Shuttle Guidelines

Keep shuttles focused. Oversized multipurpose ships ram harder, dock worse, and cost more performance.

Prefer “nice if it fits” over “must have everything”:

• A mining shuttle does not need a full bar.
• A medical shuttle does not need a full surgery suite.

Shipyard size limits

Ships bought from a Shipyard Console (ComputerShipyard) use Small / Medium / Large categories.

Large

• Max 40 tiles length, 30 tiles width.

Medium

• Max 30 tiles length, 20 tiles width.

Small

• Max 20 tiles length, 15 tiles width.

ERT / CentComm size limits

Ships called via Secure Terminal or Central Command are not shipyard-tiered, but they still must dock with stations. Prefer staying under:

• Max 30 tiles length and 30 tiles width.

There is limited wiggle room — do not aim to max out the box.

Do not put these on FTL shuttles

Tesla and singularity

Tesla and singularity engines are not safe on any FTL-capable grid. Containment can fail across jumps. Do not map them on shuttles that can FTL — procedure will not save it.

Prefer FTL-safe power: generators / APUs, AME, TEG, supermatter, nuclear reactors & turbines, solar.

Automated power testing

New shuttles must be added to automated grid power tests so CI catches overloaded APCs and broken power layouts.

Open Content.IntegrationTests/Tests/_Starlight/Power/GridPowerTests.cs, find the GridPaths list, and append your shuttle path (with a trailing comma on the previous entry).

Save shuttle YAML under Sol map paths when committing (for example under Resources/Maps/_Sol/…). On the Sol mapping server, save under /Maps/ so the file appears on mapdownloads.playsol.us — see Mapping Commands.

Generally required systems

Very small shuttles may truncate rooms, but you still need air and power.

Bridge

Engineering

Propulsion

Docking