Space Pod
Space Pods are the station's pilotable support craft, capable of holding one pilot, one passenger and a variety of gizmos.
Pods can dock in the many pod bays on the station, the Mining Outpost, or even come to rest at Prison Station. 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!)
You will need to pressurize the hangar when you open the doors. Anything more than a 1x1 hole into space will leak lots of air. The air pumps should be turned on with the pressure set to 200. Additionally there are three sets of pipes that are connected to a O2 Canister, a Plasma Canister, and a Air Canister. Use a wrench to hook up the Air Canister and use the manual valve to open the flow. Get internals and a mask as well as the air pumps and the canisters are no guarantee from suffocation.
Pieces of the Pod
| Item | Image | Resource Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engine Manifold | 10 Mauxite, 5 Pharosium | A required component in the Space Pod. Needed to propel the pod. | |
| Pod Circuity | 5 Molitz, 5 Pharosium | A required component in the Space Pod. | |
| Light Pod Armor | 30 Mauxite, 20 Pharosium | Standard pod hull plating. | |
| Heavy Pod Armor | 30 Mauxite, 20 Bohrum | Heavier Armor for taking heavier firepower. Optional equipment for those wanting the extra stuff. | |
| Industrial Pod Armor | 25 Bohrum, 10 Claretine, 5 Uqill | Even stronger armor. The Miner's pod begins equipped with this. | |
| Pod Control Interface | 10 Molitz, 10 Pharosium | A required component in the Space Pod. Can't fly a pod well without controls right? | |
| Pod Frame Kit | 30 Mauxite | The most basic part of the craft is the frame. A mass of jumbled together metal bars and beams that need assembly. You start your piloting career here. | |
| Cargo Hold |  |
20 Mauxite | For holding cargo. Use the "Secondary System" in the pod tab to load/unload. Can also load by dragging a crate onto the pod. |
| Conclave A-1984 Sensor System |  |
1 Cerenkite, 5 Molitz, 2 Claretine | It's a sensor system. |
| Ship's Navigation GPS | Apparently space is a globe and you need a positioning system for the globe in case you get lost. You will get lost in space and this handy device will be very helpful. | ||
| Plasma Cutter System |  |
5 Cerenkite, 5 Plasmastone, 10 Bohrum | Shoots bolts of plasma that dig up asteroids. |
| Dual Phasers | |
15 Mauxite, 15 Pharosium, 15 Molitz | A pair of weak phaser weapons. |
| Linked Laser Array | |
n/a | Pods shooting lasers! The Head of Security has one of these in his Armoury. |
| Rock Drilling Rig | |
n/a | A weapon system that only works at pointblank range but does a fair amount of damage. Great for digging up asteroids. |
| Ballistic System | |
n/a | A pair of linked guns firing kinetic cluster shot. Available to Nuclear Operatives. |
| Assault Laser Array | n/a | Usually only seen on cruiser-class ships. | |
| Artillery System | ??? | This bad boy fires explosive rounds akin to pipe bombs. Devastating to pods, station, and personnel alike. | |
| Helios Mark-II Engine | 10 Bohrum, 15 Claretine | Produces more energy than a standard engine. | |
| Helios 3.0 Engine | 20 Bohrum, 20 Claretine, 5 Erebite | A really powerful engine! |
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 Light/Heavy 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 pod and add any system. To replace an existing system (like the engine), interact with a pod while the maintenance panel is open to bring up an interface for removing current systems. You can't replace a pod's armor once it is already built.
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. 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.
- 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.