A base from a box: bunkers
Published
In short: the carrier carries a bunker kit in its hold. Put it down on the ground near the carrier and it unfolds in 30 seconds into a base that can’t move. Fit it with modules from kits; a mining module makes it mine the ore around it. Pack it back up to take it along. Numbers are placeholders.
At a glance
| Kit | 2,000 m³ in the hold; the carrier starts with one |
| Put down | on the ground, within 1 km of the carrier |
| Size | 80 × 80 m |
| Unfold or pack up | 30 s each |
| Room inside | unlimited |
| Must-have | its bridge, Mk0 |
| Defence | can’t be shot or destroyed, for now |
Putting one down
- Shift+D with the carrier selected, or right-click the kit in the inventory (F2) and pick Deploy.
- Pick the spot: an 80 × 80 m footprint follows the pointer, amber where it can go and red where it can’t. The rules are the same as for landing: not too steep, not on water, not in a town, not on another ship or bunker. Click to put it down; Esc calls it off.
- It rises out of the ground in 30 seconds. The unit card shows a bar and the seconds left. The carrier is free to leave meanwhile.
Fitting it out
- Room for anything. A bunker has unlimited room inside, but it starts with only its bridge. Everything else comes from module kits in the carrier’s hold: in F2, pick “Equip on Bunker 1”, or take one back out.
- A module in a hold is a kit, a quarter of its fitted size.
- Each move is a refit: 3 seconds, one at a time.
- A drop-off: a bunker with a cargo hold or a mining module takes ore from harvesters.
Mining bunker
Fit a mining module and the bunker mines every ore patch within 1.5 km on its own.
| Mark | Ore a minute |
|---|---|
| Mk0 | 7.8 t |
| Mk1 | 12 t |
| Mk2 | 18 t |
| Mk3 | 27 t |
- Access counts. Each patch has an access rating: how easy its ore is to get at. The rate is shared evenly over the patches in reach, and each gives its share times its access, so poor patches slow it down.
- Its own hold: a mining module has a 5,000 m³ hold, about 12,500 t of ore. Mining stops when it’s full or nothing is left in reach. Move the ore to the carrier’s hold in F2 while the carrier is near.
- More modules mine faster, and empty the field faster.
- Hold Alt to see the 1.5 km mining ring. Small drones fly between the patches and the bunker; they are just for show, and the ore comes from the rate.
- The unit card shows the rate, the patches in reach and the ore left, or why it has stopped.
The carrier starts with one Mk1 mining module kit in its hold.
Packing up
Select the bunker and press Shift+D, or right-click it and pick Pack up. It must be empty apart from its bridge, with a carrier of yours within 1 km that has room for the 2,000 m³ kit. It sinks into the ground in 30 seconds and the kit goes back into the hold. If the carrier leaves or goes out of range first, packing is called off.
More: harvesting ore, refits, landing.