Spacecraft Design

This page focuses on designer rulers and functions specific for spacecraft designing.

See the Designer page for common designer information.

Equipment

Module	Function	Module	Function
Berth	Personal respawn location for two people. Stateroom berths can accomodate two colonists instead of people. Can choose what type of berth is provided, such as Captain, Officer, Crew, Troops, or Civilians.	Sensor Station	Operates Sensors.
Engineer Station	Tunes maneuver drive performance. Required to operate FTL drive.	Space Vehicle Recovery System	The recovery system displays an approach lighting system that guides the pilot toward the recovery system. When the vehicle enters the recovery system, it is captured and moved instantly to a vacant parking spot, if one is available.
Weapon Station	Required for each weapon bay to operate the weapon. Only one permitted per bay.	Shield Station	Operates energy shields. Only one permitted per room.
Maneuver Drive	Provides thrust for maneuvering. Enables a station to hold its position. Provides artificial gravity inside spacecraft. Required for all spacecraft.	Water Vehicle Parking Spot	A water vehicle parking spot indicates a place to park a water vehicle. Ship policies determine which specific water vehicle will be stored. These are 12m x 17m in size and require this space to be available.
Helm Station	Controls attitude and velocity of ship. Required for all spacecraft. Only one permitted per bridge.	Ground Vehicle Parking Spot	Ground Vehicle Parking Spot. Indicates where a ground vehicle should be parked, and ship policies determine what type of vehicle is spawned here. These are 6m x 12m in size and require this space to be available.
Surgery Unit	Performs complex anatomical operations.	Space Vehicle Parking Spot	A space vehicle parking spot indicates a place to park a space vehicle. Ship policies determine which specific space vehicle will be stored. These are 12m x 17m in size and require this space to be available.
Transporter Pad	One pad is required per person transported simultaneously. Total pads in room determines maximum object size	Pod Bay	Unimplemented. A pod bay indicates a place to store a drop pod. Drop pods can be used as life boats. They can also be used to deploy troops. These are 5m x 5m in size and require this space to be available.
Medic Station	Required in each sickbay to operate surgery unit. Place only one in each sickbay.	Transporter Station	Operates matter transmission equipment. Place only one in each transporter room.
Navigator Station	Displays solar system and wormhole information. Plots courses to travel among the stars. Only one permitted per bridge.	Turret	Provides a standard mount for various weapons on hull walls.
Space Vehicle Launcher	A space vehicle launcher is a place to position a space vehicle for launch. It also determines the direction in which the vehicle is launched. These are 12m x 17m in size and require this space to be available. The launch pad requires direct access to the outside through a door or opening.	Power Relay Station	Distributes power between ship systems. Displays status of ship systems.

Panels

Module	Function	Module	Function
Alert Status	Shows the spacecraft's alert level.	Mission Status	Shows the current mission status. For example current solar system name and ETA to destination.
Room Life Support Status	Shows the life support status of the associated room void.	World Map	Shows the world map of the current world.
Service Panel	A service panel is used to repair or upgrade a spacecraft's systems.

Volumes

Below are the functions for each of the "sliders" that can be seen on a spacecraft design's properties. This controls hull volume allocation.

Volume	Function	Volume	Function
Framework	Unused volume. Cheap and provides some extra health.	Armor	Provides protection from damage as the name implies.
Cryo Berth	Berths for naked passengers that don't require physical berth placement. Good for transporting thousands of civilians.	Power Plant	Power generation per second.
Capacitor	Electricity storage capacity, useful for beam weapons or harvester bays.

Spawning

A valid spacecraft design must define a Station, Spaceship, or Starship with one contiguous hull. When your design is complete and valid, do the following things.

Spawning
Space stations automatically spawn in orbit with crew. The space station will not spawn if there already is a space station of the same blueprint with equal or higher quality.
A spacecraft that fits within the inside size limits of ground construction will spawn on the spacecraft factory. As long as they are empty of vehicles and spaceships.
A spacecraft that doesn't fit within the inside size limits of ground construction will spawn outside the space station of the planet it was built on (as long as it is empire owned). The space station has room for upto 4 craft to spawn this way. Removing a space station will not reset the spaces. You'll have to hunt down the old spaceships and move them to free up room.

Construction

The maximum size for a spaceship to be manufactured on the ground on a planet is 72m / 236ft along each axis. Maximum size for any spacecraft is 1 600m / 5 250ft along each axis.

It should be noted that if a blueprint has a set minimum quality defined in it, all materials used in its construction must gave a quality equal to or higher than that.

A spaceship can be constructed one of two ways. Either it can be manufactured or purchased. If it's manufactured, then it is labelled as a 'starforce' ship and is owned by the empire where it was built, although people from that empire will be able to claim berths in it and fly it. A starforce ship receives free repairs and refuelling at all cities and space stations owned by the same empire as where it was built.

A purchased ship is owned by the avatar who purchased it, but must be purchased with that avatar's personal funds. These are known as Company Ships. These ships do not receive free repairs or refuelling, but cannot be captured by other empires. A single person may buy any number of private ships, but may only captain one of them.

Notes on designing a ship

When designing a ship, keep in mind, that:

1. You should always place a Captain Berth so that other berths are not used for a Captain. If you do not have a Captain Berth on your ship, one of the other berths are reserved. The order of precedence for reserving a captain's berth:

Officer > Passenger > Crew > Troop berth.

2. If you want your ship to fly, instead of bounce around aimlessly, you need an Engineer console, and an engineer to operate it.

3. If you want your ship to leave a planet's orbit and reach for other planets, and stars, you need a Navigation console.

4. You can import external meshes into the designer. Format must be 3ds or stl. You can even design your meshes in a software like Blender and import them when finished. Keep in mind you'll still need to texture them and add voids, pathing etc. Also, all meshes that are imported will be triangulated.