Hangarships: Your Mobile Base
Hangarships are more than just big transports; they’re your home, your workshop, and your safety net in the vast emptiness. Capable of carrying smaller ships, stations, and cargo, they allow you to relocate entire operations across a star system.
Traveling with a Hangarship
- Fuel Requirements: Hangarships run on Eonite fuel - a refined energy source extracted from asteroid deposits. No fuel, no movement.
- Navigation: From the Starmap, select your Hangarship in the left menu (a green outline confirms selection), choose your destination, and initiate travel.
- Instant Travel: Once set, the jump is immediate - at least, from your perspective. Behind the scenes, your ship’s systems calculate and execute the move in real-time.
What Hangarships Can't Do
- They cannot jump between star systems. That’s what Gates are for.
- Without proper shielding, they’re vulnerable to anomaly radiation near certain travel points.
Commanders: Local Transport Specialists
If a Hangarship is a spaceborne carrier, a Commander vessel is a tactical utility ship. Commanders are restricted to short-range jumps within a planet’s orbit or local operational zones.
How to Use a Commander for Travel
- Requires 10,000 energy stored in its capacitors.
- Can only move between local sites within its current planet’s orbital range.
- Like Hangarships, travel is instant once initiated from the Starmap.
Commanders are best used for quick redeployment of assets, moving between mining sites, or responding to threats in a system’s orbital sector.
Gates: The Only Way to Leave a Star System
Interstellar travel isn’t just about picking a direction and engaging thrusters. If you want to reach Lalande or Alpha Centauri, you need a Gate, and building one isn’t trivial.
How Gates Work
- Anomalies (which are WIP right now) serve as natural transit points - think of them as weak points in spacetime where Gates can be constructed.
- One-Way Travel Risk: [olist]
- Once you build a Gate on an anomaly, you can jump through - but there’s no way back unless you construct a second Gate on the other side.
- If you jump into Lalande without preparing, you’re stranded until you secure enough resources for a return trip.[/olist]
Gate Construction Challenges
- Hostile Environment: Some anomalies emit dangerous radiation, making them lethal without proper shielding.[olist]
- Solution: Deploy Shield Domes before starting construction.
- This means you first need to mine and clear debris, set up shield generators, and only then begin building the Gate.[/olist]
- Defensive Threats: [olist]
- The sheer energy output of a Gate attracts hostile forces.
- Expect a “boss wave” scenario - a Mothership-class enemy spawning waves of attackers to destroy your structure.
- Defending the construction site will be as crucial as the building process itself.[/olist]
This is everything about gates. For now. There might be something else that can’t be shared right now.
Future Prospects: Restoring Ancient Gates?
There’s talk of abandoned Gates that could be repaired instead of built from scratch. If true, this could change how pioneers establish new routes. But as of now, the mechanics of anomaly travel are still evolving.
The Risk is Real
Deep-space travel isn’t about convenience; it’s about survival. Every jump, every construction effort, and every decision to push forward could mean the difference between opening new frontiers - or losing everything in the void. Plan accordingly.
