Introducing Project Benefaction
Dry Mass (no cargo): 2,217 tonnes (22,172 blocks)
Side Length: 37mx27mx37m
Side Length including docking rings: 47m (four sides)
Beacon tower dimensions: 3m x 3m x 14m
Overall Height, including two beacon towers: 55m
Power Rating: 92,503 e capacity, regenerating 70,344 e/sec
Shield Rating: 14,803 s capacity, regenerating 319 s/sec
Standard 5x5 docking door rings
Blocks R/C: 58/302, Power Cons: 319
The Benefaction Cryogenic Depot (A.K.A. The Benefaction) is a cold storage facility, commissioned by philanthopist and former freight shipping president Theodore Starsonne, Esqu., designed as an unmanned remote supply depot. The cryogenic storage system is designed to store supplies for much longer than standard storage and refrigeration systems. The depot has standard 5x5 docking rings (5mx5m airlock doors) on four sides, and two blinking beacon towers, one on the "top" and one on the "bottom" of the station to signal distant ships of its presence and availability.
This station is designed to be a small, friendly station for new players near spawn to find and either find a good supply of basic blocks, left behind in plex storage lockers by more experienced players, or else scavenging the whole station for spare parts. For the purpose of scavenging, I used a lot of standard blocks, including all colors of light blocks, to encourage new players to experiment with different ship designs that don't all involve creating a giant cube of hull blocks. For the sake of completeness, I probably should have tucked away some camera blocks into hidden alcoves in the station, so scavengers could use it on new ships.
Dry Mass (no cargo): 2,217 tonnes (22,172 blocks)
Side Length: 37mx27mx37m
Side Length including docking rings: 47m (four sides)
Beacon tower dimensions: 3m x 3m x 14m
Overall Height, including two beacon towers: 55m
Power Rating: 92,503 e capacity, regenerating 70,344 e/sec
Shield Rating: 14,803 s capacity, regenerating 319 s/sec
Standard 5x5 docking door rings
Blocks R/C: 58/302, Power Cons: 319
I prided myself on using only blocks that were "found" for this project. That is, the blocks used were either bought legitimately from a shop, or scavenged legitimately from a station. You might find it surprising that I consider ice crystals overused, so you will not find ice crystals here. I received several multi-block loot treasures from taking out pirate turrets. I might have gotten more loot from pirate ships, but I had imported some ship blueprints. In addition to turning off blueprint access to "enemy factions" for the new ships, the blueprint import also apparently cut off access to Isanths for "enemy factions" as well. Prior to writing this write-up, I changed permission on the admin tab, tested, and Isanths are once again available to trader and enemy factions.
Upon Retirement, Theodore Starsonne, Esqu. decided that space should be a friendlier place. Immediately, he formed a trust and created a company for the purpose of creating and distributing a new breed of spacestation that would provide friendly supply services in remote sectors of space to passing ships in need. The station would need to be fully automated, and use proven, reliable technology to ensure that these stations would always provide a helping hand to those in need. The overall design would be basic, easy to manufacture, and simple to assemble. These stations would be distributed to every remote sector in space, out beyond the galactic rim into perpetuity.
The project started out quietly, with Mr. Starsonne hiring newly graduated design and engineering students with the drive to take on this ambitious project, where more experienced engineers might have scoffed at the simple design requirements and infinite deployment scope of the project. Some design considerations included large, universal signs that could be recognized from up to two sectors away, standard computer interfaces, standard materials and parts, simple layout, and intuitive storage protocols. The design stage of the station seemed to be performed without much trouble.
Here is a quote from one of the designers several years after the project began:
"Well, yes, the design I created included elegant three by five halls with adequate room for multiple visitors, while looking stunning. The docking rings? Er, well, you see, they aren't awkward at all. A standard docking door ring was adopted for the sake of mating with most standard passenger- and equipment-sized doors on ships. The docking ring was modified with an adaption collar which elegantly squeezed the five by five door down to the station's standard three by five halls and three by three doors. So you see? It is an cheap, simple solution for making the station standardized with regular ship airlocks."
The project started out quietly, with Mr. Starsonne hiring newly graduated design and engineering students with the drive to take on this ambitious project, where more experienced engineers might have scoffed at the simple design requirements and infinite deployment scope of the project. Some design considerations included large, universal signs that could be recognized from up to two sectors away, standard computer interfaces, standard materials and parts, simple layout, and intuitive storage protocols. The design stage of the station seemed to be performed without much trouble.
