Booby Traps

Some blocks can be used for other purposes than the civilian purposes they were originally intended for: Booby traps are mechanisms designed to incapacitate, damage, or destroy a ship, station, or player by surprise, usually triggered by some action or sensor.

Block Weapons with targeting AI have the same effect and can be part of booby traps, but are not included here, because damage is their main purpose.

Some anti-space-piracy traps are built into pre-built NPC ships in the game, and in multiplayer, traps may be introduced by players for PvP purposes.

This page is a VERY spoiler-heavy one. Please don't click the expand button unless you really want to know! This is all meant to be learned through in-game experience.

Spoiler warning!
This article or section contains details about the game which players may be intended to discover on their own!

In-game Traps

TRAP SPOILERS INSIDE.	Expand to view.
Internal Thruster Trap	This is a hidden thruster built on the inside of the ship, designed to injure a hostile pilot or self-destruct the ship with the area of effect of its exhaust when an intruder forces the ship off course.
Internal Welder/Grinder Trap	This is a Welder or Grinder block, possibly hidden under a catwalk or other thin blocks, positioned to injure an intruder with its area of effect.
Thruster Bombs / Self Destruct	Thruster bombs are the most common trap. They appear as a small thruster aimed backwards, with one or more warheads per thruster right in front of the cone. When the intruding player forces the ship off course and brakes (thrusts backwards) or activates inertial dampening, the thruster damages the warhead, causing it to detonate. Ships may have none, one or even several such traps. They tend to be in the same location(s) on every ship of the same type (all military minelayers, for example).
Gyro Trap	A gyroscope trap activates random thruster overrides when it detects hostile intruders, which forces the ship about to be captured to spin violently. The goal is to buck off players, or to incapacitate raiders by making them collide with solid blocks.
Rocket Launcher Sensor Trap	A more immediately lethal form of the Internal Welder/Grinder trap, utilizing an internal Rocket Launcher instead of a ship tool. Like the Internal Welder/Grinder trap, these may be postioned inside walls, however, these walls can be as much as one large block thick, however, the rocket will spawn inside any block directly up against it's muzzle, causing the rockets to phase through the block. A second block will be required to detonate the rocket, although this second block could be a passage, leading to the rocket detonating directly in the middle of the passageway, making this a particularly lethal trap as it will kill any Engineer within 4 meters.

A thruster bomb as seen in game. The warhead end of the trap is towards the front of the ship.

Mitigating in-game Traps

TRAP SPOILERS INSIDE.	Expand to view.
Thruster Bombs 1	One option is to simply grind parts of the ship away until the bombs are revealed. This is time consuming, and prone to error. Try to focus on sections of the ship where there would be room for a trap to be hidden, to avoid needless effort. If the goal is to cannibalize the ship for parts, this method makes the most sense, since it effectively just starts the salvaging process early.
Thruster Bombs 2	Another strategy is to disable thrusters one at a time from the pilot's seat. If a thruster on the outside goes dark, enable it again and move on. If all thrusters are still lit, label that one as a trap and leave it disabled. Once all thrusters have been checked, the ship can be moved safely. Pilots must be careful not to maneuver the ship whatsoever during this process (rotation is fine, movement is not). This relies on the assumption that a thruster that is not visible on the exterior of the ship is a trap. You will still have to dig for the bombs later, but can now stop the ship safely and optionally relocate it to a base of operations. A major benefit to this strategy is that you will know how many traps are hidden on the ship.
Gyro Trap	Use your magnetic boots to walk and avoid any jumps or wall/floor transitions. Grind gyroscopes down below the functional line. Hack the cockpit and sit down to not be flung off. A stronger raider ship with magnetic landing gear can grab on and counteract the spinning at the risk of damage to itself.
Hidden Grinder/Welder/Thruster	Step out of the area of effect and grind down the covering block and grind down the hidden Grinder/Welder/Thruster.
Hidden Rocket Launcher	Instead of going through any internal passageways when boarding a ship, use your grinder to grind through the ship itself, usually through the conveyor network.