Safe Zone

Safe Zone


Category:	Defense
Function:	A defensive force field

Fits large grid
Mass:	25945.25 kg
PCU:	50
Size:	2x2x3
Time to Build:	40 sec

Data Controls:	[edit] [purge] (?)

A Safe Zone is a defensive block that players use as protective force field on multiplayer PvP servers.

NPC Trading Outposts are protected by Safe Zones as well. NPC Safe Zones automatically unlock docked players after a while, so nobody can hide there permanently.

Admins can also set up Admin Safe Zones to protect e.g. spawn areas on a multiplayer server. Admin Safe Zones are not covered in this article, but they are described under Admin Screen.

Usage

On multiplayer servers, you can set up a protective force field around your station to help limit^[1] offline raiding damage. In Singleplayer, you could employ Safe Zones to defend against PvE drone attacks.

The block takes two minutes to start up, so don't expect it to save your skin automatically.

Who is allowed in and who is banned?

This is how to set it up. First, build the Safe Zone block on a station grid and power it and open the block's control panel.

Under Enable, click On.
Choose the Shape of the force field: spherical or cubical
Choose the Range of the force field. For spherical, enter a diameter. For cubical, enter height/width/length. Minimum dimension is 10 m and maximum is 1000m. Larger costs more power.
Click Configure Filter:
On the left side, choose a category icon: Players, factions, grids, or floating objects.
- For each category, choose a Mode:
  - In Whitelist mode, you list what in this category is allowed.
  - In Blacklist mode, you list what in this category is banned.
- For each category, select players/factions/grids/items, and then click the arrows in the center to add them to the list.
  Do not add yourself to a blacklist or you'll lose physical access to the zone range.
Finally, put a Zone Chip into the Safe Zone's inventory to activate it.

Tip: While all members and ships of your faction are docked inside the zone, select the category "grids", select "Whitelist", then click Add Contained. This is a shortcut to quickly add all contained ships to the chosen list in one step.

What are players allowed to do inside?

Next, regarding the players and grids and items that can come inside, specify what they are allowed to do. By default, all options are off and nothing is allowed.

Allow damage
Allow shooting
Allow drilling
Allow welding
Allow grinding
Allow building
Allow projections
Allow voxel hands
Allow Landing Gear/Magnetic Plate lock
Allow conversion to station

Tip: To disallow hacking, disallow grinding+welding.

What Are the Upkeep Costs?

The owning faction must power their Safe Zone and keep supplying its inventory with one Zone Chip per real-life hour. Zone Chips are also required as component to build the block.

The power drain of the Safe Zone is 5 to 300MW depending on its size which can be between 10 to 500 metres large.

In contrast to players in Survival Mode, Admins and NPCs do not have to pay Zone Chips for upkeep, their Safe Zones never expire.

How to tell if the forcefield is on?

Q: Why is my force field transparent and colorless, marked with regular white plus-signs and dots?

A: This skin indicates that the force field is configured and powered, but inactive! You need to input zone chips to activate it.

Safe Zone Best Practices

The upkeep costs are steep in Survival. If you leave the Safe Zone permanently active, you will run out of zone chips fast. The force field takes 120 secs to power up, so you cannot use it as a quick one-off defense, either. Devise ways to only switch on the safe zone in cases of emergency, for example, only run it when no defenders are at the base.

To limit attack vectors, build the Safe Zone block on its own static grid that has a separate power supply and is not connected to your outwards facing conveyor system!

In PvP multiplayer, be explicit whom and what you allow in.

Select the Whitelist filter and click Add Contained to quickly add all players, grids, and blocks that are currently present in the zone to the allowed list.
Maintain a proper whitelist and don’t just allow in every grid that’s shared with the faction.
Manually add other faction-shared grids and new members.
Remove lost or missing ships and members who have left.

Consider that a hostile player can easily capture (using maglocks) a faction-shared grid (or wreck!) outside your safe zone. You do not want such lost grids to be automatically allowed into your force field and pose a Trojan Horse-like security risk.

If you offer Connectors for visitors, remember to configure Trade Mode and Auto-Unlock options on them. Keep them fully inside.

If you want to offer contracts in multiplayer, use a Safe Zone to help protect your trade post from hostile players.

Allow allied and neutral players to enter to reach the Store or Contracts blocks.
Don't allow non-faction members to use weapons and tools inside.
Don't allow grinding and welding to outsiders because that opens your safe zone up to being hacked.
If the target of a repair contract is inside the safe zone, you must allow visitors to use a welder and build projections. (Not safe on PvP Servers.)

On multiplayers servers, players sometimes take temporary shelter in the weapon-free safe zones around Trading Outposts.

Trivia

You can use a safe zone force field as a visual building guide^[2] in Survival Mode, for example, to measure a radius or to build something spherical or rectangular of a specific size.

You can use Safe Zones as airbag cushion. If you are about to crash near an NPC outpost in survival and can still aim your fall, try to crash inside the force field. Collision damage is turned off inside NPC safe zones! You then still have to get your ship outside the force field to be able to make repairs because using tools is not allowed inside either. But avoiding crash damage gives you a second chance to survive and recover your ship.

Gallery

An NPC trading outpost above Titan and Alien, seen from inside the force field
A planetary station visible in the centre of a safe zone.
An NPC-owned space station in its fully visible spherical Safe Zone
Use Safe Zone filters allow and deny access

Construction

This large-grid only block is expensive to build and maintain.

There ares some prerequisites:

Because you need to trade with the NPCs for Zone Chips, a requirement for building Safe Zones is that Economy must be enabled in the World Settings.
You can build Safe Zones only on stationary large-grid bases, planets, or asteroids. You cannot switch them on on mobile grids such as ships or rovers.

The block is quite large at 3x2x2 blocks (Width x Depth x Height), so optimally, place it in the center of your base to make use of the full range. A Safe Zone block has only one access terminal with a customisable LCD surface in the front, but you can also hide the block and control the Safe Zone through the grid's terminal.

Be prepared to have to access the block's inventory regularly to recharge it with Zone Chips. Safe Zone blocks offer two conveyor ports through which they can pull Zone Chips from attached inventories: One conveyor port is on the back, opposite of the terminal, and the second conveyor port is underneath.

Tip: If you have bought the Economy Deluxe Pack DLC, you can configure a variety of Safe Zone Skins.

Recipe

Safe Zone
Component	Large Ship/Station Required	Large Ship/Station Optional	Small Ship Required	Small Ship Optional
Zone Chip	5	—	—	—
Steel Plate	750	50	—	—
Metal Grid	80	—	—	—
Gravity Comp.	10	—	—	—
Construction Comp.	180	—	—	—
Computer	120	—	—	—