Below is a list of all Fixtures in the game and what they do -- not their properties or components just yet.
Sensors -- Tells where asteroids are. The more powerful, the more you "see".
Long-range Scanners -- Tells you what asteroids contain and interlaces with sensors.
Short-range Scanners -- Tells you stuff about asteroids that you're currently orbiting.
Gravdrive -- Used to move between asteroids (or to an asteroid on your first outing).
Thruster -- Allows you to move around an asteroid surface and go down or up.
Lasers -- Used to drill through an Asteroid surface.
Drills -- Used to actually mine metal ores.
Tractor Beams -- Used to collect metal ores that you've drilled out.
Containment Chamber -- Holds onto resources for you and is limited in size.
Forges -- Processes metal ores into usable form
Refiners -- Allows you to alter metals and/or alloy them together in various ways to make new materials.
Fabricator -- Turns materials into Components.
Warehouse -- Stores Components built by the Fabricator. Also has a fixed size.
Reactor -- A lot of the above requires Power, which the Reactor provides. Contains a Bootstrap component that begins ignition via hydrogen power.
Radiator -- Reactors create heat in addition to power -- this has to be sent to radiators via coolant pipes in order to keep rooms from overheating. Radiators are on edges.
Hydroscoop -- Fuel is collected from the environment, which is hydrogen-rich. This fixture does so, provided it's on an edge.
Fuel Tank -- Stores fuel collected by the Hydroscoop and presumably refines it into a D-T blend via a Bootstrap component.
Virtualizer -- Allows you to "virtualize" fixtures, pipes and components so they can be built.
Constructor -- Allows you to build Rooms adjacent to the current room or deconstruct rooms free of fixtures and pipes adjacent to the current room.
Console -- Allows you to interact with the environment around the ship and various ship components that tie into that. Connected via data lines.
Terminal -- Allows you to interact with fixtures remotely, connected via data lines.
Life Support -- Allows you to exist in rooms without a spacesuit and dwindling oxygen supplies. Also refills spacesuit oxygen storage. The starting one has enough strength to provide life support to 2 rooms.
Life Node -- What life supports actually connect to in a room. They're small as they're kinda essential.
Spacesuit Chamber -- Allows you to get in spacesuits and also refills their oxygen supplies. The fixture here determines the spacesuit's properties.
Power -- Connects Reactors to any fixture that requires Power (which is most of them -- exceptions are the Thruster (the Gravdrive runs on Power rather than Fuel), Reactor (obviously), Radiator, Fuel Tank, Virtualizer, Console, Terminal, Life Node, Spacesuit Chamber).
Data -- Transfers information. Connects Sensors, Long-range and short-range scanners, Gravdrive, Thruster, Lasers, Drills, Tractor Beams to the Console. It can also connect a Terminal to anything whatsoever.
Fuel -- Transfers fuel around. The pipeline here is Hydroscoop --> Fuel Tank --> Thruster/Reactor.
Materials -- Transfers materials of various kinds. The pipeline is Tractor Beams --> Containment Chamber --> Forges/Refiners/Fabricators.
Coolant -- Connects Reactors to Radiators.
Ventilation -- Connects Life Support to Life Nodes or Spacesuit Chambers.
All starting fixtures start out connected but with breaks with the exception of:
Life support Ventilation to single life node (the starting room)
Life support Ventilationto spacesuit chamber
Reactor Power to life support
Reactor Power to spacesuit chamber
Your starting room contains the following (and only the following):
Life Node (connected as seen above)
Spacesuit Chamber (also connected)
Console
This is enough to bootstrap some very basic exploration and pipe cannibalization to begin the ship repair mechanics.
You can pull components from anything except the Virtualizer (for obvious reasons). Starting components are super weak, like 2x as bad as the lowest range on metals.
