CARGO Module

Cargo Hold
Cargo Holds are linked to the ship through Matter-Stream Lines and the outside world through Spotlights. The Spotlight Room is generally found inside the Cargo Bay. They are large spaces that take up an entire module, often beneath a layer of reinforced hull armour. They contain MECSIS Crates hooked up to the ship’s Matter-Stream Network, which often has a HUB in each bay. This allows the ship to Store its H1, Matter, and Coolant, as well as Missiles and Drones. This room also contains the crew’s extra armour, weapons, and misc. items.

The MECSIS Crates are locked down to the cargo bay floor on hard brackets, preventing them from getting loose and unbalancing the ship during acceleration and combat. Letting cargo get loose would be instantaneously deadly to any personnel in the room, not to mention the ship itself. They are also capable of passing material between each other, so no item is ever buried beyond reach, and the crates never need to be moved. With Matter-Streams all around, their contents can be conducted to any part of the ship instantaneously.

Heinlein Filament Projectors lift and carry Crates, allowing the Cargo Bay to be totally automated and self-contained, operating even if the ship is without power. MECSIS crate slots along the outer wall can be converted to Drone bays, allowing the ship to carry more Drones, or Missile Crates, allowing the ship to carry more missiles.

Switching Crates from their content types is easy. Setting Crates to contain only H1, Matter, or Coolant helps keep the ship organized. Ship Components are also stored in their own crates, so a Fuse, Capacitor, or new Battery is always available, ready to be sent across the ship to the room where they are needed.

Items the ship may want to sell, or that are gathered as loot from other ships can be stored in 'AKS crates.' They are added to the ship’s inventory screen under Misc. Weapons and Armour are generally stored in the ship’s Armoury, but if one is not present then those crates are stored here as well.

Cargo Bays have no upgrades, as their Crates are the upgrades. Buying more Crates in S, M, L, or XL is easily done through Fabricators or Traders. SM crates take up 1m of room, Md take up 2, Lg take up 4, and XL take up 8m.

It’s wise to use multiple Cargo Bays in case one module is destroyed, as the ship will automatically transfer surviving cargo to the spare bay. This will also prevent the ship’s stores from ever being wiped out. Having too much H1 will cause the bay to explode when destroyed, damaging surrounding modules.

MECSIS Crates
MECSIS stands for Matter-Energy Compression/Suspension Inhibitor Storage.

These powerful devices allow for the space between atoms to be reduced while maintaining the effective balance between the strong and weak force, preventing the material from collapsing into a singularity or interacting with nearby matter. Items are functionally stored around a containing singularity in a helix of other suspended items, continuing to take up space and weigh the same, but now conveniently drawing entropy from the crate's own mass rather than the inhibited items in the suspension block. Stored items can last millennia this way before needing to be released, even those with limited half-lives.

Items are drawn into/out of the field by a Matter-Stream Portal on the MECSIS Crate's top face, also allowing the crate to transfer items between crates without decompression. If the Matter-Steam Portal Buffer were to be removed the expanding compressed matter would rapidly and explosively spring back to nuclear balance, turning the crate into a bomb. This same principal is at work in the MAC and most Pistols and Rifles.

Small Crate: 50,000 Units... 500cm x 500cm

Medium Crate: 100,000 Units... 2m x 2m

Large Crate: 200,000 Units... 4m x 4m

XL Crate: 400,000 Units... 4m x 8m

Cargo Bay Stats

 * 1) Sm CARGO Hull Module has 200,000 Hit Points, Damage Threshold 400. Heat: 12K.
 * Capacity: Small Crate – 1mx1m x8 (or one XL Crate.) 400,000 Units


 * Small Spotlight


 * 2 sm Drone Slots – Md Drone Slot
 * 1) Md CARGO Hull Module has 200,000 Hit Points, Damage Threshold 400. Heat: 24K.
 * Capacity: Small Crate – 1mx1m x16 (or Two XL Crates.) 800,000 Units


 * Medium Spotlight


 * 4 sm Drone Slots – 1 Lg Drone Slot
 * 1) Lg CARGO Hull Module has 400,000 Hit Points, Damage Threshold 800. Heat: 48K.
 * Capacity: Small Crate – 1mx1m x24 (or Four XL Crates.) 1,600,000 Units


 * Large Spotlight


 * 8 sm Drone Slots – 1 XL Drone Slot
 * 1) XL CARGO Hull module has 800,000 Hit points, Damage Threshold 1600. Heat: 96K.
 * Capacity: Small Crate – 1mx1m x48 (or Eight XL Crates.) 3,200,000 Units


 * XLarge Spotlight


 * 16 sm Drone Slots – 2XL Drone Slots

Cargo Bay Upgrades

 * 1) MECSIS Compression Quality: 1-100%
 * Cost: Every 2% Costs 100 H1 and 50M.
 * 1) Spotlight Range Extension: 120km to 30720km
 * Cost – 2 Cargo Slots for every size Capacitor -- Sm, Md, Lg, XL (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x)