One storage unit, and metal from ore and scrap: why these numbers
Published
How it plays: metal refinery, the production screen, salvage, storage and hauling. All numbers here are placeholders.
One storage unit: m³
Why: “one unit for everything.” Ore, salvage, metal, water, rice and fuel each take 1 m³ a unit, the same unit as holds, hangars and modules. Ammunition and whole items such as kits and turrets are still counts, each with its own room. Ship mass stays in tonnes, because that’s weight, not storage.
Salvage is its own good
Why: the developer’s choice, after a design discussion: wrecks are already metal, so turning them back into ore made little sense. Gathered wrecks now stay salvage until a refinery takes them or a town buys them. That means they pay for no build or repair until metal buys things, which the developer accepted while this is a proof of concept. A wreck is still worth a third of the craft’s build cost.
Salvage 1:1, ore 2:1
Why: salvage gives more because it is “the reward for fighting”. The 2:1 for ore is a guess.
A refinery stops at 200 m³ of metal
Why: metal buys nothing yet, and a refinery shouldn’t eat all the ore. 200 m³ is a guess.
Rate: 0.2 m³ a second at Mk1
Why: it equals the mining module’s rate at each Mark, so one refinery keeps up with one mining module of its Mark. It’s a guess. Mk0 is 0.13, Mk2 0.3, Mk3 0.45.
Water only when asked for
Why: the developer’s worry was that a gatherer sent for water would “forever go gather water with no limits”, and since holds are shared it would crowd out everything else. So water is fetched only for a stock target, and the same worry is why stock targets exist. It has no use yet; refining it is planned.
Switches for each input and chain
Why: the developer asked to “click on each node to allow / disable production, so the player can choose to refine metal from salvage only.”
One setting per carrier or bunker
Why: from the design discussion: two refineries in one bunker draw from the same hold, so a setting per module would mean more clicks for very little gain.
One list for the whole fleet
Why: the developer asked for a global list, with the selected unit jumping to its place in it, rather than a screen per ship.
The screen updates 4 times a second
Why: not yet recorded. The cargo screen updates at the same rate.
Chains drawn from data
Why: a module’s row says what it makes, and both the screen and the module read it, so what’s shown is what happens. A later chain is a new row, not a new screen.
Item icons and share bars
Why: of the icons, the developer said “it adds character, easier reads”. The art is placeholder. The share bars are so a row shows how much of the hold it takes as a percentage, and so the headers show totals at first glance.