Void Crew Fleet

A BepInEx mod for Void Crew that puts up to three player ships in one lobby, or two teams of up to three ships in PvP, with up to 8 players per ship (rooms of up to 48). Fly the game's own missions as a fleet, take on the Fleet Pilgrimage (more enemies, more objectives), or fight each other in Fleet Battle, a team-versus-team PvP mode.

Everyone in a Fleet room needs the mod. Rooms you host with it are marked as modded [mod_session], as Void Crew's modding guidelines ask. With the mod installed you can still join normal rooms.

Features

Up to three ships, up to 48 players

• Rooms hold up to 48 players (the game's own limit is 6), 8 per ship, each ship with its own clone tubes: three co-op ships take 24, a 3v3 Fleet Battle 48.

• The hub's ship loadout terminal gets a FLEET panel:

  • SHIPS: 1 / 2 / 3 (the host's) sets how many ships the game's own missions use (one in a new room; your last choice is remembered). With more than 8 players a mission adds ships by itself and evens out the crews. A saved run always has one ship.
  • A row for every ship: click one to set it up at the terminal, with its own ship and loadout.

• The lobby screen opens for everyone when the host sets two or three ships: players pick the ship they fly for the whole mission. Crews stay even, and the host can move players and auto-balance. The host then confirms the crews (CONFIRM CREWS), and only then can the mission start. CREWS on the FLEET panel brings the screen back, and once the crews are confirmed it lets the host reopen picking. A player who joins after that goes to the smallest crew.

• On the lobby screen the host can force each ship's type (Destroyer, Frigate or Striker) or leave it free. A ship with no loadout chosen copies ship 1 (AS SHIP 1) when its type allows it, or else gets its type's standard loadout.

• From the moment you have a ship in the lobby until the mission ends, your ship shows as one more row of the ship panel in the top left corner, in the HUD's own style: its type's silhouette, SHIP 2 and its type, or the red skull and LOST once it is destroyed.

• The crew list under the ship panel:

  • in the hub, every player; when they don't all fit it shows 7 and a key prompt: [ opens a scrolling list of everyone (the game's own rows, with mute and kick in their menus);
  • in a mission, only your own crew (7 players at most), then a card for each other ship: its name and type, a head for each of its crew (black while they live, red once dead) and its hull as the ship panel shows yours, with its type's silhouette; a lost ship shows the red skull and LOST.

• The ships start side by side, fly freely, and void-jump together:

  • the escape vector set on any ship's astral map counts for every ship;
  • each crew charges its own ship's void drive;
  • once every crewed ship's drive is charged, pulling any ship's void lever jumps the whole fleet, whoever flies it. While a drive isn't charged, the lever says which ship's and nothing starts. A ship nobody crews is carried along;
  • the ships arrive side by side.

• In co-op, enemies and the sector's events go for the nearest ship, and every ship is kept inside the play area.

• Each ship is its own ship. It has its own:

  • fabricator alloys and biomass;
  • ship voice lines, alarms and sound effects;
  • helm, pilot HUD and third-person camera;
  • target locks and scan reticle;
  • damage markers and pings;
  • power and lights.

  Doing something on one ship doesn't set anything off on the others. In co-op, pings and damage markers are shared with every crew.

• Starting alloys: with a loadout of its own, a ship starts with its own alloys: its CUSTOM loadout's (Ship Customizer), otherwise the game's starting amount. As a copy of ship 1 (AS SHIP 1), it starts with ship 1's.

Losing a ship (co-op and Fleet Battle)

• You always respawn on your own ship, the one you picked in the lobby, wherever you died.
• When a ship is destroyed, its crew can't be re-cloned for the rest of the mission. Anyone aboard dies with it, and anyone out in space within about 150 m of it. A crew member who was elsewhere (aboard another ship, or further out in space) plays on until they die.
• Then they watch from a third-person view around the remaining ships: Q / E (or the mouse buttons) switch ships, the mouse looks around, the wheel zooms.
• The mission carries on with the ships that are left, and the host decides: carry on, or RETURN TO HUB in the escape menu (there once a ship is lost) ends the mission for everyone, to start again. A co-op mission fails when every ship is lost; Fleet Battle ends when a team has none left.

Missions (galaxy map)

• Only the host chooses the mission and starts it. Other players' picks on the galaxy map are refused with a message, and only the host sitting in a ready-room seat starts the countdown, in every mission.
• The game's own missions can be flown with up to three ships.
• FLEET PILGRIMAGE: the Pilgrimage for two or three ships. Enemies come in greater numbers (more with a third ship) and every sector holds more objectives, so the crews can split up and work on different objectives at the same time.
• FLEET BATTLE (PvP): two teams of one to three ships each, starting on opposite sides of a large asteroid field with salvage to fight over.

