Building a Ship

  Ship building tutorial

Introduction 



Alright, so you've survived raids, mad animals, and a few table-less nights and now you want to to ascend to the stars? Well, you're in the right place!

Do note that ships require lots of steel, plasteel, and components, so make sure you’ve accumulated enough resources. A quick way to do this is use the Heavy Cargo shuttle to travel to lumps found via the long-range scanner, and mine steel yourself. You can trade those sweet drugs for components and plasteel, with the shuttle too! Just make sure you bring enough fuel.

That being said, a ship must contain: Hull=

Enclosed hull An area surrounded by Ship Hull, floored with Hull plating. (Hull plating is under the ship tab, and can only be placed in an area that is surrounded by Ship Hull. You can build vanilla floors on top of Hull plating.)

Ship Hull Wall must be used to draw a full room before hull floor can be placed. After an enclosed room is made, add the Hull Plating.  Unpowered Hull Wall Simply costs Plasteel and Steel. Provides atmosphere containment and armor. Powered Structural Beam -- costs Plasteel, Steel and a component per segment. Provides power, electricity, and heat conduits. Hull Plating Finally, you can draw your Hull Plating on the insides of your enclosed hull.  Ensure that there are no basic walls or buildings (nutrient paste dispenser, etc) in the space you are building your hull in! This will cause the building process to fail, as the hull cannot be fully enclosed. After your Walls and Floors are done, a Ship Roof is applied automatically.

Hull |    Bridge -->

Bridge=

Ship bridge At least 1 ship bridge (Must be manned to launch into space without a ship computer core).  Minimal Ship Bridge The minimal ship doesn't provide as much opportunity to find space missions, enemy ships, or trade beacons. It is also overall less maneuverable than the large bridge, but it's smaller, cheaper, and consumes less power. Ship Bridge You will need a full bridge to handle a large ship or station, which enables more maneuverability in combat and a further reaching trade and scanning range. 

<-- Hull |    Piloting -->

Piloting=

Piloting Ship needs to be controlled before initiating a launch sequence. Ship bridge also needs to be manned when scanning for derelict sites or ships while in orbit.  Pilot Any colonist can do piloting. The Ship Bridge needs to be always manned in order for it to be usable. Ship Computer Core Not required to launch, but it can fly the ship for you, thus not needing someone at the console to fly, and IS required for interstellar voyages which may last generations. 

<-- Bridge |    Sensors -->

Sensors=

Short-Range sensors Short Range Sensors will allow you to detect other ships in orbit, find orbital missions, and land your ship when the time comes.  Basic Sensors Basic ship sensors. Capable of detecting nearby craft and observing sites from orbit.

Advanced Sensors Advanced ship sensors. Capable of scanning the interiors of enemy ships and observing sites from orbit. 

<-- Piloting |    Engines -->

Engines=

Engines The larger your ship, the more chemfuel + rocket engines you will need to launch into space.  Single Rocket Engine A chemfuel-powered engine capable of launching a ship into orbit. Not suitable for interplanetary travel. A single engine is more fuel efficient, and two single engines have more armor together than a single double engine as well as better survivability. Refuelable with Chemfuel, Capacity: 500

Double Rocket Engine Large engines are simply two single engines. Can hold 1000 fuel for very large ships. A chemfuel-powered engine capable of launching a ship into orbit. Not suitable for interplanetary travel.In combat, provides double the speed of smaller engines at the cost of double fuel consumption. Refuelable with Chemfuel, Capacity: 1000

Nuclear Engine A nuclear-powered engine capable of launching a ship into orbit, at the cost of irradiating the surrounding area. Not suitable for interplanetary travel. Provides six times the speed of small engines. Refuelable with Uranium fuel pods, Capacity: 2000  It is wise to make Engines with at the minimum a small room with two airlocks. 1 to access the engines to refuel and repair them, and 1 to act as a barrier if that room is ever destroyed and left open to space.

<-- Sensors |    Life Support -->

Life support=

Life Support System Not actually a requirement for launch, but your colonists will die of hypoxia in space without a powered Life Support System. Note that pawns in EVA are not affected by deoxygenated zones.  Micro Life Support Recycles oxygen in all fully-enclosed ship rooms. Required to keep non-cryptosleeping colonists and animals alive. This version sacrifices power efficiency for a more compact design that can fit on small ships. Life Support Recycles oxygen in all fully-enclosed ship rooms. Required to keep non-cryptosleeping colonists and animals alive.  A Hydroponics Basin and Solar Lamp can help feed your colonists, but you may also opt for advanced Artificial Soil Substrate domes. Building either of these is costly and requires heating, atmosphere, resources.

