Material Transportation Beam

[Matt_Bradock]

I've been thinking about concepts to cover direct stransfer of items from a ship's storages to another ship or station's storage blocks.
Why not make a "Material transportation beam"? Just like a salvager, this system could have storage blocks connected to it, and upon activation, it would send their content to the block it hits. If said block has an inventory (factories, storage units) the items would go inside that inventory, if it doesn't, the items would just be dropped around the block hit. How fast the items transfer, would depend on the number of blocks in the system, and ofc, it could be hooked up to logic. Imagine just docking your miner, turning it on, and have it hit a conveniently placed storage right in front of the beam output, from which the storage pull system could distribute your loot between your base's storages.

And then, I thought further. If there should be a beam that sends stuff, how about one that takes stuff?
Unlike a salvager, this counterpart of the Material Transportation Beam wouldn't pick up blocks from the target itself, but instead the contents of any storage the target has, but only as long as the target has no shields, or shields down. This would add an entire new aspect to piracy, when you could catch an unarmed miner, and drain its hard-earned minerals without having to blow it up.

Also, this already sounds kind of like a reverse salvager, right? So, I thought about a real reverse salvager, the Material Projection Beam, that takes blocks from inventories connected to it and places them on the surface of the block it hits. Obviously, this would be a crude but relatively safe way to patch up holes on a damaged ship, as you can only rotate a block in build or astronaut mode, not with this thing. However, it would serve well as emergency repairs (not to mention the funny idea to fill it with rocks and keep adding mass to the ship you chase until you slow it down enough to prevent any escape)

 

[Jake_Lancia]

this system could have storage blocks connected to it, and upon activation, it would send their content to the block it hits.

+1, this would streamline my mining runs sooo much.

Material Projection Beam
fill it with rocks and keep adding mass to the ship you chase until you slow it down enough to prevent any escape

Please, let us do this, I has so many ideas for pranks with this xD

 

[ltmauve]

but only as long as the target has no shields, or shields down.

First, I'd say make it block-based like the other, and make it faction-based for security instead.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Naturally, all these would be controller block systems with transport speed depending on number of blocks in the system. Also with the option to add a support (cannon for constant stream instead of bursts; or Damage Beam for range) Homebase invulnerability would of course prevent the Material Drain Beam from taking anything unless you belong to the same faction. Activating the beam would also decloak the ship using it and count as a hostile action in regards of auto-declare, but wouldn't be stopped by an active faction block alone.