ΔV: Wiki - User contributions [en]

FAQ

2023-02-10T21:52:19Z

AaronF: Changed "Engineer" to "Mechanic", added missing repair limit trait

= Gameplay =
== Flight ==
=== "I keep crashing!" ===
This isn't a question, but it comes up a lot anyway. Basically, fly slower and if you feel lost press X on your keyboard to tell the autopilot to stop your ship. This should give you some time to think. You can also pick up higher thrust engines from the upgrade shop which will help you stop and turn faster, but they all come with their own tradeoffs. Check out our section on thrusters and thruster upgrades for more info. You can also upgrade to higher-end avionics / autopilot systems to provide visual feedback such as collision alerts etc in your HUD that should help keep you safe.

=== "Why is the ship so slow?" ===
Mostly because it weighs 30 tons and is being pushed around by boiling water. You can fit a higher-power reactor and more powerful thrusters, but it's good to remember that the K37 is a hundred year old space tractor powered by a nuclear kettle and carrying tens of tons of propellant. It isn't a racing pinnace.

== Mining ==
=== "Where are all the minerals?" / "Why are other ships telling me I need to go deeper?" ===
The outer edge of the ring is quite sparse, so you won't find much out there. Once you're 10km down or so, the mineral density becomes a lot higher and you'll start making real money.

=== "I barely break even on a flight!" / "Why are repairs so expensive?" ===
Rule of thumb: don't bother picking up iron. It's there in the game because it's there in real life, but honestly it's pretty worthless due to its abundance. You're better off trying to mine Beryllium (look for relatively large chunks with blue crystals) or Wolfram/Tungsten, which is normally in small, bright silver chunks. A geologist is an excellent first hire, as they will provide estimates of mineral chunk prices while you fly, which will help make sure you don't pick up garbage. Also, don't fly into stuff and wreck your ship. Take it slow.

=== "Why do the blue minerals shoot off so fast when I crack an asteroid?" ===
The blue mineral is Beryllium - a very low density metal. ΔV tries to model the kinetic energy of the minerals that are left behind when you crack an asteroid, which means lighter minerals will shoot off at higher velocity than dense ones. Also in a gameplay balance sense, it's a bit of a high-risk:high-reward mineral - harder and a bit more dangerous to chase down, but worth a lot.

== Crew ==
=== "What benefits do crew bring?" ===
Mechanics increase how much you can repair your ship and how effective your in-flight jury rigging is.
Pilots will provide automatic bullet-time before collisions to give you a better chance to evade.
Geologists will predict future mineral market prices, and provide estimates on mineral chunk values when in flight
Astrogators track locations of Points Of Interest in the rings allowing fast-travel

== Damage control & Repairs ==
=== "What determines how much I can repair a component at Enceladus?" ===
Mechanic crew members with higher experience can repair parts to a higher level.

=== "What are all these 'choke', 'misalignment' sliders etc in the J menu / OMS?" ===
Near-future versions of the game will have tooltips for these damage types, and there are too many to describe quickly here so for now check out the Wiki pages for each subsystem for more info on what each damage type on a system is.

=== "How do the sliders work in the J menu / OMS?" ===
Your crew can slap duct tape and zip ties on parts of your ship to effectively trade one form of damage for another. For example if a thruster is very choked, you can trade off misalignment or wear to try and dechoke them. Don't try to think too hard about what they're *actually* doing with the bolts and wrenches though, the simulation isn't quite *that* precise!

== Equipment ==

=== "What's the best ship/equipment?" ===
The answer is...it depends! More expensive ships and equipment are not necessarily better for your playing style, because each comes with its own benefits and drawbacks. Some drawbacks are not easy to understand from the stats alone. You can always buy it and try it out - if you don't like it, sell it back! You always get a full refund, minus any damage or wear, so feel free to experiment.

=== "Can I tweak my equipment? What do the tuning options do?" ===
Yes, the Tuning menu allows you to adjust many details of how your ship and gear works! Weapon power, thruster power, station transit speed, autopilot behavior, nanodrone behavior, and a few other options can be adjusted in various ways. A full breakdown [[Tuning guide|can be found here]]. All equipment should work well for most people on the default settings, but if you are running into an issue check this screen first. You should also review the tuning of any recovered derelict ships before flying them!

