Ship Mapping

Guidelines

Ships are the heart and soul, the meat and potatoes of Frontier Station gameplay. While the tools to create your own ship and see it in game are still in development, those who still wish to contribute their own design may use the following guidelines to ensure your ship gets reviewed and a decision made in a timely fashion.

These guidelines are interpreted by the official Frontier Station maintainer team, and are subject to the current state of the game, the number of ships, and overall aesthetic and effort put into the design. Many factors are considered when a new ship is proposed to be added to Frontier Station, and you should always be willing to work with the maintainer team to ensure we can uphold the visions of both the game and your design.

Archetypes and tiers

Ships on Frontier Station are categorized by two criteria: Role Archetype, and Tier. There are 7 main gameplay loops to be found on Frontier Station, and 2 additional “Conflict” roles. These are the “Archetypes” a ship falls under: Cargo, Salvage/Mining, Science, Medical, Expedition, Service/RP, and Engineering. The 2 “Conflict” Archetypes are: NFSD and Black Market.

Each Archetype has different mapping and machine requirements for them to succeed on frontier. While most of the Archetypes can fulfill their role with only a few of their respective machines, some are all-or-nothing, like Expedition, requiring all the machines and therefore always fully representing their job Archetype on whichever ship they are mapped.

Ships are also categorized into one of three main “Tiers”. With each Tier representing a ship that is capable of performing more tasks, or on being more self sufficient on the Frontier. Tier 1 ships should be the baseline ship model for most, able to perform one single archetype with a small crew, while Tier 3 ships should be large, expensive endeavors requiring larger crews and possibly multiple departments coordinating to bring in a profit.

ARCHETYPES

[ SALVAGE/MINING ]

Primary Machines:

  • Ore Processor

  • Scrap Recycler

  • Salvage Techfab

  • Material Reclaimer

  • Salvage Bay Doors

  • Mining/Salvage Tools

[ CARGO ]

Primary Machines:

  • Conveyor Belts

  • Expanded Cargo Docks

  • Open space for storing cargo

Special Notes: Cargo role archetype is heavily dependent on ship layout design and configurations.

[ EXPEDITIONS ]

Primary Machines:

  • AME Power source

  • Salvage Expedition Console

  • Communications Server

Special Notes: Expedition role archetype cannot be made into a “half role” on a ship. All machines here must be included and counts as a “full job”.

[ MEDICAL ]

Primary Machines:

  • Medical Beds

  • Medical Techfab

  • Cryochambers

  • ChemDispenser/Master

  • Chemistry Equipment (centrifuge, grinder, etc.)

  • Nanomeds

[ SERVICE/ROLEPLAY ]

Primary Machines:

  • Microwave/Deep Fryer/Grille

  • Hydroponics Trays/Seed Extractors

  • Booze/Soda Dispensors

  • Service Techfab

  • Janitorial, Librarian, Chapel, or Entertainment Services

  • Most other generic/themed ships that do not have a strict game mechanic tied to them.

[ SCIENCE ]

Primary Machines:

  • RD Server/Computer

  • Artifact Analyzer/Computer

  • Anomaly Generator

  • Science Techfab

  • Circuit Printer/Lathe Suites

  • Robotics/Mechfab

  • A.P.E. and other Anomaly tools

[ ENGINEERING ]

Primary Machines:

  • Gas Deposit Miners

  • Engineering Techfab

  • Circuit Printer

  • Flatpack Machine

  • Gaslocks for gas mining

  • Portable Gaslocks

Special Notes: Engineering is incomplete, and the machines and duties likely to change in the near future.

[ NFSD ]

Primary Machines:

  • Ship-grade weapons

  • IFF/Administration Consoles

  • Communications Computer

Special Notes: New Frontier Sheriff’s Department is a specialized and focused group within Frontier. These ships follow a much more subjective and nuanced design goal, and should be discussed with our maintainer team.

[ BLACK MARKET ]

Primary Machines:

  • Ship-grade weapons

  • IFF/Administration Consoles

  • Communications Computer

Special Notes: Pirates and Syndicate are specialized and focused groups within Frontier. These ships follow a much more subjective and nuanced design goal, and should be discussed with our maintainer team.