The following Systems take real-time with some kind of countdown. This can be improved by the fixture in question having better Components, having more of that fixture, or over the short term via the Modulation minigame:
Mechanic
Fixtures
Annoyance Level
Duplication Bonus
Sensor Sweep
Sensors
Low
Linear
Long-range Scan
Long-range Scanners
Low
Linear
Short-range Scan
Short-range Scanners
Low
Linear
Inter-astreroid movement
Gravdrive
High
Linear
Asteroid Reorientation
Thruster
Medium
Linear
Ablation
Lasers
High
Linear
Mining
Drills
Medium
Linear
Collection
Tractor Beams
Medium
Linear
Forging
Forge
High
Async
Refining
Refiner
High
Async
Fabrication
Fabricator
High
Async
Ignition
Reactor*
Low
More Power
Fuel collection
Hydroscoop
Medium
Linear
Construction
Constructor
High
Async
Spacesuit Refill
Spacesuit Chamber
Low
Async
Note: in the case of Ignition, there's a timer on bootstrapping the process of generating power, but once it happens it's self-sustaining. This does however have to happen every time you remove pipes from a reactor or components, or create a new reactor, so upgrading it *might* make sense.
The annoyance level is basically things that take copious amounts of time (6-10 minutes) relative to maybe a minute (medium), relative to short-term stuff that you're just waiting on for 10-20 seconds (low). The point of the annoying ones is to force you to do other stuff while you wait, while the point of the less annoying ones is for additional upgrade targets.
Modulation helps a whole heck of a lot, particularly in the beginning parts of the game. Components will also alter modulation targets in addition to overall process speed, so you can modulate certain things better.
As far as the duplication bonus goes, "Linear" means constructing more fixtures will cut the rate down according to the amount you build. Idk what the math is on that -- it shouldn't just be cutting it in half repeatedly, maybe a (time)/1.3^N or something. This could probably be improved with components however. "Async" however means you can have multiple processes going at once, as it ties into crafting systems essentially. Lastly, adding more reactors just means you have more power available, the same way adding more radiators means you can use those reactors more efficiently.
Paths that terminate in two rooms. The paths here are rooms that lie along a valid path between the two rooms.
An index as there can be multiple pipes with the same set of the above properties.
What the pipes connect to on each end -- can be incomplete or can be a fixture. Incomplete pipes can be built onto, complete pipes have to first be disconnected.
A length of the pipe at the termination point -- pipes have to be sqrt(room size)=5 long in order to either move to another room or connect to fixtures in the room.
Pipes can be "broken" -- this data is a set of room(s) that contain breaks, and then the actual location of the break(s) along the pipe piece length here. The indexing for this starts from whichever side goes to the initial room in the pipe index and the right side goes to the termination room.
If a pipe is broken:
It can be split into two pipes along the break.
The pipe won't work.
Two pipes that are one pipe piece length apart can be joined into a single pipe, with the origin being whichever pipe you pick. This join requires a single pipe piece like connecting a broken pipe back together does.
Pipe Access
Somewhere on a room you're able to see a list of all pipes -- this shows you a visual display of them, breaks, what they connect to on either end and additional information (like pathing or even a pathing map that overlays your ship map) in the "more info" button. Pipe names are based on room connections and the actual names of the room or fixture (which you can modify). You can also modify pipe names for better organization all around.
You can create new pipes in a room, including more than one at a time and then can move around rooms and the pipes will connect as you go, expending pipe resources that have been virtualized.
You can trace single pipes from end to end, which will keep the pipes display open with the pipe you're tracing bumped to the top and move you around the ship automatically if you click buttons on either side. Tracing is probably what would overlay the pipe route in your ship map.
Pipe interaction
You can interact with pipes in the following itemized ways:
On the pipe screen, you can click breaks and fill them in with pipes you've virtualized.
You can click individual pipe segments and virtualize them, creating breaks in the process.
You can add new pipe(s) whose origin begins in the current room, and then have a tracer on them so new pipes are constructed as you move to rooms --- you can't backtrack into existing rooms and there's also no reason to. This consumes pipe pieces.
Pipes that are attached to fixtures you can disconnect via either the fixture or the pipe display. This turns the pipe into a room pipe which connects on the right to a circle or something.
Room pipes can be connected to fixtures either in the pipe display or on the fixture display.
Room pipe ends can be "grabbed", which allows you to move from room to room, lengthening the pipe and consuming pipe materials in the process. This process keeps the pipe screen open as you move around. If you move back into an existing room, it shortens the pipe. There's also a button to do exactly this similar to "trace back".
In trace mode you can move along the length of the pipe via "forwards" and "back" buttons that move the player automatically and keep the pipe display open (or I guess auto-open it when you move rooms).
For the alpha, there are no materials so pipes are just destroyed or created or repaired without incident.
