Starfield: What is GRV? Explained

Starfield uses abbreviations for many of its terminology and then does not tell you what that term means. One of the terms you may see is GRV, which will show up on the subsystems HUD of your ship or enemy ships in battle. Understanding what GRV is and how to utilize it properly is extremely important if you spend lots of time exploring or fighting pirates in space. Here’s the explanation of what GRV means in Starfield and why it matters to you.

What does GRV mean in Starfield?

Image: PC Invasion

GRV references your ship’s Grav Drive subsystem, which tells how much power your ship has to jump from one system to another. The more power you have allocated to your Grav Drive, the faster it will process your jump command. Conversely, if you see a red GRV icon underneath the health bar of a ship you are fighting, you have destroyed their Grav Drive, so they cannot jump away from the battle.

In addition to traveling from one system to another, your Grav Drive is handy when you must quickly escape a ship battle where you bite off more than you can chew. Remember that when you are in combat, you can gravity jump to another star system but not to another planet in the same system. Plan so you don’t get destroyed when jumping away from the battle.

How to allocate power to GRV in Starfield

Image: PC Invasion

You must take power away from another system to allocate more power to your Grav Drive. This includes your Weapon systems (BAL, MSL, and LAS) or Engine and Shields (ENG and SHD). To do so, you need to be in orbit with your ship. Then, look at your HUD on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. On PC, you can use the Directional keys to navigate between your ship’s subsystems to remove or add power to them (shown in the above picture). Below the icon for the Directional keys, you will see a counter, which represents the number of power you can move around your different subsystems.

There isn’t a correct answer to how much power you want in each subsystem. Instead, it would be best to allocate power to the systems you will use during your next flight. For instance, if you are traveling from one system to another, you can take power away from your weapon systems since you won’t need them. However, now that you know what GRV means, you can make an educated decision from now on!

Author’s Note: I wrote this guide while playing Starfield on PC and Xbox Series S.