TIERS

[ Tier 1 ]

  • 1 Primary Archetype

  • No additional Archetype machines allowed

  • Minimal ‘Livery’ or Domestic Areas

  • One (1) T1 Gun Safe

10%-15% Markup

[ Tier 2 ]

  • 1 Primary Archetype

  • 1 “Half” or partial, additional Archetype

  • Livery/Domestic Areas Allowed

  • FIrelocks and Air Alarms

  • One (1) T2 Gun Safe OR two (2) T1 Gun Safes.

25%-40% Markup

[ Tier 3 ]

  • 2 Primary Archetypes

  • 1 “Half” or partial, additional Archetype

  • Full Domestic/RP areas allowed

  • One (1) T3 Gun Safe OR two (2) T2 Guns Safes OR four (4) T1 Gun Safes or any combination of these.

  • Built-In Ship AI Core

50%-75% Markup

Example: The barge

The Barge is an original design dating back to the very earliest days of Frontier Station. It is a crowd favorite, and its no surprise why. Boasting plenty of space for cargo, an easily accesseble salvage bay, and an on-board bar service, this is the home-away-from-home for many adventurers on the Frontier.

The Barge is able to fulfill 2 of Frontier’s Archetypes fully. The expanded docking access with built-in conveyors and plastic flaps, along with its spacious interior with some additional conveyors for ease of use. This makes it a perfect Cargo archetype ship.

It also comes with built-in salvage bay doors, along with an ore processor, techfab and general mining tools. This allows it to also fulfill the Salvage/Mining archetype, and can easily stand on its own in this role as well.

Additionally, a booze dispensor and a booze-o-mat, along with the pre-built bar, allows it to partially fill a food service role to its own crew. While not able to fully satisfy a crew’s food and beverage needs, it does so partially as the “additional” archetype slot.

This places the Barge firmly into the Tier 3 category with an expanded price tag and feature set. It is no surprise, as the ship is very luxurious and easy to succeed with. When reviewing and pricing the ship, it is required to be in the 50%-75% range, and we look at several factors. The of mapped weaponry, the “completeness” of each archetype, the featureset such as “ship AI” and low RP spaces, all contribute to a reviewed price tag much closer to the 50%, and for the Tier 3 ships, remains one of the “cheaper” or “entry-level” of the luxury ships.

ship mapping RULES

every ship must have:

    • Thrusters (at least one in each direction)

    • Gyroscope

    • Gravity Generator

    • Shuttle Console

    • 1 to 2 generators of appropriate power level (or solars). Use the Frontier specif

    • SMES + Substations + APC wired in a smart and logical way (no tier 3 ships running on 1 APC or mass floor wiring)

    • Atmos distro AND waste (waste may be dumped into space).

    • Canister port leading into distro for refilling.

    • T3 and Engi ships may have Gaslocks mapped into distro.

    • One (1) locker of fuel for the associated generator

    • Fax Machine

    • Long-range Holopad

    • Station(Ship) Records Console

  • In the near(ish) future, the goal is to have more dynamic atmos interactive docking systems that will be more realistic. To avoid future design problems, we are preparing for this now.

    Directional Tiny Fans should be used in the interim underneath ALL docking airlocks and salvage/engineering bay doors.

    See reference photo for more details.

    • At least one (1) defibrillater

    • At least one (1) fire extinguisher

    • At least one (1) space-capable suit locker (emergency suits OK)

    • Warp Point

    • Late Join Spawn Point

    • Guidebook Entry (optional)

    • Firelocks on interior spaces (not on airlock doors)

    • Tier 2 and Tier 3 should have full Air Alarm and Fire Alarm support.

    • Vacuum AtmosFixMarkers on any “exterior” tiles.

  • Tasteful and with a light touch. See the section on design below.

ship mapping RULES

No ship may have:

  • Outfitting your crews appropriately is a big deal, but placing distinct weapons about a ship is not allowed. This encourages people to purchase whole ships only for the singular item it contains - a process dubbed “High-grading”.

    Instead, utilize the appropriate ship gun safes instead, according to the ship’s Tier as outlined above. This allows for some armaments to be included with a ship, while introducing a bit of RNG and non-determinism to prevent people from high-grading.

  • Items placed inside of lockers during mapping presents big balance concerns. Locker fills are used by the designers and maintainers to remain consistent between similar ships. Placing custom items in lockers makes ships much harder to review and audit.

