. . You fancy yourself a station administrator do you? Hope you've got some deep pockets or some friends with some heavy transports; both would be better!
In this guide I'll detail exactly what you need to construct your base, the commands used to do so, and various other tid bits you should know before staking your claim in space.
@Daedric and @Pimper helped in testing various parts of the original player base feature. Tel-Aviv & @Exdeathevn have both provided video tutorials.
This tutorial was made to help newer or even older players. If something seems off post a message below.
Player Bases are a feature added to the mod in version 4.86 Update 4. This feature allows players to construct persistent yet destructible bases any where they wish. The bases require regular supply to maintain as they have a built in decay rate to prevent unused bases from flooding the game space. Player bases serve as the means to producing some of the new items that were also introduced with 4.86 Update 4; cloaks, jump drives, hyperspace scanners, and docking bay modules.
With Discovery 5.0: Fire and Fortune, player bases have received a significant overhaul, and are now capable of much more than they were in previous versions. With ore refineries, weapon foundries, and several quality of life updates, POBs are more relevant to the game than ever - and hopefully, more enjoyable, too.
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Preparing to Deploy
The first thing you need is a Base Construction Platform, formerly known as the Heavy Lifter.
Secondly, you will need to gather the following commodities in the hold of the Base Construction Platform:
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"Hercules"-Class Civilian Base Construction Platform
2,500,000 credits
150 Industrial Materials
150 Super Alloy
100 Basic Alloy
100 Optronics
50 Construction Machinery
50 Nanocapacitors
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Things to keep in mind before Deploying a Player-Owned Base
Once you have the resources listed, you'll need to find some prime real estate for your station.
There are mechanical restrictions on where bases can be deployed - in general, they need to be away from other existing objects.
In specific, bases can only be constructed:
Keep in mind that you will need to supply the base daily in order for it to survive.
Proximity to the basic commodities that make your station tick is extremely helpful.
Many of the houses and regional powers currently have in-roleplay laws restricting or forbidding the construction of player stations in their space.
Do your homework before setting up shop, otherwise you may find a large fleet of battleships parked outside beating the doors down.
If you know your base will eventually be assaulted, remember that asteroid fields hinder large ship movements.
Player bases also take no damage from radiation fields, placing one inside a field will give it a passive defense mechanism.
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More than 2,000 meters from all trade lanes.
More than 2,500 meters from the surface of planets.
More than 5,000 meters from other Player Owned Bases.
More than 8,000 meters from all other dockable stations.
More than 12,500 meters from all jump gates and jump holes.
More than 30,000 meters from the edge of all mining zones EXCEPT mining zones for:
Alien Organisms
Hydrocarbons
Oxygen
Scrap Metal
Toxic Waste
Uranium
Water
More than 2,500 meters from all other interactive objects (wrecks, buoys, etc.)
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Once you've found that prime location you're set. Zoom that Base Construction Platform to your location and remember,
once you enter the command the base will appear 1,000 meters in front of you, with the docking bays facing you.
Re-positioning a base is impossible. Be sure you're happy before you enter the command to construct the base.
<password> this part of the command sets your master admin password; no spaces are allowed and there is no character limit.
This password allows you to create and clear regular admin passwords. Do not give it out to anyone you do not trust with your station's life.
<base name> this part of the command sets the display name of your station; spaces are allowed, but there is a 60 character limit.
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Code:
/base deploy <password> <base name>
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Look at that beauty! Your very own piece of Disco, but you don't have time to sit back and sip some tea in your new pad.
That station is in need of a crew and commodities to make sure it doesn't turn into a wreck.
There are a few things you need to do immediately after your base is deployed.
Once you dock, you'll need to login in order to control the base:
<password> this can either be the master admin password you set or, after you've set up a 2nd tier password you can use that one here.
The only difference between the two tiers is that a master admin can remove a 2nd tier admin password.