Here is a quote from one of the designers several years after the project began:
"Well, yes, the design I created included elegant three by five halls with adequate room for multiple visitors, while looking stunning. The docking rings? Er, well, you see, they aren't awkward at all. A standard docking door ring was adopted for the sake of mating with most standard passenger- and equipment-sized doors on ships. The docking ring was modified with an adaption collar which elegantly squeezed the five by five door down to the station's standard three by five halls and three by three doors. So you see? It is an cheap, simple solution for making the station standardized with regular ship airlocks."
The garish yellow docking rings were added as an eyesore on purpose, specifically to support this mildly humorous backstory. Since the doors do not have any actual docking blocks, there is no real docking consideration. In fact, at the time of this design, there is no standard dock-and-door combinations established for all players of the game of StarMade. I plan to create a simple set of standards for myself, but I don't know how popular that might become. I am both horrified and satisfied with the docking rings as they are now. I think they provide a good implicit tutorial on how to use angled blocks to squeeze down from one size of door/corridor/crawlspace to another. Additionally, I wanted to provide yellow blocks to encourage less drab colors in spaceship design. After all, who said you can't have a gold-plated ship?
Identification/TFF:
On the top and on the bottom are 14-meter armored beacon towers with long-life beacon lights designed to blink for centuries without service.
Hull/Shielding:
The main surface skin is a station-standard double-hulled outer layer, complimented by a basic shielding system designed to deflect debris and absorb accidental minor weapons fire. It is possible that the shield might be able to contain atmosphere in case of a hull or seal failure, but this has not been tested. The shielding system is not designed for direct combat, but if a buyer wishes to place one of these stations in a "hot" zone, they are welcome to place additional shielding equipment in the maintenance crawlspaces.
On opposite sides of the faces of the station, there are large pictographic signs to indicate the station's purpose and resources. These signs do not currently have an automatic update function to automatically reflect the station's resources, so the owner must take responsibility for keeping the signs up to date. The signs themselves use standard shielded Holoneon signage which is designed to last indefinitely without service. Regular viewers should see the signs from up to two sectors away without trouble. Telescopic viewers should be able to view the signs from an almost infinite distance, given sufficient time since the signs were built and turned on. For instance, the maximum viewing distance for a 5-year-old station would be 5 light years.
The overall shape of the station is a cube, with soft edges.
On the top and on the bottom are 14-meter armored beacon towers with long-life beacon lights designed to blink for centuries without service.
I would use a plex beacon at the very tip of the towers, but when I tested it, I found that when the light turned off, the block would still show the beacon flare. I wanted the flare to disappear when the light turned off. This might be updated at a later date, if beacon flares are fixed.
Hull/Shielding:
The main surface skin is a station-standard double-hulled outer layer, complimented by a basic shielding system designed to deflect debris and absorb accidental minor weapons fire. It is possible that the shield might be able to contain atmosphere in case of a hull or seal failure, but this has not been tested. The shielding system is not designed for direct combat, but if a buyer wishes to place one of these stations in a "hot" zone, they are welcome to place additional shielding equipment in the maintenance crawlspaces.
On opposite sides of the faces of the station, there are large pictographic signs to indicate the station's purpose and resources. These signs do not currently have an automatic update function to automatically reflect the station's resources, so the owner must take responsibility for keeping the signs up to date. The signs themselves use standard shielded Holoneon signage which is designed to last indefinitely without service. Regular viewers should see the signs from up to two sectors away without trouble. Telescopic viewers should be able to view the signs from an almost infinite distance, given sufficient time since the signs were built and turned on. For instance, the maximum viewing distance for a 5-year-old station would be 5 light years.
I am really happy with the way I snaked angled edges around the edge of the signs. I think it looks nice, and provides another good implicit tutorial, this time on how to create angled contour edges around features, using angled blocks. I created them with full symmetry on purpose, both to speed up the design and to follow the fictional design requirements that the signs be easy to read from almost any angle and from a long distance. The signs themselves were inspired by roadsign signs for pitstops such as restaurants and gas stations. The tool/repair sign was originally going to be a food sign with a knife and fork, but I couldn't think of a good way to make the eating utensils apparent and distinct from other possible objects that people might see. Therefore, the knife and fork was reduced to a fork, which was angled, and then since it already looked like a wrench, I decided to make the sign look like a wrench/spanner, in order to indicate repair parts.
The overall shape of the station is a cube, with soft edges.
I lucked out by nearly accidentally cubing the dimensions of the basic station, not including the beacon towers or yellow docking rings. I was hoping to keep the station as small as possible, and much smaller than it currently is, but the dimensions grew, when I realized I needed more space for even the basic features that are in the design now. I liked how the edges of the cube are rounded (chamfered?) as an implicit tutorial to users on how to keep from building simple "doomcubes" and instead branch out into actual shapes.
