Teleport Gate

Marching a squad across the map takes ticks, sometimes a lot of them. The Teleport Gate is the answer to that problem: it lets a stationed squad jump between valid gate endpoints instantly, for a price in Energy. It is one of the strongest pieces of strategic mobility in the game, which is why it sits at the top of a structure tree and comes with real limits.

Unlocking the Gate

The Teleport Gate is unlocked at Weapon Workshop level 5. That is the most expensive level of one of your military structures and takes a full day of game time on slower realms, so a working gate network is a mid-to-late commitment, not an opening move. Getting there means having already built Beam and Explosive weapons and both unit upgrades along the way.

How a Jump Works

A gate connects eligible endpoints: your colony once you have the Teleport Gate unlock, plus gate outposts you or a current same-alliance member hold. To use it, you pick a squad that is currently stationed at one endpoint and send it to another. Instead of an ETA counted in ticks, the squad arrives effectively at once.

This is not free. Each jump spends Energy based on grid distance: 1 Energy plus 1 more Energy for each started 100 grid units. A short hop costs little; a full-map redeploy can eat a meaningful part of your Energy cap. Since Energy is capped and refills slowly, gate-hopping is a deliberate spend, not something you do every tick.

Gate outposts need 24 control ticks before they are reliable endpoints. A colony endpoint comes from your Weapon Workshop level 5 unlock. You cannot gate into arbitrary territory: the endpoint must be yours or belong to a current same-alliance member, and it still has to be a real gate endpoint.

Squads are not the only thing that can jump. A spy stationed at a valid endpoint can gate-travel between endpoints the same way, which is the quickest way to reposition a covert operative across your network.

What Blocks a Jump

A gate is powerful, so the enemy has tools to shut it down. A jump fails if:

• The departure point or the destination is jammed. Radar jamming aimed at a colony or gate endpoint closes gate travel through that point for as long as the jam lasts.
• The endpoint is under lockdown. A locked-down point will not let squads (or nukes) leave, so a gate jump out of it is blocked.
• The endpoint is not yours or same-alliance, or a gate outpost has not been held long enough.
• You do not have enough energy for the jump.

If a jump will not go through, the squad simply stays where it is. Watch your endpoints: a well-timed jam on a key gate can strand a relief force at exactly the wrong moment.

Gate Travel Versus Marching

Normal movement is slow but cheap and always available: it costs no energy, only time and a little oil, and nothing technological can stop a squad already on the move. The trade-offs are clear.

• Speed: A gate jump is instant. A march can take many ticks, up to the long end of squad travel.
• Cost: A march spends time and oil. A gate jump spends energy instead, more for longer distances.
• Reach: A march can go anywhere on the map. A gate only connects your own or same-alliance valid endpoints.
• Risk: A marching squad is visible and exposed for the whole trip. A gate jump skips that window entirely, but can be denied by jamming or lockdown.

Use marching to expand into new ground and to commit forces you are willing to leave in transit. Use the gate to react: to rush defenders to a threatened endpoint, to redeploy a strike squad between fronts your alliance already holds, or to pull force out of danger before it is too late. The players who win late realms usually have a gate network and the Energy to actually use it.

See also: the Structures overview, Movement, Squads, Outposts, Spies and Agents for gating a spy, and Jamming and Lockdown.