. . . We must play around with gravity and magnetism and electrostatic attraction some more . . .
We can generate some decent magnetic and electrostatic fields, but the only way we can play with gravity is by moving around large masses. We can
detect the effect of masses we can manipulate, but we're a great many orders of magnitude shy of being able to manipulate masses large enough to have usefully intense gravitational fields to play with. And as for being able to dent space-time to produce artificial gravity fields - we don't know how. As you imply, we're going to need some
major breakthroughs - both theoretical and engineering - to get where we'd like to be.
In the same vein, MAYBE we have PART of a theoretical basis for faster than light travel with the Alcubierre drive, but no idea how to actually go about building one. Saying "You just combine some dark matter with unobtainium and do this" just doesn't cut it.