Transcendence Community Wiki

<StationType> defines the properties and behavior of a type of station. In addition to stations and wrecks, a StationType is also used to define the properties of stars, planets, and asteroids.

UNID= The UNID of the station type.

sovereign= The UNID of the sovereign that this station belongs to.

attributes= The attributes for the station. Consult the Station attributes page.

scale= The scale property is used to define the size-scale of the object. The following values are defined:

• star : A stellar object, generally one that emits light.
• world : An asteroids or world. This scale covers all natural objects smaller than a star.
• structure : A stationary artificial structure, such as a station.
• ship : A moving artificial structure, generally smaller than a station.
• flotsam : A piece of debris or wreckage, generally smaller than a ship.

canAttack= This specifies whether a station without weapons can attack and should be considered a threat for purposes of targeting. Stations with weapons are automatically considered capable of attacking.

• “true” : Always treat the station like it can attack
• “false” : Always treat the station like it cannot attack

name= The name of the station.

The convention is to capitalize only proper nouns. For example, in “Ares station,” “Ares” is capitalized but “station” is not. If the station name is the name of a unique station, then it is a proper name and should be capitalized (e.g., “Grand Central Station”).

Use definiteArticle=“true” to prefix a name with “the” (e.g., “the Heretic Stargate” instead of “a Heretic Stargate”).

Use noArticle=“true” to omit any prefix (e.g., “Grand Central Station” instead of “a Grand Central Station”).

Use a <Names> element to pick a random name for the station.

The random appearence of a station in a system, and its location within the system, are determined by the following attributes. Consult the Station placement page for more information.

levelFrequency= This property is required for a station to be randomly spawned in a system. It defines the frequency of appearence for a given level. If this attribute is omitted, then the station does not appear randomly and must be explicitly placed within a system.

locationCriteria= This property defines the kinds of locations within a system that this station is likely to be found in. This property is ignored if the station does not appear randomly.

LocationCriteria allows you to adjust the probability of a station appearing at a particular location based on the attributes of that location. LocationCriteria consists of one or more terms each of which selects a single attribute. A prefix modifier sets the probability based on the presence or absence of the attribute at the location.

The following modifiers are supported (replace “attribute” with whatever attribute you're interested in):

• *attribute: Station has 0 probability of appearing at locations without attribute.
• +++attribute: Station has 0.1 probability of appearing at locations without attribute.
• ++attribute: Station has 0.25 probability of appearing at locations without attribute.
• +attribute: Station has 0.5 probability of appearing at locations without attribute.
• -attribute: Station has 0.5 probability of appearing at locations with attribute.
• –attribute: Station has 0.25 probability of appearing at locations with attribute.
• —attribute: Station has 0.1 probability of appearing at locations with attribute.
• !attribute: Station has 0 probability of appearing at locations with attribute.

You use a special syntax to have more control over the probability:

• +attribute|adj: If adj is positive, we increase the probability of appearing at locations with the attribute by adj%. For example, +asteroids|50; increases the chance of appearing at asteroid locations by 50%. If adj is negative, we decrease the probability of appearing at locations with the attribute by adj%. For example, +asteroids|-10; sets our probability of appearing at asteroid locations to 0.9 (-10% from standard).

• -attribute|adj: This is the same as above, but adjusts the probability only for locations without the attribute.

enemyExclusionRadius= If present, this property specifies that the station should not be placed within this number of light-seconds of an enemy.

maxAppearing= If present, this is a dice range indicating the maximum number of stations of this type that can be created in the entire game. For example, a value of “1” means that the station is unique in the game. If omitted, there is no limit to the number that may be created. [apiVersion 13]

Star-scale objects have additional properties:

maxLightRadius= This is the maximum distance from the star at which light is usable for purposes of solar power generation. The amount of power generated from light is inversely proportional to distance (not the square of distance). [apiVersion 13]

spaceColor= This is an RGB value specifying the color of space in the vicinity of the star.

mass= This defines the mass of the star in terms of solar masses (equivalent to 330000 Earth masses). It affects the gravitational acceleration that this object exerts in its gravitational field.

gravityRadius= This specifies the radius (in light-minutes) in which the station will exert gravitational force on mobile objects (such as ships and mobile stations like cargo crates and shipwrecks. Acceleration applied to nearby space objects may be roughly determined by V = [g_SecondsPerUpdate * rAccel * vDist / sqrt(rDist2) = 6468 * mass * (gravityRadius^2 / distance^2) * distance / sqrt(distance^2)] km/s / 299792.5 ls/km, where V is the change in speed in light-seconds per second (towards the star) after a single second. The maximum range at which objects can get “ripped apart by” this star will scale up with mass and radius also.

armorID= The UNID of the armor type to use when computing damage. Currently stations don't use real armor the way ships do. Instead, this is only used to compute damage adjustments.

maxHitPoints= The max number of hit points for the station. If the station is damaged at creation time, you may set the hitPoints= property to some value less than maxHitPoints.

multiHull= When set to “true” this property specifies that only WMD damage affects the station.

repairRate= This is the number of hit points that the station repairs every 30 ticks (1 second of real time). In general a repair rate equal to 1% of max hit points is average for major stations.