Fleet Battle (PvP)

• Teams in the lobby:

  1. When the host picks FLEET BATTLE on the galaxy map, the lobby screen opens for everyone.
     • The host sets SHIPS PER TEAM (1 to 3) and each ship's type. By default both teams get the same ships (BOTH TEAMS: SAME SHIPS).
     • Players pick a ship, and with it their team: BLUE has ships 1, 3 and 5, RED has 2, 4 and 6.
     • Teams and crews stay even (an odd count allows one extra), and every ship needs a crew. The host can move players, auto-balance and confirms.
  2. Everyone on a team wears a BLUE TEAM / RED TEAM badge above their head, and sees their own team and ship as a row of the ship panel in the top left corner (BLUE TEAM BLUE 1, DESTROYER). Once the teams are confirmed the crew list shows BLUE on the left and RED on the right, with [ and ] opening each team's whole list when it doesn't fit. In the match it shows your own crew and a card for each other ship of your team, and each enemy ship's health (in red) while it is within your ship's scan range: nothing of the other team's players.
  3. At the loadout terminal the FLEET panel lists every ship in team colours. Only a ship's own team can change its loadout, Ship Customizer's CUSTOM included. A ship nobody set up starts with its type's standard loadout.
  4. The host starts the match by sitting in a ready-room seat, and everyone spawns aboard their ship.

  On the lobby screen:

  • HIDE puts it away for you; TEAMS & RULES on the FLEET panel brings it back.
  • The host's CHANGE MISSION backs out of FLEET BATTLE.
  • LEAVE asks to be pressed again.

  After the teams are confirmed:

  • TEAMS & RULES lets the host reopen team picking (the current teams are kept), and shows the teams and rules to everyone else.
  • A player who joins later goes to the smaller team's smallest crew.

• Ship rules (with Ship Customizer 0.7.0 or newer): the lobby screen's SHIP RULES tab is where the host decides what a CUSTOM loadout may use in the match:

  • the allowed MK tiers (the fabricator may start at the highest one);
  • the allowed categories;
  • single options to ban;
  • a starting-alloys limit.

  Everyone sees the rules. The Customizer greys out what they refuse at the loadout terminal, and the host's game removes it from the ships when the match starts. The game's own loadouts are not affected.

• The arena:

  • one of the game's asteroid fields, with rocks between the ships to take cover behind;
  • mirrored salvage on each side: supply and generic containers near home, a wreck to search on the flank, and an asteroid base, ammo container and VoidFish further out;
  • an alloy supply drop every 5 minutes, the same distance from both ships;
  • no enemy NPCs.

• Enemies look like enemies: enemy ship markers (your team's other ships are marked as allies), team-coloured name tags (enemies only in sight and within 35 m), and no enemy pings or damage markers.

• The teams' ships can damage each other (a team's own ships can't). Every hull has 4x the game's hit points (the host's setting).

• Destroy every enemy ship to win. A team with no players left forfeits.

• Spectators: while your team has ships left, losing yours doesn't end your match: you watch the rest of it (see Losing a ship). Spectators talk among themselves: nobody still fighting hears them, by voice or text chat.

• Joining a match under way: while there is room, you play at once: you join the team with fewer active players, on its ship with the smallest crew (8 at most), so the teams stay at most one apart. Players reconnecting within their 3 minutes count as active; the crews of lost ships don't. Players already waiting for a place go first.

• Lost connection: your place is held for 3 minutes. Come back in time and you return to your team and ship. Come back later and you play again on your team when it isn't ahead, else you wait for its next free place, watching your team's ships.

• Boarding:

  • Enemy players can come aboard through an airlock its crew left open, or one their team hacked (below).
  • Aboard the enemy ship you can always use its System Enhancement panels and its systems' power switches (except the central computer's, which is the whole ship's power). Finishing a panel's minigame shuts that system down for 120 seconds, and a power switch turns a turret, shield or any other system off.
  • You can never use its helm, turrets, seats or terminals, enter its cockpit, or take its items or its homunculus, not even with the superior grappling hook. A warning tells you why something is off-limits.

• Fist fighting aboard: with empty hands, hold the right mouse button to raise your fists into a fighting stance, then left click to punch, alternating arms (left first). On a gamepad: hold LT, punch with RT (on foot in gravity). Five punches knock an enemy out, and you aim where you look, VR included. Everyone around sees your stance and punches.

• Turrets: B.R.A.I.N. auto-turrets track the enemy ship properly:

  • they aim at its hull and lead its real movement;
  • they hold fire when it's out of their arc.

  Point defenses and auto-turrets also shoot enemy players floating in open space near the ship, but a visible enemy ship always comes first. An auto-turret's shots hit a player by chance, more often up close.

• Proximity voice is forced on. You hear players on the same ship, or within 50 m in open space.

• Airlock Hacking Terminal: a new fabricator item on the Resources tab, made from the Data Shard's model.

  1. Print it and carry it to the control panel outside an enemy airlock.
  2. Hold Fire on the panel to plug it in. The hack takes 1 minute, and the defenders can pull it out (hold Fire on it for 3 seconds) until then.
  3. When it finishes, your whole team can use every door of that ship for 5 minutes, including the airlock's door buttons and pressurise lever, but not the cockpit doors or the airlock's safety override. A countdown shows on screen for both teams.

