The Drive is a rare type of engine that is 5 times faster than the regular Engine and uses twice as much fuel. It is slightly less fuel efficient than the spike engine, but is almost twice as fast as the Spike Engine.
Performance[]
The Drive provides 500 kph of speed on its base, five times that of the regular engine, but it consumes twice as much fuel, making it slightly less fuel efficient than the Spike Engine. This is an easy tradeoff for the sheer potential acceleration provided by the Drive, along with its ability to instantly halt the ship when the throttle turns down to 0%. Usually, this means the most efficient engine setup would include one Drive along with several added Spike Engines. However, the Drive is also much larger than a Spike Engine, and you could fit about 2 or 3 Spike Engines within the space a Drive takes up. The Spike Engine is easier to stack than the Drive.
Obtainment[]
When an invasion by the Galileans is triggered, they will send a constant stream of ships to bombard players with projectiles. The engines of these ships can be sawed off and used in player-made ships. Before their removal in Release 19, scout ships would occasionally spawn regardless of an invasion. Their Drives, located on the back, could be sawed off as usual. It was the easiest and most reliable way to get it since you didn't need an invasion to get the Drive via scout ship.
The Drive can also be obtained via the use of an Alien Processor; these can be obtained by giving a "shiny" rock (Moonstones, Shockstones, Core Rocks) to Saffra. Inserting a Ball Lightning (obtained from detonating explosives on Umbriel) into the processor will produce a Drive.