Space Pod
Space Pods are the station's pilotable support craft, capable of holding one pilot, a number of passengers depending on the pod's armor, and a variety of fun gizmos.
Pods can dock in the many pod bays on the station as well as the mining outpost. There are other docks in deep space, and of course you can always stop near interesting places and take a spacewalk.
How to build the damn thing is a different story. Grab your welding mask, put on some mechanic's overalls and get cracking!
Before the Pods, there was nothing
Near arrivals there is a hangar with a single fabricator capable of manufacturing the parts needed to make a single space worthy pod. However this is not your average puzzle or toy building blocks set, this is a dirty, hard and laborious process need patience and a bit of materials.
You will need to grab the following:
- 1 Mechanical Toolbox (With everything inside)
- A coil of Wire
- Lots of Metal
- Lots of Glass
- A stack of Reinforced Glass (Do not feed into the Fabricator or you will spend the rest of the round looking for replacements!)
Try and keep the hanger doors closed when you are building the pod itself, unless you wish to suffocate. If pods are flying in and out of the hanger when you are working in said hanger, there should be a button on a wall in the room somewhere (Not the one right next to the hanger doors that looks like some kind of microchip. You can only use those when in a pod) which opens/closes the doors. With this, you can close the doors as soon as a pod leaves/enters to minimize air loss.
Pieces of the Pod
Construction
| Item | Image | Resource Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pod Frame Kit | 30 Sturdy Metal | A required component in the Space Pod. The most basic part of the craft is the frame. A mass of jumbled together metal bars and beams that need assembled to produce the frame of the pod. You start your piloting career here. | |
| Pod Circuity | 5 Crystal, 5 Conductive Material | A required component in the Space Pod. A box of electrical components needed for the pod to work. | |
| Engine Manifold | 10 Sturdy Metal, 5 Conductive Material | A required component in the Space Pod. Needed to propel the pod. | |
| Pod Control Interface | 10 Crystal, 10 Conductive Material | A required component in the Space Pod. Can't fly a pod well without controls, right? |
Pod Armor
| Item | Image | Resource Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light Pod Armor |  |
30 Sturdy Metal, 20 Conductive Material | Standard pod hull plating. Light pods can move faster than most other pods. Pods with this armor can carry one passenger. Two light pods can be found in the main hanger, another in the cargo bay and one more in the catering hangar east of the kitchen. |
| Heavy Pod Armor |  |
30 Sturdy Metal, 20 Dense Metal | Heavier Armor for taking heavier firepower. The command pod is equipped with this armor. Optional equipment for those wanting the extra stuff. Pods with this armor can carry two passengers. Two of these pods begin in the security hanger, along with everything needed to stop those spaceborne criminals. |
| Red Heavy Pod Armor |  |
N/A | Almost exactly the same as the green variant. These pods have a large amount of armor, allowing them to take a decent amount of hits before going down, and can carry up to two passengers. The only readily available pod equipped with this armor is usually located on the Syndicate shuttle, where its owners use it for dastardly deeds. |
| Industrial Pod Armor |  |
25 Dense Metal, 10 High Energy Conductor, 5 High Density Matter | Even stronger armor, at the cost of low speed. The miner's pods begin equipped with this armor, which are both found in the mining outpost hanger. Pods with this armor can carry three passengers. |
| Strange Pod Armor |  |
50,000 Credits | Stolen prototype NT armor system. It is stamped with the Nanotrasen symbol and a lengthy list of classified warnings. Neat. Found in deep space in a dark, damp place of a very seedy establishment. |
| Gold Pod Armor |  |
32,000 Credits | Bling. Golden pod plating. Golden pods can move faster than all other pods. Also found in deep space. |
Secondary Systems
| Item | Image | Resource Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cargo Hold |  |
20 Sturdy Metal | Standard equipment of all pods. Use the "Secondary System" in the pod tab to load/unload. Can also load by dragging a crate onto the pod. Can be used on crates, closets, canisters, air pumps, scrubbers, space heaters, large artifacts, ore accumulators, ore extractors and bots. |
Sensors
| Item | Image | Resource Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Sensor System |  |
N/A | It's a basic sensor system that comes standard with all pods. |
| Conclave A-1984 Sensor System | |
1 Power Source, 5 Crystal, 2 High Energy Conductor | Essentially the same as the standard sensors, with the added bonus of upgrading the pod with optical mason scanners and a geological scanner. Two start on a table in the mining pod hanger. |
Main Weapons
| Item | Image | Resource Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plasma Cutter System |  |
