Feildberg comes online

Fieldberg Station was commissioned April 14, 3109.

The station is permanently crewed by 6, with the possibility of docking larger ships or habitation containers (modified shipping containers) for temporary residence of other personnel. Additionally the underlying infrastructure (especially the underside of the platform) allows for significant further development as growth dictates.

FRG Thor remained on escort duty while the station remained without point defense.

Fieldberg Station comes online minus point defenses.

After only a month of operation, the station has already become a beacon for the entire system, with traders anchoring nearby and a small community developing around the station.

A small and diverse community is developing in the shadow of Fieldberg and Thor, which in turn attracts further residence.

Already Fieldberg Station represents one of the safest areas in the system.  One of Dry Empire's latest Imperial vessels, CRV Seeth patrols the surrounding space and often hangar's at the station, bolstering the point defense offered by FRG Thor while Fieldberg's permanent point defense is constructed.




Fieldberg Station is downloadable (currently minus point defenses) and available for public use for free.  Simply put the file into your "blueprints" folder (eg: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\StarMade\StarMade\blueprints) and you will have access to this station in-game under "Catalog" menu.

Fieldberg Station pre-launch tour

Fieldberg Station is now populated by a full compliment crew, who are busy completing the build process ready for launching the station into full operation.

The habitation facility, shielding, energy generation and storage, matter storage and conversion, wharf and logistics facility, control tower, life support, and basically every station system is now fully operational.  The station only needs a few more minor infrastructure and human comfort additions before being totally operational.

It also needs the defense matrix to be built and brought online, relieving FRG Thor to be able to patrol the rest of the Empire.

Matter Conversion Battery uses plasma-suspension ovens to compress and encapsulate matter signatures

Stairwell access to the sub-levels of the matter signature storage cryovats allow inspection while gravity-bound

Habitation facility has it's own dedicated cargo pod bay and docking ramps

Cargo pod bay can store up to 12 standard cargo pods, with access to the maintenance bay up a ramp

 The maintenance bay just up from the cargo pod bay is used primarily for the storage of machinery being operated on, and small manufacture and repair tasks to be done under cover from solar radiation and micro-asteroid bombardment.

An external mesh gangway connects the maintenance bay to the airlock leading into the main habitation facility.

Decontamination (and standard hygiene) shower cubicles within the habitation facility.

A small spartan triple-bunk crew quarters bolsters the personal quarters already located on the original mining outpost, bringing the total crew capacity to 6

A small mess hall and food combinator provides meals and waste disposal services to the crew

Tight hallways and humming servers are something you get used to quickly on Fieldberg

The central AI is one of the most powerful computers in the empire at this point in time

Upstairs in the con tower facility another airlock leads directly into space, with an observation port to the right and the traffic control tower to the left

Traffic control tower is a three man facility, with a Communications Officer, Traffic Monitor, and Master Controller

Master Controller has a separate darkened room that oversees the docking and cargo operating areas

The 180 degree up down view of the cargo docks gives the Master Controller unparalleled views of the station from within a pressurised area

The view allows the Master Controller to see all docking activity first hand, including wharf cranes, containers being docked and unloaded, and any other activity, while keeping all AI-fed relevant data within field of view by a myriad of feeds

Right side of the Master Controller's view shows vessels approaching the docking area.  Here a container dropped by a recent transport vessel waits to be docked by an WDU, containing supplies for the finalisation of the station build

The Shield Dome is a self-contained shield unit delivering both capacity and charge in very large quantities

Two huge matter signature storage cryovats have enough space for mind-blowing amounts of matter signatures, allowing the station to stockpile mammoth quantities of matter

One of the main walkways on the station, looking back between the energy batteries (right) and cryovats (left), towards the mining outpost and connecting gangway

Access to the generators for maintenance is via a series of gangways and stairwells to help protect maintenance crews from both asteroid impact risk as well as drift risk

Generators are lined up with three levels of maintenance access with dividing stairwells

The Pisces-Class generator banks provide huge quantities of energy to the station to drive both the matter conversion as well as the upcoming defense matrix

The station viewed from underneath shows a lot of the underlying structure, cabling, and fluid conduits

Life support, fluid recylcing, and power conduits writhe their way around the superstructure between the critical systems

Top view of the station shows the small connecting gangway between the mining outpost section and the processing plant section

The station is effectively operational, although it is still undergoing systems tests and requires a large defense matrix to protect the sizeable investment this station represents to the empire.

The matrix is said to include a double-redundancy shield, armoured deflection battlements, anti-missile cannon batteries, torpedo racks, several large beam turrets and a compliment of three fighters. Already some citizens have taken residence in local space under the protection of Thor, knowing that this station will represent one of the best protected parts of Dry Empire... Fieldberg Station is likely to therefore fulfill a secondary purpose of forming a commercial hub within the empire.

Docks and cargo siphons

During the final stages of building FRG Thor, one of the key things I found was that having ships drifing nearby Dry Station was awkward and somewhat cluttered.  Additionally it was both slow and inconvenient to do several astronaut trips between a newly returned vessel and the station's Factory, using my own personal data banks as a shuttle to carry digital mass signatures to my facility.

So I drafted plans to build a dock at Dry Station and fit it with a system that would automatically siphon digital signatures from a drop box next to the docked vessel, so that I wouldn't have to travel any distance and therefore save me a bunch of time.

Dry Station with her initial compliment of docking arms fitted.

