Starbase/EGOTech/whaler/USAGE.md

Usage

To enter the ship, there is are buttons on each side of the front of the ship that will open a Door on either side.

Flying the Ship

Both pilot seats have flight controls. The left lever on the main center console controls backwards thrust (braking) and the right lever controls forward thrust.

Interface	Function
Speed	Current speed in metres per second.
ForwardThrust	Current forward thrust, maximum of 10,000 units
Plasma & Plasma Charge Level	Activates the plasma thrusters and intitiate charging. Plasma thrusters has to be activated and charge level at 1.0 for it to fire.
Throttle	Current throttle level, maximum of 100 percent
Cruise	Activates cruise control, forward thrust will not reset to zero unless turned down.
Turtle	Activates turtle mode which sets forward thrust to a maximum limit of TurtleRate of full thrust.
Sloth	Activates the low sensitvity mode of pitch and yaw by limiting thrust. Use the Sensitivity switch to set the maximum thrust rate of sloth mode.
Aim	Reduces the response time of key presses for pitch and yaw.
Guides	Activates rangefinders (except center one which can be activated separately) to be used as guide lasers.
Crosshair	Activates beam crosshair.
Range & Distance	Activates center rangefinder, with Distance showing distance to object.
Scanner & Scan	Turns on the Ore Scanner and shows results of scan.
Combat, Fire, Weapon Mode, LaserAmmo, PlasmaAmmo, Launch, Missile Volley & Lock	Weapon controls. See Combat.
Nav, Autopilot, Avoidance & Target	Autopilot controls. See Autopilot.
ISAN2	Current ISAN coordinates of ship.
NavGrid, NavP, NavC & Attitude	NavGrid system, see Using the Waypoint System.
SafeZone	Whether current location is in the safe zone.
StrengthFactor	Current strength of ship. May fluctuate as ore crates are filled. Anything below 1.0 means ship is damaged.
Transponder Toggle & Ping	Transponder controls, Toggle turns on and off ship transponder while Ping will activate transponder for three seconds
Timer	See Timer.
Odometer	See Odometer.

NOTE: For safety, firing full braking thrust will deactivate Cruise.

Combat

Both pilot seats have weapon controls. Activate Crosshair for aim assistance.

Combat activates combat mode which charges the laser and plasma guns as well as opening hatches for all weapons including the missile launchers.

Hold Fire to fire the laser and plasma guns. Use Weapon Mode to switch guns or use both.

Hold Launch to launch missiles. Use Missile Volley to adjust how many missiles are launched at a time.

NOTE: Fire and Launch buttons should be bound for the top pilot seat as the buttons are not readily available on the top pilot console.

LaserAmmo & PlasmaAmmo shows current ammo for each of the guns. The indicator lights on each side of the consoles show laser gun heat (red) and power (blue) levels. All gun heat and power levels can be seen on the main pilot left console. Missile Pod 1 to Missile Pod 4 show the current available missiles in each pod.

TIP: Remember to turn off Combat after combat to save on fuel.

Gun Turrets

There are separate gun turret seats at the front, top and bottom of the ship and each has it own data network and has two autocannons each with laser sights. The front seat is shared with mining lasers and the bottom seat is shared with the tow beam.

For all seats use Combat to activate combat mode which will charge the auto cannons and turn on the laser sights. For the front and bottom seats, this will also deactivate the mining lasers and tow beam respectively. For the top and bottom seats, use Chair to change to either face the front or back of the ship.

Press C to activate mouse aim mode and press Fire to fire the autocannons. The red ligts are indicators that the laser sights have detected an object. For safety, the turrets have limited firing windows.

All turret seats have displays for autocannon heat and power levels.

NOTE: Each seat currently has it own ammo storage on the autocannons as the turrets are bugged (See Known Issues).

Reloading

Access the bottom compartment of the ship using the access hatches inside the ship near the entrance doors. There are ammo storages for the laser guns, plasma guns and auto cannons (unused). From there is also access to swap out the plasma gun magazines (optional).

For the laser guns, access to the magazines is available through small hatches in the cockpit so the magazines can be optionally swapped.

