Stations, sovereignty, and rooms

Stations are how factions hold ground. They generate sovereignty score, host industry + bays, and act as the gathering point for your faction.

What a station is

A station is a faction-owned anchored facility. Unlike ships, it doesn't move (modulo relocation, planned). It:

• Sits at a fixed master-sim pose
• Has a hull (visible exterior + walkable interior)
• Owns its placements list (modules + cosmetic blocks)
• Has cargo holds (general + ore)
• Has a lifecycle state + ACL
• Contributes sovereignty score to its region

Stations vary by class:

Each class needs the corresponding Station Seed item — which you craft at a Manufacturing module (manufacture.station_seed_*); seeds are not sold by any NPC — plus a build manifest of materials.

<a name="cost"></a> Build flow

1. Craft a Station Seed at a Manufacturing module (see Fabrication) — it's a crafted item, not a shop purchase.
2. Fly to your build site — must be in a non-CORE zone (Outer Lanes, Frontier, or Wild Drift).
3. Use your ship's Construction Arm console to deploy the seed. The station registers in UNDER_CONSTRUCTION state and creates a manifest.
4. Fly cargo to the site (your ship within ~300 master-sim blocks). Deposit materials per the manifest.
5. When the manifest is fully met, the station auto-commissions:

• State → ACTIVE
• Sov anchor placed (your faction's regional score jumps)
• Upkeep tracking begins (first charge due after one period)

The build can take hours of cargo runs — you don't have to do it all at once. Pause between deposits, sleep, come back tomorrow.

Modules

Once active, walk inside your station and place module items. Build out over time:

Industry modules

• Refinery — converts raw ore → refined metals over time. Persistent output buffer.
• Fabricator — turns refined metals into modules + components via recipes. Higher tiers unlock higher-tier crafts.
• Market Terminal — exposes a player market post here (separate from NPC vendors).

Combat modules

• Turret — automatic defense, fires at hostiles within range.
• Shield generator — station shield pool (regenerates with delay).
• Hull plating — increases HP.

Service modules

• Bay — adds a docking slot for a ship.
• Hangar Wing — extends the bay corridor; more wings = more bays.
• Insurance Terminal — exposes the insurance UI here.
• Bounty Hunter Terminal — exposes the bounty board here.

You install modules by placing the corresponding block in an open hangar slot inside the station's VI. The placement IS the module.

<a name="defenses"></a> Defenses

Default station HP is moderate (Hub starts at 25,000 HP, smaller for Outpost, bigger for Citadel/Fortress/Capital). Without defense modules this is your only protection.

Add shield + turret modules to harden:

• Shields absorb damage first
• Turrets fire on hostiles in range
• Each tier of shield + turret scales up

You can also recruit allied factions (via diplomacy) to dock fleets and defend collaboratively.

ACL — who can do what here

Set in /faction settings → station settings. Per-action ACL presets:

• PUBLIC — anyone
• ALLY_ONLY — your faction + actively-allied factions
• FACTION_ONLY — your faction only
• OFFICER_PLUS — your faction's Officers + Leaders
• LEADER_ONLY — Leaders only

Actions:

• ENTRY — pass into the station's interior
• DOCK — bind your ship to a bay
• CARGO — open the station's cargo holds
• MODULE_USE — operate modules (mine inside, fire turrets)
• BUILD_MODULE — install/remove module placements
• BUILD_COSMETIC — place/break cosmetic blocks
• MANAGE — change settings, ACL, etc.

The occupant-PvP toggle (OFF by default) controls whether members inside the station can damage each other.

Upkeep — use it or lose it

Every few hours the station charges a fixed amount against your faction treasury. The exact period + cost are server-configurable.

If the charge fails:

1. The station enters arrears.
2. Its sov anchor is dropped — the region's sov score recomputes without your contribution. If you were primary, you might lose the seat.
3. A grace window starts (hours to a day).
4. If you pay before the grace expires, the station leaves arrears + the sov anchor is re-placed.
5. If grace expires unpaid, the station is destroyed (proceeds to the same flow as combat death).

Manage upkeep in /faction stations — shows status, lets you renew manually, lets you scuttle (intentional destruction with full refund).

Destruction + archive

When a station dies (combat or upkeep grace expiry):

1. The station's build archive is captured — your hull layout, cosmetics, and (if insured) some fraction of modules with INTACT damage state.
2. A wreck is emitted at the master-sim pose, carrying station cargo.
3. The station is removed from the world.
4. The sov anchor disappears.

The archive is keyed by (faction, original-station-id). You can rebuild the same design later: deploy a fresh Station Seed of matching class, pick the archive at deploy time. The archived hull layout + cosmetics restore for free; modules either restore (if insured at destruction) or are re-bought.

<a name="sovereignty"></a> Sovereignty

Active stations contribute sovereignty score to the region they're in, under your faction.

Primary

The faction with the highest sov score in a region is the primary. Being primary is the basis of regional control — you might see "owned by X" badges on the map, NPC patrol favoring, etc.

Regional state

Based on the ratio of the strongest rival to the primary:

• Uncontested — primary score > 0 and no rival > 25%
• Contested — rival between 25% and 75%
• Lockdown — rival > 75%

Flip

A rival faction exceeding the primary's score by more than 10% flips the primary — the rival takes over. Triggers a global announcement. The flip is event-driven (no waiting period).

Stability: as long as no rival exceeds you by 10%, you keep the seat even if a rival edges past your score. Helps long-time holders survive single contested matches.

Leaderboard

/faction top (or /faction leaderboard) shows the server-wide faction ranking. Score = sum of anchor weights across all your stations, plus a small per-rented-room freebie.

<a name="rooms"></a> Rooms

Hub and bigger stations expose a Faction Hall — a corridor with a row of doors. Each door is a rentable room:

• Rent — flat fee to the host station's treasury, periodic
• Inside the room — private VI world, you can decorate, install industry modules (refinery, fabricator), store cargo
• No territorial effect — rooms add a small leaderboard bonus but not real sov score

Rooms are how newer factions get started without committing to a station of their own. Rent on a Hub, run small-scale industry, save up for your own Outpost.

Room lifecycle

• Vacant — no renter; door shows the default panel
• Rented — you're the renter; you can build inside
• Locked — rent debit failed; contents preserved but inaccessible until you pay before grace expires

Voluntary abandon (via the rent clerk) or grace-expiry eviction both archive your contents. Re-rent on the same host = your build + cargo restore automatically.

One room per faction per host station.

See also

• Your first station — guided walkthrough
• NPCs & Shops — Shipyard, Insurance, Construction
• Mining — what feeds station refineries
• Crafting wiki — bootstrap tree for every module