Jump Gates can only be built on Moons. A Jump Gate creates a wormhole between two distant locations in the universe, allowing instantaneous travel between them with no fuel required. Once you have more than one moon and a Jump Gate on each, you can transport your entire fleet (but no resources) instantly from one to the other. Constructing only a single jump gate has no benefit, since both a source and destination Jump Gate are required to operate.
With a Level 1 Jump Gate, there is a one-hour recharge time in between jumps, i.e. you could only send fleets once every hour. This cool down / recharge time is only needed for the two jump gates that were used. This recharge time is decreased by half with each level of Jump Gate constructed. A level 2 Jump Gate will recharge in 30 minutes.
Jump Gates are especially useful for moving Deathstars (or “RIPs”). With a base speed of 100, RIPs would take hours to move between systems, let alone galaxies. A Jump Gate can also save on fuel costs; flying a big fleet over long distances requires large amounts of deuterium, while a Jump Gate uses no fuel at all. The only downside is that you cannot transfer resources through the gate.
Tap on the Jump Gate to see a list of ships and select the ones you want to send. Select your destination from the list of available Jump Gates. Tap send and your ships will instantly move to the destination moon.
Hint: Because you can’t take resources through the gate, make sure you have some deuterium on your destination moon or your fleet will be stuck there until the Jump Gate recharges, or you transport fuel there from somewhere else.