Zero-G Forge and star gear
A module of your own station where materials of the Solar System, the interstellar places and the ends of the roads become armor, weapons and artifacts.
The zero-g forge is a module of your own station (
Module Kit: Zero-G Forge): a glass sphere between four magnetic
pillars with the chamber heart (
Zero-G Chamber Heart) in the middle. Without weight the melt neither settles
nor separates, so here you forge what no planet can cast: star gear made from the materials of the Solar System.
How to forge
- Press the forge console — a window opens with the recipe book on the left.
- Press a recipe: the materials from your inventory lay themselves into the four cells (the rest goes back). Whatever is missing, the window names in a line.
- The “Forge” button starts the chamber. Drops of metal in the recipe’s colors rise in the sphere, circle, merge into the piece, arcs jump between the pillars — and a flash at the end.
- The finished piece waits in the output cell. Forging runs on world time: you can leave and come back.
There is one forge per station, and it forges one piece at a time. The forge belongs to the station, like its hold: the window opens only for the station's owner, and a guest is told “This is not your station”.
The Gilded gift. With a Gilded one in the station crew, alloys are 20% cheaper: every count in the recipe ×0.8 (never below one). The window says so in a line.
All forge recipes:
Solar System gear
Every piece has its role, a strong side and a real drawback. Weapons grow with mastery (experience for foes slain); hold G over a piece for the details.
| Piece | Strong side | Drawback |
|---|---|---|
 Meteoric Plate Helm,  Meteoric Plate Cuirass,  Meteoric Plate Greaves,  Meteoric Plate Sabatons | the radiation dose is halved (−80% with the full set), blows in zero gravity do not spin you | magnetic: lightning hurts more, seeks the wearer in a thunderstorm, a solar storm drags him |
 Widmanstätten Blade | the lodestone field drags foes in iron and knocks arrows aside | you walk slower while holding the field |
 Comet Bow | the arrow drags an icy tail, everything in the tail bogs down | the tail slows its owner too, a longer draw |
 Pulsar Rod | a beam in pulses, a shot right on the beat hits twice as hard | off the beat — half as hard |
 "Wow!" Compass | tuned with stardust, points to the nearest anomaly or Ringwright place | direction only; magnetic plate throws the needle off |
 Mounted Star Seed | heals in bright light | hunger three times faster in the dark |
 Visitor's Sail | unfurls when falling and in zero gravity and holds you | a hit folds the sail for 5 seconds |
The rod beats every few ticks; its beat shows as a ring by the crosshair and a flash on the model. Each shot on the beat in a row adds strength, a miss resets the streak.
Things of the far stars and armor of the roads
The forge also works the substances of the interstellar places — the Crab Nebula (neutron dust, neutron slag) and Cygnus X-1 (disk plasma, a Hawking spark) — and of the ends of the dark and fire roads: the Interrift and the Depths.
| Thing | Strength | Flaw |
|---|---|---|
 Horizon Spear | a time well at the foe in your sights: for 4 s everything within 4 blocks moves three times slower — foes, their arrows and spells | time does not take sides: step into the well and you are slow too |
 Neutron Maul | a blow squeezes a crowd: foes within 5 blocks fall onto the target, take damage and are stunned | heavy: you walk 10% slower with it in hand; a lone target is not squeezed |
 Neutron Ring | knockback 30% weaker; a blow while falling from 2 blocks — +1.5 per block (up to +10), the foe staggers | landing hurts 25% more |
 Cygnus Chronopendant | a blow over 6 — for 3 s time within 5 blocks runs three times slower for everyone but you (once a minute) | then time catches up: you are slow for 3 s |
 Warp Shroud Hood,  Warp Shroud Robe,  Warp Shroud Leggings,  Warp Shroud Boots | foes notice you from 70% of the distance; the full shroud pulls you back from below the world to the last solid ground once every 5 minutes (the cooldown keeps running through relogging and death) | woven of dark: armor is 3 lower in bright light. A sky with no sun in it is not light: in the Interrift, the Underweave and other worlds without a day cycle the shroud weakens only near lamps and fire |
 Crucible Helm,  Crucible Cuirass,  Crucible Greaves,  Crucible Sabatons | blows on burning foes +25%, flame burns 30% weaker; the full set — the first 4 s in lava without harm | heavy: −4% speed per piece; cold and drowning hurt 50% more |
 Lightbearer | against Shades of Hunger: blows ×2, near it a Shade burns, lamps do not go out, the dark does not fall; Dawn burns Shades and dazzles the rest | a weak blade against anything else |
A sky with no sun in it is not light. The “in the light” and “in the dark” conditions of the Warp Shroud and of the
Mycelial Armor (
Gatherer's Cap, 
Bracket-Fungus Coat,
Felted Leggings, 
Rooted Boots) count the sky as light only where there is day
and night — on Earth, the planets and the moons. In the Mycelium, the Interrift, the Underweave, the Depths and other worlds
without a day cycle only lamps, fire and glowing blocks are light: under the sky of the Mycelium the Mycelial Armor does not wilt,
knits wounds and keeps its full armor, and weakens only near bright light (block light above 7).
The Lightbearer needs a blueprint. Its recipe is in everyone’s forge book, but the forge only takes it from someone who has read the Tablet of Hunger in the Swarm Archive; without it the window says “This needs a blueprint: the Tablet of Hunger”.
Things of the far roads
Past the ends of the dark and the fire roads lie the Underweave and the Underdeep. The forge makes four more things of their substances — each with a role and a flaw of its own.
| Thing | Strength | Flaw |
|---|---|---|
 String Bow | every arrow has a twin: a mirror opens at the target, and a second arrow flies out of it to meet the first; with mastery both arrows in one foe sound a chord — more damage and a stun | each of the two hits for 70% of a plain arrow; the twin carries no enchantments of the bow |
 Ringwright Needle | the “puncture”: 8 blocks ahead through walls, foes and gaps, once in 20 s | for 3 s after it you can hurt no one; the needle does not take what is sealed — unbreakable walls, and the masonry of a dungeon while its master lives |
 Plume Rod | a strike into the ground: columns of melt rise along your gaze for 10 blocks — they hit, toss foes up and set them on fire | in water and under rain the melt goes out: the rod does not fire |
 Anisotropic Pendant | blows from the front (within 60° of your gaze) are 30% weaker | blows in the back are 15% stronger |
The needle never leaves you at the wall: if there is no room behind it, the puncture does not happen and is not spent. Inside a dungeon hall the needle carries you; through its walls — only after its master is beaten.
Weapons from hearts
| Thing | Heart | What it does | Flaw |
|---|---|---|---|
 Millstone |  Millstone Heart of the Belt Devourer | strike the ground: a ring of millstones rolls out to 7 blocks and grinds back, crushing everyone on the way twice | while the stones roll you are rooted to the spot |
 Threshold Staff |  Threshold Key of the Gatekeeper — from the second victory (the first goes into the interstellar drive) | two small gates — before you and where you look: step there and back, for 6 s | a threshold does not ask who crosses: a foe who follows comes out beside you |
What next
- The neighboring station module — “Station Observatory”.
- A Gilded one joins the crew through the trust of its people: “Peoples’ stations, orders and trust”.
- Where the substances of the far stars come from — “Interstellar space” (behind a spoiler).