    Instead, use the pre-existing filled locker prototypes provided.

  • Players on the Frontier come to make their own stories, and want to make the ships they use feel like their own. Placing items, text, decals, or other references to characters can easily degrade the potential RP of players wanting to feel “at home” in a ship.

    Shipyard designations and “Corporate” shipyard construction companies, however, are acceptable and encouraged.

  • Text written to notes during mapping gets serialized directly to the save file raw. What this means, is that our built-in translation systems are unable to provide translated versions of these for other language communities to use.

    Instead, create a guidebook entry for your ship for the papers you wish to include such as Startup Checklists, Ship Info, or others. Guidebook entries can be localized using the game’s code, and if you’d like help creating a good dynamic guidebook entry, visit our discord to ask for help.

  • Same as for Written notes. See above.

  • All ship machines and components, especially vital ship functioning machines like thrusters, power sources, and more, should all be fully accessible upon purchase. This most often presents itself as “thruster nacelles” in designs, and is not allowed.

  • Providing too many materials on a purchased ship can lead to high-grading, as described above. Some ships have good reason to come with a set of materials, such as engineering or scrap themed ships, and this is allowed to an extent.

    The type, purpose, and number of materials provided on your ship will be heavily scrutinized by ship reviewers. This also includes things such as vending machine restock boxes, chemical crates, fuel, and other resources typically obtained through gameplay functions.

  • Your ship design should use the appropriate level of power source. TEG/Singulo/Tesla generators are not allowed. Along with, RTGs (broken and intact), rad generators + rad sources, wallmounted APUs, station generators, and more.

    Solar panels are an exception, and may be mapped freely within reason.

Style guide

The following section goes into further details about styling, decorating, designing, and planning your ship. These aren’t strict rules, though they are generally accepted design goals and your submitted ship will be held to the standards outlined below. There are many different playstyles and game loops to participate in on Frontier Station, and we as maintainers and staff recognize that sometimes these rules are better bent to allow for fun, unique, and interesting experiences. If you do chose to actively go against some of these design decisions, be ready to justify your reasoning, and be willing to hear about why they are enforced.

This style guide is non-exhaustive. Many things go into the consideration and finer details of creating a ship, and emerging game systems or changing playstyles can very quickly and easily change these. Keep in mind that some of these can also be somewhat subjective, like decal and decoration work, and be prepared to work with the maintainer team to bring your creations to light.

And finally, always remember that the maintainers and staff of Frontier Station are here to answer any questions, and we are here to support you in this process. The reviews we give are in no way meant to be personal or targeted. Our only desire is to help you bring your ideas to life, and to shape your creation into being something that all players will enjoy and appreciate!

Decals and Decorations

Decals and decorations are one of the most important parts of your ship design. Knowing the best way to apply these is an always-changing process. It is very important to keep the visual language of the game in mind when applying decals, along with the overall art and design direction.

Frontier Station has really only one important art design directive: Low-contrast backdrops, High-contrast objects. What this means, is that backdrop objects like floors, walls, and other non-interactive items should be low-contrast and muted, while Objects, Machines, Intractables are all high-contrast.

This design paradigm helps give visual clarity to a game that sorely needs it. Thousands upon thousands of possible entity objects can easily create an un-readable clutter, and keeping this in mind can help you create subtle, tasteful, yet beautiful designs when applying decals and decorations.

Maintainers and staff will review your ship for its clarity in design and visual language.

Tiles and Diagonals

Special care should be taken when designing the layout of rooms in your ship and the walls and diagonal objects you use. Placing doors on perpendicular walls directly on corners is heavily discouraged, for example, as this causes strange interactions when moving on adjacent tiles and “feels strange” when moving inside of these spaces. Some small compact designs require it, but it should be avoided whenever possible.

Diagonal or ‘angled’ windows and walls also have specific considerations. Their interactions with the lighting engine cause bleed through for vision, and using diagonal walls or windows without full-tile backings is also not allowed. These wall entities can also contribute to a phenomenon called “Tunneling”, where projectile objects can pass through the hitboxes of these diagonal walls due to bullet physics simulations and server tick rate. In general, use these diagonal objects carefully and tastefully.

Exterior access and structure

Space is a big, wide, open, dangerous place. The things that keep the deadly vacuum out of your ship, and the crisp tasty breathable air inside, is the most important aspect of the design of your ships.

