Starbase/EGOTech/trebler/USAGE.md

Usage

To enter the ship, there is are buttons on either side of the cockpit of the ship that will open Doors. Once inside you can also open and close the cockpit glass Canopy. Buttons for these are available in the pilot left side console.

Flying the Ship

The left lever on the 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
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 four forward facing rangefinders as guides.
Range & Distance	Activates center rangefinder, with Distance showing distance to object.
Scanner & Materials	Turns on the Ore Scanner and shows results of scan.
Approach, Collect, Mine, Lasers, Rotate, Eco, Drill Mode, Drill Pitch & Drill Count	Mining controls. See Mining.
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.

Mining

To approach an asteroid, point the center range finder at an asteroid and activate Approach. Once in range (optimum range is 16 to 20m on Distance), activate Lasers to turn on the mining lasers. Activating Rotate will rotate the laser drill.

The laser drill has three modes.

• Fixed mode will keep all lasers converged to the asteroid detected by the center range finder.
• Manual mode allows adjustment of the Drill Pitch. The pitch range is from -15 to 20 degrees.
• Auto mode will activate Rotate and progressively increase the drill pitch with the rotations

Drill Pitch can only be adjusted in Manual mode. Eco mode will only use two lasers to conserve power. Drill Count controls whether one, two or three drills are activated when mining.

Mine is a button which will activate automated mining. Point the center range finder at an asteroid and activate. It will activate Material Scanner and Approach, and once in range it will automatically activate Lasers.

Collect turns on the six 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 90%.

NOTE: For safety, lasers will turn off if the total fuel is less that 2,000 units.

Ore Scanner

Activate using the Material Scanner button. The laser will try to adjust to point at the objects detected by the center range finder. Scan results will show on the Materials panel in number of stacks. It has a maximum range of 100m.

Managing Power and Fuel

Interface	Function
Propellant	Total propellant remaining in propellant tanks, maximum of 48,000,000 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 24 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, maximum of Generator Limit.
Min Gen & Min Generator Limit	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.
Lights	Turns on and off internal lights.
Doors	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 Limit 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.

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 Reset Timer button on the pilot left console.

Odometer

On the pilot right 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 Trips button on the pilot left console.