Introduction

Force fields are your ship's first line of defense. They complement your ship hull with a different type of protection from direct hit and explosions. Because every ship is different, many upgrades exists to customize your Force fields.

General principles

Depending its type, an upgrade can be mounted on the projector itself, on a relay or both. When mounted on a projector, an upgrade only affects that projector and greatly benefit from an higher tier projector. When installed on a relay, an upgrade is shared with all projectors sharing the same network, and slightly benefit from an higher tier relay.

Most upgrades will increase their effects as you add more to your force field setup. When upgrading both projectors and relays, both are affecting your setup.

Upgrades impact the speed of your force field projector, along with the energy cost to power up and sustain the protection. There's 3 energy costs to consider:

• startup is the energy required to power up a projector
• sustain is the energy required to maintain a force field block
• deploy is the energy required to propagate/place a force field block

Use a Force field controller (wip) to adjust upgrade effects, up to completely disabling one or another.

Attraction and Repulsion

Those upgrades work in opposition: Attraction will pull entities towards the closest projector, while Repulsion will push them away. Consequently, if you enable both, you'll probable have no effects in return.
The resulting magnetic effect affects entities colliding with the force field. As more magnetic upgrades are added, bigger entities can be affected: players, passive mobs, monsters and eventually players.
Those upgrades have no effect on the speeds.

Breaking

You can alter the world using this upgrade, up to breaking blocks where the force field would normally form.
This upgrade drastically slow down the projector operation. More upgrades will increase the mining level and speed of the field.

Attraction and ItemPort upgrades can be added to collect your drops.

Camouflage

You can use (almost) any block to hide your field using this upgrade.
The reference camouflage block should be placed right above a Force field relay holding the camouflage upgrade.
This upgrade moderately impact the projection speed. You can add more Camouflage upgrades to compensate for this.
When multiple camouflage upgrades are in place, a random valid one is selected to define the reference block. Use 'air' or replicate the reference block to stabilize your field.
Each upgrade greatly impacts the startup cost, so you might need a battery bank to startup your force field when using this upgrade.

Cooling and Heating

Those upgrades work in opposition: Cooling will absorb heat units, while heating will produce them. Consequently, if you enable both, you'll probable have no effects in return. The resulting temperature effect affects living entities colliding with the force field, hence damaging them. As more heat is absorbed or produced, more damages are expected, as long as an increased power drain. Those upgrades have no effect on the speeds.

Fusion

You only need one fusion upgrade in your field to apply it's effect.
When fusion is enabled, 2 force fields shapes on the same network can merged each others.
This upgrade greatly increase the startup energy cost, and slightly increase the sustain and deploy energy costs.

Inversion

This upgrade is partially implemented.

When adding an inversion upgrade, the field effective area is the inner volume instead of the surface of its defining shape. In other words, this upgrade allows to interact with blocks and entities within the shape instead of its periphery. This area effect is useful to attack living entities or terraform an area.

When used in conjonction with other upgrades likes Cooling or Heating, ones can effectively terraform an area.

This upgrade greatly reduce the operating speed.
Adding more inversion upgrades is only good to increase your energy costs, so you better stick to one.

Item Port

Place any valid chest or container on any side of a Force Field relay holding the Item port upgrade. When breaking blocks, drops will be stored through the Item port provided you have an Attraction upgrade too.
Stabilization upgrades get it's raw materials from Item port connected chests too.

This upgrade slightly impact the projection speed and energy costs.

Pumping

You can alter the world using this upgrade, up to collecting liquids where the force field would normally form.
This upgrade slightly slow down the projector operation, add more upgrades to recover operating speed.
While a single Pumping upgrade allows to move water (in most cases), you'll certainly need more then one to move higher viscosity fluid like lava.

Please note that fluid is vaporized after pumping, so you won't need to store it in tanks or such.

Range

Range upgrades are used to push your force field further around its projector, up to 64 m away.

While the first upgrade will boost your speed, adding further will eventually slow projection down. Speed upgrades can help you compensate for that.
This upgrade greatly increase the energy costs too, so make sure you boost your energy production first.

Rotation and Translation

Rotation upgrade enables changing orientation of the projected field beyond the 90 deg steps.
Translation upgrade enables changing position of the projected field. The projector needs to remain inside the field.
Those upgrades slightly increase the startup energy cost.
Both of those upgrades only applies to projectors.

You'll need a computer to adjust translation and rotation of projector. See the laser tutorial for examples of lua commands.

Shock

Shock is your local lightning generator affecting living entities colliding with the force field, hence damaging them. As more lightning is produced, more damages are expected, as long as an increased power drain.
This upgrade has no effect on the speeds.

Silencer

When cloaking your ship, you don't want your force field humming noise to betray you, hence the need for Silencer upgrade. Due to its nature, Silencer upgrade only applies to projectors and will slightly increase energy costs.

Speed

As a few upgrades slow down the projection, many ships are packed with speed upgrades to greatly boost the latest.
This upgrade greatly increase the placing energy cost.
Needless to say, increasing projection speed directly affects the sustain and placing energy costs, up to making impossible to startup a lower tier projector in some cases.

Stabilization

You can alter the world using this upgrade, by placing blocks where the force field would normally form.
This upgrade drastically slow down the projector operation. More upgrades will compensate for this.

You'll need at least one ItemPort and one Repulsion upgrades to provide blocks to your projectors.

Thickness

Thickness increase the force field coverage in corners, notably on sphere and cylinder based shapes.
With enough upgrades, ones can double the force field layers.