Adding the “Reactor”

Sure has been a while since my last update. I’ve been in a bit of a lull in terms of progress on this project, partially due to the current state of the game and also due to my busy schedule as of late. Nevertheless i can show the bit of progress I’ve made since my last post.

As you probably know, the devs decided to use a fan to represent the reactor of the payer’s ship, the fan would spin when the reactor is powered and stop when it is not. I thought this was a neat idea so I decided to follow a similar path on my panel and expand on the concept. I started by sourcing a 5v USB powered PC cooling fan on AliExpress. I bought a 4.5 inch hole saw to make the hole to mount it in. This worked well however i was a bit careless in drilling out the hole resulting in a minor gouge in my panel.

oops >.>

At first I was rather disappointed but then came up with a decent solution. I happened to have a coworker with a 3D printer, he was happy to print me a bezel for the fan which will hide the damage and actually makes it look better in my opinion.

Here you can see the fan, the guard, and the 3D printed ring.

Once assembled into the panel it doesn’t look half bad! I plan to control the speed of the fan to also represent the amount of power the ship has… as you start running low the fan will slow down and eventually stop completely. Also I want to back light the fan with some orange-ish lights to make it look like its glowing from within, perhaps even making the lights flicker as the ship’s power dips.

Here’s the view from the back, you’ll notice I mounted the arduino controller inside and also added a 7-segment display under each meter these displays will just mirror what is represented on the meters. I did this mainly just for the looks but it will probably help with readability in tense combat situations.

You may have also noticed that I added the 8 torpedo tube selection buttons. It took me a while to decide how to arrange them but I eventually decided on 2 offset columns. It looks futuristic without taking up too much space on the panel.


That pretty much showcases all the work that I have done since the last post. As I mentioned earlier my schedule lately has been pretty hectic. I cant say when my next update will come but hopefully it wont take as long as this one did.