= Non-gameplay =
== Features ==
=== "Multiplayer when?" ===
No.

=== "Can I have [insert technology with no grounding in real science or engineering here]?" ===
No.

=== "Can I have [insert technology with solid grounding in real science or engineering here]?" ===
Possibly. We've already added numerous ship upgrade including new reactor types, propulsion systems, drones and more based mostly off of players' proposals for how we can apply known engineering concepts. Of course, the more stuff we add, the narrower the niches for new upgrades etc become!

=== "Why are all crew members human?" or "Where are all the aliens?" ===
ΔV has no time for magitech like FTL travel, so there's next to zero chance of encountering actual real live aliens. The ΔV universe has fully sentient AI so we can probably expect to see them in future, but there probably won't be any little green men.

Guides

2023-02-10T21:45:50Z

AaronF: linked Tuning Guide

''See also [[Quickstart guide]] and [[Tuning guide]]''

===== Getting Started =====
ΔV is a hard sci-fi game, which means it attempts to obey physics as much as possible. This means a lot of the gameplay will feel quite different to many other space games, even ones which claim to use realistic physics. For example all engines use propellant, there are no force fields, and so on.

=== Common gotchas ===
==== Ship control ====
You will need to keep an eye on your speed. When driving a real car, going everywhere at full throttle will lead to you hitting things, and the same is true here. Ships in ΔV are built tough, they are industrial machines not racing pinnaces, but they have their limits. Until you're fairly familiar with how long it takes to stop and turn, we advise taking it fairly slow and giving yourself plenty of time to react to what's going on around you. Remember, this is space and once you're moving at all you'll drift forever, so you can take as much time as you need!

==== Ship damage ====
The K37 and other ships you'll fly in ΔV are very robust and while they can be disabled, it's very difficult to destroy them. Don't expect your ship to explode if you tap a rock, and don't expect other ships to explode just because you poked a mass driver round into them. Most of the time, you will find that your ship's onboard systems such as the reactor and thrusters will be rendered inoperable long before the hull itself breaks, and most damage just results in your ship being dead in the water (so to speak), at which point you will be rescued by your friendly neighbourhood [[ships:cerf|recovery ship]].
The first thing you're likely to do in your first flight is ignore the earlier advice to take it slow and steady, so you'll immediately crash into loads of rocks.

==== Collision damage ====
Most of the time, crashing your ship into stuff will have one or two effects. In almost all cases, the sudden high-gee acceleration of the crash will cause damage to your reactor's control systems, which will make it more sluggish at controlling its own temperature. This generally isn't a huge problem, as the reactor runs fairly cool by default and has enough headroom to spike up in temperature quite a lot before anything nasty happens. If this damage is severe enough though, the reactor can become almost totally unable to control its own temperature, so if you've crashed a lot you should probably pay attention to your reactor temperature.

The second common form of damage caused by crashing is to your thrusters. Every thruster has a nozzle, and smashing space rocks into your thrusters' nozzles usually isn't very good for them. Thrusters can be damaged in a few different ways, but most common in collisions are misalignment and choke. Misalignment represents damaged thruster mounts and causes a thruster to fire in the wrong direction. Small amounts of misalignment don't really affect flyability very much, but extreme misalignment will - in short - cause the ship to behave weirdly. Strafing left may also push you backwards and cause some rotation, for example. Besides misalignment, a thruster that's had asteroids smash into it may also become choked. Choke damage represents the thruster's nozzle being jammed with asteroid debris, and reduces thrust.

==== Repairing and managing damage ====
You can jury-rig your ship's systems in-flight to try and control damage. You can't actually repair damaged components without repair drones, but you //can// trade off one form of damage for another. For example, a thruster that is completely choked but is aligned correctly and unworn can be jury-rigged through the onboard maintenance system to unchoke it at the cost of misaligning and wearing it out slightly.

=== General earlygame strategy ===
==== Crew management ====
You can hire [[Crew]] from the crew menu at Enceladus station. A geologist is required to identify the mineral content of chunks outside of your cargo hold and estimate the value. this is the most important crewmember for early game (pre-MPU) for detecting high-value chunks to chase after.

==== Pre MPU mining ====
Without an MPU (Mineral Processing Unit), the amount of material you can return with is limited by the number of chunks that will fit in your cargo bay.