The gun turrets currently can only be reloaded by swapping the magazines on the autocannons (See Known Issues).

Access to the missile launches is available through doors at the front of each side pod from inside the ship, which allows the loading of the missiles onto the launchers. Deactivate Lock to rearm the launchers and then reactivate Lock once done.

NOTE: For missiles, the Safety should always be set to 1 and multipart missiles should also be locked by setting MissileLock on the fuel module to 1.

Using the Waypoint System

Viewing and Selecting Waypoints

This uses the NavGrid system. Use the Down and Up waypoints selectors to select waypoint. The selected waypoint information is shown on NavP and NavC panels.

On the pilot center console, NavGrid will show the compass towards the selected waypoint while Attitude will show the ship's pitch, heading and roll directions. NavGrid is best used while not moving.

Editing and Saving Waypoints

Use Set to save waypoint of current location to the current selected waypoint position.

To edit currently selected waypoint, use your U tool to add name, X, Y and Z values to nName, nX, nY and nZ respectively. Then use the Save button to save.

NOTE: Waypoint 1 to 6 are presets and can not be over written.

Loading Waypoint to Auto Pilot

Use Load to Auto Pilot to load curretnly selected waypoint to Target to be used with the auto pilot system.

Auto Pilot

The ship uses a modified version of NavCas which uses the 3 in 1 ISAN from Compass. Waypoints are loaded from NavGrid waypoint system.

Use while the ship is stationary. Activating Nav will start point the ship towards Target waypoint and deactivate itself when done. Autopilot will activate Nav and fly to within 5km of Target waypoint.

NOTE: Nav may not be very accurate. I recommend using it in conjunction with the NavGrid compass. The dd panel on the pilot left console shows debugging information for NavCas.

Resetting Navigation

If ISAN or NavGrid is not working, it can be reset using the Reset ISAN button. Press once to take ISAN offline, then press again to reset.

Managing Power and Fuel

Interface	Function
Propellant	Total propellant remaining in propellant tanks, maximum of 144,000,000 units.
PropTime	Time and distance remaining of propellant based on current usage. Distance is calculated from speed.
FuelTime	Time and distance remaining of fuel based on current usage. Distance is calculated from speed.
WithBackup	Same as FuelTime but takes into account backup rods available. Use the switch for Backup Rods to set the number of backup rods available. As standard there are 20 extra rods.
Fuel Rod 1 to Fuel Rod 12	Fuel remaining on fuel rods in individual fuel chambers, maximum of 300,000 units for each.
Generator	Current generator rate.
Min Gen & Min Generator Rate	Toggle and sets minimum generator rate. See Managing Power.
Shutdown	Will turn off all fuel chambers thus shutting down generators.
Battery	Shows current battery charge of the batteries, maximum of 10,000 units.
HeatTransferRate	Current heat transfer rate of the heat sinks, maximum of 100%.
Flow In & Flow Out	Toggle flow modes of resource bridges. See Refueling Propellant.
Tow, Tow Status, Tow Mass & Auto Gen	Tow beam controls. See Towing Ships.
Right Cargo, Right Pod, Left Cargo & Left Pod	Cargo frame controls. See Storing Cargo.
Lights	Turns on and off internal lights.
Door	Opens or closes ship entry doors.

Managing Power

By default the generator will only run and ramp up when the batteries need charging so there is minimum management needed. But you can set a minimum generate rate by setting the Min Generator Rate value using the switch for the minimum rate and turning on Min Gen.

Refueling Propellant

All four resource bridges can be used for refuelling propellant. To refuel from another ship, turn off Flow Out on the pilot right side console and leave Flow In turned on. Then connect a resource bridge to the other ship. To refuel another ship, do the opposite, Flow Out turned on and Flow In turned off.

Remember to turn Flow In and Flow Out back on if you are using the Endo to collect ore via any of the ship's resource bridges.

Mining

Interface	Function
Scanner & Scan	Turns on the Ore Scanner and shows results of scan.
Lasers	Turns on mining lasers.
Collect	Turns on mining ore collectors.
Laser Convergence	Adjusts the distance at which the lasers converge.