Upon entering the 5x5 outer doors, one steps up the airlock floor to the smaller 3x3 middle doors, which lead into the main hallways, which terminate at the 3x3 inner doors, beyond which is the core of the station. The main hallways contain standard lighting on floor and ceiling, maintenance hatches, artificial gravity computers, and standard storage lockers, for things like spare space suits, repair parts, and other non-perishables.
Warning: Please do not let children wander the station.
Warning: Please do not enter the maintenance crawlspaces without a protective suit. They contain sharp edges, large blue air canisters, and sensitive equipment. It is advised that artificial gravity be deactivated during maintenance for easy movement.
Warning: Please do not enter the maintenance crawlspaces without a protective suit. They contain sharp edges, large blue air canisters, and sensitive equipment. It is advised that artificial gravity be deactivated during maintenance for easy movement.
I'll refrain from describing the maintenance crawlspaces in any further detail. I've got to leave you with -something- to explore!
It is highly advisable to close both the outer door(s) and middle airlock door(s) before proceeding to the storage core of the station. The station's systems will depressurize any compartments prior to them being exposed to vacuum, but sealing doors will provide greater safety to visitors. Unfortunately, to keep costs and reliability within the constraints of the design philosophy, automatic airlocks were not installed.
I already nearly made this station a treasure box, with the basic logic blocks involved within the core. Therefore, to save time and prevent a full treasure box situation, I left the airlocks manual. The logic that is there is designed to make the beacon lights blink, as well as a special, if minor situation as described in the regular text below.
When entering into the core room of the station, try to keep from gasping out-loud when looking up or down at the windows showing the actual cryogenic storage facilities. They are quite breathtaking. The soft blue glow of the cryogenic systems is contrasted by the yellow lighting in the station core, which illustrates the 4 station activation handprint control stations and 8 cryogenic storage robots. The storage robots look almost identical to standard storage lockers, in order to maintain a standard interface for ease of use.
The station is turned on with all four of the handprint control stations. If any is left off, the station will turn off. The deactivation freezes the current beacon light pattern, and turns off primary lighting in the station, including in maintenance crawlspaces. Generally, if maintenance is needed with power turned off, maintenance crew members should carry their own light source until power is restored. All four palmprint control panels must be activated to turn on the main power.
The station is turned on with all four of the handprint control stations. If any is left off, the station will turn off. The deactivation freezes the current beacon light pattern, and turns off primary lighting in the station, including in maintenance crawlspaces. Generally, if maintenance is needed with power turned off, maintenance crew members should carry their own light source until power is restored. All four palmprint control panels must be activated to turn on the main power.
I tried turning off the yellow core lights with the main turn-off function, but I didn't have any other light to illuminate the handprint activation blocks, making the core gloomy, scary and absolutely dark, leaving the player literally in the dark as to where to turn on the lights, so I left the yellow core lights on and unaffected by any logic.
When approaching the core, motion sensors will detect visitors, and automatically close the middle airlock doors and open all inner doors. Special yellow indicators will light up near the airlock doors to indicate a successful seal. This is the optimum configuration for working with the cryogenic storage robots, as it protects the atmosphere in the core, provides a stable area for taking large quantities from storage or adding supplies to storage, and stabilizes the atmospheric environment.
I found the logic needed to set up the beacon light blinking was challenging and satisfying. By way of contrast, the area logic which dealt with the doors was very simple and easy to set up. It was also fun, but wasn't nearly as challenging. I found that instead of slaving the area activation computer/block to all the different area-effect invisible logic blocks, all the area-effect logic blocks were instead slaved to the area activation block, when then the area activation block just needed to be right next to a conventional activation block without slaving. Bizarrely, the activation block doesn't turn off when leaving the area. Instead, one has to enter the effect area twice to turn off the activation block. I think that's weird and should probably be fixed. However, it's neat for making traps. I put a delay block in the area activation, to make it not only slightly more realistic, but also slightly spooky and off-putting. Such a small spacestation would be a great setting for a haunted-house-style story.
Shortly after launching several stations, the head accountant for the trust disappeared with all the money. This left the existing stations without fresh supplies and in limited numbers. Pirates and traders might some day take over a fair number of these stations, or they may all be recycled. It is hoped that one day, someone with vision, compassion, and deep pockets will resume this project, and bring remote supply depots to the entire galaxy.
We hope you will enjoy the Benefaction Depot.
Starsonne Benefaction Unlimited, LLC.
(Restored by the Alpha Centauri Historical Society)
We hope you will enjoy the Benefaction Depot.
Starsonne Benefaction Unlimited, LLC.
(Restored by the Alpha Centauri Historical Society)
