Info Screen
The Info tab in the Terminal displays information about grids and the world.
Usage
Here is where you rename and convert grids, and you can inspect antenna and sensor ranges by displaying them on your HUD. Additionally, it also contains performance impacting information, and it lets you display helpful hidden meta-info from the AI and physics engine. The word "grid" here refers to large and small spaceships, large and small rovers, and bases and stations equally.
Important: The Info screen displays different information depending on whether the engineer is standing, or seated in a grid / interacting with a grid. If you can't find the info you are looking for, check whose Info tab you are looking at.
The Info screen can answer the following questions:
How do I name grids?
The default grid names are "Static grid 1", "Large Grid 2", or "Small Grid 3" and so on, each with sequential numbering.
Naming grids properly is important before you save blueprints so they remain findable in the list. Also when you intend to remote control grids, you need to be able to tell them apart to connect to the right one.
Note: When you use Projectors to build, or merge blocks to merge and unmerge grids, the new grids will be unnamed and you will have to type it in again.
Troubleshooting: There's a rare issue that you cannot type a new name into the field because it keeps resetting. Check whether something in your world is updating the grid a lot, is another player changing settings or some timer is switching blocks on/off?
Can grids / players see my Antenna?
You may want to know whether a drone can see your antenna --whether it is "within your antenna range"-- so you can remote control it. In Multiplayer, other players may be able to see your (or your grid's) antenna and find your location.
Antennas must be set to broadcasting and be powered to have a range.
- Show antenna range -- This setting shows the spherical areas of effect of active antennas on the grid. Each antenna displays its own range sphere in the world for you.
The range spheres can be quite big and hard to spot if seen against the sky or if overlapping. If you don't see anything, try sitting in a cockpit and switch to third-person view.
Can I see others' antennas?
If there are many distracting antenna signals at a distance, and you want to instead focus on the signals that are close by, decrease these HUD settings.
These settings are about how open you are to perceiving others' antenna signals, or finding your own parked ships/drones again.
- Show distance for friendly antennas -- Maximum range at which broadcasting friendly antennas are displayed on your HUD
- Show distance for enemy antennas -- Maximum range at which broadcasting enemy antennas are displayed on your HUD
- Show distance for owned antennas -- Maximum range at which broadcasting own antennas are displayed on your HUD
The game doesn't have an active radar. If the other antennas are not broadcasting, or are only broadcoasting at a very low range, you might still not see them, no matter what you choose here.
Why does my sensor not trigger?
Seeing the range of a Sensor is valuable while configuring it. You want to know exactly whether the sensor is monitoring the intended area, and not getting triggered accidentally from the floor below, or next door through the wall, or by someone crouching one floor above, etc.
- Show sensors field range -- Shows the cuboid area of effect around a sensor. You must at the same time enable Show on HUD on the Sensor's Control Panel for this to work.
What's the flight path of my Automatons?
If you are using the autonomous behaviours of Automatons, you will want to review their flight paths as recorded by the AI Recorder block.
- Show AI Functions -- Makes Automaton flight path and waypoints visible in mid air. Remember to add a (temporary) Antenna to the drone and set it to broadcast. On the Control Panel for the AI Recorder block, switch on Show Path on HUD and Show Selected Points!
What does the Physics Engine think it's doing?
The following view options are valid for all grids, not just the one you are interacting with, until you switch them off or restart the game. The physics markers only appear when you are close (~40m) to the grid, they are sometimes hard to see on large grid ships. Also, the center of mass and pivot markers can be in the same spot, especially if you are looking at one single block.
- Show center of mass -- The calculated center of the grid is used for gyroscope rotation. The marker looks like a red dot with six yellow rays sticking out.
See also Center of Mass. - Show grid pivot -- The first built block point around which the grid rotates when being projected or pasted. The marker looks like a red dot with three coloured coordinate axes sticking out.
See also Grid Pivot. - Show gravity range -- Shows the cuboid/spherical area of effect around a gravity generator. You must enable "Show on HUD" on the Gravity Generator's Control panel for this to work.
