Ship landing beacon

The ship landing beacon tells shuttles where to land. Four of them must be placed on the corners of a clear area larger than 9x9 to create a landing pad. Shuttles will use the cleared area if possible.

Acquisition[edit]

Ship landing beacons can be constructed once the Electricity research project has been completed. They require 40 Steel, 1 Component and 800 ticks (13.33 secs) of work.

Ship landing beacons will also spawn, in the correct orientation and on a floored landing pad, in Empire faction bases, often with a shuttle on it about to take off.

Summary[edit]

When 4 beacons are placed in a rectangle of minimum size 9x9 and provided with power the area becomes a landing pad. Shuttles will land there if possible for dropoff and pickup of characters for quests. It does not work for crashed shuttle quests.

The landing pad must be clear of any objects you cannot build on top of such as trees, chunks and other buildings. Additionally, the interior area of the landing pad not including the rows and columns of tiles with the beacons themselves, i.e. a 7x7 area for the minimum size, must be unroofed for the pad to function. The tiles in all 4 cardinal directions of each beacon, and the beacons themselves, can be roofed without issue.

Analysis[edit]

Cover the landing area in flooring, such as concrete, to prevent tree growth blocking the pad.

Trivia[edit]

Ancient nav beacons that can be spawn as part of map generation bear a strong resemblence to ship landing beacons, though with visible damage. Similar to landing beacons, nav beacons will often spawn in the corners of partially incomplete, 11x11 areas of concrete, with anywhere between 1 and 4 ancient nav beacons being present - presumably representing ship landing zones.