The core, shared mechanics of ships and stations are referred to as Interactable Bases. These entities have specific shapes and dimensions and take up space in the universe. Most of the mechanics of ships and stations are the same, but each entity has its own exclusive capabilities (like navigation) on top.
The shared design of ships and stations help ensure that players can do nearly anything on a ship that they can do within a station. The primary differences between the two are that ships can move and stations can be renovated and expanded.
An interactable base is comprised of plots of various specific dimensions. The plots have specific dimensions and a maximum volume. These plots are broken down into partitions. Plot partitions are allocated within a plot and contain a single facility. Each facility can contain one or more rooms. Rooms have a volume, but no dimensions. Each room will represent a module within the ship and can have its own equipment and job capabilities.
Additionally, a ship or station has a finite amount of externally facing area. Plots, plot partitions, facilities, and rooms are allocated externally facing area of the interactable base to enable functions such as Docking Bays.
Interactable bases also have entity state. Players can store custom data on any interactable base, plot, or facility to orchestrate automation.
Future Plans: Plots will have a position relative to the interactable base. Logistical jobs will have reduced time costs when transferring resources within a plot or when transferring resources between plots in close proximity.
A ship is represented by a single plot. A station has the capability of allocating plots within it. The dimension of the plot (X, Y, Z) determine the maximum size of any plot partitions within the plot as well as the volume available for facilities. For moving entities, the direction of thrust is always along the positive Z axis (see ships for more information).
A player that owns a station can sell a station plot to other players. This enables cooperation between players and real estate markets. At this time, since ships contain only one plot, it does not make sense to sell plots of your ship to another player (This may change in the future).
For some facilities, like Docking Bays, the surface of the interactable base is a resource that is required for operation. Externally facing area represents the surface of any part of the ship that is exposed to space.
Externally facing area is enabled on one or more sides of a plot. When enabled, the dimensions of that side are able to be used by plot partitions within the plot and rooms within that partition.
The interactable base is comprised of as many facilities as the player wishes. Facilities enable capabilties and are the fundamental building block of a modular base design. Facilities will require a great deal of planning as they are built framework-first.
For a full list of facilities, see Facilities.
For more information on building facilities, see Building Facilities
When building facilities within a ship or station, it can be difficult to understand how big of a plot partition to allocate. This is a mental challenge which promotes thoughtful planning of a facility and conservative decision making.
A facility has a set amount of volume when allocated. When building the facility, a certain amount of volume will be used up by the Structural Components. What volume remains can be allocated to rooms within the facility. Constructing rooms requires additional Building Components which also use up some of the volume. The final volume capacity of the facility may be a lot less than the initial allocation to the plot partition.
Since players allocate and build the framework of a facility before allocating space for rooms and installing equipment, it can be easy to spend a lot of time and effort building a facility that ends up being slightly too small for the equipment the player was hoping to install into it.
Facilities that allow interactions with other players are referred to as Public Facilities. Some facilities can be either private or public (such as Docking Bays, while other facilities are always public (such as Marketplaces.
When a facility is public, it will become accessible through the ship or station to all players. The public facilities act as an aggregate, showing all public facilities within the interactable base.
An interactable base is currently represnted as a cuboid. The dimensions of a station can be changed by remodeling the station and adding additional structural components. The dimensions of a ship are set when it is created and cannot be changed. These dimensions roughly represent the ship's volume and are used to determine the interactable base's signature radius.
Generally speaking, a station's dimensions are optimal when they are all equal, and the station resembles that of a sphere (see Death Star).
The dimensions of a ship are more important. Because a ship travels along the prograde dimension, it is recommended to create ships that are longer across that dimension. Doing so will ensure more structural integrity is applied to the prograde dimension than any other dimension, which increases maximum acceleration.
All interactable bases have a structural integrity value. Ships will also contain an additional prograde structural integrity value specific to the forward thrust direction.
