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The Shipwright: build a hull to your measure.
The Shipwright builds a ship, an airship or a starship from a few choices: what she is, what she is made of, how big she is, and how she is driven and armed.
What you choose
| Choice | What it does |
|---|---|
| Kind | Sea ship, airship or starship. The kind sets the sizes you may choose. |
| Material | Oak, pine or bloodwood for a wooden sea ship. Steel for a steel one. Starships are built from the Starship Kit. |
| Length | Sea ships 8 to 90 m. Starships 14 to 90 m. Airships 20 to 90 m. |
| Beam (width) | 4 to 24 m, and never wider than about a third of her length. |
| Depth | Sea ships 3 to 12 m, starships 4 to 16 m, airships 3 to 6 m. |
| Bow | From a blunt bow (0) to a fine one (1). |
| Cabin | A cabin aft for a wooden ship, or a deckhouse for a steel one. |
| Engines | 0 to 16. A wooden sea ship can have none and sail. |
| Masts | 0 to 3, for wooden sea ships. |
| Guns | 0 to 8. Cannons along the sides for wooden ships, turrets for steel ones. Airships carry none. |
| Bunks | 0 to 60 for the crew to sleep in. |
A sea ship always gets something to drive her: a mast if she is wooden, or an engine if she is steel. A starship has her bridge and a driver's seat, and her engines are built in.
What the Shipwright adds
Every ship gets a helm, doors and hatches, boarding ladders, ballast and lamps. A wooden ship's hold is reached by a hatch and ladder, with bunks down both sides. A steel ship has a plated bilge and concrete ballast so she sits level. The same choices always make the same ship, so a friend in the game gets exactly what you built.
Ship stations
Two stations make a ship better, and you make both at a Workbench from metal, glass and copper. Each goes aboard the ship she belongs to.
- Engineering Console: her drives burn less fuel, and lost blocks are patched back on. It needs about 16 units of metal, 4 of glass and 8 of copper.
- Navigator Chart Table: a faster Slipstream, cheaper jumps and cheaper Gate hops. It needs about 12 units of metal, 8 of glass and 4 of copper.
Upgrades from far universes
Blocks made of metals from the far universes make a ship better. They are rewards for travel, and you can only get them by going out.
| Metal | In an engine | In a fuel tank |
|---|---|---|
| Common metals | One engine | One tank |
| Vitalmetal | Counts as 1.25 engines | Holds 1.5 times the fuel |
| Star-iron | Counts as 1.5 engines | Holds twice the fuel |
| Runesteel | Counts as 1.8 engines | Holds 2.5 times the fuel |
Star-iron and Vitalmetal are also used for plating and windows, and Voidglass for windows. Use them where you want the hull tougher as well as the engines stronger.
Terraforming machines
Three machines work on a hostile world, and you make them the same way. The Atmosphere Processor thickens the air, the Water Seeder spreads moisture and then moss, and the Climate Regulator pulls the day toward a comfortable 15 degrees. See Planets and habitability for what they do.
Hull damage and the cook-off
Every ship has an integrity, the share of her weighted blocks left. Her engines, fuel, helm and ammunition count for far more than plain hull. Blocks lost to a blast or a ram count as damage, but blocks you take down by hand do not. A saved ship reloads whole.
When a ship's integrity falls below 40 per cent, or her helm, engines or fuel are lost with the hull well hurt, she goes critical. She burns for three to six seconds, and then cooks off. A submarine that is deep floods and implodes. A car burns and blows. A jet or starship tumbles and blows, with more fuel and rockets on board making a bigger blast. Anyone aboard dies unless they eject. Nearby craft can be caught in the blast.
For the ship types, see the fleet.
← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.