A / D tilt · W / S spin · E lift · Space vent
RING STATION KESTREL · LARDER DECK 2
Orbitlarder
Five minutes. Twenty-four crates. The sun only ever touches one arc of the ring at a time.
Tilt the ring
The hull spins whether you like it or not, carrying the four crop bays through the terminator. A / D leans the whole ring into or away from the star, which slides the gold arc along the rim and changes the peak irradiance every bay sees.
Watch the shadow
In shadow the solar wings make nothing and the reserve drains. Sun into the ring means the reserve climbs, but a wide lit arc bakes the hull: heat starves growth and grinds the crew down. Venting buys back the heat at the cost of reserve.
Lift before it wilts
Each bay ripens on the light it wants, then sits in the cradle for sixteen seconds before it wilts back to half growth. Press E to lift the ripest bay into crates. Morale falls when the light is wrong for most of the ring, and faster still over the last minute and a half of the shift.
A D tilt · W S spin · E lift · Space vent · Esc pause
DECK HELD
Shift paused
The hull is frozen mid-turn. Nothing ripens, nothing drains, nothing wilts.
DECK HANDBOOK
How the ring works
The ring
The hull spins at the rate you trim with W and S, between 0.55× and 1.5× nominal. Four bays ride the rim ninety degrees apart, so they never see the same light at the same time. A slow spin holds one bay in a good patch for a long time; a fast spin spreads the same light more evenly and keeps the hull cooler. Either way the ring turns.
Tilt
A and D lean the ring up to 38° toward or away from the star. Tilt in and the gold lit arc widens, the peak irradiance climbs, and the terminator slides round the rim so a different set of bays sits in it. Tilt away and the arc narrows, the shadow deepens, and the reserve starts to bleed at about a point a second.
The four bays
Solgloss wants the hardest sun on the ring, about 1.02, and scorches past 1.30. Emberroot is happy at 0.76 and shrugs off heat. Lumenfern wants 0.50 and likes a broad arc. Palegum is a shade crop: it only fruits near 0.28, and strong light stalls it outright. A bay off its preferred light still grows, just slowly.
Power and heat
Solar output is the lit fraction of the ring times a collector gain that climbs with your tilt. The house takes 2.9 a second whatever the sun is doing, so a ring held in shadow burns reserve and a dead reserve grows every bay at a third of its rate. Heat tracks what the wings collect, bleeds off through the radiators, and drops 26 points a vent at a cost of 5 reserve.
Morale
The crew read how closely the light on the ring matches what the bays want. Wrong light and a hot hull both grind morale down; matched light and a cool hull bring it back. The last ninety seconds of a shift wear on them regardless, and a dead reserve sours them faster. At zero morale the shift is called off.
The reckoning
Twenty-four crates inside five minutes fills the larder and the shift is signed off. Miss the quota, run the reserve dry for ten seconds, or let morale bottom out and the ring is re-tasked for cargo hauling.
SHIFT SIGNED OFF