Ships

Caution

If you’re reading this introductory guide, you should (most likely) not acquire your own ship. Your officers and fellow workers should have ships available for you to crew and train on.

Ships can be acquired from a Shipyard Console using money or an LPC (Limited Production Chip). LPCs can be printed from the NCWL’s Pristine Microforge using materials crafted at the Shipyard Manufactorum. Using an LPC will always cost less than purchasing a ship with money, but requires raw materials.

Piloting

Interact with the Shuttle Console to bring up the piloting UI. Ensure your ship is undocked before you attempt to move it. Use WASD for forward/reverse/strafe, Q/E for rotation, and spacebar for brake.

Modules

Module buttons, if available, can trigger a variety of ship systems such as weapons and blast doors. If the modules aren’t labeled, check the shipyard entry for your ship before interacting with these modules; failure to do so may result in misfired weapons or other unintended consequences.

IFF (Identification Friend or Foe)

Some ships come with an IFF Console which can be used to remove your ship’s name and ally/enemy designation from radar screens, referred to as “IFF cloaking”. Normally, ships can be detected from up to 3000m away; activating the IFF cloak means that your ship will be undetectable until its shape appears on an observer’s radar screen, reducing the detection range to several hundred meters.

A rare few ships come with “full cloak” capabilities, rendering them completely invisible to radar at any distance for a limited amount of time.

Weaponry

Mount Types

Fixed weapons cannot turn or rotate, but are generally more powerful than turrets. These weapons can be fired using the module buttons on the Shuttle Console.

Turrets can rotate to follow targets. These weapons can be fired using the Targeting Computer by clicking a position in space to fire at; any selected turrets capable of firing in that direction will fire.

Weapon Types

Ballistic weapons (such as machine guns and cannons) are most effective against hull.

Laser weapons pass through hull but do minimal structural damage and are intended to damage crew, except for plasma bolts which explode on the hull and spread radiation around the area.

Missiles create large explosions on impact, perfect for fighting large targets, but may have limited ammunition.

Loading

Most ship weapons need to be reloaded. To do so, click on the weapon while holding the appropriate ammunition. This may be an individual shell or a magazine of multiple rounds of ammunition (which must first be loaded with those rounds). There may be multiple types of ammunition available such as high-yield explosive, uranium, EMP, or practice rounds.