==== MPU mining ====
The MPU allows you to process chunks (by blasting the ice out of it) and store the processed minerals. Each ship has a specific quantity of processed minerals it can hold, which can be improved with the cargo container.

==== Combat ====
Space pirates. Whether you hate them or are one of them, combat is something that you will come across when playing for any significant length of time. Pirate ships are generally identified by the lack of an iff transponder. Most pirates will request money, some will attack immediately.
Approaching hostiles will trigger the dangerous situation ambient effects: red highlights around the screen and more intense music. Skilled astrogater crewmembers will mark ship lidar contacts with red circles, making pirates easier to locate.

==== Salvage ====
Occasionally, you will come across a [[Derelict]] ship. If you have an [[AR-1500 Manipulator]] mounted on your high-stress hardpoint, you can tow the ship back to Enceladus.
Otherwise, approaching the ship will give a dialogue option to send a crewmember over with some remass for an attempt to bring it back online. This has a chance of causing an explosion and putting the crewmember on leave for some time.

==== Obonto stations ====
Obonto stations found in the belt will buy common refined minerals for 2-6 times market price. Individual stations will only buy one mineral per dive, and can ask for iron, platinum, palladium, or vanadium.

=== Uncategorised other stuff ===
Ultimately, all of the power your ship uses comes from heat in your reactor. Even electrical items like mining lasers which are powered by your onboard turbogenerator ultimately use reactor heat, as the turbine is powered by high temperature, high pressure steam tapped from the reactor, just as in real power plants.

Tuning guide

2023-02-10T21:44:18Z

AaronF: Created guide based on my own knowledge and some Discord discussion

== Thrust ==
Adjust '''thrust''' of your RCS and main thrusters, down to .5 and up to 1.5 times the nominal output. However this uses heat and propellant proportionally, as well as “wear” damage, eventually leading to misfiring. For weak thrusters with otherwise good characteristics, you can improve their output at the cost of more wear. Or you can tune down high-performance thrusters so they last longer.

== Weapons ==
Weapon power can be adjusted down to .5 and up to 1.5 times the nominal output. Weapons can be tuned individually for mining or combat. It is recommended to have at least one weapon ready for combat. Remember that individual weapons can also be turned off during a dive.

=== Mass Driver ===
'''Power usage''' affects velocity and thus energy of the projectiles. Lower power means less energy is transferred to iceroids, so mineral chunks will not go flying as quickly. Higher power means more damage is done to ships.

=== Laser ===
'''Power usage''' translates to heat and ablative (piercing) energy on the target.

For pulsed lasers, the '''pulse frequency''' will spread out the energy over time. Lower frequency (e.g. 6 Hz) transfers more energy in each pulse, which is better for punching holes in ships. Higher frequency (e.g. 48 Hz) heats the target more, which is better for melting iceroids without sending the mineral chunks flying. With enough power and time on target, you can still heat up ships to the point of reactor meltdown.

=== Microwave Emitter ===
'''Power usage''' translates to heat and EM damage on the target. However lower power also creates a narrower beam, while high power creates a wider cone. A wide cone will cause more energy to miss distant targets. Observe the tuning simulation carefully to get a sense of the cone size, or use the NDCI Autopilot to see it in the rings.

Adjusting the '''water resonance''' down (e.g. 10%) increases the heat and EM damage done to ships, helping to shut down their computer temporarily. Adjusting the water resonance up (e.g. 90%) will melt iceroids more quickly.

=== Point Defence ===
You can adjust these systems according to their type, but some have additional options. Increasing the '''IFF targeting criteria''' will make the turret focus on enemies before close ringroids.

== Drones ==
Set the '''minimum and maximum range''', up to 400 meters. This can allow you to separate drone systems of different types (haul and tug) so they do not waste nanodrones to hamper each other. It can also allow haul drone systems to more effectively split the load - one can work at long range while another brings closer ore into the cargo bay. Keep in mind the Obonto USV-GOT recon craft will override these ranges for objects in its queue.

Haul drones also have a proximity buffer and deceleration zone. The '''proximity buffer''' moves objects away from your ship - this should be increased for larger ships to prevent ore getting “stuck” moving into the back or sides. (E.g. around 120 m for the AT-K225). The '''deceleration zone''' slows objects down for finer control as they come towards the front. This can slow down collection, but also helps the system juggle multiple objects without waste, by avoiding overshooting. Can be safely reduced if you have multiple haul systems working together.