10 Power Source, 10 Dense Metal | Shoots bolts of plasma that dig up asteroids. Two start on a table near the pods on the mining station. Note: Even though the plasma bolts look cool, they actually do little to no damage to people and pods, so stop shooting things with these! |
| Dual Phasers | |
15 Sturdy Metal, 15 Conductive Material, 15 Crystal | A pair of weak phaser weapons. A free pair can be found in the QM hanger. |
| Linked Taser Array | |
N/A | Pods shooting tasers! Security has two of these in their own hanger to go along with their pair of command pods. In addition to stunning humans like a regular taser, it's also useful to disable the systems of hostile crafts. There may or may not be a stronger version of these somewhere... |
| Linked Laser Array | |
N/A | Pods shooting lasers! The Head of Security (or people who find their own way in) has access to a couple of these in the armory. |
| Rock Drilling Rig | |
N/A | A weapon system that only works at pointblank range, but does a good amount of damage. Great for digging up asteroids. Two start beside the pods on the mining outpost. |
| Ballistic System | |
N/A | A pair of linked guns firing kinetic cluster shot. Basically dual shotguns. Available to nuclear operatives. |
| Assault Laser Array | |
50,000 credits | A slow firing pair of heavy lasers, identical to the AI's defensive turrets when set to lethal. Where you buy this is another quest. |
| Artillery System | |
??? | This bad boy fires explosive rounds akin to pipe bombs. Devastating to pods, station, and personnel alike. Try not to fire it point-blank to the pod, dumbass. |
Engines
| Item | Image | Resource Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warp-1 Engine |  |
N/A | The standard engine of all pods. Will be equipped automatically when you install the Engine Manifold component. |
| Helios Mark-II Engine | |
20 Sturdy Metal, 10 Dense Metal, 15 High Energy Conductor | Produces more energy, and is slightly faster than a standard engine. |
| Helios 3.0 Engine | |
20 Dense Metal, 20 High Energy Conductor, 5 Power Source | Produces more energy, and is slightly faster than a Helios Engine. |
Other
| Item | Image | Resource Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hatch Locking Mechanism |  |
5 Crystal, 10 Conductive Material | Attaches to the Locking System part of the pod. Appears as Pod Locking Mechanism on a Ship Component Fabricator. The user can lock the pod from the ship's Main Computer and set a four digit code for the lock. Players can leave a locked pod without issues, but must enter the four digit code to enter the pod. |
Building the Pod
Now you got the pieces all memorized its time to build the damn thing. Be advised since it is a 64x64 sprite you have to stand on the South West corner of the pod sprite in order to construct it. The steps below should be followed in order.
- Get the Pod Frame Kit. Deploy the box and you should have a jumble of metal.
- Wrench the mass of metal. It should look less like a pile of junk.
- Wrench again. This time it should look like a functional but unsecured frame of a space pod.
- Weld.
- Insert Wires
- Place Pod Circuitry inside.
- Add Metal
- Place Engine Manifold.
- Put Pod Armor on the pod frame.
- Weld.
- Place Pod Control Interface
- Place 5 sheets of Reinforced Glass
This will complete your Space Pod. To add extras, use a crowbar on the South West corner of the pod and add any system. To replace an existing system (like the engine), click the pod with an empty hand while the maintenance panel is open to bring up an interface for adding and removing installed systems. You can't replace a pod's armor once it is already built. You can also change the gas mix used for the engine and the gas mix used for the pod's life support system, though this doesn't have much of a use yet other then to suffocate the people in the pod with plasma.
Flying the Pod
Getting inside the pod is easy enough. Simply right click on it and select "Board". The engine and life support start turned on. Steer with the arrow keys, keeping in mind that the pod will experience some inertia.
While inside a pod, you get a new tab called, surprisingly, "Ship", with some important commands. This tab is available to both the driver and passengers. Most are self-explanatory, some are a little more complex.
- Access Main Computer will show you the components of the pod, and the status of the fuel and life support tanks. Components of the pod can be activated or deactivated from the Main Computer.
- Create Wormhole is how you reliably get places. It will list existing navigation beacons, including some strategically placed on the main station and the Mining Outpost.
- Toggle Hangar Door lets you open hangar doors by remote control. Type in their FULL name to open or close, not just the number like it tells you. Or you can just click the door control panel while inside the pod.
If you think you'll end up in space for any amount of time outside your pod, wear a spacesuit, breath mask and oxygen tank. You'll be able to explore more and you won't die as fast. This should be obvious, but most people will just jump in a spaceship without much thought.