Wiki / Ship sections / Cargo intake

Cargo intake

Screenshot assets/wiki-section-cargo-intake.png A line warship's dorsal intake rising under a drifting ore canister, its accordion door folded open and the cyan pickup sight drawn from the door to the canister.

A cargo intake is a hold mouth: a 30 x 20 m box, three cells across, two high and one deep, with an accordion door on one face. Bring the door to a canister and the intake takes every whole item of it that your hold has room for. Pick an item in the Inventory pane and the intake drops it out through the same door, packed into canisters.

The intake does not reach out or pull. A canister goes in only when it touches the thin slab in front of the opening, so a pickup is flying: you move the door onto the canister.

The cargo intake at a glance
Size	30 x 20 x 10 m: three cells across, two high, one deep
Opening	22.2 x 15.3 m, centred on the door face
Door	opens for a canister within 40 m in front of it with at least one item your hold has room for, in 1.2 s
Take	any part of a canister within 1 m in front of the opening
Drop	one canister at a time, at 3 m/s away from your ship
Sight	drawn for a canister within 200 m of your ship
Health	90

The intake's door face is 30 by 20 m, and the clear opening in it is 22.2 by 15.3 m, wider than a 9.4 by 5.8 by 5.8 m canister is long. The door opens for a canister whose centre is in front of the face and within 40 m of the face centre and that holds at least one item the hold's free room fits, so an end-on canister whose near end is inside 40 m can still leave the door shut. The intake takes every whole item that fits the hold when part of the canister is in contact with the 1 m slab in front of the opening. A dropped canister is born 4.4 m off the face and leaves at 3 m/s.

Taking a canister in

Canister	What the intake does
In front of the door and within 40 m of it	Opens the door if your hold has room for at least one of its items.
Any part of it within 1 m in front of the 22.2 x 15.3 m opening	Takes every whole item your hold has room for at once, at any speed and any angle, open door or not.
Touching your ship anywhere else	Is not taken.
Heavier than your hold has room for	Takes what fits, item by item in a fixed item order, and leaves the rest in the same canister. Its tag reads what is left, and a travel lock stays on it.
With no item your hold has room for	Stays out, whole. Alone, it leaves the door shut.
Just dropped	Leaves without being taken. It is taken back only if it turns and comes within 1 m of the opening again.

With a canister within 200 m of your ship, the pickup sight draws a cross on your intake's face and a line to the canister, with no lock needed. A travel-locked canister in range takes the line first; otherwise the canister nearest an intake does. Fly until the line stands perpendicular to the intake cross, then close the gap. The sight stays cyan while closing. The take sound confirms a take. A canister taken whole goes through the door, and the sight goes with it. A canister with items left over stays at the door, and the sight stays on it. An unavailable intake, or no canister within 200 m, draws no sight.

The take ignores speed, but a canister is a free body: one that meets your hull beside the opening is knocked aside, not taken. Come up under it door first and gently.

Loop capture assets/loops/loop-section-cargo-intake.webm The line warship's dorsal intake closing on a drifting ore canister: the canister reaches the open door, is gone into the hold, and the door folds shut.

Dropping cargo

Undocked, the Inventory pane's Jettison packs an item into canisters queued on your intake; Jettison and pickup has the form. Once you close the interface, the door folds open and the canisters leave through it one at a time, in the order you queued them, at 3 m/s relative to your ship. Each is born 4.4 m out from the door, and the next waits until no canister is within 12.5 m of that point. Canisters still waiting are lost with the intake.

Loop capture assets/loops/loop-section-cargo-jettison.webm A jettison seen from beside the hull: the intake's door folds open and a canister of hull plates leaves it, drifting clear of the ship.

Canisters

A canister holds at most 1,000 kg across all its stacks, and weighs what it holds. Within 100 m of your ship, each canister carries an amber tag that reads what it holds, such as 4 Hull plate, or Mixed cargo for multiple item types, with its total mass in kg. The tag hides while the canister is off-screen. A canister has 20 HP; at zero it and its contents are destroyed, not picked up. Canisters can be designated with a travel lock but cannot enter the combat target slot. In a saved Open World, a canister is saved as you left it, in the streamed window or frozen off it, on the desktop build. Any other scenario saves nothing: canisters go when it ends, and a jettisoned stack returns to your hold when it loads again.

Canisters come from three places: your own jettison, a mining beam cutting ore out of a rock, and a destroyed ship or section. A wreck packs everything one drop leaves together, filling each canister with whole items in a fixed item order up to 1,000 kg, so one canister can mix parts, ore and ammunition. A section shot off earlier leaves its own drop.

Variants

Cargo intake - shipped prototypes

	Variant	Size	Opening	Door zone	Take gap	Drop speed	Health
captureassets/catalog-cargo-intake-section.png	Cargo Intake Sectioncargo_intake_section	3x2x1	22.2 x 15.3 m	40 m	1 m	3 m/s	90

One intake ships. The Mining Tug, the Salvage Hauler, the Light Freighter, the Interceptor, the Raider, the Patrol Picket and the Line Warship carry it on top of the hull, door up. The Training Picket carries none. Bolt one onto any other hull in the ship editor; it takes neighbours on every face except the door. See Ship sections for mods for the numbers a mod can change.