Category:Equipment

Equipment is all of the machinery that can be installed on or within a ship to perform a function.

Equipment initially arrives as a box with the equipment name on it. This box is treated like any other cargo. The equipment needs to be installed by a crew member before it can be used.

Getting Equipment[edit | edit source]

• Most equipment can be purchased via the Trade menu while in a Colony or Shipyard system, though some equipment may be out of stock in that system.
• Equipment may be left in space when a ship is destroyed. This equipment will appear in boxed form and can be picked up with Logistics Drones.
• Some equipment can be manufactured on the ship. This requires the ship have manufacturing equipment, and often requires research to unlock the recipe.

Installation[edit | edit source]

Once equipment is on the ship in boxed form, it can be installed by selecting it in the Construction -> Install menu, and then selecting the location to place the equipment. A crew member is required to perform the actual installation. If the install location is outside the ship, the crew member will need a spacesuit.

Each piece of equipment has a grid footprint. Some equipment footprints reserve a space for crew or passenger access. Most equipment also has cable and/or pipe connection points.

Placement[edit | edit source]

It's recommended to be in the top-down Schematic view when placing equipment, rather than the standard isometric view, as it's easier to see where the equipment footprint falls.

Equipment varies as to where on the ship it is allowed to be placed. Valid locations fall into common categories:

Install Location Categories

Location	Description
Fully Inside	Must be within the ship and not intersect any walls.
Fully Outside	Can be placed on scaffolding outside the ship. It is sufficient for one square of the equipment to overlap scaffolding. Currently all equipment capable of being installed outside can also be installed inside.
Hull wall	The equipment must intersect the hull wall. Typically a portion of the equipment is required to fall inside or outside the ship.

A few pieces of equipment break convention. Mining Lasers, for example, cannot be fully inside, but hull wall and fully outside are both valid.

Orientation[edit | edit source]

Some equipment can be rotated by pressing R. This rotates the footprint and changes where the cable and pipe connection points fall.

Equipment may display an arrow indicating a direction it operates in, such as a thruster's output. Typically this is hull wall placed equipment and the arrow points towards/through the exterior side.

Reserved Space[edit | edit source]

In addition to the equipment footprint itself, some equipment requires a certain amount of space along one side to be free of any other equipment. This limits the valid placement for this equipment, and also limits the valid placement of future equipment as it can't impinge on this space.

Equipment Requiring Clear Space

Equipment	Equipment Side	Spaces Required
Docking Bay	Interior	2 spaces beyond footprint. Because the footprint already includes one clear space, this appears as 3 spaces after install.
Ladder	Arrow side	1 space
Engine	Left	6 spaces
Thruster	Exterior	2 spaces
Drone Bay	Exterior	3 spaces
Mining Laser	Firing	6 spaces
Weapons	Exterior	6 spaces
Deflector	Exterior	8 spaces

Configuration[edit | edit source]

Some equipment has configurable behavior, for example loaders can be configured to unload. The configuration is selected by right-clicking on the equipment.

Pertinent to the next section, the selected configuration can change the pipe connection types. This happens with Refineries and Chemical Labs for example. In this situation, the pipe connections aren't labeled until the equipment is powered, so it's recommended to select a recipe and power the equipment before connecting pipes.

Connection[edit | edit source]

Most equipment has cable and/or pipe connection points, which need to be connected after the equipment is installed for the equipment to function.

Power[edit | edit source]

Equipment that requires power has a light red hexagon shaped connection point. A cable carrying power should be run to this connection point.

1. When equipment is not receiving power, the equipment icon is darkened and a red lightning bolt flashes on it.
2. When equipment is connected to power, it will begin powering up. During this time the equipment remains dark, but the flashing lightning bolt is replaced by a light red power bar that begins filling.
3. Once the power bar fills, the equipment will be fully powered up, and the icon will lighten.

Pipes[edit | edit source]

Pipe connections are circles that are color coded to match the fluid/gas.

• When not connected the circle is unfilled, has an arrow indicating the direction of flow, and displays text labelling the type.
• Once connected, the text and arrow disappear. If the connection is an input with nothing flowing, the circle will be unfilled, otherwise the circle will be filled.
• Tanks do not have a pre-defined type, nor a flow direction, so when empty and unconnected the circle will be a generic gray color and lack an arrow or text label.

Behavior[edit | edit source]

Equipment shares certain common behaviors.

Blocked[edit | edit source]

Equipment that outputs fluid, gas, or items will become blocked if the output cannot leave the equipment. This is indicated, in the schematic view, by red text over the equipment that says either Blocked or Output Blocked. If the equipment has a right-click option, the blocked output will (usually) have a red arrow:

Blocked Item[edit | edit source]

Item outputs block because the item needs to be removed from the machine, either by a crew member or by a Robot Arm.

If the item type has a specific storage location defined, and all of that specific storage is full, then the crew will not unload the item. This is intended behavior, to avoid overproducing items.

• If this behavior is not desired, either avoid specific storage for this item, or have a robot arm unload the item into an empty space (forcing the crew to then move the item to general storage).
• If this behavior is desired, don't use robot arms, or have the robot arm unload into the specific storage.

Blocked Pipe[edit | edit source]

Pipe outputs block because:

• The equipment's output is not connected to a pipe.
• The equipment output is connected to a pipe, but the pipe is not connected to another equipment's input, so the pipe contents have nowhere to go.
• The pipe connections are correct, but the input equipment is not accepting any more contents. This may be because:
  • The input equipment is a storage container that is full.
  • The input equipment is itself blocked, and needs to be unblocked.
  • The input equipment is operating slower than the output. In this case the "Blocked" on the output equipment tends to flicker as pipe contents move and halt.

Unexpectedly Inactive[edit | edit source]

Equipment may sit there doing nothing. If the schematics view does not show the equipment is blocked, then most likely it is one of the following:

• The equipment lacks the necessary inputs, either input pipes are empty or item inputs haven't been delivered.
  • For pipe inputs this is indicated by the pipe connection circle appearing hollow rather than filled. If the equipment has a right-click menu, the input "reservoir" will be less than full and unchanging.
  • For item inputs, the right-click menu will show a ghost of the input item rather than a solid item. (Note that robot arms can deliver items from storage crates or tracks, which will minimize this downtime)
• The equipment requires certain environmental conditions that haven't been met.
  • CO2 Scrubbers only operate if CO2 is in the air
  • Gas Collectors only operate if the ship is in a gas cloud
  • Hyperspace equipment only operates during hyperspace
• The equipment is a crew station and lacks an operator

Power Usage[edit | edit source]

Equipment typically requires a low amount of power while idle, and a higher amount of power when operating. Equipment with intermittent inputs, like CO2 Scrubbers, will have fluctuating power demand.

If the Powergrid window is used to reduce power to equipment, that equipment will operate with reduced input/output rates. The greater the reduction in power, the greater the slowdown.