The docking arms were a continuation of Dry Station's simple and inexpensive alloy mesh structure acting as a support for the mammoth cables required to transmit digital matter signals.  e=mc2, which meant that even small amounts of matter converted into monstrous amounts of energy.  All that energy required very heavy duty cabling to avoid being burnt out during transmission and storage.

At the end of each docking arm I've fitted a drop box connected to the central factory matter signature storage facility.

The docking arms were capped with a labelled drop box into which I could drop all matter signatures without having to travel the distance from the docked vessel to the factory myself.  From the drop box the signatures are siphoned down the heavy duty cabling to a central storage box, which in turn feeds all matter signatures into the sorting box.  The sorting box (which has until now been my overall drop-box) then distributes matter signatures into various sorted boxes to make finding and accessing them much easier.

Thor requires the biggest docking arm to date due to her size.

Different coloured cabling leads to different docking arms.

Red is SVG Speeder's docking arm cable.
Yellow is SVG Excavator's docking arm cable.
White is CRV Alannis's docking arm cable.
Orange is the recently added docking arm cable for FRG Thor.

Black cable is for a recently wired in scanner complex.

The central siphon box is connected directly to the power grid to cope with the humongous quantity of energy required.  Matter signatures can be drained from all siphon boxes simultaneously and then fed at a steady pace into the factory's sorting box.

The entire set up allows me to disembark a newly docked vessel, and drop all matter signatures into the siphon box immediately adjacent to the docked ship.  From there Dry Station will automatically draw it into the matter signature facility and sort it into it's necessary home.  Whenever a new matter signature is encounted that does not have a home yet, it remains idle in the sorting box, and this acts as a prompt for me to either re-configure an existing storage box to receive it, or create a new storage box for that catagory of matter signatures.

The entire set up makes life much easier for me, and ensures that the factory always has a precise location to draw any particular type of matter signature from.

The Library

As time went on I found that one thing tended to lead to another.

For example the build of FRG Thor required me to use particular types of components (for example shield capacitors), which in turn required particular types of materials (for example Rammet and Sertise capsules).

As I had since breaking free of the now obliterated Gundabadt, I had been purchasing materials and even components from the nearby Trading Guild station, however the station was having supply issues due to pirate blockades in a nearby system, and were unable to provide me any more than I had already purchased.

As a result, I was reaching a point where more and more items were now unable to be built or purchased, and the only way I would be able to build these items for any more vessels and expand my budding empire would be to mine and process the minerals myself.  Or destroy the blockade.  If the Trading Guild couldn't despatch the blockade, then clearly I would have no chance, so really, the only option was to find, mine, and process the necessary minerals myself, and use them to manufacture my own items.

But I was new to this, having been a process slave in Gundabadt I knew nothing about minerals, asteroids, what they looked like, where they could be found, et cetera.

I would need to begin exploring, sampling, and cataloging my discoveries.

I knew this would require a huge amount of processing power, and so the concept for a Library addition to my shipyard station was born.

Databases and servers whir and blink as they wait to absorb, catalog, and as required present compiled information about the discoveries I made.

Everything from asteroids found, mineral content, resources, capsules, refineries, technologies, building techniques, blueprints for ships, research, starbase and asteroid field locations, and a host of other information would be fed into these servers and processed by their AI into a range of useful information.

Connected to the main deck of my shipyard and the basic factory I had previously built, the library is almost as power-hungry as the entire shipyard and factory to date, warranting the addition of another 2 3x3x3 power generators.

To protect the delicate servers from random pirate fire, the Library has a much denser structure than the rest of the shipyard's facilities, and is wired directly into the power grid.

This Library Wing adds a further 10x5x10 structure to the basic factory and power/shield generator grid structure connected to the shipyard, and is helping to form a small station attachment to the entire structure.

With the docking arms (completed with ship maintenance systems and cargo siphons) added to the station some weeks ago, the entire shipyard complex is becoming much more like a small station now.

Dubbed "Dry Station", my shipyard was almost a small port nowadays.

Pirates seemed to give me wide berth these days, although occassionally a sniper or two would sit outside the range of my homing missile turrets and pepper Dry Station with long shots... but they did little more than give me a smirk if one managed to actually strike the base instead of sail by through empty space.

Basic Factory

With the eradication of the Gundabadt Station and my former enslavers, I discovered that it was not financially worthwhile repairing and restoring the station... and neither was I inclined to do so.  I didn't want to live in a constant reminder of my past.  I would make my own ships and structures.

So I began salvaging the station with Speeder and carting the materials back to my shipyard.  Due to the condition of the station the only materials the salvager could digitize was scrap alloy mesh and scrap crystal circuits, but that was okay.  My factories would be able to re-assemble them into whatever I wanted later anyway.

The factory I'd had previously was sorely lacking... it was time to upgrade.

I created a new small purpose-built two-deck basic structure in the middle of the exterior of the shipyard, and within it I built a small factory setup fueled by two small power generators and protected the entire shipyard with two small shield modules learned from the Alannis build.

Two 3x3x3 power generators set up for maximum possible power output drive the new factory.

Storage Banks are labeled with displays for easy access.

The Storage Banks automatically sort and transfer between each other and the factories on the floor above.

Micro Assemblers create Alloy Mesh and Crystal Circuits quickly, and the materials are then put into the appropriate Storage Banks to be accessed later.

Factories and Capsule Refineries on the top deck are used to produce necessary items for future builds.

The factory set up is much smaller than it will be in the future, however it is plenty big enough for the amount of materials I currently need for my next ship build (seen under construction in the shipyard behind the factories in the last picture)...