<-- Engines |    Power -->

Power=

Power Management Ideally a Ship Fission Reactor, but with the bare minimum requirements a Chemfuel Generator will do for your first time.  --- Power generation --- Solar Genetator Produces electricity from sunlight. Does not work in the dark or under artificial light.

Ship Fission Reactor A compact, self-contained fission reactor. Burns uranium fuel pods. Vents heat into a heatsink network if available, or into the surrounding room if not. Its base power production of 10,000W can be boosted with several increasingly risky overdrive modes.  --- Power storage --- Ship Capacitor Efficiently stores up to 10,000Wd of energy. Batteries are fine for small ships.

Ship Capacitor Array Efficiently stores up to 100,000Wd of energy. Larger ships will needShip Capacitors. <hr class="hr-gradient"> There are also Solar Cells which are capable of sustaining most ships in the small category and are always good to have around, though they will compromise armor with weak spots on the outer hull.

<-- Life support |    Heat -->

Heat=

Heat Management After Life support, keeping your ship Warm and Cool is very important. <hr class="hr-gradient"> --- Internal Heat Management --- Ship vent Exchanges heat into the coolant network, cooling a ship's interior. You can heat up a few rooms with Vents (but ensure that before you set a vent into a wall, you dissemble the wall and build hull underneath it, then place the room vent to equalize temperature.

Heater An electrical device that turns electricity into heat. It can automatically turn itself on and off to reach a specific target temperature. Heaters will warm up your ship to a comfortable 21C by default. You will not need Coolers, but you will need Ship Radiator to move heat from inside your living areas to space.

<hr class="hr-gradient"> --- Heat storage --- Heatsink A liquid-cooled heatsink for storing excess heat from weapons fire. Slowly bleeds heat into the surrounding room; will not function in vacuum. Capacity: 150 HU.

Large Heatsink A liquid-cooled heatsink for storing excess heat from weapons fire. Slowly bleeds heat into the surrounding room; will not function in vacuum. Capacity: 750 HU. <hr class="hr-gradient"> --- Heat dissipation --- Radiator A liquid-cooled heatsink for storing excess heat from weapons fire. Slowly bleeds heat into the surrounding room; will not function in vacuum.

Small Purge Port A system for channeling heat into low-melting-point metals like silver. Ejecting molten silver into space is a costly way to quickly purge stored heat. Shields will be dropped during a purge. Capacity: 1000 silver.

Large Purge Port A system for rapidly channeling heat into low-melting-point metals like silver. Ejecting molten silver into space is a costly way to quickly purge stored heat. Shields will be dropped during a purge. Capacity: 5000 silver. <hr class="hr-gradient"> Small ships will not need massive heat sink banks, but warships will.

<-- Power |    Logistics -->

Logistics=

Shuttle Bays You should always have a way to quickly dispatch an away team from/to the ship to either send out pawns or resources both ways. <hr class="hr-gradient"> Shuttle Bay You need a shuttle bay to launch. Without a shuttle bay, you'll have no way to get up to your ship. You would need to land the ship again to transfer materials to it. Note: Launching again with the ship will cost tremendeous amount of fuel! <hr class="hr-gradient">

<-- Heat |    Notes -->

Notes=

Additional Notes 1. It is a good idea to have more than one Shuttle Bay, so you can deliver resources concurrently and go to ship anytime. (Shuttle bays are not usable when there is a shuttle sitting on them.)

2. Space is cold. You will need to heat your ship with heaters. Your ship interior will be -100C when you first get into space. EVA suits will prevent hypothermia. Moving the ship causes heat to reset to ambient temperature, which is a vanilla issue that can't be fixed.

3. You need a Capacitor to use your ship’s weapons. Batteries will run out very quickly, often in only 3 shots.

4. Spaceships reward planning, since the area of your initial will be limited and expansions are costly.

5. There are space related missions, so there is stuff to do in space.

6. The ship fission reactor generates heat. This is can be used to warm your ship.

7. You can build a 3x3 area inside your surrounded by ship radiators to vent heat. This will help protect your radiators, which weaken the hull.

8. Nutrient paste is your friend. It takes about two hydroponics bays to feed one colonist. Artificial Soil Substrate is costly but helps.

9. Undergrounder pawns don’t like space.

10. Rimatomics works well with this mod, and LWM's Deep Storage works wonders for efficient use of space…in space.

11. Last but not least, EXPECT TO EXPAND!



No, really, it will help



<-- Logistics |    Notes