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Code:
/base login <password>
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<tag> is either the name of the ship or the faction tag prefix. Stations cannot detect suffixes, so don't bother entering them.
An example would be OSI- This would allow anyone with OSI- as the first four letters in their name to dock to the station.
Be careful adding entire ship names as tags.
If you enter HeavyTransport as a tag and someone has a ship named HeavyTransport1 they will be given permission to dock.
Station control is still very simple. If you add a tag, all ships with that tag are considered allied.
Everyone else is either neutral or hostile depending on the station's defense mode. More about that later.
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Code:
/base addtag <tag>
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This is a second-tier administration password. Give it out to only those who are helping you to administrate the base directly.
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Code:
/base addpwd <password>
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This is a third-tier password. Give it to those who supply your base.
It allows them to view shop only, so it's easier to spot when the base requires food or repairs.
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Code:
/base addpwd <password> viewshop
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Now that those two things are done, you need to get your base some supplies;
the place is likely already falling apart without a crew to maintain it! You have a couple of choices;
either have a friend with you with the following commodities in their transport:
. Or park one of yours nearby and F1 it when no one is around.
After you've done what I've instructed you to do above, log into that ship, dock, login as an admin, and then sell the commodities to the base.
Now go get more repair commodities! You'll need to feed the base a steady supply of alloy, panels, and robotics until it completes construction.
Your base isn't completed just because you typed in a command! It starts out at 50% of is maximum hit points - those repair commodities will see it to 100%,
so long as you keep your base well-fed. Fully stocked with three sets of repair commodities, your base should be at full strength after about two weeks. .
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200 Crew
400 Food
400 Oxygen
400 Water
X Repair Commodities
Basic Alloy
Robotics
Hull Panels
Where X is the rest of the cargo hold after the other commodities. .
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At this point, your base is a bit of a target - but you have two things going for you.
The first is that your base is only able to be attacked during a certain window of time, also known as a vulnerability window.
Outside of this time, no weapons fire can damage your base whatsoever.
This ensures that you'll be around to keep evildoers away from your new home!
Currently, bases have one vulnerability window, and each window is two hours long.
The vulnerability window(s) can be set by inputting:
Where <start hour> is the starting hour in 24-hour server time (check /time for the current time!),
with the ending hour automatically calculated from your set starting hour.
. The second thing helping you defend your base is that only specialized,
ammo-using siege weapons can damage your base, even inside that vulnerability window.
These can be mounted to gunboat forward guns, cruiser heavy slots (on cruisers and battlecruisers), and battleship heavy slots.
On top of that, only a certain amount of total base HP in damage can be dealt per vulnerability window,
with the number of total windows (and thus total siege encounters) increasing as the Core Level of the base increases.
Keep in mind, though, that bases that are not kept supplied will perish. All cargo and credits on the station are lost.
Ships docked to the station at the time of its demise will appear 100k below the system's sun when they un-dock. .
What are base levels? Before I answer that question, let me explain what a Base Core is. A Base Core is module slot 0 on your base; this slot is effectively the base. A Base's Core can be upgraded four times; Core 2, 3, and 4 and 5. All bases start at level 1. Upgrading a Base's Core increases the number of modules it can house, increases the base's hit points, and also increases the number of Spaceship Crew required to effectively operate the base. I've listed the base stats for each base level below; these stats do not include any modules you may have constructed.
. Core Upgrades do not require a free modular slot to start construction.
Construction will pause if you run out of all the required goods.
Once complete, the base stats will change immediately to reflect the new base level.
You need to have an extra 200 Crew dropped on the base immediately after a Core Upgrade completes.
Otherwise the base will not operate effectively; repairs won't happen.
Core levels are currently the only statistic that modify the appearance of your station.
Provided you have the means to quickly supply all necessary resources,
it is possible to "speedrun" your station to Core 4 in two months, provided enough roleplay has occurred. .
What are modules? Modules are how you expand your station. There are storage modules, defense modules, and factory modules. Each requires commodities to be built and take up one module slot.
