Passenger shuttle

This article is about the player-built vehicle. For the NPC-faction vehicle, see imperial shuttle.

Passenger shuttles are reusable transportation vehicles used to carry pawns and/or items across the world map, and to locations in orbit.

Acquisition[edit]

Passenger shuttles can be constructed once the Shuttle research project has been completed. Each requires 250 Steel, 150 Plasteel, 6 Components, 1 Shuttle engine, 36,000 ticks (10 mins) of work modified by the construction speed of the builder, and a construction skill of 6.

Summary[edit]

Each passenger shuttle can hold up to 500 kg of items or pawns.^{[Equipped and carried items?]} For comparison, an adult human weighs 60 kg before equipment. They can be launched up to 62 tiles away. A launch takes 3 chemfuel per tile with a minimum of 50 chemfuel for flights of 16 tiles or less. A shuttle can be refueled with chemfuel stored in its cargo hold, increasing its effective range with sequential launches.

After landing the shuttle requires a 3,750 ticks (1.04 mins) cooldown before it can be launched again.

Launching a shuttle requires a pilot with a minimum piloting ability of 10%, which is easily achieved by any pawn that isn't missing their eyes and is capable of intellectual.^{[Detail needed]}

Shuttles cannot be launched during a blizzard, blind fog, or sandstorm.^{[Other weather?]} Shuttle can also not be launched during a solar flare. Shuttles cannot be launched with a roof built above them.

A shuttle can't be carried around as an item, with one exception: the Farskip psycast can teleport a shuttle-equipped caravan if the pawns present can support the 125-kg weight of the shuttle plus any other items. The shuttle will be unloaded at the destination like any other item brought in by a caravan, it can also be manually dropped at a desired location from a drafted pawn's inventory.

Analysis[edit]

Passenger shuttles are a fast, flexible, and powerful late-game transportation option that can completely negate the need to form traditional caravans. With a 500kg weight limit a shuttle is generally limited to carrying six human pawns at a time.

Compared to transport pods[edit]

Unlike transport pods, shuttles are reusable, avoiding the 60 Steel, 1 Component per trip cost, carry 500kg of weight instead of 150kg per pod, and are capable of making round trips. Shuttles have 4 tiles less maximum range for a single trip when compared to a transport pod, and are only available after researching the multi-analyzer. Shuttles also require a shuttle engine to craft, although with the Royalty DLC or Biotech DLC enabled, every crashed shuttle is a free shuttle engine.

Shuttles have a minimum chemfuel consumption of 50 per hop, and are less chemfuel efficient than transport pods for the same number of tiles traveled. That said, time spent refining chemfuel is time not spent tying up a fabrication bench making components, so for many players the decrease in chemfuel efficiency is a small price to pay.

Compared to imperial shuttles[edit]

Imperial shuttles are only available to nobles of Knight rank or higher with the appropriate permit. Passenger shuttles only carry a quarter (500 kg) of the weight of an imperial shuttle (2,000 kg), but an imperial shuttle can only be used for one trip per permit holder before requiring either a 40-day cooldown or spending 8 honor, making rapid round trips require either two nobles or spending honor worth 533 gold. Imperial shuttles can be launched up to 70 tiles away compared to the 62 tiles of the passenger shuttle. The permit also cannot be used while hostile to the Empire.

Typically this places the imperial shuttle as an incredibly useful option in the early game if nobles can be ranked up quickly while the passenger shuttle cannot be produced, but one that significantly decreases in utility once the competition is available. This also means the opportunity cost of spending a permit point of the shuttle versus the other permit options must also be considered. However, unlike transport pods which are often entirely replaced, the shuttle permit offers flexibility that is often useful unless a tremendous fleet of shuttles is available.

Maximum carry amounts[edit]

In practice these amounts don't account for the weight of a pilot.


Cargo	Maximum Amount Carried
Chemfuel	10,000
Silver	62,500
Yayo, Smokeleaf joints, and Flake	10,000
Go-juice	5,000
Wake-up	100,000
Wood	1,250
Steel	1,000
Plasteel	2,000

Gallery[edit]

Facing east
Facing north
Facing south

Version history[edit]

Odyssey DLC Release - Added
1.6.4535 - Fix: Player shuttles could be lost in water when landing.
1.6.4566 - Shuttles are no longer blocked from landing on items and no longer destroy more roof than they need to when landing.
- Fix: Player shuttle could be lost if settling/camping on map with not much land.
- Fix: Out of bounds error trying to determine shuttle landing position when few options are possible.
- Fix: Shuttle load list getting reset after launching.
- Fix: Several issues with shuttle and transport pod range calculations.
- Fix: Was possible for shuttles to get lost in specific set ups when merging two caravans.

Architect

Odyssey: Chemfuel tank (Small, Large) • Grav anchor • Grav field extender • Gravship hull • Gravship substructure • Orbital scanner • Oxygen pump • Passenger shuttle • Pilot console • Signal jammer • Thruster (Small, Large) • Vac barrier
Related: Gravship • Grav engine • Gravcore power cell • Fuel optimizer • Gravship shield generator • Pilot subpersona core