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World building

Populate a map with stations, ships, and terrain.

Spawning objects

npc_spawn places a station or ship. The roles string is comma-separated; the first role is the side:

station = npc_spawn(0, 0, 0, "Starbase Phoenix", "tsn, station", "starbase_civil", "behav_station")
raider  = npc_spawn(100, 0, -2000, "Raider", "raider", "kralien_cruiser", "behav_npcship")

Unpack a Vec3 as positional args with *:

npc_spawn(*Vec3(1000, 0, 1000), "DS1", "tsn, station", "starbase_command", "behav_station")

See the spawn and space_objects API.

Positioning

points = scatter_box(count, cx, cy, cz, dx, dy, dz, centered=True)   # box of points
pos    = Vec3.rand_in_sphere(min_r, max_r, include_y=False, flat=True)

See Scatter and Vec3.

Terrain

Spawn one rock with terrain_spawn, or use the field helpers:

terrain_spawn_asteroid_box(cx, cy, cz, size_x=40000, size_z=15000, density=3, height=2000)
terrain_spawn_asteroid_sphere(cx, cy, cz, radius=7500, density=2)
terrain_spawn_nebula_sphere(cx, cy, cz, radius=12000, cluster_color="red")

See the terrain API. For structured procedural worlds, the tile-map system fills an ASCII map from weighted terrain decks — see maps.

Sides

Create sides with the LegendaryMissions prefab_side_generic, then set relations:

tsn    = await prefab_spawn(prefab_side_generic, data={"key":"tsn", "name":"TSN", "color":"#07F"})
raider = await prefab_spawn(prefab_side_generic, data={"key":"raider", "name":"Raider", "color":"#F00"})
side_set_relations(tsn, raider, sbs.DIPLOMACY.HOSTILE)

See the sides API.

Naming a place

"Clear the asteroids in the shipping lane" is only useful if the crew can tell which asteroids. Prose written at authoring time cannot say: the targets are scattered at runtime, so any coordinates in the text go stale the moment the spawn changes.

The answer is to put a real object in the world rather than a phrase in the text, so the place is on the map where the crew is already looking. Three kinds, because they answer different questions:

Function Is Answers
marker_area(x, y, z, size_x, size_z, text) a navarea quad "the shipping lane", "the asteroid field" — a region
marker_point(x, y, z, text) a navpoint "the rendezvous" — a spot
marker_object(x, y, z, text) a selectable object a spot the crew must select — to scan it, comms it, fly to it 
marker_area(*center, 20000, 12000, "Shipping Lane")
marker_point(*rendezvous, "Rendezvous")

marker_area takes the full width and depth, not half-extents, so a job passes the same numbers it gave its scatter box and the marker covers exactly what was placed inside it.

A job that wants its markers gone before the mission ends removes them itself: marker_delete(handle) takes what any of the three returned, and marker_delete_role(role) clears every marker object carrying a role — how a job tidies up after itself when it completes. Otherwise there is nothing to clean up: navpoints live in the sim (rebuilt per mission) and marker objects are agents, cleared with everything else. See the markers API.