Hyperlane Travel

While hyperlane travel has been the norm for almost a century now, ever since the maiden flight of commander Branden and the Odyssey, there is still very little knowledge of the fundamentals of hyperspace and how the hyperlane network functions. It is even unclear whether the network itself is naturally occurring or if it had been engineered by a precursor race, much like the gateway and L-gate network. Xenoarcheology findings have confirmed that the hyperlane network was in existence more than 1.5 million years ago, and, at least in the discovered records, the network looked virtually identical. Surviving Awoken scientists, who had knowledge of the hyperlanes crossing their system but no means to access them, confirmed that, at least in the case of their ancient home system the hyperlanes were in existence at the time of the cataclysm that befell their race.
Dimensional physics, the field that deals with everything falling outside the purview of the Great Unified Theory, has been able to confirm that subspace, the base dimensional field where hyperspace exists is naturally occurring, as are the aberrations that bridge it, such as wormholes and exotic singularities. This makes the natural occurrence of hyperlanes a possibility. Similarly, the existence of systems and stars that have no hyperlane connection, those that connect to stars much further away than their neighbours or the hypothetical errant clusters, disconnected from the rest of the network raise questions about the possible "intelligent design" of the network, to conect the more valuable star systems. Questions have also arisen over similar hypotheticals like trans galactic hyperlanes, subspace slipstreams and hyperspace dead zones. What is known however is that hyperlanes are incredibly stable, with next to no recorded instances of  navigational problems in all of spacefaring history. There are even instances of forced network breach, so-called "emergency FTL measures" which had ships plunge into hyperspace without the requisite calculations, that allowed the lost ship to realign with a hyperlane after months or even years. And there is of course the dangerous, specialized maneuver of lane breaching, which allows specialized ships, particularly science vessels, to breach the network through a large expenditure of energy and navigate pure hyperspace without losing direction. Experiments have shown that even repeated "breaching" at the same point does not affect the integrity of the hyperlanes.

In 2281 the long hypothesized theory of Branden anomalies - movable points where system-wide gravitational alignments would make breaching hyperlanes faster and easier was proven (or reconfirmed, depending on whether the initial flight of the Odyssey is counted as a calculated Branden-point breach or a simple fluke) and the time to breach hyperlanes was drastically reduced. The time it took to discover the exact location of these breach points was further reduced with the development of advanced subspace sensor arrays. Future development of advanced warp drives is reliant in no small part to current theoretical and empirical work done on so called "tachyon tides" and "subspace slipstreams", phenomena that, if understood and harnessed would allow for more compact and more powerful hyperdrives that would move faster through hyperlanes or breach the network altogether.
Process

The process of hyperlane breaching and navigation relies on the integrity and calibration of a ship's warp drive. A warp drive is a field generator array consisting of an accelerator pathway and a centrifugal warp core that transforms raw energy into a warp resonance field. In basic terms, a warp core is a specialised field generator, with the field generated designed to open a gateway to hyperspace and its warp lanes and propel the ship along the lanes in a "warp bubble". The bubble keeps the vessel moving, as normal thrust does not seem to function in hyperspace and keeps it aligned in the warp lane. A warp drive failure while in hyperspace has not happened so far, the closest such event however - an old fission reactor failure nonetheless allowed a damaged construction ship to exit warp, stranding the ship in the black until repairs and assistance could happen.
As it stands, hyperlane travel is relatively quick, the ship in question moving at the speed of its captured tachyon bubble, crossing the gulfs between systems in a matter of a few hours to a few days. The recharge period, in which the warp core captures a requisite amount of tachyons for creating a warp bubble and breaching the hyperlane can take up to a month, depending on the size of the ship (the larger the ship, the more needed) and local conditions (some areas have denser tachyon flows).
Normal FTL warp entry cycle: 3-10h on average
Stage 0: Computing the Branden point location - varies, 1min+
Stage 1: Energy diverted from power plant to Hyperdrive - 0-45s
Stage 2: Warp Core Acceleration - 45s-2hr
Stage 3: Tachyon generation/capture - varies, 1hr+
Stage 4: Resonance attunement - 2min
Stage 5: Tachyon directional burst - hyperlane entrance opening, local tachyon bubble generation - 10min
Stage 6: Hyperlane closes, warp bubble stable, warp speed travel
Stage 7: Exit point computation - varies, 1hr+
Stage 8: Computing the Branden point location - varies, 1min+
Stage 9: Tachyon directional burst - hyperlane exit opening, Local tachyon bubble cessation
Stage 10: Warp Drive tachyon recapture and recharge - varies, hours to days

Emergency FTL warp entry cycle: 2-7min
Stage 1: Energy diverted from power plant to Hyperdrive - 0-45s
Stage 2: Emergency Warp Core Acceleration - 45s-5min
Stage 3: Tachyon mass capture - 30s-1min
Stage 4: Resonance breach - 1 min
Stage 5: Tachyon mass release and emergency hyperspace entry
Stage 6: Position computation, directional adjustment, hyperlane reacquirement -  varies, hours to years
Stage 7: Normal warp cycle resumes - warp speed travel
Stage 8: Computing the Branden point location - varies, 1min+
Stage 9: Tachyon directional burst - hyperlane exit opening, Local tachyon bubble cessation
Stage 10: Warp Drive tachyon recapture and recharge, mandatory maintenance - varies, hours to days

Like the strands of a spider web, the extra-dimensional realm of hyperspace runs between the gravity wells of most stars. Faster than light travel is possible along these hyperlanes and access is made easier by the existence of Branden anomalies, places where hyperlanes are more easily breached.