In the current state of the game, we do not yet have certain machines/entities to achieve the type of realism of simulation that we have in mind, and in the interim, we rely on a few ‘cheater’ objects and systems to sell the illusion. These mostly have to do with tiny fans and their combined use with various things like blast doors shutters and airlocks.

Certain Archetypes like Salvage and Engineering, need easier access to the outside space to perform their jobs. For these ships, the use of “Salvage Bay Doors” is acceptable, where blast doors or shutters are used in place of external airlocks, and using tiny fans to simulate some kind of atmospheric containment system.

These bay doors are heavily discouraged for use in other applications, such as “Thruster Bays”, and will not be accepted. Furthermore, your exterior access and structure should be logical, simplistic, and fit well within your design of the ship. Having “Thruster Balconies” is acceptable, but will likely be scrutinized if the only purpose for the airlock is for thruster access only.

Lighting

Frontier Station’s game engine has a simple, but very nice looking lighting and shading engine. This allows for dynamic shading, lighting, and helps convey space as a large, dark, foreboding and dangerous space. It is a very common design trap to over-light your ships. Using too many shadow-casting lights can have a serious performance impact on players’ computers, particularly lower end computers. Along with this, we also need to keep room for numerous other incidental light sources, from muzzle flashes to flashlights, anomalous experiences and more.

Having too many lights can also wash out our design language, or what little one we are going for. It causes objects to appear flat and empty. There are certainly cases for where ‘bright’ or exceptionally white-colored lights are desired. For instance, a sterile medical surgery room or science laboratory. In these instances, it is much preferable to still use fewer lights with brighter settings on their prototypes.

Other Considerations

  • Window sections should not be excessively large (more than 4 tiles long uninterrupted), and should not have any entities placed on top of them. The exception to this is, regular ships may install linked shutters, NFSD may install linked blast doors, and service/bar themed ships are allowed 1 ‘Bar Sign’ placed upon the windows.

    Additionally, all window tiles should have grilles placed underneath them for styling consistency

  • The walls, windows, and other full-tile structures of your ship should always have only plating tile underneath them for consistency. Wall and window tiles should never have open lattice underneath, as this can cause sudden unexpected explosive decompression for players customizing their ships.

  • It is always recommended to use the RNG poster spawners instead of specific posters and wall art. If you have specific posters or department themes you want to present, that is allowed. Contraband/”Sexy” posters are not allowed, however. The RNG spawners for these are OK, but not explicitly mapped sexy posters.

    Nobody wants to fly around in your smelly bedroom.

  • Fire locks, fire alarms, air alarms, and their interconnected systems are highly encouraged, but are entirely dependent on the size and purpose of the ship in question.

  • All ships at minimum must have distro and waste pipes and vents mapped in. Along with this, these pipes must be color-coded according to standards. To do this, use the following:

    `colornetwork <pipeUID> Pipe <colour hex>`

    • Waste line Red: #990000

    • Distro line Blue: #0055cc

    • Aux line Purple: #9955cc

  • When finalizing your ship and preparing it to test, there are 2 commands that should be ran every time you make any significant changes to structure, layout, or tile flooring. These commands are:

    `variantize <gridUID>`

    This command procedurally swaps your tiles for variants defined in their sprite sheets. It helps create variety in designs and helps break up eye-catching patterns, dullness, and bland tiling.

    `fixgridatmos <gridUID>`

    This command will go through your mapped design and fill it with the appropriate atmospheric data for breathable air. By default, the game will include an atmosphere on any tile that does not contain an atmos blocker, and additionally will take any AtmosFixMarkers into account to replace that tile’s atmosphere with the desired fill. This means it is important that you put ‘Vacuum’ AtmosFixMarkers on any tile that is exterior or should be ‘empty’ at the time of purchase.

  • Some commands that will be required to ‘initialize’ your ship before submission.

    Firstly, the ship must have a special component attached, called `BecomesStationComponent`. This can be added during mapping, using the `vv <gridUID>` command and adding the appropriate server component. Be sure to set the name inside the component, as you’ll need to link this later on.

    Frontier ships are saved and used as raw grid files, not as “Maps”. Be sure you are using the savegrid command when saving your ship, like so:

    ‘savegrid <gridUID> <path/to/local/saves/shipname.yml>’