Structural Integrity is calculated based on the size of the interactable base and the structural components that are used.
For ships and stations, a minimum value of 4 MPa (Megapascals) must be maintained in order to exist within space without falling apart due to baseline forces.
For ships, the prograde structural integrity represents the strength of the ship along the dimension of thrust. This value is used to determine the maximum acceleration of the ship. As an example, think of how a typical soda can is extremely strong along the vertical axis (Very difficult to crush from top to bottom) but generally weak along the horizontal plane (Very easy to crush by squeezing from the sides). A long, thin ship will have a much easier
Future Plans: When dealing with planets, the structural integrity of a ship or interactable base on the planet may have a minimum value that scales with the planet's atmospheric pressure. A planet like Venus has a surface atmospheric pressure of 93 BAR which could crush a ship that has insufficient structural integrity.
Due to the complex nature of how facilities interact with other entities within the game, an interactable base may have one or many locks applied to it in order to ensure a reasonable experience for the players. An example of this would be that a ship can't start a navigation job to fly to another system while another ship is currently trying to dock in it.
There are multiple types of locks that can exist on an interactable base. Each lock is characterized as either exclusive, preventative, or both. An exclusive lock is one that can only be acquired once and then prevents any subsequent locks of the same type from being created. A preventative lock is one that can be acquired only under certain conditions and then prevents any actions that would modify the conditions.
If a lock is both exclusive and preventative, then the existance of one or more preventatives lock typically prevent any future exclusive locks while the existance of an exclusive lock ensures no preventative locks can be created. An interactable base may often contain many preventative locks of the same type, but can only ever contain one exclusive lock of a given type.
An exclusive lock applied to an Interactable Base or Facility which allows for renovation, resizing, or allocation of plots for a station. When acquired, this lock prevents other Administration Centers from attempting to resize or renovate a station. This lock prevents two renovation jobs from occurring on a station at the same time.
An exclusive lock applied to a Construction Zone when the part of the facility is under construction. This could be dezoning, deconstruction, conversion, or room building. This lock prevents a construction zone from working on itself while a Drydock is working on it.
This feature is not yet documented
A preventative lock applied to a Facility which stops the facility from queueing any new jobs. This lock can only be acquired when the following conditions are met:
A job management lock prevents a facility from operating in any capacity so that higher level actions can take place, such as dezoning, deconstruction, or flight.
An exclusive lock that completely disables all activities related to the ship. When a full ship lock is in place, it cannot be moved, cargo cannot be to or from it, it cannot have any docking bay interactions, and it cannot have any jobs queued in any facilities within it.
A Full Ship Lock is normally applied recursively. If a ship contains a hangar or docking bay that has additional ships inside of it, then the action will likely acquire a full ship lock for all of the docked ships as well.
A full ship lock is typically acquired when placing a ship on the market to sell. When doing so, that ship cannot be interacted with until it is sold or removed from the market.
A combination of a preventative and a exclusive lock applied to an Interactable Base which stops the ship from moving through space. Space Movement locks can be acquired as preventative or exclusive depending on the job.
When moving through space or docking, an exclusive space movement lock is acquired. This ensures that a ship with multiple bridges cannot fly to two destinations at the same time.
When mining or collecting other resources, a preventative lock is acquired. This ensures that a ship that is engaged in some operation at a specific point in space cannot fly away until the operation is completed.
A combination of a preventative and an exclusive lock applied to an Interactable Base which stops the ship from being moved out of it's location within a port ship or station. Like Space Movement Locks, the Ship Movement Locks can be acquired as preventative or exclusive depending on the job.
When using a Logistics Hub to transfer ships between hangars, docking bays, or shipyards, an exclusive lock is acquired. This ensures that a ship is not moved to two different destinations at the same time.
When using a Logistics Hub to transfer cargo between two entities, a preventative lock is acquired. This ensures that a ship that has cargo being moved to or from it cannot be moved at the same time.