Star Trek Warp Core

Star Trek Warp Core

⚠️ Requires BepInEx and StationeersLaunchPad to run ⚠️ In multiplayer, the host and every player must be on the same version of the mod ⚠️ First release: please report any issues

This is a fun, flavour mod inspired by Star Trek.

This mod adds a Warp Core to power your base: a matter and antimatter reactor regulated by a dilithium crystal. It makes megawatts, but it has to be fed, cooled and watched. Let it overheat and it breaches, and takes the room with it.

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Features

The Warp Core

• Two sizes: the Warp Core, two storeys tall, makes up to 5 MW. The Compact Warp Core fits an ordinary room and makes up to 1 MW
• To run it needs three things: deuterium (hydrogen, or volatiles) piped into its top, an antimatter pod in its dock, and a dilithium crystal behind its hatch
• Its output is set on its screen, from 1 kW to its maximum, in steps of 1 kW, 10 kW, 100 kW or 1 MW
• It burns fuel for the output you set, whether or not your base uses the power. Set it close to what you need
• A full pod runs the tall core for an hour at 5 MW, and far longer at lower output
• Logic can read its state, set its output, engage it, shut it down and dump it

Antimatter

• The Antimatter Generator fills an Antimatter Pod from hydrogen and power: 600 mol and 20 kW for 30 minutes
• A pod holding antimatter has to stay in a powered dock, in the generator or in a core. Carried about, its containment runs down in ten minutes, and its lights turn red and blink under 15 %
• A pod whose containment fails explodes. So does one that is destroyed while it holds antimatter

Dilithium

• A Dilithium Crystal is found now and then while mining ore, about one in 150
• A crystal wears as the core runs: eight hours at full output, much longer at low output
• A running core with no working crystal runs away. You have about 25 seconds to fit another, cut its fuel, or dump it

Heat, stress and the breach

• A running core makes heat, and more of it when the power it makes is not being used
• It is cooled by a loop of pipe through radiators, joined to the two pairs of ports at its back: gas below, liquid above. Liquid cools about twice as well
• The harder it works, the colder its coolant has to be kept. At low output with its power in use it needs no cooling at all
• Above 327 °C stress builds. At 70 % the core warns. At 100 % a ten second countdown begins, and only the emergency dump stops it
• DUMP stops the reaction at once. It costs the antimatter left in the pod and ruins the crystal
• A breach destroys everything within about 70 % of its blast, damages the rest, and digs a crater. The blast is up to 20 m for the tall core and 12 m for the compact, less with little antimatter aboard

EPS Conduit

• A cable for megawatts, rated 10 MW. The game's own heaviest cable burns above 500 kW
• Laid, joined and taken up exactly as the game's cables are, and pale where they are red

EPS Power Cell

• A battery that holds 3 GJ: ten minutes of a tall core at full output, and about 800 of the game's station batteries
• You set how fast it charges and how much it gives out. Set its output under your cable's rating and it steps a core's megawatts down safely for an ordinary base
• Its screen and its glowing column show the charge in ten segments, red when nearly empty to blue when full

Making it all

• Autolathe: Kit (Warp Core), Kit (Compact Warp Core), Kit (Antimatter Generator) and the empty Antimatter Pod
• Electronics Printer: EPS Conduit Coil and Kit (EPS Power Cell)

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Getting started

[olist] [*]Mine until you find a dilithium crystal [*]Build an Antimatter Generator, give it power and hydrogen, and fill a pod [*]Build a core. Pipe hydrogen to the port at its top, fit the crystal behind the hatch and stand the pod in its dock [*]Run EPS Conduit from the core to a Power Cell's input, and ordinary cable from the cell's output to your base [*]Set a low output, press ENGAGE, and build a coolant loop before you turn it up [/olist]

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Good to know

• Megawatts burn the game's own cables. Use EPS Conduit for everything between a core and a Power Cell or battery, and never join conduit straight to ordinary cable on that side
• An empty battery asks for everything it lacks at once. That is what the Power Cell's charge limit is for
• Set a Power Cell's output a little above what your base draws: the game counts machines as powered only when more is on offer than they ask for
• A liquid shut in a pipe builds pressure as it heats until the pipe bursts. The core's screen warns when its liquid coolant is close
• Dilithium drops from the hand drill, and from the Star Trek Phaser's Mine setting. Quarries, deep miners and rocket miners do not find it
• It has been played alone. Multiplayer and dedicated servers have not been tried

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Settings

Almost every figure above can be changed in the mod's config file, read on the host. The main ones:

• CoreMaxWatts and CompactCoreMaxWatts: the most each core makes
• PodEnergyMJ, PodFillMinutes, PodHydrogenMoles: what a pod holds and costs
• CrystalHours and DilithiumChance: how long a crystal lasts, and how often one is found
• CoreHeatShare and CoreWasteHeatShare: how much heat a core makes
• Explosions and Craters: whether a breach or a failed pod explodes, and whether it digs

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Goes well with