== On-board Computer ==

=== General ===
“'''Autopilot markers'''” are just the visual HUD indicators of current velocity and direction. It can be useful to see your exact direction while you’re maneuvering manually.

'''Interplanetary Xenon transit drive usage''': How much "free but slow" Xenon drive you want to use vs burning propellant with thrusters to speed up the journey to the rings. Maximum time is 4 days (100%, no propellant), minimum is 12 hours (0%, direct burn). You automatically use your most efficient drive or thrusters, and a heavier ship uses more propellant, so the actual propellant used can vary. Look at “Estimated Interlunar Transit Time” and “Interlunar Propellant Usage” on the simulation readout to see the difference. Using propellant for transit leaves you with less to use during a dive, but taking less time saves on crew wages and effectively lengthens your astrogation POI tracking. If you can get propellant in the rings (e.g. with an MPU), you may as well tune this lower.

=== Autopilot ===
'''Relative velocity limit''': how fast your autopilot will accelerate to, but you can manually accelerate beyond this. This also determines the upper limit of astrogation speed. NPC ships generally stick to the default 50 m/s.

'''Proximity alert''': ignores normal limits on acceleration when an object is within this range. Generally better to have this higher, unless you have very powerful thrusters that may cause damage from accelerating too hard.

'''Sensor confidence''': decreasing this makes your maneuvers slower, but more precise. Decrease this if your autopilot frequently overshoots. Increase it to speed up maneuvers, at the risk of overshooting and wasting some propellant. When using an autopilot with Adaptive Angular Thrust, this can be safely increased, since the autopilot takes extra mass and thruster damage into account.

'''Leeway tolerance''': how accurate the autopilot will keep the orientation. Important for aiming at long ranges. Increasing this (e.g. to 1 degree) can reduce pulsed thrust “bouncing” behavior.

'''Drift tolerance''': how accurate the autopilot will keep velocity. Not very important in most cases.

'''Angular velocity limit''': how fast the autopilot will rotate. Generally higher is better, unless you have a habit of rotating with your excavator open.

'''Rotation priority''': how much the autopilot tends to rotate to line up on a bearing instead of thrusting directly with RCS. For big, heavy ships, your RCS thrusters will probably have a hard time changing your velocity on their own, so set this higher to let your main drive(s) get in position faster. For lighter ships, RCS thrusters are probably adequate in most situations, so you don’t need to rotate. (You can still manually tell the autopilot to rotate, then tell it to change velocity.)

'''Fly-by-wire''' (some autopilots): gives manual inputs the same benefits as autopilot controls. Mainly useful for autopilots with Rotational Thrust Computation and gimballed thrusters. Note this will limit your angular velocity according to the setting above.

The EIAA-1337 Autopilot has some additional options.

== Nuclear Reactor ==
'''Target temperature''': Keep in mind that temperature control is not instant, it takes time to heat and cool the reactor by moving control rods. A higher target temp gives more power generation, and slightly more buffer from thrusters using heat. However, it increases the risk of reaching dangerous temperatures via overshooting or combat: 5,500K will trigger emergency venting via thrusters, and 6,000K will lead to reactor meltdown and explosion. Although the “operating temperature” for different reactors varies, you do not need to adjust the tuning based on it. It is simply the temperature needed for the rated power output. If your reactor temperature dips too much, consider upgrading it to improve the thermal power, rather than running hotter.

FAQ

2023-02-10T17:44:53Z

AaronF: Added Equipment section

= Gameplay =
== Flight ==
=== "I keep crashing!" ===
This isn't a question, but it comes up a lot anyway. Basically, fly slower and if you feel lost press X on your keyboard to tell the autopilot to stop your ship. This should give you some time to think. You can also pick up higher thrust engines from the upgrade shop which will help you stop and turn faster, but they all come with their own tradeoffs. Check out our section on thrusters and thruster upgrades for more info. You can also upgrade to higher-end avionics / autopilot systems to provide visual feedback such as collision alerts etc in your HUD that should help keep you safe.

