Ok, so we all look over Megaships because looting their cargo holds is still broken, except maybe for the scenarios they spawn because they're cool, and when a CG needs us to enslave "rescue" the escape pods. There's a whole bunch of different types of Megaships, but this post isn't covering that.
Instead, it's taking a closer look at megaship features, the various "bits" they have and interactions with those bits (and maybe a mini-rant about how they're totally under-utilised, depending on my mood at the end). I might do another post detailing the different megaship types later, but I'm certain someone's already done this before.
Limpet Docking Port
Most things that can be hacked/hatch broken will have one of these bad boys on them. The limpet docks at the little red circle and does it's thing. It's kinda cool that it does this, and doesn't just blat onto a random point on the target.
Power Capacitors
The spammiest thing you'll see in your contacts panel once you scan an active megaship. Blowing these up by colliding with them will do some serious heat damage (see video), but taking them down doesn't really do much unless you have an active scenario to assault the megaship and take out the power capacitors. In this case, taking them out is one of the potential objectives.
There's two flavours, a small one and a big one, though they both blow up the same.
Automated Defence Turrets
Invulnerable turrets which attack you if you attack the megaship. There's missions to disable these, and you can disable them yourself if you feel the need to, but the only way to do it without drawing hostility is to collide with the generator (which is kinda cheesy anyway)
Two Defence Generator Variants
And disabled versions of the defence denerators... note they go from nice blue to red.
Cargo Hatches
As it says on the can. Cargo Holds for Megaships. You can loot these without getting crimes reported if you have silent running engaged, but the cargo will still be marked as stolen.
Oh yeah, and they're broken. The video will show how broken they are... the cans are meant to jet out... instead they just stick inside the cargo hold and are unreachable. GG.
You can see in the video, my actions summon the authorities, but they don't actually harm/scan me coz I have silent running on, and I don't get a bounty.
Fighter Bays
Again, as it is on the can. I've never actually seen fighters launch from these (let me know if you have!)... but you can disable them and prevent more ships from launching (I guess?)
Hackable Data Transmitters
Engineering Data collection-lite. These points can be hacked with recon limpets to get engineering data. This is usually a crime, but if you put on silent running, you wont get fine/bounties. Note, occasionally the data will also jettison as a material can to be scooped up (see the materials post for what this looks like).
Hackable Comms Arrays
Bigger version of the hackable data transmitter, these have two points you need to access with recon limpets before you get data rewards. Note, as you hack each one, some data will also "jettison" as canisters, and you can scoop it up.
Same rules apply, unless you're silent running, expect to get a fine/bounty and trouble from the cops.
Ship Log Uplink These beacons can be scanned with the data link scanner without causing any offence. For the procedural megaships, they usually give back a list of destinations the megaship intends to fly to week to week.
For other Megaships, the uplinks can give nothing, narrative, or other interesting bits of information. Particularly the deep space megaships & sleeper ships give interesting voice-acted logs.
Hull Breaches
If you ever come across a damaged megaship, you'll oftentimes find them with hull breaches. These can be repaired with repair limpets, though there's actually no reason to unless you have an active scenario to do so (kinda like destroying power capacitors, no reason to unless you have an active scenario).
Note, doing this to ones damaged by Thargoids can (and usually does) trigger an Interceptor to jump in, which will be decidedly unhappy with you. Stay frosty.
Active Hull Breach
Repaired Hull Breach
Escape Hatches
Most megaships have escape hatches (some cargo variants don't!), but only escape hatches on damaged ships can be interacted with. Basically these are here to allow you to free escape pods from stricken megaships. I've never really understood what rubbish escape hatch system doesn't actually eject the escape pods from the stricken ship, requiring someone to essentially "hijack" them out... but whatever. Let's pretend there's a systemic design fault...or at least being stuck in the megaship is better than being sucked up by a Thargoid.
Like the Hull Breach, cracking these if the ship is attacked by Thargoids is likely to trigger an inty to jump in, so be warned!
The rescue bay on an undamaged megaship
And that's it! In my opinion, there's some primo mechanics just waiting to have game activities wrapped around them here, especially when you consider the labyrinthian design of some of the orbital installations, which will be the focus of my next post.
The fact that so much effort goes into the detailing and functionality of these things, only for it to be really relegated to a "flavour" or "roleplay" function is pretty tragic. But it even falls short of that function... since, say, rescuing escape pods, really just boils down to credits in the pocket.
