HyperCargo OXP
Contents
Overview
The Ships Systems Department of the Aquarian Shipbuilding Corporation introduce their latest development - the HyperCargo system. This is a modernised and updated version of the cargo compression system famously used on larger ships like the Anaconda, now available for any ship (although fitting it to one without a cargo hold is fairly pointless).
Once fitted, it can be accessed by going to the manifest screen (F5 when docked, or F5-F5 when in flight) and then selecting the normal market screen (F8) from there. This will allow hold-space cargo to be loaded into the system, and unloaded again back to the normal cargo bay (if sufficient space is available). Whilst running the system continually draws a small amount of energy from the ship, so the recharging of other systems such as shields may be affected.
The system is reliable, although on rare occasions it has been known that cargo stored in it can be lost if a malfunction occurs during unloading. Also should the system become damaged, the stored cargo is invariably lost as the witchspace bubble in which it is stored collapses. It is an "all or nothing" system - the whole of the content of the cargo hold must be stored at once, and it is not possible to restore only part of a stored cargo manifest. As they are stored separately in the ship safe, valuables such as gold, platinum and gem stones are not affected by the HyperCargo system.
The maximum volume of cargo that can be stored depends on the size of the cargo hold of the ship to which the system is fitted, as it must be used as a staging post for loading and unloading the system. Also such cargo is non-transferrable between ships, and is not covered by escape pod insurance policies (as with normal cargo).
Also it should be noted that GalCop have insisted that all HyperCargo systems are scannable by them for illegal merchandise. Anyone caught leaving a GalCop station with illegal material stored in their HyperCargo system will be subject to the same penalties as if the items were stored in their regular cargo hold. It has been rumoured however that on occasions a software hack is available via the underworld on some of the higher-tech but less law abiding worlds which can mask this. Such modifications are deemed illegal by GalCop, and tend to make the systems run less reliably and malfunction more.
Requirements
This OXP requires at least test version 1.74 of Oolite.
Download
HyperCargo v1.04 can be downloaded from Box.Net by clicking on the link.