=== "Why is the ship so slow?" ===
Mostly because it weighs 30 tons and is being pushed around by boiling water. You can fit a higher-power reactor and more powerful thrusters, but it's good to remember that the K37 is a hundred year old space tractor powered by a nuclear kettle and carrying tens of tons of propellant. It isn't a racing pinnace.

== Mining ==
=== "Where are all the minerals?" / "Why are other ships telling me I need to go deeper?" ===
The outer edge of the ring is quite sparse, so you won't find much out there. Once you're 10km down or so, the mineral density becomes a lot higher and you'll start making real money.

=== "I barely break even on a flight!" / "Why are repairs so expensive?" ===
Rule of thumb: don't bother picking up iron. It's there in the game because it's there in real life, but honestly it's pretty worthless due to its abundance. You're better off trying to mine Beryllium (look for relatively large chunks with blue crystals) or Wolfram/Tungsten, which is normally in small, bright silver chunks. A geologist is an excellent first hire, as they will provide estimates of mineral chunk prices while you fly, which will help make sure you don't pick up garbage. Also, don't fly into stuff and wreck your ship. Take it slow.

=== "Why do the blue minerals shoot off so fast when I crack an asteroid?" ===
The blue mineral is Beryllium - a very low density metal. ΔV tries to model the kinetic energy of the minerals that are left behind when you crack an asteroid, which means lighter minerals will shoot off at higher velocity than dense ones. Also in a gameplay balance sense, it's a bit of a high-risk:high-reward mineral - harder and a bit more dangerous to chase down, but worth a lot.

== Crew ==
=== "What benefits do crew bring?" ===
Engineers increase how much you can repair your ship and how effective your in-flight jury rigging is.
Pilots will provide automatic bullet-time before collisions to give you a better chance to evade.
Geologists will predict future mineral market prices, and provide estimates on mineral chunk values when in flight
Astrogators track locations of Points Of Interest in the rings allowing fast-travel

== Damage control & Repairs ==
=== "What determines how much I can repair a component at Enceladus?" ===
Engineer crew members with higher XYZ trait can repair parts to a higher level

=== "What are all these 'choke', 'misalignment' sliders etc in the J menu / OMS?" ===
Near-future versions of the game will have tooltips for these damage types, and there are too many to describe quickly here so for now check out the Wiki pages for each subsystem for more info on what each damage type on a system is.

=== "How do the sliders work in the J menu / OMS?" ===
Your crew can slap duct tape and zip ties on parts of your ship to effectively trade one form of damage for another. For example if a thruster is very choked, you can trade off misalignment or wear to try and dechoke them. Don't try to think too hard about what they're *actually* doing with the bolts and wrenches though, the simulation isn't quite *that* precise!

== Equipment ==

=== "What's the best ship/equipment?" ===
The answer is...it depends! More expensive ships and equipment are not necessarily better for your playing style, because each comes with its own benefits and drawbacks. Some drawbacks are not easy to understand from the stats alone. You can always buy it and try it out - if you don't like it, sell it back! You always get a full refund, minus any damage or wear, so feel free to experiment.

=== "Can I tweak my equipment? What do the tuning options do?" ===
Yes, the Tuning menu allows you to adjust many details of how your ship and gear works! Weapon power, thruster power, station transit speed, autopilot behavior, nanodrone behavior, and a few other options can be adjusted in various ways. A full breakdown [[Tuning guide|can be found here]]. All equipment should work well for most people on the default settings, but if you are running into an issue check this screen first. You should also review the tuning of any recovered derelict ships before flying them!

= Non-gameplay =
== Features ==
=== "Multiplayer when?" ===
No.

=== "Can I have [insert technology with no grounding in real science or engineering here]?" ===
No.

=== "Can I have [insert technology with solid grounding in real science or engineering here]?" ===
Possibly. We've already added numerous ship upgrade including new reactor types, propulsion systems, drones and more based mostly off of players' proposals for how we can apply known engineering concepts. Of course, the more stuff we add, the narrower the niches for new upgrades etc become!

=== "Why are all crew members human?" or "Where are all the aliens?" ===
ΔV has no time for magitech like FTL travel, so there's next to zero chance of encountering actual real live aliens. The ΔV universe has fully sentient AI so we can probably expect to see them in future, but there probably won't be any little green men.