Installation

1. Install BepInEx 5 for Void Crew, with a Thunderstore mod manager (BepInExPack) or by hand.
2. Put VoidCrewFleet.dll in BepInEx\plugins. With a mod manager, install the zip from the release.
3. Everyone in your Fleet rooms needs a compatible version. If not, the game sends a player back with its "missing mods" message, which names the version the room needs.

Settings (BepInEx\config\com.captainchunck.voidcrew.fleet.cfg)

Section	Setting	Default	What it does
General	Enabled	true	Turn the mod off without removing it.
Lobby	MaxPlayers	24	Room size for rooms you host (4–48).
Lobby	Ships	1	How many ships rooms you host start with (1–3; follows the FLEET panel's SHIPS).
Two ships	ShipSpacing	160	Distance between ships side by side at the start and after a jump (m).
Fleet Pilgrimage	EnemyMultiplier	1.6	How many more enemies the Fleet Pilgrimage sends with two ships (host); a third ship adds as much again. A change applies from the next mission.
PvP	StartDistance	3600	How far apart the two teams start (m).
PvP	HullMultiplier	4	How many times the game's hull hit points the ships have in Fleet Battle (host).
PvP	ShipsPerTeam	1	Your last ships per team; set it on the lobby screen.
PvP	ShipTypes	(empty)	Your last Fleet Battle ship types; set them on the lobby screen.
PvP	Arena	auto	Where Fleet Battle is fought: auto, Dz-A, Or-A, Oz-B, Defiance or off (host).
PvP	HackTerminalCost	10	The hacking terminal's fabricator price in alloys (host).
PvP	ShipRules	(empty)	Your last Fleet Battle ship rules; set them on the lobby screen, not here.
Crew list	PlayersKey	<Keyboard>/leftBracket	Opens the list of every player, or of the BLUE team once teams are picked (Tab is the game's camera view).
Crew list	RedTeamKey	<Keyboard>/rightBracket	Opens the list of the RED team once teams are picked.
Diagnostics	VerboseLogging	false	More detail in the BepInEx log.
Diagnostics	AutoTest	Off	Developer self-test; leave it Off to play.

Progression

Fleet missions, PvP and missions with more than 6 players give no XP, rewards or achievements, as Void Crew's modding rules ask for mods that change the game. A player counts once their character is in the game, not while they are only joining (a player the game sends back for missing mods doesn't count):

• Daily and weekly quests aren't used up there; they stay open for a normal mission. Codex entries from data shards aren't unlocked there either.
• A mission that starts like that stays so even if players leave.
• Fleet runs aren't saved, because the game's save holds only one ship.

Compatibility

• Ship Customizer (optional):
  • Ship 1 can use its CUSTOM loadout.
  • With Ship Customizer 0.4.0 or newer, ship 2 can have a CUSTOM loadout of its own. Choose SHIP 2 in the FLEET panel, then CUSTOM.
  • With Ship Customizer 0.5.1 or newer, ship 2's CUSTOM loadout has its own starting alloys (Fleet 0.2.1 or newer).
  • With Ship Customizer 0.7.0 or newer, CUSTOM loadouts follow Fleet Battle's ship rules (Fleet 0.3.0 or newer).
  • With Ship Customizer 0.9.0 or newer, every ship 2-6 can have a CUSTOM loadout of its own (Fleet 0.4.0 or newer). With an older Customizer, ships 3-6 use game loadouts.
  • A Ship Customizer turned off in its own settings counts as not installed.
• Void Crew VR UI Fix (optional): the mod's screens use the game's own UI system, so they show in VR.
• Neither is required.

Status

This is an early release. A host alone has tested:

• co-op with two and three ships: picking crews in the lobby, respawning on your own ship, losing ships, watching after your ship is lost, and RETURN TO HUB;
• the Fleet Pilgrimage and the fleet's void jump;
• Ship Customizer's CUSTOM ship 2;
• Fleet Battle 1 v 1 and 2 v 2: lobby teams, ship rules, 4x hulls, factions, a team fighting on after losing a ship, spectators and the result;
• the fist-fighting stance and punches.

Not played yet with several real players:

• punches landing on another player;
• turrets shooting players;
• boarding;
• panel sabotage;
• the hacking terminal (plugging in, the hack, pulling it out, door access);
• proximity voice;
• reconnects, and rooms of more than a few players;
• CUSTOM loadouts on ships 3-6 (Ship Customizer 0.9.0) in a mission.

Please report anything odd with your BepInEx\LogOutput.log.

Building from source

• Requirements: Visual Studio 2022+ (MSBuild), and Void Crew with BepInEx 5 installed.
• Build and check: powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tests\build-and-test.ps1 -VoidCrewDir "<game folder>" -BepInExDir "<BepInEx folder>" builds the plugin and checks every game patch against the installed game's assemblies offline.
• Package: powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\package.ps1 makes the Thunderstore zip in dist\.

License

GPL-3.0. See LICENSE.