Surge Plate

How it works

A surge plate is essentially a portable surge drive that knows how to drag another device along with it. You attach the cargo, fire the plate's own travel command, and the attached device makes the journey too. At the other end, detach and you're done.

The common use case is shifting resources or devices between systems that don't yet have their own surge drives. Drop a transport drone full of carbon onto a plate, send it to a new colony system, detach. The drone is now in-system and ready to be tasked locally.

Attaching

Send the attach command to the plate with the target device's code. Both devices need to be at the same location.

$ curl -X POST https://api.replicant.space/v1/devices/SP120A4F \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
    -d '{
      "command": "attach",
      "target": "7FE981A0"
    }'

Travelling

Use the standard travel command on the plate. The attached device travels with it as a single unit.

$ curl -X POST https://api.replicant.space/v1/devices/SP120A4F \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
    -d '{
      "command": "travel",
      "destination": "BOOP"
    }'

Detaching

Once it arrives, release every attached device with a single detach command.

$ curl -X POST https://api.replicant.space/v1/devices/SP120A4F \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
    -d '{"command": "detach"}'

Manual and taxi mode

By default the plate is in manual mode - it only moves when you tell it to. Switch to taxi mode and it joins the pool of plates that local transport controllers can use automatically when running ferry directives.

$ curl -X POST https://api.replicant.space/v1/devices/SP120A4F \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
    -d '{
      "command": "configure",
      "mode": "taxi"
    }'

Flip back to manual any time to take the plate out of the rotation.

Bigger rigs

The plate is the smallest member of a family of surge carriers. Same attach / travel / detach interface, just more coupling slots: