Station Ships
Station Ships
Amounts
A station has several ships on board. Default is scavengers 3, defense_ships 3, police_ships 8, traders 3 to 10 and shuttles 0 to 3.
The first 3 can be redefined in shipdata.plist with
max_scavengers max_defense_ships max_police
Schedules
The system itself launches at regular intervals the shuttles (15 min), traders (6-20 min) and police_patrols (5 min) until the max value is reached.
Police patrols only launch by schedule from the main station and no shuttles and traders are launched by schedule from stations with scannClass: CLASS_ROCK. However starting from version 1.69.1 traders are launching from Rock Hermits.
Launches
Other ships are only launched by stationAI.plist commands. Launching by AI is done with the AI-commands:
launchScavenger launchMiner
use the same counter and launch until max_scavengers is reached.
launchShuttle launchTrader launchEscort launchShipWithRole: role
all can launch without a limit. traders have a 10% change of becoming a sunskim trader. Otherwise he makes a witchspace jump and returns at the witchspacepoint of the same system.
launchPatrol launchPolice launchDefenseShip launchPirateShip
use the same counter but patrols and police launch until max_police and defense and pirate launch until max_defense_schips is reached. For defense and pirates to launch the mothership must have a target otherwise the AI returns "TARGET_LOST".
Defense ships are ships with role "police" or "interceptor" unless ships are defined in shipdata with "defense_ship" or "defense_ship_role". On launching all the defense ships get the same role of "defense_ship".
Dockings
On docking the appropriate counters are lowered again. Docking of traders is counted, but leaving traders are only counted if launched by schedule not if launched by AI-command.