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In order to construct a module you will need to enter a Hook command:
Entering an invalid command, empty /build command, or /build help
will list out the various commands you can use for building modules on your station.
Factory modules are modules that once constructed can create in game items; currently these items include: cloaking devices, hyperspace scanners, jump drives, docking bay modules, cloak disruptors, and exotic (codename) weapon and equipment foundries. In order to build those items you will have to provide the factory module with the required goods to construct the item. Constructing items is similar to construction modules: they consume commodities at the same rate, but their required commodities tends to be much higher or more expensive.
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As with base modules there are Hook commands that list what you can build.
There are several factory modules currently available for construction, all with different types of equipment available to manufacture. Some are broad, while others are specialized, and the sheer volume of items available now and in future patches means that the best source of up-to-date recipe information will always be in-game, at a POB using the help commands.
Here is a list of the currently available factory modules, and their required resources:
Similar to factory modules in usage are refineries, however they principally take in one input material and output a processed version of that material, while also costing fuel (and perhaps other commodities) to run. These are more 'jobs' than one-time crafts, and most are set to auto-repeat unless explicitly told to run once.
Except for the refinement of Uncharted commodities, these recipes offer discounts to certain IFFs, which require less input volume and time for the same output.
Defense modes are settings that tell your base how to treat those who approach it.
There are currently only three settings. You set these modes with the following command.
You have three types of Defense Arrays that you can build.
These arrays target certain ships, depending on the type built, and deal incredible amounts of Shield and Energy Damage.
Once upon a time, base owners rushed to construct a Shield Generator module to protect their base from sieges. Now, such shields are included automatically in the core of your base as soon as it's deployed - and they render you totally immune from all forms of damage, except during a specific set of vulnerability window(s) that you, the base owner, define.
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Currently, a new base created will have one vulnerability window, set at 1000 - 1200 server time.
This window can be changed ONCE PER MONTH using the following command:
Where <starting hour> is the hour digits in 24 hour time for your first vulnerability window,
and <starting hour 2> is the hour digits for your second vulnerability window, et cetera.
Currently, we are only requiring one vulnerability window, but this may change in the future.
If it does, the timer on setting vulnerability windows will likely be reset.
An example of a command to set the vulnerability window for my base at 2100 - 2300 SMT is:
Which results in a vulnerability window of 2100 - 2300 SMT.
And in a hypothetical future where two vulnerability windows are required,
which must be at least eight hours apart - that same command would be:
Sieging a POB is now performed exclusively by attacking it during its vulnerability timer,
which can be seen by using the command below with a POB targeted in space:
This base has a vulnerability window starting at 10:00
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Even during a vulnerability window, player owned bases only take damage from special, ammo-fed siege weapons mountable to gunboats, cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships.
These weapons are available anywhere their non-siege equivalents are sold, with the following names:
These weapons are fully capable combat weapons, albeit with an ammo restriction, which are specifically tuned to be the only weapons capable of damaging POBs.
The ammunition is quite expensive, which imposes something of a cost to the sieging party. In return, however, sieges are now typically much faster across the board if uncontested.
As a POB takes damage, the internal shield will react accordingly and begin to harden against outside fire.
This will manifest in the shield resistance to damage massively increasing over time, until such a point where no more damage can be done to the base until the next vulnerability window.
Short, combative siege windows which can be performed by a larger variety of ships and factions spread out over a longer campaign are the ultimate objective of this new system.
The 'reinforcement' threshold, or point at which a POB can take no further damage in that window, is noted below:
Core 1: 6 000 000 damage
Core 2: 6 000 000 damage
Core 3: 7 300 000 damage
Core 4: 9 200 000 damage
Core 5: 11 000 000 damage
Note that a POB's repairs are NOT paused either during a siege nor between windows while reinforced, which results in higher-core bases taking more vulnerability periods to kill.
