Space · How it works
Interplanetary ship
Your space station leaves the Earth and the Moon: an interplanetary drive and a navigation table aboard, methane and helium-3 in its tanks.
In the game
How to get it
Aboard your station place an interplanetary drive (anywhere, one a ship) and a navigation table, then pour dewars of liquid methane and of helium-3 into its tanks at any engine, tank or the drive itself.
What it is for
The station becomes a ship that reaches every planet, moon and giant of the Solar System, and the Sun.
Why it exists
The planets hold the materials and the alloys the end of the game asks for.
The same text the game shows in its progress tree and on the item's sheet (I).
What it needs
- An interplanetary drive: its fusion heats methane, no oxygen needed.
- A navigation table: where you choose the way.
- Liquid methane in the tanks: the drive's reaction mass (the heavier the ship, the more it takes).
- Helium-3: one dewar for each 250 m/s of way, refined from the Moon's ore by a helium-3 extractor.
- A docked rocket with a cockpit, to go down as the shuttle.
Tips
- The more tanks the ship has, the further it goes before refuelling; the lighter it is, the less methane each way takes.
- Always carry the helium-3 for the way home: it is made only from the Moon's ore. The navigation table warns before a one-way trip.
- On Mars a methane plant makes methane and oxygen; on Titan it bottles the lakes: refuel where you land.
On the progress path
SY1The Solar SystemMain path
- This stepSY1 · Interplanetary ship
- NextSY2 · Autopilot: into orbit
Items of this step