📡 WePlay: Cartographer Equipment

A backpack radar for your power armor! 🎒 Slot it into your equipment grid and the map charts itself as you explore, whether you're scouting for ore ⛏️, expanding your rail network 🚂, or landing on a brand-new planet 🪐

🔍 How it works

• 🔋 Charges from your equipment grid like a battery, then spends a little energy every couple of seconds to chart the area around you.
• 🗺️ Default range is 256 tiles (8 chunks in every direction), well past what your character sees on its own.
• 🌍 Optionally generates unexplored chunks in range, so it reveals new territory just like a real radar.
• 🚗 Works in armor and in the equipment grid of any vehicle you're driving (cars, tanks, spidertrons 🕷️, and modded vehicles with grids).

💎 Quality bonus

Higher quality units chart farther: +25% range per quality level by default, so a legendary unit reaches 576 tiles! The bonus is adjustable in mod settings.

⚡ Lightweight by design

• 👻 No hidden entities: nothing follows you around, and nothing gets left behind.
• ⏱️ Each scan is a single map chart per player, every 2 seconds by default.
• 🪶 No per-tick scripting and no searching the map for entities.

⚙️ Settings

Startup
- Power draw (default 150 kW)
- Scan interval (default 120 ticks)

Map (change mid-game)
- Charting radius (default 256 tiles, up to 1024)
- Radius bonus per quality level (default 25%)
- Generate unexplored chunks (default on)

📚 Stacking

Multiple units don't stack range. Each scan, the best charged unit does the work, and extras act as backup batteries for the scanner. If you want more coverage, use a higher quality unit 💎 or turn up the radius setting ⚙️

Want stacking anyway? 💬 Let me know in the Discussion tab and I can add it as an option!

🧩 Compatibility

• ✅ Does not require Space Age. Works in vanilla, Space Age, Space Exploration and Krastorio 2.
• 🎒 Fits armor grids, plus universal-equipment and vehicle-equipment grids from overhaul mods when they exist.
• 👥 Multiplayer friendly: each player's equipment charts for their own force.

🔬 Unlock

Research Cartographer equipment after Modular armor. Recipe: 1 radar, 10 electronic circuits, 5 steel plates.

🚂 Pairs well with

WePlay: Trains Get Radar: every locomotive charts the map around it, so your rail network lights up as trains run! 🛤️