magical FTL, the Blink drive, is somewhat like the Infinite Leap's wormhole drive-but instead of simply teleporting the ship the entire way there via wormhole, it blinks the ship there in relatively small jumps, retaining velocity. While quicker than light over distances of more than 10 lightseconds, it's still far slower than a wormhole drive.

There's a nonmagical version, the Jump drive, which has a completely identical effect except for not producing any thaumic signature. It's still wormholes but short-range wormholes.

As an example: a full wormhole drive can get anywhere in an instant after calculations are complete. A Jump drive doesn't do that-it teleports the ship a certain distance that increases slower than the amount of energy put in, with an average distance of several thousand kilometers and pulses at a rate of roughly sixty thousand teleportation a second at full safe burn.

Some variants of Blink drive can go faster safely if hooked up to a live mage to act as a living spell stabilizer. This is obviously controversial and not typically used, but it has resulted in a few instances of heroic starship pilots making a relief run in several hours or even days less than normal due to hooking themself up to their own ship's engines.

 

This has also resulting in a fair few more instances of out-and-out helmsmen

 

It was well-known that AIs could use magic ever since they became a thing, but it was only comparatively recently (about a thousand years ago) discovered (Or, if we closely examine some ancient artifacts in the Kintsystem, rediscovered) that non-sapient computers also could, without even having previously been enchanted. Those "automages", while not as versatile or powerful as a "real" magic practitioner, revolutionized many fields dealing with magic, including some branches of FTL travel and communication.

 

pretty much
it's more stable than a non-helmsmanned ship made of the same materials, but is usually unethical.
usually. sometimes it's a case of someone going "i wanna be a spaceship" and then becoming a spaceship.

 

so, a quick note on definitions for ftl travel.
A Hop, Skip, and a Jump.

• A hop is between two nearby planets, or satellites in a solar system.
• A skip is between distant planets inside of a solar system.
• And a jump is between solar systems entirely.
• A leap would be between distant solar systems.
• A Vault would be between galaxies.

The last two would be somewhat infrequently used, with Vaulting almost never used, and Leaping used mostly in the military, or long distance passenger vessels.