Equipment

SHI and other companies offer a great deal of varied equipment, to make your explorations easier. Most shops at space stations carry an assortment of the following items. Harvey Mudd's (found about once every 15 planets or so) carries about the same range of goods, at double the price; he also buys at 10% of the price. You will occasionally find "big", "small", "bad", "good", "sharp", "weak", "powerful" etc. items; the ones with positive bonuses are frequently cheaper than buying the next item up. (e.g., a very sharp combat blade does 0.5 damage and costs 75 Cr., but an equivalent no-bonus vibro blade costs 200 Cr.) The items with penalties are frequently more expensive than buying the next item down.

Hover Platforms:

 * Description: A platform held aloft by aircushions. Its standard size can transport up to 5 persons, though there are some bigger as well as smaller models. It can cross water. Going up mountains is impossible though


 * Price: 500 Cr.
 * A large hover platform holds 6, a small one holds 4. These are handy for exploring water planets. Or you can waporise the water/acid with your weaponfire.

Jetpacks:

 * Description: A simple rocketengine straped to a persons back. Almost but not quite flying, a jump up a mountain is as easy as crossing a large body of water with it.
 * Price: 600 Cr.
 * You will need one of these per awayteam member. The (much!) lower-cost option is to buy a mining drill for all those times when you need to get some minerals on a mountain. Jetpacks make exploring a planet much easier, they're just expensive.

Mining Drills:


 * Not exactly transportation equipment, but this will get you those resources sitting on top of mountains, by the expedient of knocking the mountain down. It takes some time, so watch your oxygen (and your back!).


 * Price: 1500 Cr. for a normal mining drill (2 damage, 25 turns to drill a mountain), 2500 Cr. for a laser drill (5 damage, 10 turns to drill a mountain).

Long Range Weapons
Until you get a Gunner of skill 3 or better, don't expect to hit anything at any real range.

Close Combat Weapons
Melee weapons are cheaper than ranged weapons, but cannot be used to cut through rock in tunnels. Or, y'know, destroy enemies before they get into melee range.

Medical Gear
Find this stuff in the sickbay.

Instant healing
Press "h" to use a medpack.

Medpack, 50 Cr.

Medpack II, 140 Cr.

Medpack III, 270 Cr.

Disease kit, 50 Cr.

Disease kit II, 100 Cr.

Disease kit III, 150 Cr.

Long-term healing
This is only useful for diseases, as all awayteam members are fully healed once you lift off from a planet.

Basic infirmary, 500 Cr.

Infirmary, 1000 Cr.

Advanced infirmary, 2000 Cr.

Getting things into cages
Anaesthetics, 10 Cr.: can be used to sedate a non-sentient creature (the ones that say "Got food?")

Strong anaesthetics, 50 Cr.: more better. Not yet known: what makes a creature big enough to require these. (HP? Weapons? Armor? Some combination of these? More importantly, are there any critters that require strong anaesthetics, but aren't automatically hostile to you?)

Cages
Cage, 25 Cr.: holds one sedated critter.

Stasis field, 100Cr: holds five sedated critters.

Improved stasis field, 150 Cr.: holds ten sedated critters. And no, you can't store crew members like this, no matter how much you'd like to, or how similar the cryo bunks are.

Miscellaneous

 * Communication satellites, 900 Cr.: allows you to talk to your ship from anywhere on the planet. Potentially doubles your oxygen, because you don't have to walk all the way back to the ship! Not useful unless your Pilot is rank 3 (or preferably better); there's a piloting check every time you retrieve your satellite, and failing means you crash into the satellite and lose it. If you can afford to blow 900 Cr. on a satellite, you can afford to upgrade your Pilot a bit.

Air!
In this editor's experience, running out of air is the #1 cause of YASD. (Aliens being #2.)
 * Imp. air filters, 20 Cr.: decrease the amount of oxygen you use (not yet tested: does it still decrease your oxygen usage on airless planets?)
 * There are "good" and "bad" versions.
 * Auxiliary Tanks: these come in big and small versions. Each awayteam member may carry one of each tank. If you don't have one per person, everyone will share.
 * Jetpack tanks, 10 Cr.: If you have one per awayteam member, your jetpack tanks go to 62 (as opposed to the usual 50).
 * Oxygen tanks, 45 Cr.: If you have one per awayteam member, your oxygen tanks go to 250 (as opposed to the usual 200).

Vision
Vision items extend or improve your viewing range. There are usually "good" and "bad" versions of each item.
 * Ground Penetrating Radar, 150 Cr.: lets you see through (most) walls, even if you're just using the Mark One Eyeball. Incredibly useful for exploring mountainous planets and tunnels.

Day Vision

 * Binoculars, 90 Cr.: not bad
 * Portable sensor sets, 500 Cr.: much better!

Night/Cave Vision

 * Helmet mounted lamp: not bad
 * Floodlamp: much better!

Violence

 * Grenade, 25 Cr.
 * Fusion grenade, 80 Cr.
 * Grenade launcher, 500 Cr.: extends your grenade range
 * Conventional mine, 25 Cr.
 * Imp. mine, 50 Cr.

Too lazy for prospecting
When you leave a mining robot or a rover on a planet, it will mine or explore while you're away. Come back later to pick it up, and it will have earned some money for you, in the form of resources or mapped squares. Don't forget to put a [c]omment on your starmap so you remember where you left it!
 * Simple mining robot, 600 Cr.
 * Mining robot, 1500 Cr.
 * Improved mining robot, 3500 Cr.
 * Simple rover, 600 Cr.
 * Rover, 1500 Cr.
 * Improved rover, 3500 Cr.