A junction chain from Titan to Mercury
A Depot/Junction chain is a big structure used to connect drills and pumpjacks from one celestial body, to another (mainly used for transporting gas if there is none on the celestial body).
Setting Up[]
A Depot/Junction chain requires some amount of preparation, as these structures span across multiple celestial bodies. Firstly, you must have a suitable base on the planet / moon that you want to chain from, as this base must produce the materials required to sustain another base elsewhere.
Generally, having a depot connected to four Drills and four Pumpjacks. (because depots only have 4 working pipes.) on high / very high hotspots will produce enough resources for the chain, although having junctions as the base of the chain can work as well, although less effective. Then, from your starting base (or from another person's base), buy a lot of Depots/Junctions, as these will be used to chain across space with your ship, which will be built in the next section.
Ideal Ships for Depot/Junction Chains[]
Depot/Junction chains require a ship in order to be constructed, but certain ship designs are more effective than others. One of the most ideal designs for a ship of this kind is a small and versatile ship, while also being slow enough to make minor adjustments and stay in a reliable depot / junction pipe range, as while the connection range is infinitely long, it becomes harder to connect pipes to each other the further the pipe outputs are.
A ship that suits the above requirements can be constructed with a Cockpit (with Control Panel), a Space Station Core, two Spike Engines, and the use of a glitch known as "Bluetooth Fuel", which can be executed by placing any fuel-holding container on a part connected to the part that a Control Panel is on, and by sawing off that part the fuel is connected to in order to have massive amounts of fuel with no additional weight applied to the ship.(FUTURE demonstration will be put below).
Fine ship
This is only one design in shipbuilding for Depot/Junction chaining, although this one is reliable in its speed and fits the requirements above.
How to depot/junction[]
Should look like this.
First, fly up so that you're above your junction/depot base, use the space station core to lock yourself, place the junction/depot, then connect the input of the structure above to the output of the structure on the ground
Should be like this.
Next, go a bit higher so that you're out of the atmosphere, activate your core, place the depot/junction, and connect it. For those who are making long depot/junction chains, you could also place the depot/junction without activating the core. Continue doing this until you've connected to the target celestial body, and bam! you've just completed your first (maybe) depot/junction chain!
Trivia[]
- Unlike most structures, Depots/Junctions do not check if you're on the ground or not, and can still be placed, just facing the celestial body / sphere of influence that you are in. Due to this "feature," it makes Depot/Junction chains possible.
- It's one of the three ways to get natural gas to a celestial body that doesn't have any of it, the others being Drones and Freecaming.