I mean, imagine something like this. You find a damaged megaship at a Distress Call (Threat 5) USS, engaged with a stolen Pirate Farragut. You get a scenario to rescue people from the escape pods. As you scoop the last pod up, one of the occupants tells you "Hey, if you can, hack into our comms array, it'll have picked up data on the location these pirate scumbags came from". As you finish hacking the comms array, the Pirate Farragut flees, and a mission to hunt down and rout the pirates pops up in your inbox.
You drop off the escape pods, refit to your best warship and fly out to a USS in a different system... there you find the farragut and a handful of pirate vessels. In jump some local security forces, and you get a scenario to help assault the Farragut, or turncoat and defend the pirates. Either option gives a neat 30-50m credit reward for your efforts on success.
Eh... hopes and dreams.
PS. If I've missed some interactive bit of megaships, feel free to let me know. Note I haven't gone into detail with scenarios, that's probably a dedicated post in it's own right.
It's so frustrating to see all that wasted detail and potential. They really put a lot of effort into creating things the average player will never see.
The whole scenario mechanic is nonsense in my opinion. You travel to a megaship and there is a random chance that a scenario gets spawned.
Meanwhile missions are boring (go from a to b) and system communications are uninspired fluff (wedding barges, passenger ships...). The chance to spawn a scenario should already happen when you fly past them in SC, you would get a distress call in your inbox. After that you can decide to accept a mission to help them.
Or the mission board could spawn a mission that requires you to fetch valuable data / cargo from the megaship.
They could also spawn conflict zones around them with special objectives.
The chance to spawn a scenario should already happen when you fly past them in SC, you would get a distress call in your inbox. After that you can decide to accept a mission to help them.
I really like that one - might be worth dropping in Suggestions.
A message saying 'Lots of ships needing refuel / looking for medical supplies / needing repair / etc' when you drop into the system so you know what you are likely to find. The RNG of having to travel and then find you needed a refuel limpet / medical supplies / repair limpets is pretty harsh.
Double win - people find the USS that they can interact with, and SC is more alive & worthwhile.
I really like that one - might be worth dropping in Suggestions.
A message saying 'Lots of ships needing refuel / looking for medical supplies / needing repair / etc' when you drop into the system so you know what you are likely to find. The RNG of having to travel and then find you needed a refuel limpet / medical supplies / repair limpets is pretty harsh.
Double win - people find the USS that they can interact with, and SC is more alive & worthwhile.
Regarding USS, I think two things need to happen:
First, you need to get the distress call before you jump into a USS, giving you the option to accept it via inbox.
Second, this would transform the USS into a blue mission USS with a new timer.
Currently you enter a USS, find out that it's a guy without fuel and realise that the USS will decay in 3 minutes. There is no way that I would fly to the next station, install a fuel transfer limpet controller, fly back to the USS and rescue him. There is no way that I would install it as a standard item either because its usefulness is completely random. My idea of gameplay is not that I search the system for hours until I find someone without fuel, it should be an emergent activity instead.
The other obvious addition would be the universal limpet controller that performs all limpet actions either by fire modes or context sensitive...
OP! You made my day completely! I haven't got 1 zip sh*t wiser in this game but I LOVE the useless info!!! Keep m coming please! Perhaps the different shapes of asteroids in rings can be a great contribution to this amazing thread!
I mean, imagine something like this. You find a damaged megaship at a Distress Call (Threat 5) USS, engaged with a stolen Pirate Farragut. You get a scenario to rescue people from the escape pods. As you scoop the last pod up, one of the occupants tells you "Hey, if you can, hack into our comms array, it'll have picked up data on the location these pirate scumbags came from". As you finish hacking the comms array, the Pirate Farragut flees, and a mission to hunt down and rout the pirates pops up in your inbox.
You drop off the escape pods, refit to your best warship and fly out to a USS in a different system... there you find the farragut and a handful of pirate vessels. In jump some local security forces, and you get a scenario to help assault the Farragut, or turncoat and defend the pirates. Either option gives a neat 30-50m credit reward for your efforts on success.
Yep... been suggesting things like this with all the many many possibilities in the game for years (since launch, really...) and they have gotten a smidge closer with the scenarios and everything, but the best they could do with linking things together was that... terrible, utterly silly, "chained mission" thing, which... was just horrible as it required you to return to a station between links, which was... just bad, and most of the time, you saw a "chained" mission, and have no idea when you did the previous mission, utterly destroying the idea of the chain of interactions making their own little story. They were extremely limited in scope too, certain missions linking to certain other mission in a very specific way, instead of a complex procedural tree of possibilities which would seem like something FD would jump all over.
Oooo...
Talk about an eye-opener! Most of the stuff you have shown us I've never noticed the details in-game myself - thanks for taking the time to enlighten us @Jmanis