All New System... The Navigation SystemThe Nav Computer provides many new features:
- It is in charge of your map, it’s range, it’s waypoints, and filters.
- Includes a Cruise Control system with throttle limits, throttle floors, and auto throttle!
- Includes an Autopilot setting for the busy explorer! Slaving an AI to a Nav Computer allows you to simply set a waypoint or waypoint chain, and leave the flying up to your AI.
- It allows you to create and name waypoint chains.
- When a scanner is slaved to the Nav Computer, the autopilot will adopt collision detection and avoidance, and automatically generate waypoint chains to avoid stars, stations, planets, ships, and other celestial bodies.
- It allows you to custom-name anything on the map! Including: waypoints, trade routes, planets, bases, shops, sectors, wormholes and wormhole routes, warp connections, highways, systems, territories, space stations, and more!
- It offers a mighty search feature for finding and creating nav points for any named or known map item!
- You can beam all of this data, as well as sync nav computers between friends, space stations, and entire factions!
- Enemies, however, can hack and steal your nav data… allowing them to scout a sector, find your base, or gather data on where you will travel and become most vulnerable…
- The nav computer includes integration with brand new Core-Control decoration blocks such as the Steering Wheel, Control Panel, and Joystick that let you enter a ship’s core without having to click on the core itself - good for hiding your core in a protected area but still entering it from the bridge!
- You may slave a camera to the new core control blocks to set as a default viewpoint.
- Warp Computers may be slaved to the nav system to automatically aim and warp in the direction of a waypoint!
- Slaved Warp Computers allows you to automatically charge them with an on/off switch from the ship’s power reserve.
- Nav Computers allow you to travel along fast-paced interstellar highways!
All New Way to Travel… The Plasma Highway
Plasma Highways stretch from star to neighboring stars within a galaxy and allow you to travel at nearly the speed of light, well above the server speed limit, much like a slaved overdrive system or falling into a wormhole, except these highways let you have a lighter-weight ship, allows you to be hands-off with steering, travel slightly faster than an overdriven system, span many systems, and can be created (and destroyed) at will with warp gates set to highway-mode.
But beware of traffic! Press W, A, S, D, to dodge traffic while in over-throttle, or use your cruise control to match the speed of the other traffic. Using a scanner and a cruise control setting, you can make your ship automatically match the speed of and follow another ship in front of you. It will even move along the same highway lanes!
Use WASD to change highway lanes. The center lane is for the fastest moving ships, called the Overdrive Zone. Different highway lanes may have throttle limits set to them, essentially serving as speed limits. They may also have throttle minimums set.
Only certain sized ships can drive in a highway, determined by the size of the connected warp gates. A 3-lane ship can only drive in a 6-lane highway, for example, to allow traffic both directions. Press Shift on a highway to over throttle and pass other ships. Beware of collisions though! They hurt, and may knock you or the other out of the highway, ejecting you far into space!
To exit a highway, simply move to one of the three edges of your half of the highway and press the appropriate WASD to jump out of it. You will escape the highway but continue to coast at maximum throttle allowable by your ship. Don’t forget to apply retro-thrusters!
Super Highways, or Intergalactic Highways are very large, two-way, two-lane highways that stretch between galaxies, allowing for (faster) travels between distant systems.
Highways can be claimed by factions to be used as designated trade routes.
But beware of traffic! Press W, A, S, D, to dodge traffic while in over-throttle, or use your cruise control to match the speed of the other traffic. Using a scanner and a cruise control setting, you can make your ship automatically match the speed of and follow another ship in front of you. It will even move along the same highway lanes!
Use WASD to change highway lanes. The center lane is for the fastest moving ships, called the Overdrive Zone. Different highway lanes may have throttle limits set to them, essentially serving as speed limits. They may also have throttle minimums set.
Only certain sized ships can drive in a highway, determined by the size of the connected warp gates. A 3-lane ship can only drive in a 6-lane highway, for example, to allow traffic both directions. Press Shift on a highway to over throttle and pass other ships. Beware of collisions though! They hurt, and may knock you or the other out of the highway, ejecting you far into space!
To exit a highway, simply move to one of the three edges of your half of the highway and press the appropriate WASD to jump out of it. You will escape the highway but continue to coast at maximum throttle allowable by your ship. Don’t forget to apply retro-thrusters!
Super Highways, or Intergalactic Highways are very large, two-way, two-lane highways that stretch between galaxies, allowing for (faster) travels between distant systems.
Highways can be claimed by factions to be used as designated trade routes.