The effective repair rate of a fully stocked base (minus wear & tear damage) is listed below:
Player-Owned Bases use resources to maintain their hull integrity and safety of it's crew.
As you jump up in Core Levels, more resources are needed to keep up with the demand.
Here is a basic calculation for a Core 1 Player-Owned Base:
. The additional factories and refineries require additional Crew and Scientists to run.
Depending on the modules installed, this may greatly increase your Crew's consumption rates.
Weigh your options and read over which modules you can afford to run and supply. .
. Below are the calculations on how player bases use the above commodities:
1 Crew eats 1 Food item + 1 Oxygen + 1 Water every 12 hours
If Food, Water, or Oxygen numbers are less than the number of Crew you have on your base (when the code makes its 12-hour check) then 10 Crew start disappearing every minute.
Less than 200 x Core Level of Crew in your cargo = NO REPAIRS
Less than 200 Robotics OR Hull Panels OR Basic Alloy in your base cargo = ONE THIRD REPAIRS
Less than 200 Robotics AND Hull Panels AND Basic Alloy in your base cargo = NO REPAIRS
Base repair rates and damage rates are:
Wear and Tear Damage every 60 seconds = (200 * Core Level)
Wear and TearBase will take 4x Damage on bases below Crew requirement
Repair every 60 seconds = Number of repair commodities x 240 x Core Level
Every 60 seconds the base will check for damage and use 3 Basic Alloy to repair the damage. Then it checks for damage again. If it detects more damage it will use 3 Robotics to make repairs. Then it will check for damage again. If it detects damage it will use 2 Hull Panels. This is one repair cycle that processes every 60 seconds.
If, after it makes repairs with Basic Alloy, it detects no damage it will not continue the cycle. If, after it makes repairs with Robotics, it detects no damage it will not continue the cycle
Docking Rights are one of the most important aspects of operating a player base.
As the title suggests, this section focuses on the commands and settings to control who can and cannot dock on your base.
This is currently controlled by what we on Disco call tags.
<tag> is where you input the faction tag of the group of players who you want to be allowed to dock to your base. You can also enter whole ship names too. Be careful when entering whole ship names, if two ships have the same name with the exception of a few letters at the end - both will be able to dock. An example would be:
You add the tag BigTransport to your base's docking rights. Any ship with BigTransport at the beginning of their name will be able to dock to your base. BigTransport1, BigTransportKiller, etc etc.
You're typically going to want to restrict access to faction tags for security reasons. Only prefix tags work. Tags that are suffixes will not work. Sorry.
These commands allow you to manage allied factions for the base via IFF, rather than by tag.
Using /base myfac will list all available IFF tags and then your current IFF.
Using those tags with addfac and rmfac (add and remove, respectively) will allow you to set certain IFFs allied, regardless of their tag.
lstfac will show you all current factions set to allied.
This command allows the base administrator to set the base info-card text that is shown when the base info icon is clicked.
<paragraph> The paragraph number in the range 1-5.
<command> The command to perform on the paragraph, 'a' for append and 'd' for delete
List the current balance of the base's bank. The base needs money to buy goods off players.
Unlike player ships, the bank can hold many times more than 2 billion credits and is essentially unlimited.
Both the trade window and equipment window are controlled via the shop Hook commands.
By default the shop will not accept goods that it does not already have in its shop status list.
This simple command brings up a Freelancer-style interface, where you can see your listed goods, their price,
as well as the minimum and maximum cargo allotments for each good.
The screen also displays the other ship commands available to you.
<min stock> is the minimum cargo allotment for a commodity.
A commodity will not show up for sale if the amount of it is less than <min stock>.
<max stock> is the maximum cargo allotment for a commodity.
A base will not let you sell any more of a commodity, if the current stock is over <max stock>.
This command will take whatever entered in [search] and only show you results from that page that contain that search term.
[page] is the normal shop page that the items would be listed on without a filter.
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