Activate the mining lasers using Lasers. Turn on mouse aim by pressing C and adjust the Laser Convergence using the switch. The higher the Laser Convergence, the tighter the convergence will be. Collect turns on the two ore collectors.

If batteries start running out of charge while mining, turn on Min Gen. Continous use of the lasers and collectors at the same time requires a Min Generator Limit of around 20%.

NOTE: For safety, the autocannons will be disabled when the mining lasers are activated.

Ore Scanner

Activate using the Scanner button. Scan results will show on the Scan panel in number of stacks. It has a maximum range of 100m.

Storing Cargo

Use Right Pod and Left Pod on the pilot right console or the exterior buttons on each pod to open the cargo pod doors.

Right Cargo and Left Cargo on the pilot right console and on each frame activates the cargo lack frames.

NOTE: Make sure the cargo is secure before flying the ship.

Towing Ships

Interface	Function
Tow Status	Status of tow beam, 0 is off, 1 is on and 2 is locked on.
Tow Mass	Mass of locked on ship, in kilograms.
Tow	Activates the tow beam.
Auto Gen	Activates Min Gen with Min Generator Rate according to Tow Mass.

The tow beam faces out the back of the ship so position the ship in front of, with the back facing the ship you wish to tow. From the bottom turret seat, disable Chair to face the back of the ship.

Activate Tow to turn on the tow beam and press C to activate mouse aim. Once the tow beam is locked on the ship, the Tow Status will be 2 and the mass of the locked ship will be shown as Tow Mass in kilograms.

Activate Auto Gen which will then turn on Min Gen with a Min Generator Rate based off the Tow Mass. Wait till the generators reach the targeted rate before flying off.

NOTE: When Tow is activated, the bottom turret autocannons will be disabled.

The Whaler has enough power generation to tow a ship of a mass of up to 15ktons or 15,000,000 kilograms. For large ships, it is recommended to turn on Min Gen to ramp up the generator before locking on and then activating Auto Gen once locked on to adjust the Min Generator Rate accordingly.

TIP: Remember to turn off Min Gen after towing to save on fuel.

Large Display Screens

There are three large display, one in each pod room on either side and one in the main area in the middle of the ship. These screen can show a title message and a message of the day (MOTD). Each screen can be turned on and off independently but they all show the same information.

The screen messages can be changed using the console in front of the screen in the main area.

Interface	Function
TitleText	Message to be displayed for the title.
Title Size	Size of the title text, L, M and S.
Title Style	Animation style of the title text, Scroll, Static and Blink.
Title Colour	Colour of the title text, from 0 to 360.
LoadTitle	Load the title text onto the screen.
MOTDText	Message to be displayed for the MOTD.
MOTD Colour	Colour of the MOTD text, from 0 to 360.
LoadMOTD	Load the MOTD text onto the screen.
Screen	Turn on or off the screen in the main area.

Title Display

Use the universal tool (U) to change the value of the TitleText and adjust the Title Size & Title Style. Use LoadTitle to apply the changes. Title Colour can also be changed at any time.

The title can only display uo to 25 characters on each line. L (Large) has 1 line and can display 5 characters without scrolling. M (Medium) has 2 lines and can display 10 characters on each line without scrolling. S (Small) has 3 lines and can display 25 characters on each line without scrolling.

The title text has three animation modes.

• Static mode has no animation and will diplay the message as is.
• Scroll mode will scroll the text to the left for longer messages and start again from the start.
• Blink mode blinks the title text.

MOTD Display

Use the universal tool (U) to change the value of the MOTDText. Use LoadMOTD to apply the changes. MOTD Colour can also be changed at any time.

Other Stuff

Timer

On the pilot center console there is a Timer panel which acts as a timer. It will run when the ship is active and show total time in years, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds. To reset the timer, hold down the Timer Reset Utils button on the pilot left console.

Odometer

On the pilot center console there is a Odometer panel which will keep track of the ship's estimated flight distance based on speed. To reset the trip odometer, hold down the Odometer Reset Utils button on the pilot left console.