Mothership

The Mothership is a space station that can travel to other planets and stars. Engines built into the body of the Mothership generate enough thrust to overcome the escape velocity of celestial bodies and fly through space while the navigation console steers the Mothership towards the selected destination. It can also be equipped with an artificial gravity generator to adjust the gravity levels on the Mothership and a configuration terminal to change decorative settings such as the name and icon. The Mothership is the only way to reach the distant Amun-Ra system which is needed for progression to UEV.

The Mothership is created like any other space station. Launch the T0 shuttle rocket into space, select the Overworld on the galaxy map, and hit CREATE where it says "A Mothership can be built here!" on the right-hand side of the screen. The rocket must be launched from the Overworld for this prompt to appear. The shuttle rocket can safely return back to the Overworld if the player does not have the required materials.

Structure

• 1 Mothership Navigation Console
• 256 Europium Reinforced Radiation Proof Machine Casing
• 64 Ultra High Temperature Resistant Mesh
• 32 UHV Circuits
• 8 UHV Field Generators

(Optional) The artificial gravity generator is a highly configurable block for adjusting the gravity levels on the Mothership. The player can specify the exact area that the gravity is applied, the strength of the gravity, and the direction of the effect (upwards or downwards). However, larger areas consume more power.

(Optional) The Mothership configuration terminal is primarily used for decorative settings such as changing the name and icon of the Mothership. It can also be used to change permissions for who is allowed to land on the Mothership and/or control the navigation console.

The Mothership cannot move on its own. Engines must be built into the body of the Mothership to generate thrust from burnable fuel. Each engine consists of a jet and between 1-10 bases. Additional bases increase the thrust of the jet (additive) without increasing the fuel consumption. When formed, the jets and bases combine into a single entity that can be accessed by right-clicking anywhere on it. The internal GUI displays the amount of fuel, status, size, and thrust of the engine. Fuel must be pumped in through either a quantum tank or ender fluid conduits.

The direction of the jet has no effect on the Mothership, but multiple jets must all face the same direction for maximum efficiency. The Mothership also has a fixed weight of 1,500 kg so adding or taking away blocks from the Mothership has no effect on its speed. The player need only consider the amount of jets/bases on the Mothership and the distance to their destination.

There are two tiers of engines each with their own jet and base: the T1 rocket engine and the T2 ion thruster. The following table summarizes the differences between the two. Additionally, each rocket engine base increases the upper limit on travel time by 250 seconds and each ion thruster base increases the upper limit on travel time by 80 seconds. Both Fuel and energy costs are paid upfront as soon as the Mothership begins moving, instead of being slowly consumed over time.

The ion thruster engine is superior in terms of thrust and fuel efficiency but falls short in terms of fuel capacity and energy capacity. Increasing thrust has diminishing returns on reducing travel time, so an ion thruster base might not bring the player any farther than a normal rocket engine base would. The ion thruster engine is also more expensive to craft because it requires scanning the rocket engine jet and rocket engine base in the Research Station. Therefore, it is highly recommended to only build the T1 rocket engine.

Click on a planet or star from the navigation console to display its distance in astronomical units (AU), the travel time, and total fuel required (measured in buckets) to reach there. The Mothership can fly anywhere as long as the travel time does not exceed one in-game day (20 minutes). Travel time is directly proportional to the square root of the distance and the square root of the thrust of the Mothership (until the mothership reaches light speed during travel, at which point thrust has diminishing returns) which means the only way to increase the range of the Mothership is by adding more engine bases.

The following are a few commands related to the Mothership that may be useful (must be op).

• /mothership_force_arrival sends the Mothership to its destination and consumes all required fuel immediately.
• /mothership_info provides some basic information about the current Mothership such as its ID, name, dimension, and current orbit.
• /mothership_move <name> sends the Mothership to a specified orbit immediately (ie. overworld).

With enough thrust, the player can travel from the Overworld directly to the Amun-Ra system. However, that can be expensive and entirely unnecessary for a one-time trip. Instead, the Mothership can travel to intermediate destinations to stay under the travel time limit. The following are the cheapest options available for both engine tiers. Notice that the T2 Ion Thruster still needs at least 7 bases to meet the minimum energy requirement. Again, it is highly recommended to only build the T1 rocket engine because it is far easier and cheaper to craft than the T2 ion thruster.

Once the player reaches the Amun-Ra system, they should be interested in visiting the following moons and planets.

• Seth (moon of Sekhmet) - Source of Raw Tengam Ore.
• Horus - Best dimension for Dyson Swarm Ground Units.
• Neper (moon of Baal) - Source of Dilithium Ore.
• Anubis - Source of Infinity Catalyst Ore, but Space Elevator is better.