Guide to Ship Superstructure and Armor
If you're reading this, you probably want to know what those blaring sirens are all about. This guide will detail the basics of Ship superstructure integrity and armor plates along with how you can repair your vessel and save the day.
Ship integrity
Each vessel has a set number "health" points refering to the integrity of the superstructure of the ship, essentially the pieces that keep the ship together. Not all ships are created equally and will have varying degrees of maximum integrity. A ship's "health" is split between structural integrity and armor plating. Structural integrity is the raw "health bar" of the ship, whereas armor plating represents just that - armor that protects the primary superstructure from damage. This is represented as a seperate health pool (visible below structural integrity on a tactical console).
Armor quadrants
Disclaimer: The armor quadrants system is only currently only enabled on the main player ship, mining ships are excluded. Other ships will have to use hull repair juice. There are four quadrants on each ship, split usually unevenly between the four. Whenever a corner of the ship is hit, that quadrant loses health and protects the main structure. Note: this will protect the ship from nuclear impacts. Any damage which is absorbed by quadrants will not cause explosions in the interior itself. When observing the overmap, each quadrant will become progressively more red as it takes damage. Areas indicated as red on your ship should avoid taking damage while piloting using the navigation console.
Superstructure Critical
As the integrity of the ship drops, you will begin to hear creaking noises from the hull, indicating that the ship's integrity is near being compromised. When the superstructure integrity falls enough, you will enter superstructure critical and a voiceover will announce this to the crew before sounding an alarm.
Once this alarm has begun you will have 10 minutes to repair the structural integrity above 20% otherwise the ship will enter an irreperable state and explode 5 minutes afterwards.
APNW
Otherwise known as the Armor Plating Nano-repair Well breaks down metal sheets inserted into liquid form to be distrubted to the Armor Plating Nano-repair Pumps. Ensure that a high-power wire is placed directly underneath the APNW at all times for it to function. To operate, insert iron, titianium, silver, or plasma and select the desired alloy on the Well's interface. Next, turn on processing by clicking the processing button which will turn green once activated. Ensure a fair amount of energy via the slider bar otherwise materials will not begin to process. If you wish to change the alloy at any time, you will need to turn off the processing and press the "Purge RR" button before selecting a new alloy. Different alloys will give a different repair efficiency rate, depending on which alloy is selected. How much power is inputted will also effect the efficiency of the repairing effect.
The system can run any number of pumps until it overheats, indicated by the "System stress" bar. Once the system stress passes 100% red lights will begin to flash and any active pumps will begin to fail and must be brought offline. Above this bar is is the "System Load" bar, if this goes above 100% it will begin to increase system stress and decrease system stress if returned to below 100%.
Unlike other machines, the well cannot be upgraded using higher quality parts obtained from Research and Development.
APNP
Each Armor Plating Nano-repair Pump or APNP can repair the respect quadrant it is attached to and the overall ship superstructure integrity. Each pump has a slider which sets how efficient it is at the cost of inceasing the System Load. Each pump has 100% capacity which can be divided between armor and integrity. Armor repair pumps repair Superstructure linearly, but repair armor plating itself differently. Attempting to repair armor that is critically damaged will have a penalty to efficiency, to repair armor plating the fastest, it is advised that Bridge staff attempt to spread the damage across all quadrants for the fastest possible repair times.
If overheated, indicated by red flashing lights, you will need to decrease the load on that particular armor repair pump to 0% and purge the system by taking a welder to cut the plating off, wrenching it, and then weld it once more to restore it to operational order. Additional armor pumps may be constructed and setup by linking the pump to the armor repair well using a multitool. Do note that additional pumps will add to the system load.
