Ships, cargo, and combat

Ships are the unit of agency in Spacewar — you fly them, fight in them, mine in them, deliver cargo in them. Every player gets a starter Frigate on first login.

Anatomy

A ship is the VI world (a small dimension) that holds the ship's interior + a master-sim pose (where it appears in space). When you sit in the helm seat, you're piloting from inside the ship's VI; observers in space see your hull projected at the master-sim pose.

A ship has:

• A hull template — defines its shape, slot layout, and baseline stats (HP, cargo capacity, speed, etc.).
• Placements — the blocks inside the VI. Some are modules (typed + damageable), some are cosmetic (decoration only).
• An owner (a player), an ACL (who else can pilot/use it), and cargo holds (general + ore, separate volumes).
• A lifecycle state (see below).

Lifecycle states

A ship is always in one of seven states:

• DOCKED — sitting at a station's bay or your hangar. You can edit modules + cosmetics here (only here).
• DEPLOYING — brief transitional state during the undock cinematic.
• IN_FLIGHT — you're piloting it; it's in space.
• DESTROYED — HP hit zero; this state lasts a heartbeat before transitioning.
• REBUILDING — assigned to a respawn station bay; visible in the hangar but you can't embark until the rebuild cooldown elapses.
• AWAITING_REDEPLOY — legacy in-space redeploy path (rare; only used when no station bay would take the ship).
• OVERFLOW_DOCKED — fallback storage. The ship exists in records but has no physical bay slot. Retrieve via the Shipyard NPC's "Overflow Dock Transport" menu.

Edits (module install, paint, cosmetic blocks) are only permitted in DOCKED. Trying to install in flight is rejected.

Combat

When you take damage:

1. Shields absorb damage first (if you have a Shield module). Each hit drains shield pool; after a few seconds without taking hits, the shield starts regenerating.
2. Once shields are at 0, hull HP absorbs the next hit.
3. When hull HP hits 0, your ship is destroyed.

The damage that gets through is then rolled against your modules: a random INTACT module is picked, and damage transitions its damage state (INTACT → DAMAGED → DESTROYED based on accumulated damage).

DESTROYED modules don't work (no firing, no mining, no cargo capacity from that module). They CAN be repaired (see Repair below). Truly destroying a module (so it's gone) takes a placement-remove action, not just HP damage.

Shields

Shield modules have:

• Capacity — the amount they absorb
• Recharge rate — units per second once recharging
• Recharge delay — seconds after the last hit before recharging starts

Bigger shields are better in protracted fights; small shields refresh faster between skirmishes.

Weapons

Weapons are modules you fire from the hotbar while at the helm seat:

• Cannon (Mk I–V) — direct-fire projectile, fast cooldown
• Heat-seeking missile (Mk I–V) — tracking projectile
• Auto-Turret — passive point-defence that fires at attackers on its own (parallel to your own weapons)
• Shockwave Emitter — area pulse that pushes/damages nearby ships
• Stealth — temporary cloak; Blink — short-range teleport jump

Higher tiers do more damage and require harder-to-acquire materials.

Multi-crew weapons. Larger hulls have extra control seats. A second player sitting at an Aux Helm can man an Aux Cannon or Aux Missile on its own cooldown — so a crewed ship outputs more than a solo pilot, and kills are attributed to the gunner who fired.

Salvage Arm

Every hull ships with a Salvage Arm (Mk I) as a starter module. Aim it at a wreck (a destroyed ship, a distress-beacon derelict, or a wormhole-seeded hulk) and hold to strip its cargo into your hold. Salvage is open to anyone — first to strip a wreck keeps the haul. The arm is the core loot mechanic behind wrecks, distress beacons, and wormholes. Higher tiers strip faster.

Repair

After a fight, dock at any station and visit the Repair Terminal. Each damaged module can be repaired for a fee. Repair takes time (a scheduled job runs); during repair the module is unusable. Insurance subsidizes the cost based on your active policy tier.

You can queue several modules at once. Cancelling a repair refunds the fee but the module stays damaged.

Death + respawn

When your ship is destroyed:

1. A wreck is emitted at your last-known master-sim position. The wreck holds your cargo at destruction time (general + ore).
2. You enter a respawn obligation — you have to pick a station to redeploy at.
3. A respawn cooldown counts down. Bigger hulls take longer (Frigate ~2 min, up to ~60 min for Capitals). Insurance shortens the cooldown.
4. The wreck stays in space until someone (you or anyone else) salvages it, or until a despawn timer fires.

After the cooldown, your respawn picks a bay at an eligible station (your faction's stations + IPU stations). The ship rebuilds there (REBUILDING state); when ready, embark normally.

If even a fallback bay can't be found, the ship lands in OVERFLOW_DOCKED — retrieve from the Shipyard's overflow menu.

Map and navigation

Open the regional map (vanilla MapItem-based) — it shows the current region's belts, stations, and other points of interest. Zoom levels match the spatial grid.

For directional guidance, your vanilla compass needle points at the currently-selected anchor target. Cycle through anchor types:

• NORTH_STAR — region centroid (a fixed cosmic reference)
• NEAREST_SHIP — closest other ship in your region
• NEAREST_BELT — closest asteroid belt
• NEAREST_STATION — closest active station

Cargo

Two cargo types:

• General hold — for refined materials, modules, items
• Ore hold — for raw ore

Each hold has a volume (m³) and items have per-unit volume. Your hull template defines baseline capacities; cargo modules expand them.

The hold blocks ARE visible in your ship — usually chests + hopper- style blocks. Right-click them to open the inventory directly; items inside are part of the hold.

Cargo modules are break-protected — you can't accidentally remove a cargo hold full of cargo with a normal block break.

Buying a ship

NPC Shipyards sell ship hulls. Walk to a Shipyard NPC, pick a hull class:

• Frigate — your starter; cheap, fast, light
• Cruiser — mid-tier; better hull HP + module slots
• Battlecruiser — heavy; serious DPS + tank
• Capital — top-tier; high cost, requires Capital-tier blueprint earned through the tech tree (no skip)

You pay credits, the ship is registered to you, lands in a station bay (or OVERFLOW_DOCKED if no bay fits).

Settings UI

/ships shows your fleet. Right-click a ship row to open per-ship settings:

• Rename
• Set per-action ACL (who can pilot, who can use modules, who can use cargo)
• Insurance management
• Recall (move ship to a different station — fee applies)

See also

• Mining — what to do with the laser
• Stations — where you dock + build
• NPCs & Shops — the Shipyard, Insurance, Repair Terminals
• Crafting wiki — what it takes to build every module + ship