This page gives a brief description of the devices that go to make up a Jartrek ship. There are a number of broad classes of device:-
Power generators
Power storage devices (Batteries)
Beam weapons
Projectile weapons
Damage absorbers. Shields, armor etc.
Computers. Units which coordinate the operation of other devices.
Engines. Devices that propel the ship.
Scanners. Devices that detect other things. Each scanner has a display screen which can be invoked by clicking a button at the bottom of the screen.
Others. Devices that do not fit into one of the above categories.
For each class of device there are a set of status lights on the left of the screen:-
The left light shows the health of the most damaged device in the class:-
Green = Working (or slightly damaged)
Yellow = Significant damage (may malfunction)
Red = Badly damaged (may work if you are lucky)
Black= Destroyed (non-working and cannot be repaired by damage control)
The centre light shows the devices status:-
Green = All devices are 'On Line'
Black = One or more devices are 'Off Line'
The right light indicates if the devices are under repair:-
White = One or more devices are under repair
Black = No devices are under repair
There is also a button to bring up the devices 'control panel' in the main screen area. The control panel provides a detailed view of the internal state of all the devices, within a class, and enable them to be configured.
The following sections lists currently implemented devices in something like alphabetical order.
This is the 'Artificial Intelligence' computer which gives un-manned ships motivation to move without instruction. It gives instructions to the navigation and battle computers. The current AI is quite 'thick' relying mostly on random numbers.
If more power is generated that is used then the surplus is stored in a battery. Latter if more power is required than is being generated extra can be drawn from the battery. Not all ships have batteries.
If a battery is damaged the total amount of power it can store is reduced. If a battery goes 'off line' for any reason then the power it contains is lost.
These weapons use faster than light beams of 'stuff 'to inflict damage on other objects. When a weapon is fired a beam immediately appears between the two ships, does damage and then disappears again. Beams require a lot of energy to generate, do a moderate amount of damage, but a ship with a beam weapon can fire an infinite number.
Beams have a maximum range and damage inflicted is inversely proportional to the range at which the beam is fired.
Beam generators get hot if fired for a prolonged period. If they get too hot then the device may fail or be damaged. For this reason a safety 'cut out' is installed to prevent the weapon from firing if it is already overheated. At some time in the future it may be possible to override this cut out. Beam temperature is displayed on the devices control panel.
Currently available beam weapons are:-
|
Name |
Color |
Max Range |
Damage |
Power Reqd. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Phasor |
Cyan |
200 |
50 |
30 |
|
Disruptor |
Green |
150 |
30 |
20 |
A battle computers job is to tie together the scanners, weapons systems and navigation computer. It is given a target ship (either to fire on or follow), locates the target and instructs other systems what to do next.
The battle computer also determines what targets should be automatically fire at in each of the ships alert state.
Note : Since the 'nav comp' does not know about moving ships and attempt to follow a ship, even without shooting at it, requires a working 'battle comp'.
The navigation computers job is to get a ship from where it is now to a given grid reference (supplied by the captain or battle computer). This may sound trivial but it involves considerable fiddling with the ships orientation, impulse and warp drives. The current nav comp will get you there in the end but sometimes does 'odd things' on final approach to a location.
Damage control repairs a ship when it is damaged. It first decides which device to repair using the following algorithm:-
If damage control itself is damaged to a point where it may malfunction repair self
If not repair most damage device
Each phase there is a chance of a successful repair occurring. Devices which are on line are repaired at half the rate of those that are off line. Sometimes damage control will stop working, possible reasons:-
Damage control itself if damaged or destroyed.
Insufficient power. Damage control is one of the last things to draw power. The logic behind this is that in the middle of a battle the last thing you want is half your crew repairing things.
Impulse engines move the ship at slow speeds.
Warp engines move the ship at high speeds but suffer from a number of limitations which can make them difficult to use:-
"You can't mix matter and antimatter cold". Once a warp drive is put on line it takes a while to 'warm up' to operating temperature. If anything forces a ship out of warp space then it must repeat this warm up process.
Warp drives only work in 'free space'. If a ship passes too close to another object the warp drive will shut down.
Stationary ships can't warp. A minimum impulse speed must be obtained before warp engines can be activated.
Generators provide power for all the ships other systems. If damaged the will provide less power. See 'power usage' section for more details.
The LRS shows the area around a ship at a lower resolution than the SRS. Buttons are provided to zoom in or out and a white 'box' shows the part of the image that is currently covered by the SRS. From the LRS screen it is possible to move the ship, by left clicking, but not to fire at things.
Each object displayed on the LRS is identified by name and colour coded to indicate the political status of it's controlling player. Starships are represented by crosses, starbases by circles.
Currently the LRS displays ships even if they are in warp space. This is useful for game development but, since there is no way to detect such ships, is probably technically incorrect. This feature will eventually be removed.
The, static, background grid is provided to give a sense of movement and take no part in game.
A projectile weapon is an object (with its own engine and a warhead) that a ship can launch at another ship. In general projectiles are powerful weapons but a ship only has a limited number of shots before it has to dock with a starbase to reload . Since a projectiles warhead is built into the weapon, rather than the firing ship, launching one has a relatively low energy cost. The corresponding ship device represents the launcher not the projectile.
All projectile weapons are guided. With the speeds and distances involved in space combat an un-guided weapon would never hit anything. At present guidance is built into the weapon rather than the firing ship. This means that once a weapon is launched it will continue to home even if the firing ship is destroyed or it's sensors are jammed.
Currently available projectile weapons are:-
Photon torpedo
When a projectile launcher is given a target it will put itself on line and keep trying to fire until one projectile has been launched.
If a ship is damaged while its shields are 'up' then damage is adsorbed by the shield (not the shield generator device) before hitting the ships internal devices. Shields require a lot of power so are not generally powered up except when combat is imminent.
Shields take some time to power up, or to recover when damaged. A shield maximum strength is limited by the health of the shield generator that is producing it. On the SRS a shield is displayed as a circle around the ship that is generating it.
For now these generate replacement opposition ships.
SRS displays the immediate are around a ship.
The background stars displayed by the SRS are pure 'scenery'. They are there only to give an impression of movement and play no part in the game.
Why does the SRS stay 'on line' even when you are not looking at it? Because the rest of you're ship's systems and crew are using it. You have just shut down the 'display' not all the equipment behind it.
Ships in warp space are not displayed on the SRS ... they are not really there. When a ship enters or leaves warp space then a 'warp burst' is displayed at it's location. This is 'scenery' and takes no part in the game.
Usually part of a starbase this is a repair and maintenance facility. At any time one ship can be docked at each stardock. The dock will rapidly repair damaged ships devices and replaces any destroyed devices (replaced devices start at zero health and must then be repaired up to operational health). A stardock also re-arms the ships projectile weapons and will, one day, resupply the ship with LI2 and personnel.