Hyperwake Drive

The Hyperwake Drive, a faster than light  propulsion system first created by shipwrights of the Corrundian Empire.

Method of Transit
The wake drive, once engaged, utilizes a focused cone of 'cutting energy' discharged through wake generators to warp space-time around a ship or fleet to the point where it quickly cuts through dimensional phases into Hyperspace. In so doing so, the ship creates a  weak hyperspace distortion around itself, which flows around the body of the ship and trails behind it as an energetic wake, akin to that of seafaring ships. This controlled wake distortion has several physical principles which can be taken advantage of, the key of which is that other ships employing a similar engine can cut into an existing wake distortion, and achieve stability in hyperspace conditions without wasting the majority of their energy to create the initial disruption, in effect riding the 'wave' produced by the lead vessel in a fleet. All ships following the lead vessel in the fleet can devote the majority of their energy to forward thrust, rather than using it to cut through the hyperspace dimension's barriers and also cutting down on the effort required to stabilize travel. This translates into greater speed for all ships, as the unified force of their motion translated into hyperspace helps cut through it faster. More accurately though riding the massive hyperspace distortion allows for greater drive stability as natural hyperspace distortions are not an issue, if you have enough energy in your own.

Practical Effects
The more vessels joined to a single flight, the faster the fleet as a whole will move. Leading vessels will be devoting the majority of their energy to disrupting the fabric of realspace and hyperspace, permitting the rest of the fleet to devote more of their power to movement. This method of travel is slowest, and most dangerous alone. Traveling alone is in fact slightly slower than a standard, run of the mill hyperdrive. Transit is fastest and most stable when in large numbers, where the massive amount of energy dedicated to the wake allows it to push through weaker hyperspace distortions without damage to the ships riding it, and in this state, unusually for hyperspace drives the ships in a wake can safely reach speeds within hyperspace beyond that of "normal" hyperdrives and compete with even warp ships. Larger classes of vessels put out more wake and contribute more to the effect, and more ships aid as well -- though the constraints of the continuum eventually cause the effect to reach a maximum, at which point further ships within the fleet would create more instability than stability maintained. This can be offset however with refinements to the wake generators although the fundamental limit still applies. Fleets must jump battle groups separately due to this effect although it is no practical complication in relation to drive usage itself.

Formula
WIP pending collaboration finalization.

Don't trust the numbers below. MK I, top speed is .9 LY/d with 128 ships MK II, top speed is 1.15 LY/d with 128 ships MK III, top speed is 1.40 LY/d with 128 ships MK IV, top speed is 1.65 LY/d with 128 ships MK V top speed is 1.90 LY/d with 128 ships