See also Gravity.
You don't need an antenna to see these markers.
Which grids do I own?
If your engineer is not seated and you open the Terminal, then you access your own personal Info tab. On the left side, you can now view the list of all your owned grids and review their PCU cost. On multiplayer servers, keep an eye on your PCU limits, and remove debris that you own to save on PCU cost.
Listed grids with a default name (e.g. "Small Grid 123") that are only 1 block with 25 PCU usage are wheel suspensions, they are listed separately.
Note that you cannot see the Info list of your owned grids while you are seated in a cockpit or interacting with a grid.
How Do I convert a grid to a ship or station?
The "Convert to Ship/Station" conversion button is available on the Info screen large-grid ships/rovers and stations only.
Space stations and moon bases are examples of static grids. Rovers, mechas, and space ships are examples of mobile grids.
- Grid conversion from mobile to static can be useful because static grids are much more performance friendly, especially on multiplayer servers.
- Grid conversion from static to mobile means that you can make a station mobile in Survival Mode, just add thrusters or wheels to it, and move it to a new location.
- Converting static to mobile: Be careful to rid the station thouroughly of any remaining voxel material (using drills or Voxel Hands). If there is a basement, you have to grind it off or dig it out completely. Because, after it turns into a mobile grid, being embedded in voxels counts as collision and will do severe block damage.
- Converting mobile to static: Park a large grid safely near an asteroid or on a planet's suface. Make sure that the grid is truly stationary and not drifting, before you convert it to a station. If "unsupported stations" is enabled in the World Settings, you can even park it in mid-air/mid-space.
Which blocks is a grid made out of?
If the engineer is seated or interacting with a grid, and opens the Terminal's Info tab, then you are accessing the grid's Info. On the left side, you can now view the list of blocks used in this grid and check its total PCU. Keep an eye on your PCU limits on multiplayer servers to not negatively impact performance.
On the Info tab you see the total number of blocks and how many of them are non-armour blocks (that is, Functional Blocks). Here you can also quickly check how many Conveyors, Thrusters, Lights/Spotlights, Gravity Generators, Artifical Masses are used in this grid.
This info helps when assessing damage: For example, if your hauler suddenly has an odd number of thrusters, or your fighter suddenly has fewer conveyors, or you suddenly have only very few non-armor blocks left, and other surprising changes, then you know what has been destroyed even before getting out and looking.
For mobile grids, you can see the total mass here. For static grids, mass is not calculated.
NOTE: The mass shown here and on the HUD is not the mass that the physics engine uses, be aware of what it includes before using it for any calculations.
This is usually higher as it includes cargo inventory without scaling (see below) and also character inventory mass which is not included at all for the physics engine.
The Ship Inventory Multiplier world setting will scale down item mass inside ships so that a ship with full cargo flies mostly the same regardless of that setting.
The Triangles value is a very rough estimate of how complex the grid is to render.
Models in this game have Level of Detail versions which have less triangles and are shown the further you are from it (distances are set on a per-model basis by the artist).
Model Detail setting in graphics options, render resolution and camera Field-Of-View all affect this distance, and mods can also affect it too!
Knowing all that, the value from this screen shows the triangles of the second Level of Detail (LOD1) from all blocks.
The Physics Shapes value is shown because it has a limit of 65536 (16 bits) per entity which is imposed by the Havok physics engine. Once you hit that limit some parts of some blocks will simply not be physical anymore and that can change as you add/remove blocks and even after changing nothing and saving&reloading world.
Blocks can add up to 10 physics shapes each and some blocks do not have any physics shapes at all (e.g. Interior light, Sensor, Camera; which they also do not add any mass to the ship). Deformable armor cubes can merge their physics shapes into bigger cuboids but can also be easily split by newly added armor cubes next to that because the algorithm isn't perfect.
A lot of physical shapes on a moving ship will also affect the simulation performance.